Critical Analisis

We all have to take Philosophy 132 and the majority of us just don't want to. Most of the other people in my class show how much they don't want to be there on a daily basis due to many different aspects. Personally, I was dreading taking the class but have found it quite interesting. We talk a lot about culture and how we are subconsciously effected by it on a daily basis. We talked about sex in advertising which I thought was extremely interesting, so interesting that I wrote a paper on it. The last thing we talked about in the class was the Women's Suffrage Movement by watching Iron Jawed Angels and connected that with Martin Luther King Jr's "Letter from Birmingham Jail." It was really interesting to compare the two activist groups and the way that they peacefully protested for their rights. 

Apocalipsis

*A poem I originally wrote in Spanish, then translated back to English for your viewing purposes. Enjoy!*

Una mañana me despierto

a la salida del sol

El barrio por la ventana me parece

lo mismo de ayer

A perfección habían tallado los céspedes

Siguen brillando las luces de los garajes

El mundo queda sereno

No actividad, no caos

Nadie.

El mundo está desierto

 Dónde están?

mis amigos con quién hago memorias

mi familia con quién paso tiempo

Un amor con quién comparto mi vida

No tengo nada.

Me despierto con un sobresalto,

cubierto de sudor

Sólo un sueño.

Apocalypse

One morning I woke

to the rising of the sun

The neighborhood through the window seemed 

the same as yesterday

To perfection the lawns have been cut

The lights of the garages still shine

The world remains serene

No activitiy, no chaos

No one.

The world is deserted

Where are ?

my friends with whom to make memories

my family with whom to spend time

A love with whom to share my life

I have nothing.

I woke in shock

covered in sweat

It was only a dream.

Great Futures Start Here

The buzz of voices and children greet visitors at the front door of the Boys & Girls Club of Fond du Lac Johnsonville Site. At the end of the school day, elementary children begin filing in by the bus load to find their classrooms. The stairs lead you to the Teen Center, a space set aside for teens to hang out.

 Filled with games and laughter, there is always a big crowd of middle and high school students. The elementary section of the building has several rooms, one for each grade level, and a computer lab. The classrooms are filled with voices, laughing, and learning until the place closes at 6 p.m. each night.

For those of you who are unaware, the Boys &Girls Club of Fond du Lac is just one part of the large non-profit organization spread throughout the country. In the Fond du Lac area alone, there are three separate sites: Johnsonville Unit and Teen Center, Chegwin Boys & Girls Club, and Pier Rocks Boys & Girls Club. Children can become a member starting in first grade. Of those members who begin at a young age, most of them stick with the program well into their high school days.

The afterschool program provides a place that’s more than just a daycare. When a child walks into a Boys & Girls Club, they are provided with a warm meal, homework help, and structured programming, including tech lab training, healthy eating tips, plenty of exercise, and the common core subjects.

As a Program Aide at the Boys & Girls Club, I have the privilege of working with a group of first graders on a daily basis. I am on a basic level their teacher, helping them with homework and leading them through programs. The students in my class come from several different ethnic groups and learn at different speeds, providing my classroom with a variety of personalities.

Every day is a new and exciting adventure. No matter what kind of day I’m having, my class can always make me smile. The same kids come daily making it easy to build a great connection with them. They look up to me as a mentor and watch my every move. I’m bombarded with hugs after a long weekend. It’s amazing how much they learn from me but it’s even more amazing how much I learn from them.

It’s a great privilege to be part of a program that affects children so positively. The club provides a place for kids to go afterschool to be safe and make friends. The staff members honestly care about each child individually and want them to succeed in the future. Great futures truly start here. 

Controversial Issue

For some reason all of my classes, despite how different  I thought they would be, have become interlinked. They have all ended up in the advertising field. It all began in Philosophy where we talked about sex in advertising. This topic really struck my interest. We've all seen that sexual advertisement promoting the newest perfume fragrance or the half naked slutty referee promoting beer. Before Philosophy, I didn't think twice about the accepted nudity on television these days. But then we began discussing it further in class and talked about how it's the sexual image of the females (and in less cases males) that sells the product more than the quality of the product itself.

When a girl watches flawless models on tv, she begins to doubt herself, finding flaws within her own image, and desperately wanting to change. Then she begins thinking..."If I buy that (enter product name here), I'll look like that model"... and that is how they suck you in and get you to buy their product. Sneaky, yes. But it works and so they keep using it to make profits. On the one hand, I think the lack of self esteem women receive from these images is an awful after effect of a great marketing tool and they should maybe lay off this technique a bit. But on the other hand, I applaud the ad companies for finding this tactic and using it to the full. But it's getting more common and now commercials blend together because they resemble each other. No matter how far one company goes, another one will just go a step further. How far are these ad companies willing to go?

Poverty in Latin America

This is a piece I wrote to publicize the poverty in El Salvador but also to criticize the ignorance of people around the world, including Americans. I'm thinking of going further with this but am looking to see if anyone actually likes it. Please comment. Any feedback is welcomed.

Life is so easy where you come from. It’s handed to you on a silver platter, gold spoon and all the fixings included. Because that’s the way life is for you people. You wouldn’t know life any other way. You’re so self-centered, caring only for the people in the close proximity of your own life; your own personal bubble. You have no idea what’s going on in my country. Not that you’d care if you did. I bet you couldn’t point to it on a map, without extensively searching, even if I paid you for it. I bet you’d need a clue. I wouldn’t need a clue to find yours. For god’s sake, it takes up the entire width the continent, leaving little space for my country to reside.  Yet with all of the space and power your country is known for, the people of my country know how to survive, at least the people I live amongst. If you got stuck in my country for a year, you’d go insane. I am an El Salvadorian Campesino; a farmer who takes everything off the land. Nothing is simply handed to us. I have to work for everything. If I don’t, we starve. I’m sure you don’t know what I truly mean, so let me spell it out for you.

Let’s start with the basics. If you counted your clothes, how many do you think you have? How many pairs of shoes? I wonder how much time you waste by trying to decide what to wear. Must be nice to have that many options. It’s never something I’ve encountered. Where I live, we’re lucky if we have two shirts: one for work and one for church. I’m lucky if I can buy a new pair of shoes for my kids. Otherwise, they run bare foot.  My kids aren’t the only ones that suffer. There are more. There’ll always be more.

An essential part of life is shelter, a home. Tell me about yours. Wow, 2 story: 3 bedroom, 2 bath, furnished basement, 3 car garage, full heating and electricity, basketball hoop in the front. Oh, you just redesigned your kitchen? Sounds amazing… Wanna hear about mine? We live in a 2 room house. You heard me right, I didn’t mean 2 story. We have a room that is our: kitchen, dining room, living room, and children’s bedroom all in one. Then we have a separate room for my wife and I, something to call our own. Our house is made of sticks and a mixture of mud. There are gaps that will never stay filled in, giving us holes where sun and wind can easily enter. It gets cold at night, so we stoke the fire instead of turning on the heat. Otherwise we just huddle together, feeding off of each other’s warmth. If we have to use the bathroom, we go outside. Oh that’s what you do when you go camping? Like on vacation to have fun? Hmm, come live in El Salvador for a while, it’ll stop being fun.

How are the schools where you live? Pretty nice, I’m guessing. Oh, the second grade class just got a new smart board? Yes, I understand the concept of a smart board; you don’t need to explain it to me. I’m not an idiot, I’m poor.  What about my kids? They go to school for now. If I can’t provide paper for them to write on, and books for them to read, they get beat. They physically suffer for my lack of money. Eventually they will have to stop going to school so they can work as well. Every little bit helps, and we rely on every little bit. I wish I wouldn’t have to pull them out, but that’s how life is for us. That’s how it was when I was a kid, that’s how it is for my kids, and there’s a good chance that’s how life will be for their kids. The cycle never ends; a never-ending cycle of misery.

I see you’re holding your new baby. Congratulations. What’s his name? Samuel. Very common, American name. I’m sure he will grow up to be a fine man. We just had a baby also.  Unfortunately, she passed on. From what you ask? Doesn’t matter… something you can take a pill for I’m sure. If only we could afford it. I couldn’t take her to the pediatrician because we don’t have one. Even if we did, there’s no way to pay for it. So I took her motionless body to the hillside and buried her amongst the rocks and flowers. Oh that’s what you did with your dog? That’s nice…I’m glad my daughter reminds you of a dog.

Gilmore Girls

My favorite type of humor is sarcastic humor. I don't mind dumb humor or silly humor but this one is my favorite. Lorelei and Rory Gilmore are mother and daughter but act more as best friends than anything else. Rory and Lorelei live in a town full of people with very strange people. These people, including Taylor and Kirk, are often subject to the sarcastic conversations between the two. They also tend to go off on random tangents talking about one subject and switching to the exact opposite of the spectrum but it still usually makes sense. Lorelei is nothing like her parents, which often leads to many sarcastic arguments and "under your breath" comments. The script and the acting job of this show makes me giggle still, even after seeing each episode multiple times.

Alabama teachers change grades

I read an article recently on the New York Times website that talked about the fact that teachers were changing the grades of their students in order to boost the level of academic excellence of the district. This irritates me because the whole point of "getting an education" is to actually learn something. By boosting their grades to passing doesn't help the student learn anything and the "education" they are receiving won't help them in the future. There's no point in studying if teachers are going to pass their students regardless of their performance in the classroom. In the beginning, the school may have seemed like a good school but now that the truth has emerged, no one will give credit to the students and teachers who actually deserved the praise. Going forward, everyone will be skeptical of those schools and teachers.

A Novel Blog

The new blog I've encountered was actually introduced to me by Dr. Wagner-Angell. It is called A Novel Blog written by S.E. White. She is a writer who has published "A Murder of Crows" --available on Amazon :). She uses the blog to promote the short pieces she has written. She has been posting these pieces on her blog since 2008, so there are a ton of them on there. I haven't had time to read them all, however the ones I've read are intriguing to me. Check it out: http://www.anovelweblog.com/


Viewing this blog has given me the desire to create my own blog page kind of like hers. Please feel free to check mine out too..I'd love for some input. I only have on up so far, but i'm working on more. Thanks!

http://maplesweet22.blogspot.com/

Footloose: The Remix

I don't see new movies a whole lot. So looking for "a movie I've recently seen" to write about for this post, I searched recent movie releases on the internet. There were maybe 3 on that list of 50 I've seen. It makes me want to go rent some movies.

Footloose is one of the few I've seen. The first Footloose film was made in 1984 so this version is obviously a remake of the original. 

The back cover reads: "Big city teen Ren MacCormack moves to a quiet town and discovers that the hard-line minister has outlawed loud music and dancing. But everything changes when Ren challenges the ban, revitalizing the town and falling in love with the minister's daughter Ariel."

I never got into the first version of this film, but I do enjoy this version. The 2011 version has been "countrified!" It also is a bit modernized which is probably why it has caught my eye more than the first. If you're a fan of the first, check this one out too!

Memoir writing

I don't like writing about myself. Despite how ordinary and boring everyone lives are supposed to be, I feel like mine is especially ordinary and boring. The hardest part is finding something that anyone would want to read about. The worst thing would be for someone to pick up a memoir I spent countless hours on and say, "why do I care." Once I found something that I thought may be interesting to someone somewhere, it became a bit easier to write. At this point, I have random sections of semi-awesome writing. Now I just need to put them in an order that will be meaningful. I've been playing with the order of it, because the order in which the scenes come changes the feel of the piece all together. So hopefully I can figure out a way for it to be as powerful as possible.

I decided to write about my grandfather because he was 10 when he died and I never got to know him. This bothers me, a lot, and as much as I try to get rid of the heartache it gives me, it is still there. I've written countless poems and prose pieces about him and even if they aren't about him, he seems to sneak in there somehow. I figured it is time to address the issue once and for all. I'm going to connect my desire to know him and the only thing I vividly remember about him, which is a physical place. I'm being an overachiever by combining the person and the place rather than choosing one. I hope it turns out to be something someone will enjoy.

9/11 Remembered

On September 11 of every year, Americans take a step back and remember. We all have our own stories of where we were and what we were doing. I happened to be 9 years old, sitting in a 4th grade classroom. I remember my teacher and some of the kids I used to be friends with. The rest is nothing but a blur. We weren't showed what was happening at that time. I wish I could say I saw history being made, but I didn't. What I know now is all from videos and news casts that can be replayed over and over again. But today is more about the heroes and the ones lost than the minute by minute details. It's about remembering the people stuck on the hijacked planes with no way out, the people in the towers with no way to escape, and it's about the people who put their lives on the line for others in trouble.It's also about how America came together and mourned for people who were nothing but strangers, and continue to remember them to this day.

All of this comes rushing in my head on this day every year. But when I walked into my 1st grade classroom this afternoon, I realized my students weren't even alive 11 years ago. To them, 9/11 happened a long time ago. To them, it's just some date in a history book.

The Hunger Games

Despite the hectic summer I just left, filled with nonstop working, I managed to read a book. Actually, I managed to read three. The well known Hunger Games Series captured my attention more than any other book in a very long time. Suzanne Collins has such an amazing gift of putting the reader in the story with the characters that it sometimes was hard to separate that world from my own.  It started with The Hunger Games where 24 children were selected to participate in  a fight to the death.   She ended the book in such a way that I instantly got in the car and drove to buy the next book. I simply couldn't wait to begin the next one. The next book, Catching Fire, simply carried on the thrill of the first. And the series ends with the final book, Mockingjay. I won't spoil the endings of any of these novels for those of you who haven't read it and desire to do so. But the second book ended in a suspenseful way as well. Luckily, I was smart enough to buy the second and third books at once, that way I could immediately start the third. These novels go down in my top list of favorite novels. I suggest buying all three at once to save time and gasoline.  Paul Sweeney once said, "You know you've read a good book when you turn the last page and feel a little as if you have lost a friend." I couldn't have said it better myself.