Dear Mr. Bukowski...

The poem Dinosauria, We is very negative. Extremely negative. And honestly, I don’t like it very much. That doesn't mean I don’t think it’s true or that I don’t believe some things that are stated in the poem aren’t going to happen, I just believe that this type of thinking will never get us humans to any real progress. After reading the poem a couple of time, I soon started to think and believe that the “this” mentioned in the poem is fear. Fear is a very dangerous feeling. It sometimes makes us overreact to things, and sometimes jump to conclusions too fast.

I agree with some things in the poem, though. “As the supermarket bag boy holds a college degree”, for example, is a very good phrase. I agree with it. I think that people are afraid of this truth, and they don’t know how to react to it. We are dying because of fear. Fear of failing and dying. Because of this fear, “the fingers reach for the bottle; the pill.” A good example of this is the all those fake rumors of the world ending. Many people commit suicide in fear of the world ending.

I think that this poem shows how much fear can affect one’s perpesctive of the future. Fear blocks our ability to make things better. If you believe in everything in the poem, then you have no hope for a better tomorrow, so you won’t even attempt to improve things. Because, we are born into “this”, this fear that people believe in and don’t try to face.

Sincerely,
Jessica

Father and Son

In Cormac McCarthy’s The Road, there is a father and a son. They only have themselves in what has now become a destroyed and horrible world. The boy depends on his father for survival. And the father chooses to live only for his son. IN the beginning of the story, they seem to have a strong relationship. Later on we see that the boy questions many things he is unaware of. His father answers them, even though he gives vague answers. Like when the boy asks about the states the father told him that he did not know exactly what happened to them, when he probably had at least an idea of what happened to them. But the father doesn’t answer the son because he might not want to explain the states and life before the disaster. He doesn’t want his son to feel like life has left him out of the privileges others had before him. This is why the father tries to make his son’s life the best possible in this awful situation. The father is very generous and considerate with his son. He tries to make him enjoy some of the remaining things before the catastrophe so he can have a good life. Like when the father found a can of Coca-Cola, he offered it to the son, only taking a sip so the boy can enjoy the most of the delicious drink that he will probably never ever drink again in his life. The father also gives the more cocoa and tries not to drink as much so the boy can enjoy it. This shows how much the father cares about the boy. He wants him to have the most normal life possible by giving him some of the small things in our lives that we either take for granted or don’t take the time to appreciate. Even though the boy sometimes refuses to talk to his father, the father always tries to make things better. He doesn’t want them to fight because his son is all that he has left in the world. The father and son will disagree on some things, especially because the son may be confused. But either way he loves him. And he knows that all he has in this world is his father (since his mom commit suicide). The son relies on his father for answers. He tells him his fears and always seems to expect his father to make him feel safe. Overall, their relationship is very strong, compared to father-son relationships today.
Today, some father-son relationships (or even mother-daughter relationships) aren’t as strong because there might not be enough trust.  The father and son trust each other. That is another reason why they are so close to each other.
The father and the son are, in my opinion, a role model to follow in all family (and even friend) relationships should follow.

Am I American?

The moment I knew I was an American was when… Um… I was lying down on my couch, watching TV, and eating popcorn! Yeah, the typical lazy Americans… Ha! I’m just kidding (maybe…). Honestly, I don’t even know if I consider myself an American. How do you even define who’s an American and who isn’t? Is there a set of rules one is supposed to follow to be an American? How can you relate so many different people as one same thing?
Whenever people ask me if I’m an American, I respond by saying “half”. My other half is Mexican. I consider myself a Mexican-American rather than just American. I’ve always thought that I am an American because I was born and I’ve lived all my life here. I was raised by both Mexican parents with Mexicans values. My first language was Spanish (I learned English by watching Yu-GI-Oh and Dragon Ball Z… Really). So, Am I an American? Under the law, yeah I am. But I think that’s just it. The USA is just so different that I don’t think you can define everyone as one thing. It’s just too many differences. Everyone has different values, different ideas. But that’s what the USA really is about. I just don’t believe one can call them Americans for other than the fact that they are citizens here.
If I had to define what makes a person an American, though, I would say that they were different. That’s really all I can think about to describe an American because there are just too many differences. Now, I’m not saying that being different is bad! I think it’s great! And that is really makes this country what it is!
So, I knew I was an America the moment I knew I was different. (: