"Speaking of Courage"

In “Speaking of Courage”, Tim O’Brien tells the story of Norman Bowker’s post war life. He tells how Bowker tried to live after the war, trying to live with some guilt for Kiowa’s death. Throughout the story, Bowker imagines conversations, explaining how he almost won the Silver Star. He was speaking of courage, some courage that was lost for having Kiowa slipped into the mud, into the war, into death. Bowker tried to speak and explain how and why the courage was lost in the shit field. This speaks of courage because very few people would want to try and speak about such a thing that seems to be guilt and embarrassment for not being able to do anything.

Tim O’Brien said that he was a coward for going to war. He was a coward for doing what the others wanted, and expects him, to do. Everyone expected him to go to war. So he went, not standing up for what he obviously wanted, which was not to go to war. He did not want to be embarrassed and be pointed out as the guy who didn’t go to war. So he went.
The courageous thing in “Speaking of Courage” is to forget embarrassment and how Bowker failed to save Kiowa and talk about it. “On the Rainy River”, O’Brien (the narrator) went to war because he would not have been able to survive with the embarrassment of not going. Bowker couldn’t do anything about Kiowa, but just trying to talk about it is courageous because he’s not afraid of the embarrassment.

I think O’Brien’s portrayal of what is courageous is doing what you think is right and not being embarrassed. Embarrassment is something that holds everyone down. O’Brien’s portrayal of what is not courageous is doing what everyone expects and wants you to do even if you don’t want to do it. 

"The End of Adolescence"

In the memoir “The End of Adolescence”, Chelsea, the narrator, tells the story of when her mother was diagnosed with cancer. She starts with describing the day her family received the news. She describes the hospital and the walls around her, the smell of death. She describes her father’s eyes, too. They are really nice descriptions but I feel that she could have done a better job describing her feelings.

Afterwards, she described how her life changed; she had to take care of her mother and show her she wasn’t weak. Her father always worked and her two sisters lived far away, which made her responsibility over her mother much greater. Chelsea then goes on describing how this experience helped her grow up. If she had the opportunity to go back in time and erase, she said she wouldn’t because of what she gained.

Something I don’t understand is what she meant when she said “I wish I never had to smell death again, but then, there’s always going to be another trip to the hospital.” Did she mean that death teaches you valuable lessons? Yes, this might be true. I think it’s more like as death approaches, things are needed to be taken more seriously.

“The End of Adolescence” is a nice memoir, a reflection on Chelsea’s past experience that changed her life for good. I still feel that she could have written more of her thoughts and emotions towards her father and mother, as well as her own problems that she could have had during this time. Her memoir seems to be just covering the main points of her experiences, with a few feelings in, but honestly, I would assume someone might feel those things.

To sum things up, Chelsea’s memoir had a strong impact on her life, but she could have done a better job telling it.

http://teacher.scholastic.com/writeit/readpoem.asp?id=11980&genre=Memoir&Page=5&sortBy=

The Vietnam War

The Vietnam War (1959-1975) was one of America’s longest wars. It started with the opposition of having a single Vietnam.  America, in fear of having communism spread, decided to get involved. That was America’s main concern: the spread of Communism in Southeast Asia. President Eisenhower stated his Domino Theory to support the Vietnam War effort. This Domino Theory stated that if one country falls to communism (South Vietnam), then the other countries around that country will fall to communism (like a when you have a line of dominos, and once falls, the other dominos keep on falling). Thus, America supported South Vietnam, since North Vietnam was communist.

The South Vietnamese government was weak. That is also another reason why America gave so much support to the war. In the beginning, America only supported South Vietnam with money and military advisers. By 1963, President Kennedy increased the number of military advisers from 100 to 1600. Then in 1964, North Vietnam attacked an American ship in international waters. Afterwards, President Johnson used this excuse to get power from the Senate to take troops to Vietnam. After the arrival of troops, bombings on North Vietnam began. Even though President Nixon increased the number of bombings on North Vietnam, in 1973 he began removing troops from South Vietnam. Then, in 1975, South Vietnam lost the war. For me, this is a clear sign that South Vietnam wasn’t fighting its own war. It was America that was fighting a war that was not theirs. It wasn’t even an official war since Congress never declared war. It was just a stupid conflict in which our country lost money and, more important, lives.

http://www.history.com/topics/vietnam-war

http://www.schoolhistory.co.uk/gcselinks/britishworld/vietnam/getinvolved.pdf

The Vietnam War didn’t have the full support of the American people. At first, people supported the war because they claimed that they needed to stop the spread of communism. Afterwards, people began realizing that the war was a mistake. To start with, the war was spending too much money. Taxes were increased, so the people were unhappy. Others began to protest the war because of the chemical weapons used. Something that the people also did not like were the drafts, especially since the drafted, they say, were the poor. Some of the soldiers that were in the war questioned the morality of the war.

This is part of what was the Vietnam War. Something, in my opinion, a waste of everyone’s time, strength, and money.

http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/VNprotest.htm

"Let America Be America Again"

In Langton Hughes’ poem “Let America Be America Again”, Hughes shows two different perspectives of this land; 1) a land of hope where people dream something better for themselves, a land of the free, a land of opportunity… And 2) the land of the rich, where their money and gold shines, and as it shines, it distracts others from the other side of the land, the dark part of the poor people who work the land, hidden by the rich, which take all the glory. Those are very two different views, but when America isn’t just hope, but becomes a promise, the other perspective almost becomes invisible, until the promise is broken, that is when the other view on America returns to its natural color. It seems that the second perspective is more mundane that the first.

In this poem we are also described two other Americas. There is the America we have, which is the one as the second perspective mentioned above. This America we have is the just the land of the poor (well, it would be nice if the poor owned the land, but they don’t), in which people work and rich take all the glory, a land with many dreams, but these dreams seem out far away, out of our reach. The other America described, though, is one that Hughes is making a call for this America is a land in which men can be free, where the people actually own the land (not just a couple rich people), a strong land that we shall love, a land of opportunity, a land where dreams don’t stay that way but actually become a reality.

The tone of this poem is anger, with a bit of sarcasm mixed in it. This is no surprise, though. Who wouldn’t be mad at a land that made you dream a promise, but that promise only stayed as a dream? That is also the aspects of the American Dream that Hughes criticizes. The dream never really existed for the lower class people because they were never able to achieve it. The poem also has some hope in the end, a hope that the land that is today will one day transformed to what it should be, which is how we, the people, see it as.

This poem relates very well to Fitzgerald’s criticism on The Great Gatsby because it shows how Gatsby, who was born poor, died without making his dream a reality; having Daisy. The poem speaks the truth when it says that the lower class always has a hard time reaching the American Dream. Daisy was Gatsby’s idiosyncrasy. She was his American Dream, everything that he did revolved around her. And as we try to make that dream come true, everything that we do is for that.

I, honestly, don’t agree with this criticism in my modern world. Today, the American Dream is something different for each individual. It is mainly, though, just a dream, a hope, of obtaining something better than what they have now or had in the past. Yes, we can still obtain the America Dream! It just depends on the dream itself; I guess it has some restrictions, but people can still reach it. It’s not a smart idea to reach for the stars because no one actually gets there, so maybe starting to dream small, and by slowly achieving goals, one can reach a higher dream than expected in the beginning.  We still want this dream. Deep down we always wish or just wonder if our life can be better than what it is now and we set goals to improve that, which becomes the American dream to us, because that’s what the American dream is, just our aspirations with an actual possibility to be realized in this country.

Tom: scene pg129-130

“Open the whiskey, Tom,” Daisy ordered to me, “and I’ll make you a mint julep. Then you won’t seem so stupid to yourself…. Look at the mint!”
I could not take this humiliation any longer, especially not coming from my wife, a woman! I needed to get out this doubt, along with the anger, once and for all.

“Wait a minute,” I snapped with irritation, trying to hide my humiliation, “I want to ask Mr. Gatsby one more question.”

“Go on,” Gatsby said, with a gentle feeling of power and victory.

“What kind of row are you trying to cause in my house anyhow?”

This was it. It was time to face this man and confront him. Time to show whose boss.

“He isn’t causing a row,” Daisy said, again interrupting my moment. “You’re causing a row. Please have a little self-control.”

Self-control?! She wanted me to have some self control when some man was trying to take my wife. This was just ludicrous!

“Self-control!” I repeated mordantly. “I suppose the latest thing is to sit back and let Mr. NOBODY from NOWHERE make LOVE to your wife. Well, if that’s the idea you can count me OUT… Nowadays people begin sneering at family life and family institutions, and next they’ll throw everything overboard and have intermarriage between black and white.”

I just not could not take this! This man was trying to tear apart my family, MY family. Yes, I understand I had an affair with Myrtle, but this man had no right to bother our lives and our marriage. We were all much better without him!

Afterwards I realized I was standing by myself, but at least their attention was all on me, and I hoped that those words were sinking right in those empty brains of theirs.

“We’re all white here,” murmured Jordan.

I didn’t realize that part, but I still wanted to make them see that it wasn’t right for this Gatsby man to cause any trouble with my family, especially not my woman. But this man just thought he was so important and famous because of his huge social parties who just consisted of lazy people with nothing better to do that go waste some hours of their life at an unknown man’s home.

“I know I’m not very popular. I don’t give big parties. I suppose you’ve got to make your house into a pigsty in order to have any friends­—­in the modern world.”

I was mad. No, not mad, furious. I could already feel my packet muscles get tense. I wanted, no, I was desperate to shop everyone that I had every right to want to expose this man! I had to defend my morals!

“I’ve got something to tell you, old sport—“Gatsby began, but was, surprisingly, cut by Daisy’s helpless plea.

“Please don’t!” She cried. “Please let’s all go home. Why don’t we all go home?”

“That’s a good idea,” Mick said as he quickly got up. “Come on, Tom. Nobody wants a drink.”

Obviously no one wanted one. What they wanted was to get away from this huge embarrassing moment Gatsby was about to go through, by they were going to have to stay for it all.

“I want to know what Mr. Gatsby has to tell me.”

“You’re wife doesn’t love you,” said Gatsby.  “She’s never loved you. She loves me.”

“You must be crazy!” I exclaimed. I didn’t even think of how to respond him, I just did. From that moment I not only let my anger and hate toward Gatsby take hold of my words, by my feeling and emotions as well. This man must be truly insane to think that Daisy loves him when she has me. I couldn’t think of that being possible… Daisy’s love not being mine? I suddenly felt some huge anchor hit my heart.

Gatsby, on the other hand, was rather excited and pleased to have that lie out of his chest, for he jumped up and began talking once more.

The American Dream: Alive or Dead?

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/tiziana-dearing/us-wealth-gap_b_1093582.html
"Where Is the American Dream Today?"
A very good heading and question, in my opinion. So, where is this dream? Is it even still alive?
Well, according to Tiziana Dearing, it still is. This dream, though, is in danger of dying and that is because of poverty. This online newspaper article talked about hoe poverty has been increasing. We may try to seem hopeful and say that things will get back to normal soon, but the reality is that it will take even more years to get back on track even after the recession is finally over.
According to Fareed Zakaria, it will take about five YEARS for the economy to fully recover. Five years until people get back their jobs. And until those five years get here, what will happen to those without jobs? Poverty is going to hit those people and their family and that is what is destroying the american dream.
What is it that people look for in the american dream? Maybe a house of their own, happiness, and financial backup just to have a worry-free life. Well, i doubt that people in poverty have their own house and financial backup. Yes, they may have happiness, but it must be constantly invaded and interrupted by the worries of money and how they will get it to feed their family members. Yeah, that doesn't sound like a Dream I want to be in.
That is why we have to keep on working on this dream to improve it. The problem is, though, that this dream is based on economy and if our economy keeps on going like it's going right now, that American Dream will soon be just that, a dream that will never be.

Song Review

Time to review a song. I’m that picky with my music, but there are some that are just so annoying! That’s why I chose Lil Wayne’s song “She Will” (I could easily talk about his entire album The Carter IV, but I think one song is ENOUGH).

Ok, before I begin, I just want to say that I dislike many of Lil Wayne’s songs, but not all of them, just a lot.

So, let’s go into “She Will”. She Will what, Mr. Wayne? What is it that you are trying to say? That girls are whores?

“Maybe for the money and the power and the fame right now, she will, she will, she will.”

She’ll do anything for power and money? Why not say men will? I find this song very insulting to females. That’s the why I hate it! And especially with all the gorgeous language Lil Wayne uses, it’s just the strawberries on top of the frosting (not cherry, I prefer strawberries).

There are some good things about this song, though. I mean, the only reason I hate “She Will” is because of the insult towards female. Everything else isn’t that bad.

There some pretty good parts of it.

“What goes around, comes around like a hula hoop

Karma is a b****? Well just make sure that b**** is beautiful”

I like that part. Kinda like a life lesson, don’t you think? It’s like, try to make your life the best so what you get in return is good.

Yeah, other than that and the really cool rhythm, I still dislike this song. This dude, Mr. Lil Wayne, always uses bad language and has some really unpleasant lyrics about women, for example, like this song. But here, you can judge yourselfs:

http://www.djbooth.net/index/tracks/radio/lil-wayne-she-will/

(I honestly don’t understand how my brother likes to listens to this “song”)

It's Time for Winter

I'm going to admit that I'm not the best poetic person ever, but here's my winter poem:

It’s a time of joy,

A time of fun,

A time to watch the snowflakes fall from the sky,

A time for Christmas trees and Christmas lights,

A time of 12 wishes for the new year to come,

But the most important part,

Is that it’s the time to be with those who you care about,

And to be with those who care about you.

Yup, its time for winter.

J. D. Salinger

The Catcher in the Rye, one of the all time bestselling books is an amazing novel written by J.D. Salinger. In an interview with The New York Times in 1974, Salinger said he wrote for his own pleasure. “Publishing is a terrible invasion of my privacy. I like to write. I love to write. But I write just for myself and my own pleasure.” This shows how secluded and isolated Salinger was, having been in isolation for many years. He seemed to hate the media.

J.D. Salinger reminds me a lot of Holden. Salinger was very isolated and seemed to keep his thoughts to himself (by not publishing his stories). I guess one reason why he might have published The Catcher in the Rye and his other works is because he needed money to go into his secluded land. Much like Holden, he doesn’t like people who seem conceited, so maybe Salinger wanted to disappear to not seem someone he disliked.

When The Catcher in the Rye was released in the 1950s, there was a lot of disapproval for the book. It quickly went on the banned book list because of the bad and inappropriate language, Holden’s excessive drinking and smoking for his young age, all the sex talk, and rebellion. But, really. That was in the 50s. We’re talking about Elvis Presley’s time. Everything was being censored because parents or those conservative people disagreeing with this new change (imagine what those people say about our generation. If their kids were bad, we must be beyond horrible). These people were the ones that disliked the Rock n Roll. SERIOUSLY!

Despite the book being in the banned book list, it was a hit. This book is what, people say, defined our phase as teenagers. It describes our confusion in life as we try to move on from a childhood of innocence to the world of adults, which is full of phonies. What I really think, though, is that maybe these people seem phony because that’s not how we saw them as children. Being a teenager means growing up and opening our eyes to see the real world.

Today, many classes include The Catcher in the Rye as part of their course. It’s known today as an American classic and is still on the bestsellers chart. The reason is because this book has a deep meaning for us all, especially teenagers. People who criticize Salinger say that it just made teenagers now how they are: rebellious (maybe it’s because crazy Chapman said that his motives to kill John Lennon were found in The Catcher in the Rye).

To finish, J. D. Salinger is a phenomenon for his legendary book, The Catcher in the Rye. 

Hoden

Holden is one weird guy. In a way he’s just like Ackley. He criticizes everyone based on very few things, like their appearance or a onetime conversation. You can’t do that. To judge someone as much as Holden judges them you can’t judge of surface level things. Like Ackley, he doesn’t seem like many people but he stills hangs out with them. That is a bit phony. I mean, why would you go out with a guy that you can’t stand?

Phoniness is something Holden can’t stand, yet he’s very phony himself. To him, the definition of phony something or someone that pretends to be someone they’re not. Like the movies. He knows that they’re fiction, and can’t stand them because of it. But why can’t he just see them as what they really are, for entertainment? He seems to reject what life gives him to enjoy. And why judge the actors? All they’re doing is earning a good and decent living. I mean, they aren’t phonies because people KNOW that they’re ACTING.

Another thing is that Holden is a big, fat LIAR! He lies to everyone, especially people he doesn’t know. He seems to do it for amusement. Like with Ernest’s mom, he could have just said that he didn’t know much about him and ended the conversation. But he doesn’t do it. I totally think that’s the type of phony acting he talks about because the ones Holden lies to don’t know he’s lying.

Holden seems to just be a weird teenager going through difficult phases, especially because I think that bordering schools are horrible and that they deprive their right to live with their family and siblings, people he cares about.

My Red Hunting Hat

My Red Hunting Hat. Well, a hunting hat is usually meant for other hunters to recognize you as a hunter and not some animal and try to kill you. In a way you try to be fit in with the other hunters in the area by standing out. You know, standing out with the bright red but just not to risk being shot or killed, and that way you fit in with other hunters.

I'm not sure what my red hunting hat would be. I'm not saying that I fit in a way that people recognize right away, but I’m just not sure what makes me stand out. One obvious thing I can think about right away, though, is my height. Just as a hunting hat is used to distinguish animals from hunters, I guess my height helps others distinguish me from others. For example, my friends would often refer to me as "tiny Jessica" or "short Jessica". They also tell me that they can always seem to know where I am in a crowd by seeing a small gap between some tall people or just seeing a shirt girl. Real nice, right?

So, my height helps me stand out, a lot. But I don’t seem to know how it helps me fit it. Is it that some people say, "Hey, that girl is short. I should talk to her." Um... I really doubt that. Maybe it's just that people see me stand out because of my height, so then they’re curious? I don’t know. It really doesn't help me identify with other people my age. I'm always being asked if I'm a freshman or 13 years old. But I guess I'm just like everyone else. I like many common things other teens like, such as music, hanging out with friends. 

I'm not sure if my height is some type of my hunting hat, but that's really all I can think of right now.

Thankful for a Classmate

Someone who makes the class better? Hm… Well, I don’t really talk much in that class, but I’m thankful for having Jocelyne Chavez in there.
I met Jocelyne last year in division. We have P.E. and English together, so I’m thankful for that because I have someone to talk to.
I’m thankful for Jocelyne because whenever I have questions on homework, I can ask her for help either on facebook or in division (:
Um... I think that’s all I can think of right now. She’s an awesome friend. Period.
 I think everyone should be thankful for friends in general, though…

Cormac McCarthy Blog

One of the most obvious themes in The Road is the end of the world. There are many speculations on how the world will end, but Cormac McCarthy never seems to tell us what his idea is. What he does instead is gives us the image of a dead world due to some big catastrophe.
WSJ: For novels such  as "Blood Meridian," you did extensive historical research. What kind of research did you do for "The Road"?
CM: I don't know. Just talking to people about what things might look like under various catastrophic situations, but not a lot of research. I have these conversations on the phone with my brother Dennis, and quite often we get around to some sort of hideous end-of-the-world scenario and we always wind up just laughing. Anyone listening to this would say, "Why don't you just go home and get into a warm tub and open a vein." We talked about if there was a small percentage of the human population left, what would they do? They'd probably divide into little tribes and when everything's gone, the only thing left to eat is each other. We know that's true historically. http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704576204574529703577274572.html
This is what Cormac believes will happen in the end of the world.
"They'd built a fire there and charred billets of wood lay struck in the melted tar together with ash and bones." (70)
Here, the father is seeing the bones of the man he killed piled up, for he was eaten by the men he was traveling with, showing how Cormac applies his ideas of the world ending and people eating each other in the book.
The interesting thing is that Cormac never gives us much historical background of the disaster, what happened exactly, how it was caused. I think that the purpose of this is for one to find out (on our own) what can lead to the scenes in The Road. By not giving us a specific cause to the disaster, we can analyze the problems in our world that can lead to a faster end. With the world ending, nothing will matter. I think Cormac does a very good job in expressing this in his writing.
Another interesting thing about The Road is the grammar. There a lot of errors but I think that the purpose of this is to help the mood of the book along with the theme. Nothing of what mattered before matters one, not even grammar.
There is some criticism on this, though.
"I also feel offended -- yes, offended -- by the mean, miserable view of humanity in this book shoves in my face. But my dislike for this book seems to transcend any mental or aesthetic considerations, because as I suffered through these first few pages I felt my body physically rejecting this book like a badly transplanted organ. I would look down at my hands and discover that the book was closed. I'd open it, struggle through a few sentences more, and then look down and discover it closed again. Reading The Road felt like swimming in a pool of thick hard mud, and I tried and I tried but I could not get past page eight."
"And then there are those stubby ungrammatical half-sentences, those prose signature of junior high school students everywhere, and of Cormac McCarthy."

http://www.litkicks.com/HatingMcCarthy

I like Cormac's writing. It just shows how dull and gray things can turn out to be.
They way Cormac shows how humanity is (the few left) is just his view of an ending, which is not insane because we can and will do that if we need to do so, in extreme circumstances for survival. One has to be more open to these types of ideas to solve our issues.

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. (:

John Proctor, Hero, Stooge, or... Just In Love?

John Proctor, is he a hero or a stooge? Well, the one reason why he might be considered a stooge is because of his affair with Abigail. It’s that one mistake in his life that is always preventing him from being in peace (which is thanks to our wonderful conscious). Other than that, John seems to be a hero, or maybe he just wants to be a hero to erase the fact (from his conscious) that he is a disgrace to his wife, his family, and his values.
When you accidentally drop a child’s ice cream, what would you do? Probably try to make it up for him/her. Maybe buying that child another ice cream might work in cheering up the lil kid. So, lets put John Proctor as the person who dropped the child’s ice cream. The child is his wife and himself (because he not only disappointed/hurt Elizabeth, his wife, but himself too). To make things up for his wife and himself, he shall try to avoid the “accident” happen again (hey, he might be a protestant but that doesn’t mean he doesn’t have flaws and makes mistakes, although this doesn’t justify what he did) and help his wife (and his conscious as well). Forcing Mary Warren to tell the truth might be considered heroic (maybe more like desperate) but I think what matters is why he is making her do it: he cannot take any more lies, more secrets, secrets that could torment him. Those secrets are the key to saving Elizabeth, but they could also mean his ruin. Yet he risks it just save his wife. You can call it heroic, or maybe, it’s just love.
So, one might consider John proctor a stooge, a hero, or just a desperate man in love. But it all depends on one’s personal judgment on life and humans… How are we supposed to live? What can be forgiven? What can’t be forgiven?...

Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God

Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God, a very accurate name for one of Jonathan Edward’s most terrifying sermons. In this sermon, Edwards tells us of God’s furious anger towards us. And why?  Because we are sinners. And every time we sin, we are provoking God more and more. But, there will be a moment when He can no longer take any of our sins and he will let his fury be known  and heard of, and kill us for it. We shall be flooded by his anger, shot by an arrow straight through our heart, or thrown into the raging flames of hell. Yes, that is what Edwards tells us. Yet, is it true? Well, it has to be! He is a minister, so he knows what he is preaching about. So why not believe him?

It is very important to remember that this sermon was given during the Great Awakening, the time period of religious revival. Jonathan Edwards seemed to be more into the belief that we humans should follow all of God’s rules and never, ever, EVER disobey them. This was the Puritan beliefs. So knowing this, it is kind of simple to understand why his listeners believed him.

At first I wondered why he would use fear to persuade his listeners to live a pure life, but I later understood. What better way than to convince others to do things than by fear? Asking politely wouldn’t have worked. If it did, then, for example, I doubt than wars would occur. Edwards portrays God, in my opinion, as a dangerous thief; if you do not give him what he wants (which is for all of us to follow his rules and laws), he will strike (kill us).

Though terrifying, it is a very interesting pint of view of a God. For me, God is merciful and although we should not sin, he will forgive us. Yet that is not Edwards view. He, from what I’ve understood, wants his listeners to be the perfect people. And for that to be possible, they must not sin. Yet they do, and now, god is angry. They are sinners… and their life rests in the hands of their angry God.

Arrivals... There Goes the Nieghborhood

I’ve been living in the Brighton Park community my entire life. I have only moved once (when I was about 18 months). The distance wasn’t much, really. Only about 5 blocks, so the people all around are very similar.
I don’t know much background history about my neighborhood, but from what I’ve heard the first people to live around that area were Polish. This explains why the church a block away from my house has Polish mass (and not only Spanish and English mass). I still see a couple of Polish people, but Hispanic/Latinos are more common. There are also now some Asians that have just moved in. So, the diversity continues to grow.
When I was younger, I didn’t notice the people that lived in my neighborhood (except the cute boys, haha). My parents didn’t like the idea of me running around in the streets. They were afraid of all the gangbangers walking around (yes, sadly there are bad people like them in the world). That meant that I would only see my friends in school. The people never really changed. There were only a couple of kids, like my cousin, that moved. As I went into 7^thgrade, I heard about people being involved in gangs and tagging crews, how they were sent to jail, or of their ending…This of course alarmed me. Since then I started to be more careful with how I was with. Yes, the people in the community and their actions do affect (in some way) your life.
That was one change.
But I also started to notice how there were some people who really disliked Latinos. I remember that my mom told me how a woman (who was American and married to a Mexican-American) was told to go to a different church because they didn’t have any mass in Spanish. The woman was denied to be part of that church because she looked Mexican, yet she and her family were Americans.
I’ve heard of how people are treated differently because of their appearance. Yet, most of my community is made up of Latinos. I hope that with the growing diversity of my neighborhood (because new people are still moving in), differences can be pushed away (and all the bad people, too) for it to be a nice place once more. As innocent as I thought it was when I was 6. Because, that’s exactly where I want my neighborhood to go (:

Introductions

I'm not sure how to introduce myself. It's a little more challenging since I have to do it through a blog (which I am new to). So, I guess I will begin with the basics. My name is Jessica Vega and I am a sophomore. I like to read, especially fiction, fantasy, and romance novels. One of the things that I love to do is to listen to music. I listen to various types of music, but my favorite band is Pierce the Veil. Other bands I like are Escape the Fate, My Chemical Romance, Mayday Parade, and Blink-182. I also enjoy walking and playing soccer. I can be quiet around people I don't know, but when I am around friends I am really loud. My friends always remember me as short for obvious reasons. I don't mind being short, although sometimes it gets annoying when other people are thinking I am an eleven year old. I like to listen to people and their opinions. I always prefer to listen than to speak.
Going into my family, I am the oldest out of three children (two girls and one boy). Both my parents are from Mexico. I am a proud Hispanic who always remembers where her roots are. I learned to speak Spanish first, and then English. I've lived my entire life in Chicago (South side).
I have many goals for the future. For now, though, I want to focus on my present, which is high school. I want to do well, since that will take me one step further to succeed in life.