Wednesday, November 14, 2007

A&B

LIST [i like] A
1- swimming
2- traveling
3- hoodies
4- whiskey
5- long necklaces
6- foreign cars
7- crocheting
8- texting
9- weather
10- sky
11- skateboarding
12- incense
13- exercise
14- splenda
15- gum
16- coffee
17- summertime
18- sleeping in
19- $
20- family/friends/boyfriend
21- singing
22- magic

LIST [i dislike] B
1- pricks
2- spoiled rich kids
3- pop music
4- sugar
5- carbonation
6- vodka
7- 8:00 classes
8- sexism
9- the prez
10- wars
11- memphis city schools
12- racism
13- gas prices
14- being robbed
15- popcorn
16- religion
17- temperatures below 40degrees
18- reading
19- Mississippi
20- excessive muggy days


A11 [is like] B8
Some people have sexist ideas about skateboarding. Although the number of male skaters far surpasses the number of female, this doesn't mean girls can't skate. It's also assumed that any girl who picks up skateboard is only doing it because her boyfriend does it or she just wants to seem cool; the first time she falls and busts her ass on the concrete she trashes her board never to return to the magical sport. Perhaps this was true back when skateboards first entered the world, but the number of females determined to skate is on the rise.

A4 [is not like] A5
Whiskey and long necklaces are not alike although I might misplace a necklace after drinking too much whiskey. I have liked them both for a long time and cannot decide which I favor more. Whiskey makes me talkative while my long necklaces sometime attract people to talk to me. The two mainly aren't alike because I began drinking long after I began wearing jewlery.

B5 [is like] B7
Carbonation is horrible for my skin and throat while 8:00 classes are horrible for my sleeping schedule. Here's a second comparison- Carbonation is in soft drinks. Most soft drinks contain caffeine. Without caffeine I wouldn't ever make it to my 8:00 classes. A shower usually wakes me up halfway, but a fat cup of coffee finishes the process.


Writing Commonalities
I have the ability to find a correlation between any two objects, activities, or beliefs. Although it's not necessarily a direct connection, in the end I can always relate them. It's much harder for me to describe how two unrelated things are different other than the obvious. This may be because I can find too many similarities which obstructs me from decifering their differences. I also like using big words. I like to sound intelligent. Eloquent vocabulary takes up space, but I always make sure I know what the words mean. Otherwise that defeats the purpose. Sometimes I have trouble elaborating for pages and pages. I can get jumpy in my essays as well. Oh wait, I'm doing it again.

Monday, November 12, 2007

A-HA

My a-ha moment would probably be when I realized I want to be a meteorologist. I don't care how hard it's going to be to reach this goal because I'm pretty damn determined. Finding a grad school that's close is going to be a tad difficult though. I refuse to go to Mississippi State.

Anyway.... I pretty much came to this realization at a young age. I always liked being outside even though I get horrible allergies come springtime (or cats). But I deal with it; being outdoors is just too stupifying sometimes. I love the sunrise, the sunset, the clouds, the colors, the sun's rays streaking across the skyline or slipping through the thick clouds. It's just incredible. Then I've always wanted to know how the sky worked. Why's it blue? How can you predict the temperature? How do you measure the wind? Anything about the sky and weather, I had to know. And I still do. Dave Brown, here I come.

Monday, November 5, 2007

Earliest Memory

I haven’t always been a daredevil when it comes to amusement parks. But now if you show me a new, insane, twisted thrill ride to get on, I’ll be sure to do whatever is necessary in order to do so. I have to admit, though, some of those extreme, ultimate rides like Six Flags’s Mr. Freeze and the Mid-South Fair’s Sling Shot required me to psych myself up quite a bit beforehand. But in the end I always managed to conquer whatever doubts or fears I had in my mind. There is one out of an abundance of memories early in my childhood in which the “psyching uppage” particularly stands out.

When I was five, I was already about forty-eight inches tall. It just so happened that the height prerequisite for admission to any of the rides at the Mid-South Fair/Libertyland collaboration was just that. I was ecstatic. There was one ride I had longed to get on ever since I could walk--the Ring of Fire. Sure, now that I look back on it, it is not so terrifying in appearance, but just take a minute to imagine that massive loop at the mere age of five. Pretty intense, huh? My mom was a thrill-seeker like me, but I suppose that is how genes usually work. She agreed to ride the Ring of Fire with me though she had already been on it a million times. I worked up the courage and finally boarded the ride.

It started slowly, so I was soon overcome with a feeling of both comfort and reassurance. My mom was already screaming like she does on every other thrill ride. Suddenly I remembered how I had seen the people dangling upside down, yelling at the top of their lungs all the years prior. I tried my best to suppress the thought as the ride crept higher and higher while moving from side to side along the circular track. The higher we would go in the loop, the more the butterflies tickled my stomach. Eventually we made a revolution around the entire loop. It wasn’t so bad after all; I had conquered yet another ride. Everyone around me was shouting.
They were having a great time and so was I.

Another memory soon inched its way into my mind before the ride was over. I had completely forgotten that the operators of the ride like to hold people upside down at the top of the ring indefinitely. This one I could not suppress, and it scared the hell out of me. Then it happened. It seemed as though we were hanging up there forever. I wasn’t used to staying upside down; generally rides just do not do that.

As I looked down at the crowd of unknown faces, I began to feel the pole that I had tightly clenched between my hands all of sudden become slippery. The rest of my accomplices continued their shrieking. Even my mom did not notice the slippery situation at hand; her yelps just meshed with all the others. My miniature five-year-old frame was too small to be properly contained in the ride. I was not even touching the black, padded seat anymore. Knowing this, I held on for dear life hoping that the operators would soon quit unintentionally tormenting me. The ride did not appear to have the over-the-shoulders security harnesses as other loop-di-loop rides do. I came to find that these were later installed. But the thought of slipping out of the Ring of Fire haunts my memory forever. That was the day I literally almost died on a ride at the fair.

Family Ritual

Every year my family comes together from all parts of the country for one reason--Halloween. It is only the best holiday of the year. Sure, Thanksgiving and Christmas are jolly and filling, but Halloween by far surpasses them both. There is a completely different mood around the end of October. Some find it creepy and evil, but my relatives cannot get enough of this fine particular fun-filled evening.

We all dress up and deck my grandparents' house in all the most outrageous decorations we can get our hands on--glow-in-the-dark spider webs, skeletons, zombies, spiders that chase you, crystal balls with talking heads inside, and fog machines. We definitely also have the festive thriller music and bowls choc full of gobs and gobs of sweet, sour, gooey, chewy, chocolately, nutty, minty, dilectable candies.

Since we do not get together around the remainder of the year's holidays, my family goes ahead and celebrates them on the thirty-first as well. The kids get all the candy their hearts so desire while the adults cheerfully booze it up near my grandparents' wet bar in the living room. Although turkey is not our main dish for our partial Thanksgiving dinner, everyone leaves so full that loosening their belts is a must. Since it is also a partial family Christmas, all members receive a few gifts in addition. The little ones get the most, of course. Everyone leaves happy.

Thursday, November 1, 2007

Things Fall Apart Reflection

Chinua Achbe’s Things Fall Apart is an African tale based on the lives of the Ibo peoples and the changes which come about in their villages, but more specifically for a bold man named Okonkwo. There are two definite sides visible in the text: the colonizing British and the already colonized Nigerians. The Africans clearly do not want to be colonized by the British, but the British apparently see things much differently, ultimately leading to major conflict.

In the village of Umuofia the people are well established and have their own accepted ways of life. They worship and fear many gods and spirits such as Agbala, Ani, Ekwensu, and Ogwugwu in addition to each inhabitant’s personal chi. The head god of all Ibo gods is Chukwu, who is believed to be their version of Jesus Christ. The priests and priestesses advise the people and take care of birth and death issues and everything else imaginable to simply appease the gods. There appear to be extremely high birth rates and infant mortality rates which are generally hard on the women, specifically Okonkwo’s third wife, Ekwefi. On average the men have approximately 15 to 20 children in a lifetime. The gods decide whether the children will survive or perish within the first six years of life. Ogwugwu is the evil spirit which the villagers consider to be the reason for so many of the children’s illnesses and deaths; it possesses them to be reborn to the same mother over and over again only to die young over and over again.

When Okonkwo unintentionally kills a young boy he, his three wives, and children are exiled for seven years to his motherland, Mbanta. Luckily he has a good friend back in Umuofia named Obierika who takes care of his yams after his compound there is burned to the ground. When Okonkwo and his family return from the exile, he comes to find things have changed considerably. The white man is no longer a leper named Amadi. The British have come to settle.

The imperial British first come to surrounding villages such as Abame. They shoot the villagers in the midst of participating in the local market completely catching them off guard. Okonkwo is severely angered by what he heard of this, but deems all those specific Nigerians to be fools for not having their guns and machetes on hand. Soon enough, the British make their way to Umuofia, first establishing a church. Ironically the people allow the church one plot of land—the Evil Forest. Their way of life is somewhat shifted when they come to realize this land is not so evil at all. A handful of the villagers decide to leave the clan when they see that the British peoples, especially the head of the church, Mr. Kiaga, are not dead within a week of its building. The things this handful once believed of spirits, gods, and evils were beginning to seem false and unnecessary. Mr. Kiaga and a man named Mr. Brown offer them religious enlightenment and instruction. They teach them the word of God, not of false the gods which were presently embodied in pieces of wood and stone. These villagers now know the Lord and his son who they refer to as Jesu Kristi.

Okonkwo and numerous stronger believers refuse to give in and accept the teachings of this Mr. Kiaga, Mr. Brown, or those of Mr. Brown’s successor, Reverend James Smith. There is soon continuous conflict because these Nigerians simply do not desire to have their values and beliefs tarnished by the white man’s religion. They neither know what Christianity is nor do they honestly care. I think this is still typical of older generations today. No elder wants his firm views to be threatened or changed just because another person claims it is right. I say, to each his own opinion, belief, and ideology.

It is such a travesty that the British were as ruthless as they were in coming and taking over the Ibo people who they feel are “primitive” and must be educated which the book later explains. These people already have set ways which clearly work for their culture. Why would the British want to come in and annihilate their heritage? Why would they try to eradicate their customs and their ways of life? Religious enlightenment is one thing. The instructors followed the ways of God unconditionally by treating their students humanely. But as far as the District Commissioner and the undesired court systems they organized in Nigeria, it’s just an abomination. I have no doubt in my mind that although the characters do not seem like they truly existed, the devastation of this situation is completely factual.

For centuries the dilemma has been Black versus White, so unfortunately this comes as no surprise. Things Fall Apart for the most part accurately presents the roots of this ongoing confrontation presented as the Ibos of Nigeria versus the power-hungry imperialist British.