The Life Within Me

One scorching summer day in the 7th grade, I sat in my living room pondering what I was going to do to not waste another precious day before school starts. I looked around hoping to find something intriguing, but instead I gave up and went outside. Although it was at least 90 degrees outside, it did not stop me from playing basketball on my driveway. I went through my normal routine, but after 15 minutes I could not bear the heat so I went to take a water break. As I was gulping down my whole bottle, I saw something furry from the corner of my eye. At first instinct, I thought it was a fox because there were recent sightings of it wandering around the neighborhood. As I set my water bottle down, a squirrel came into full view. It stared at me for a solid 20 seconds, so I thought it wanted some water. As I squirted some water out of my bottle in the direction of the squirrel, it darted into the bush before running up a tree. 4 years ago, I didn't think much about this moment. Now, after we discussed "The Death of the Moth” in class, I couldn't help but bring my mind back to this minimal moment in my life. Just as Virginia Woolf depicts the moth as an "insignificant little creature", I too thought this squirrel meant nothing to the world. As I remember this interaction, I cannot help but think that this moment, which meant nothing to me, was a pivotal moment in the squirrel's life. Moreover, it thinks that it barely escaped from a tragic incident that instead was nothing more than a few water drops. Since this incident had taken place four years ago, there is a high chance that this squirrel has passed by either old age or a terrible incident. As I think of the tragedy this squirrel could have gone through, I too like Virginia Woolf feel pity for the animal but it is not going to majorly affect me regarding my future. Still for the squirrel's family, this tragedy could have a high emotional effect on them. Listening to Woolf's story, I realize now that anybody's life will not matter in the long run except to a countable number of people. For example, even if someone famous dies, thousands will be sad for a week or two but they will soon continue on with their daily lives. my point is that although your life is not meaningful to everybody, it should be meaningful to yourself. On that day 4 years ago, that squirrel thought it experienced a life or death situation and it was probably relieved to escape with no harm. Except for the people reading this blog, nobody will ever realize or even care about the story of this squirrel.

The Consumer Culture Within Me

Last Year, I went on the spring trip to Disney World with the Troy High Orchestra. Although I have visited before, I could not wait to experience the joy that every kid has when they are on their way to one of the most famous attractions in the world. As I walked into Magic Kingdom, the swarm of people walking around in 90-degree weather was infinite. Everywhere I went I saw people walking around in brightest of attitudes even though they were surrounded by complete strangers. I continued observing and I realized that at least 95% of people had Disney merchandise on. Hats, shirts, backpacks, cups and many more appeared as I walked towards the castle. Later that evening, even I was absorbed into buying a hand-held rubber castle that costed eleven dollars. I knew, I that it was overpriced and I should not have bought it, but I did not know when I would have an opportunity to buy an actual product in Disney World again. As of now, this souvenir sits on the desk in my room and whenever I look at it, I cannot help but think of all the memories I had in Disney World last year. I remembered these events while I was writing my in-class essay on an excerpt from "The Plastic Pink Flamingo". In the essay, it could be clearly seen that Jennifer Price was sarcastic throughout her essay. For example, as "Americans had hunted flamingos to extinction in Florida", she thinks of it as "no matter". Moreover, she seems to be exposing the through consumer culture of Americans with an example of the Flamingo. Although she does have a thorough argument about how Americans are wasting money on useless items, I see an alternative perception. For many years now trends come and go, and when you miss them, you feel like you are not part of a unity of people. When the flamingo trend diminished into a part of American history, people forgot about this period until there is a moment of joy in the recollection of an item from it. People who bought this flamingo merchandise can relive the days of the enjoyment in the past. Coming back to the Disney merchandise, when many of the people who I saw that day in Magic Kingdom grow old, they will still have these items that they treasured a long time ago and pass it on from generation to generation. That is why we still remember the flamingo trend in the 1950's. My point is that instead of critiquing the buying of useless stuff, we should cherish these items because there might not be a time when they come back into the scope of society. As for my Disney castle, I will keep it for as long as I can to remember these days of excitement.

The Dilemma Within Me

As I stepped into the crowd of people, I couldn't help but cover my nose. The smell of dead fish could not circulate into the air due to the mass of tourists trying to get a view of the action. The Pike's Place Market in Seattle is one of the top tourist spots in the entire city. One might opt to see the city skyline at the top of the Space Needle or adventure the beautiful greenery of Mount Rainier, but the fish market gives viewers a spectacle like no other. I somehow pushed my way to the front, where the first thing that came into view was a dead fish flying across the market. It was caught by a worker and promptly cut into pieces, packaged and sold to customers. It was obvious to note that as people were holding up money to the cashier, the workers kept throwing. At one point, one worker dropped the fish and it quickly was disposed into the nearest trash bin. Three years later, I couldn't help but remember this incident as we were reading "Consider the Lobster" in class. This got me thinking, as lobsters " cling to the containers sides, or even hook its claws over the kettle's rim", is there an immoral effect on a fish's dead body being thrown around for the enjoyment of the customers to watch? In this case, there is a big difference in these two instances. The lobster is alive and the fish is dead. However, the fish is not mainly being killed for how good it tastes because the customers can go to any other fish market where they will serve fresh or even fresher fish. Customers mainly come to see  fish flying in the air. This means that the fish are mostly being killed not for enjoyment during consumption, unlike the lobster, but for visual appeal to gain customers. Moreover, in the long-run, what would happen if all the fish that they use goes extinct from over fishing or disease? It would be a lose-lose situation for the fish and the sellers. Conversely, the idea that these sellers at Pike's Place have is a good one in that they are the most famous fish market in the entire country. They probably gain millions of dollars every year, solely for their entertaining way of business. Still, every fish that they drop is disposed, meaning a wasted life. This type of dilemma has caused great amounts of controversy for decades and the circumstances seem like they won't end for a while. So, from the time I stood there in Pike's Place Market watching fish fly three years ago, I still ponder which is more important: The enjoyment of humans or the life of an animal?

The Work Inside of Me

This week we read a story which describes the struggles of being in a working environment. "From Serving in Florida" reveals the constant terror that workers have to deal with throughout, for some, their whole lives. As I was reading this story, I continuously pondered the thought of just how different the lives of the rich and poor are. Starting with the poor, we see that many of them either did not have the opportunity to get an education or they misused it. This puts them in a situation where they are forced to look for a minimum wage job or live on the streets. Most, at least, try to look for a job where they would work as long as they could. As they continue to work for years, they start to collect money and manage to create friendships with other co-workers. Soon enough, they feel like they are in a stable position in life and content with what they have. On the other hand, rich people are on the other side of the spectrum. They usually start of as a person who is hard working regarding education and slowly moves up the ranks to a very comfortable lifestyle. The other way might be they live off their wealthy parents. Either case, there is a point that these people do not even have to work resulting in them bathing in their luxury. Vacations, parties, houses, cars and more all at their disposal whenever they want. Sure, these material items might be fun for a year or two, but later they might realize that it doesn't feel right to not be productive or accomplishing something in life. For instance, Bill Gates easily can disappear from the Earth and enjoy the rest of his life in peace. Why does he continue be productive in today's society? Because there is a breaking point for a rich person in which it feels as though they are just existing for the sake of existing. Now looking back on a rich and poor person’s lifestyle, would you rather enjoy a lavish lifestyle but not be productive or a lower lifestyle but have good relationships with people and a sense of accomplishment?

The Words Inside of Me

This week in class, we read a study called "Are Women Really More Talkative Than Men?" and it claims to debunk the theory that women naturally talk more than men in their daily lives. In our discussion, it came to a point where we decided that this study would not change much in society today because it is more or less considered useless. The idea of which gender talks more would not help benefit or destroy society today, so why should we even think about making a study? Although the study of which gender talks more isn't that important, the study of how much a normal person talks throughout the day could be more helpful to the world. For instance, if there is a person who says more than 20,000 words per day, we can easily classify them as an extrovert. Extroverts are usually known as an out-going or expressive person. If we look at some of the richest people in the world such as Bill Gates, Jeff Bezos or Mark Zuckerberg, we know that they were very intelligent but to make that intelligence prominent they had to form relationships and work with the people around them constantly. Now when everybody thinks of them, they are looked upon as initiators of a new era. Now, there is no question that there were people just like them who had intelligence but failed. Moreover, they failed not because of their products, but because they didn't expand it outwards toward society. They probably were not outgoing, forcing these other men to build their prominence. Also, there are probably other great products that people create but are not shown to society because they are more of an introvert. If this study of gender stereotypes instead focused on how many words people say per day on an average, we could see the difference between an introvert and extrovert and what they both bring to society. Would the study show the common belief that extroverts have a bigger impact on society or vice versa? If the result is the former, then maybe people could start introverts to expand into society so their ideas could be shared toward the world. Unlike the study that was created to break a gender stereotype which would have no gain to society, this idea could really help change society in a positive way.

The Color Within Me

In class this week, we read one of our first short stories called "There is no unmarked woman" and it led to a great discussion to what we really perceive the world to be. The first thought that comes into my mind when we refer to people as "marked or "unmarked" is markers. These markers, when we were younger, gave us colorful insights to spread our imagination further. When we think of the word "marked", the colors that would symbolize it would be blue, red, yellow, green and so on into the endless swirls of hues. Alternatively, the word "unmarked" associates to us nothing on the page, indicating white. While the "marked category" was categorized as endless colors, the unmarked is characterized as the single color of white. This is exactly what Deborah Tannen tries to distinguish between men and woman. But I strongly clash with this perception. Why do we have to classify people into groups when everyone is distinctively different in some way? For example, everybody is born in different shapes and sizes with different physical features. Why, then, do we have to classify men as unmarked and women as marked? All men do not look the same so why would portray them all as the color of white? Moreover, why do we have to focus on the differences of men and women regarding fashion, surnames or chromosomes? Shouldn't we classify them by their personalities? That is often to be the most intriguing and decisive part of a human because it shapes who you are in the future. Your fashion, for example, will not keep up with you in the future because everybody will grow old. Nobody will really care about how you look but instead focus more on your personality and how you act. If you only care about how you look on the outside and ignore your real feelings inside, when you become old you will be isolated from your peers. Overall, everybody has a different charisma which makes every single person different, so we should not characterize certain people as one color like white but instead characterize each as one of the uncountable colors of the universe.

The Hunger Within Me

We have finally finished our unit on "The Great Gatsby" and "The Diamond as Big as the Ritz". In my opinion, these two were the best stories we have read so far in AP English and they will be stored in my memory for a while. But before we leave this segment, I wanted to write about something that I have pondered about for a while now. Every time I hear "The Diamond as Big as the Ritz" the thing that comes into my mind first are Ritz crackers. They have appeared constantly in my mind for the past week that I actually came up with a connection that exemplifies the two stories. At the end of "The Diamond as Big as The Ritz", John says that "everybody's youth is a dream, a form of chemical madness." (Fitzgerald 113) This is true in a consistent way, as Kismine found her palace the ideal comfort zone and Gatsby characterized this comfort as his past relationship with Daisy. This idea now comes into play with the Ritz crackers. Usually the idealized way people eat Ritz crackers is to eat it with something, whether its salmon, chocolate or anything that makes it taste like a dream. Now, let’s fast forward to where Kismine and Gatsby step out of that dream and face reality. This is now corresponding to eating Ritz crackers without anything. Eating Ritz without anything does not taste horrible, but that's what Kismine and Gatsby are making it seem like. They are still so focused on the past, or focused on the Ritz with something on it, that they are taking advantage of what they have right now and making it seem like the plain Ritz taste bad. This is the struggle that Fitzgerald is portraying through both books, that it is so hard to forget what is great in the past that you are overlooking what is great in what you have now. These two stories will always stay with me through my life and I will always rely on the message that they spread.