A quotation from my summer assignment

My summer so far has been all work. I work at Zero Meridian as usual, I worked at a youth sailing camp at the yacht club. I worked as a camp counselor at camp winnarainbow. 

Also I have summer assignments. Mostly they are pretty boring. However, I have to write 10 quotations from the book “Black Boy” by Richard Wright. I really like it. Here is one quotation that has an issue that has effected me personally. I also included my response.

 

“I know that not race alone, not color alone, but the daily values that give meaning to life stood between me and those white girls with whom I worked. Their constant outward-looking, their mania for radios, cars, and a thousand other trinkets made them dream and fix their eyes upon the trash of life, made it impossible for them to learn a language which could have taught them to speak of what was in their or others’ hearts. The words of their souls were the syllables of popular songs.” (page 273 full version)

In the minds of some, there is not much more to life than the man made things that commercials and T.V.s sell. Their fixation of the media and consumer products drive their whole personality. Others do not forget that life brings them so much more. In this quotation, Richard describes the feeling of being in the presence of the former, while he, the latter finds himself lost to the conversation. When someone who is in touch with their heart, mind, and senses is in the presence of someone driven by urban life, it is if the two speak different languages, even as both speak with one vocabulary. 

Richard feels this with the white girls because they have lived with hopes and dreams in urban life, and none having to do with intimacy, personal morals, or environment. Richard speaks of how he is surrounded by those who speak the same way as him, but the meaning behind their words mean nothing to him.  

 

 

My point in this quotation is that I have experienced this firsthand, being in the company of those who can go no deeper than “the syllables of popular songs.” I can’t talk to them. We can communicate, but we are unable to truly talk to one and other.

Bread and Cheese?

“Bread and Cheese are like, the fruit of life!”

Kathryn said this. It’s an interesting idea. Every story with traveling involved, the traveler brings bread and cheese to eat.

Well I guess its pretty good. You got your starch and grains, you got your calcium, you got your protein you got a filling meal. Not bad. I wouldn’t bring just bread and cheese though. It doesn’t keep well.

High School— The prime suffering years

Wow, it’s been a while. I have been pretty busy. Have you ever been so busy that you have nothing to talk about? That’s kinda what’s up with me. I have been doing well in school. I can’t believe break is almost over, it seems like it just started. But life must go on as always, and as time moves forward I will soon be on another vacation, but in the meantime I must go back to my laborious torture zone called school.  When you think about it, a lot of say that high school is the worst time of their life. Well, I think I know why. When you are in Elementary School and Middle School, you are a kid, so you have some liberty; But when you get into high school, they have decided to make sure you have a miserable time. Your treated like a criminal, you have no time for fun, all you do is take classes and do homework, and it’s not even stuff you want to study!!!!!It makes me think, “Man, I just want to go to college, and study what I want.I do think of a wonderful and true quote however every once in a while, from Little Miss Sunshine. It is said by the suicidal uncle to the teenage boy. He says, “High school years are you prime suffering years! Why would you want to miss call that suffering!”It was kinda like that, but I think it’s really cool. I guess that suffering in high school helps to make you a stronger person overall.  

Life.

Is life good? Or is it bad? I mean, sometimes people say stuff like, “Life is good!” it even says that on a shirt with a dog or wahtever. But sometimes, people are life, “Life sucks.” But im guessing it’s in a general way, but if it’s a private way, why do people stress?
Our family has this quote from a comercial we keep saying, “It sucks to be Frodo.” Well, obviously, no ones life can be worse then Frodo’s. Then, look at like Harry Potter. I was watching a spoof video on YouTube, one of the “Potter Puppet Pals”. Harry Potter Puppet Quotes, “My life stinks, my parents are dead, I can’t hold down a girlfriend, and Im surrounded by goblins and gouls and (beep) I mean what the (beep)!”
So obviously, somepeople have better lifes then others. ; )

A story about a quote. (hehe)

So I was in whole foods, ordering a sandwich, the way you order a sandwich there is you mark what you want on a bag and write your name and give it to someone over the counter. So I signed my name “The perfect one” and the guy behind the counter took it and looked at it and said, “No, you are Perfect one 2, im the perfect one!” So was like, “oh really?” and he said, “well im about to make you a kick ass sandwich, maybe I am the perfect one.” And I was like, “Ok as long as I get my sandwich!” So he made my sandwich and when I left said, “Perfect people do good for others.”

Quote by My Friend

“I like to think of the people who vote for Bush as ‘politically challenged’.” – Molly (My friend)

Another Quote

“The warrior knows that he is free to choose his desires, and he makes these decisions with courage, detachment, and–sometimes–with just a touch of maddness.” -Paulo Coelho

I love this quote, but I must say, he could have not used “he” so much. This goes for a girl to. Read the quote again only insted of he, say she, insted of his, say her.

Quote

“Lawyers, I suppose, were children once.” – Charles Lamb

Dance

So I do a kind of dance called Modern Dance, and I have been doing it since I was five or six years old. Now, I am in the preformance group which is the highest you can go in Judith Komoroske’s Class. It’s a wonderful class, on the first day, I learned something intresting.

Ever noticed that wall you put up when your the center of attention? Like your not being yourself, you know? We have all felt that, like, we need to be someone we’re not to have friends!

During dance, while the music was going, Judith told the class to stop and go to the back of the room and face her and the other teacher Elaina. We did, and she told us to walk toward her, then walk away, notice if we were looking down, if we were, to look up. She then asked if we felt her eyes on our back, and to notice the wall we had put up to try to block her, and to let it go, and continue dancing.

This, was the most fantastic thing I had ever felt! When I danced, I didn’t worry about what people thought of me, I knew everything was going to be fine in the end, and I felt that I could truly be myself! I have not felt that for a long time.

Afterwards we talked about it and Judith said something that I will always remember. “When you’re comfortable in your own skin, everything looks good on you.”

Views on Barbies

My friend Molly and I were thinking about Barbies, and you’ll see that there is another Barbie Post on my blog, we were wondering if you asked some random person on the street what they thought of barbies, what they would say. So we asked random people on the street what they thought of Barbies. We got some intresting and creepy answers.

One Woman said she thought Barbie’s were ok, but they “made girls sick” and that they should make barbies that “Were all shapes and colors for all girls” Another woman had a daughter with her. She said she hoped her daughter would never want to play with Barbies. When I asked her if she would give her child a barbie if she did want one, she said that she would probably give it to her as long as they “Talked about things first”

Here is a creepy one. We stopped a guy and asked him the question, and he said, “I bought my daughters tons and tons of Barbies!” We then asked him what he thought of all the veiws on Barbies being bad for girls and he said, “I see no problem, I think it is achually good because it helps girls maintain their image. I mean, if they make a guy Barbie thats all muscle, that doesn’t mean boys are going to go out lifting weights! But barbies are very helpful to help girls maintain themselfs” Creepy. Later, his wife stopped us on the street and said, “Wanna know what I think of Barbies? I think they suck! They are horrible for girls!”

We also had a mother and her adult daughter whom we asked, who talked a little bit, but what was really intresting was the mother had once had the very first brand of Barbie. They came in Blonde of Brunet, hair in a ponytail, in a black and white swimsuit and high heels!

I would love your opinion on Barbies!