How Far is Too Far?

How far would someone go to not be called names, to not feel like a disappointment, to be accepted? The lengths seem to be immeasurable. Wanting to be the right shape, have the perfect skin, and etc., is more stressed by some people than others. Once I watched the book trailer for Wintergirls, I was hooked! I was intrigued by the extremes people would go to, to be "perfect".

With not a lot of self-confidence, a person might go to great lengths in order to feel only a little better about their appearance or personality. Some girls would starve their selves to death, or try to be something or someone they're not. A person might even pick plastic surgery as their poison, and go overboard with implants, collagen, and lifts.

Why? Models and beautiful women on every commercial and every show overpower T.V. Almost as if they're trying to taunt you. Someone may not pay much attention to these seemingly perfect looking people at first, but after being called "fat", "ugly", and other unmentionable names throughout their lives, a person might start to think about it. And start to think about it a little too hard. Girls start to worry over it as if it's some sort of disease they'd do anything to overcome. They'll go to dive into that warm and salty bag of popcorn, dripping in butter, and remember the fat, the calories, and the carbs. The little voice in their head reminds them of "every single thing [that] is wrong with [them]".

There's this popular quote, "Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me". Words can hurt. And not only can they hurt, they can kill. "It's not nice when girls die".

Our Mother.

Countless minutes go by, one agonizing second by another. I wait for the stop light to change its mind from red back to green. I try to detach my attention from the lifeless cemetery that lies to my left by twisting the volume knob on full blast. My head threatens to turn towards the calling graves. I try to stop myself, knowing it’ll only hurt, but my eyes still steal a short glance of the flat land covered with stones and freshly fallen leaves. I whip my head back fiercely, after recognizing the familiar headstone. Guilt swells inside me and forms a hard lump deep in my throat. It’s been over 10 years since that fateful night, and yet I still can’t bring myself to forget or at least forgive my foolish mistake.

I was nine years old at the time, and lived in a pretty average sized house on the outskirts of Memphis. Mom did her best to support me and my little sister, being a single mother working two jobs and all. Dad chose his meth over us and moved out when I was only three. It doesn’t really bother me now, since I never really had much of a chance to get too attached anyway. We may have not been swimming in cash, but we had enough to get by. And besides, we didn’t care much about how much money we were making, as long as we all cared for one another and were happy, we were fine.

Mom came home late one night after working over time. Bags hung out under her tired eyes. But not even they could take away from the beauty of her sparkling eyes. They were made of crystal clear pools of blue, just filled with all the care in the world. I had already put Abby to sleep, and was anxious to tell mom about my spelling test today. I followed her as she staggered back to her room. I took the initiative to make a cocoon of blankets around me on her bed as I began to tell her about my wonderful day.

“So Mrs. Cameron passed out the test and I asked her if it was going to be hard,” I proudly rambled on.

“Oh really honey? What’d she say?” She managed to get out while struggling to get her other sock off.

“Well she said that it wouldn’t be too hard as long as you studied for it,” I spouted out, and then paused to wait anxiously for her to ask me the obvious question of if I studied or not.

“Ah I see. So did you study hard and make momma prou---” and that’s when my mom’s words got cut off by a loud, ear-piercing noise coming from the living room. The shatter of glass. My mom stopped dead in her tracks and got quiet, as if someone had stolen her honey-sweet voice straight from her mouth.

Then she looked me straight in the eye, “Stay right here,” she firmly said in a hushed tone. I watched mom swiftly tip-toe out of the room. I listened. Carefully. For any noise I could make out of what could possibly be going on outside that door. After hearing a few short spurts of lower than usually voices, I heard a loud shrill come echoing through the house. My heart stopped. Mom.

Quickly gathering my thoughts, I remembered the little gun Mom had hid away in a box inside her closet. She felt we might need it, since there wasn’t a man in the house, for protection. I scrambled through her closet and found the gun in a split second. The cold hardness of the gun felt strange and uncomfortable against the palm of my almost-too-small hand. It was bigger than I thought, and heavier. I wasn’t sure about what I was doing, but I knew I had to do something.

I started to make my way quickly but quietly down the hallway. With each step I became more and more overwhelmed. My heart pounded ferociously inside my chest, trying to fight its way out. Tears swelled up inside my eyes, blurring my vision. I rounded the corner and surveyed the scene as best as I could. It was dark, but I could make out my mother lying on the floor next to the recliner. There were broken pieces of a vase I had made for her in art last year scattered by her head, and she was slipping in and out of consciousness. I also made out two towering figures dressed in black from head to toe. One was busy carrying the T.V. out of the door, and the other had turned to face me. I was shaking so bad I nearly dropped the gun that was straining my wrist to hold. I curled my index finger around the trigger, and started to raise the gun. Noticing the big hunk of metal resting in my clammy hands, the masked black shadow whipped out a short shiny blade from his pocket and began to charge at me. Out of the corner of my eye, I noticed someone right behind him, slowly struggling to get up. With the distance growing shorter and shorter between us, I sealed my eyes shut, and shot.

Silence. I regretfully pried my eyes open, in time to see the big black figure fall in slow motion to the ground. The bullet had flew straight through him. And, behind the falling black figure was my mom. She had too, fallen on the ground. And where her over-sized heart once pulsed with love, was a bloody coin-sized whole.

My hand turned numb, and the hard gun fell onto the worn-out carpet with a loud thump. My stomach knotted, and i felt throw-up rise inside my throat. I stood there motionless, in the cold of night, with nothing but the muffled cries of Abby’s needy voice echoing around me.

Folklore Across Cultures

The world is filled with many different types of cultures. And from these widely diverse yet similar cultures, comes a large variety of notable folklore. The techniques used in a few of the folklore stories I have recently read are comparable yet different in many ways.

The Daydreamer is a folklore story that came from India. This story dealt with money, and had a theme of forgiveness.The Daydreamer is about this guy who was paid by an oil man to bring his oil to a market. But instead of staying focused and getting it to the market, he daydreams and drops the jars of oil. Its setting was not in the wilderness, because of how a character was supposed to bring some oil to a market. The Daydreamer made human-to-human confrontations, and did not have an animal as an actual character in its plot. This non-scary story did not describe the creation of anything and had a happy ending.

Likewise, The Fisherman and the Bear, a folklore story coming from the U.S., was not a ghost story, worked out for the good in the end, and did not describe creation. In The Fisherman and the Bear, a fisherman has no luck in catching a fish but a bear catches a pile of them. Unlike The Daydreamer, this story did have an animal as a character. The animal had many human-like qualities. With a theme of judgement, this story didn’t have human-to-human confrontations. In the wilderness, The Fisherman and the Bear had to deal with hunting also. But the fisherman couldn’t catch a fish.

The First Tears is a story of creation that came from Canada.This story was the same as the The Fisherman and the Bear when it came to hunting is the wilderness and not catching a thing. The man failed at killing a seal for his family to eat, and gets upset enough to shed water from his eyes. Creating the first tears. Also like both previous stories, this folklore story was not a scary one and had a happy ending. It was similar to The Fisherman and the Bear in that they both had animals as characters. Unlike that story though, the animals did not have any human-like qualities about them. Like The Daydreamer, The First Tears had human-to-human confrontations too. The First Tears had a theme of caring an love.

Most folklore, no matter what culture it comes from, is meant to teach a lesson of some sort. This lesson is either described through the story’s setting, actions of characters, theme, etc. Some pieces of folklore are very similar, and some are very diverse. These three particular pieces do a good job at expressing their lessons both similarly and differently.

Judge Carefully

Everyone knows someone who's done it: Alcohol, drugs, sex. And every individual has their own view on it. Some will snarl their nose at it and others don't really mind it. Ellen Hopkins' view on it, as described in her author interview, inspires me. These types of influences are all around us. Some of us choose to take part in them, and others don't. But, what about the people who don't really choose it themselves, who are literally just forced into such a lifestyle?


When it comes to people with that kind of lifestyle, most of us just look down on them. Make no effort to make a conversation with them or even help them. How can we expect these things in our environments to get any better when we won't even try to help the people who are troubled with these addictions. A majority of these people who are addicted didn't just do it to rebel against some authority, the lifestyle just kind of fell upon them as if they had no other choice. Maybe they believed they needed it for acceptance, for love, for relief, for help. Or they use it to ease the pain of a troubled life. Or simply because they feel they are so low, that it couldn't possibly get worse.


And at this stage of depression, where they feel they have nothing or nobody to lean on but their choice of drug, we reject them. Yes, drugs are bad. But there's two sides to every story. And the story anyone ever hears mostly, is the one where individuals who chose this life are immature, rebellious, and ignorant. If everyone always rejects them and doesn't ever give them a chance, why should they want to give us a chance? When they have their addiction, that's always there for them and never judges them.


It's heard on the news all the time, a drugy teenager who commits suicide. Who ends his life forever. And according to the news, it was the drugs that killed him. He died by over-dosing on meth. Maybe it was the meth that finally killed him, or possibly, it was the cruel rejection and constant judgment from others that he just couldn't take anymore.

The Loudest Sound is Silence

          My nose is on fire. Hot tears soak my pillow, and my cheeks feel soggy. The muffled, hateful screams outside my door swarm inside my head. My head pounds, pleading for the noise to quit. Then. Nothing. Nothing but the loud eerie sound of silence. I listen closer. But not a word is spoken. The silence rings in my ear. I almost hate the loud ringing, promising no good could follow, more then the constant bickering. Unsurely, I slip out of bed. I pace myself slowly towards the door, only to hear gravity take place on a table, and glass shatter. My heart and feet race at the same tempo. I clutch the smooth door handle with power, swinging the door wide open. Its cold steals the built up warmth from my hand in a split second. I walk out into the unwelcoming situation, all the while wishing I was still back in the comfort and safety of my well-worn room. The soured smell of the stained carpet mixing with the nose-hair-singeing cigarette smoke hits me like a brick wall. The smoke of my mom's last cigarette still lingers in the air. It stings my eyes, that were already trying to adjust to the dim lighting. I stare down to the very end of the seemingly never-ending hallway. The terror that fills my loved ones faces adds to the painful lump sitting inside my throat. My mother resides unsettling on the floor, surrounded by broken furniture. She pulls on my sisters hair that sits on the crown of her head. Supporting herself only with one locked arm out behind her pushing on her crushed glasses lying between her hand and the bumpy carpet, she tries with everything she's got left to pull my sister down with her. Tears still flowing, I stand motionless at the opposite end of the dark endless hallway. Where I remain, choosing not to intervene.

Wasted Time

It never seems like we have enough time. In the article "The Hospital Visit", the author Catherine O. knows the precious value of time. So many people take their time for granted. If u were to die tomorrow, would you rethink how you'd spend today? Where you'd go? Who you'd visit? Well that's the problem. Most of us don't know the future, so we can't fix the present accordingly. 

Recently I've had an experience with wasted time and hospitals. My grandma always made the efforts to call me and keep in touch. Although I loved her, I never really gave her the time of day. Only concerned with myself, I got caught up with other things instead of spending time with her.

And then the news came. My grandma had to be shipped to the hospital for multiple surgeries dealing with things I didn't really understand. Although the surgeries weren't too major, I still felt an overwhelming feeling inside when I saw her in that lumpy hospital bed. She's always been fairly strong, and practically able to do anything. But now, she appeared helpless. It brought me back to reality. It helped remind me of the importance of spending my time wisely. And not letting it slip away with myself or anyone else.

Have you ever heard the quote "live your life to the fullest"? Well its nothing to take lightly. I know this now, and plan on getting every bit I can out of the time I have on this earth. Will you?

Perfect Love

"Love The Way You Lie." The title is a question in its self. This song by Eminem ft. Rihanna, adds a few wrinkles to my forehead. I thought, what in the world can she mean by "Love the way you lie?" At first, I automatically loved the song just from the way it sounded, and because of how my favorite male rapper was one of the singers in it. But then I started to really listen. And as I started listening more and more deeper into the words of the song, I became more interested in learning the real meaning of this intriguing song. Or at least my opinion of the real meaning.


I hear love hidden behind both voices. His is a frustrated love, while hers is a more exhausted love. Their abusive love-hate relationship has almost become more of a routine. A vicious cycle that neither of them can stand, but can't live without. He promises her that he loves her, and will try to do better. To not lose his mind to his temper and hit her again. But then he contradicts that, by saying that he knows what he's claiming he wont do anymore, is just a lie. He lies to keep her, to keep the love they share alive. Its almost like the way he cares for her is by lying. Maybe she knows this, and for that reason, she loves the way he lies.

At first, someone might see their relationship as pointless. How can a person harm the person they love like that? Although they clash with each other, they both share the strife to keep their unhealthy relationship going. In the song, Eminem says, "...When a tornado meets a volcano..." They both have tempers they can't control, that causes damage to their relationship. They're just alike. Maybe since their not opposites they don't attract. Or maybe, since they're so alike, they're too perfect for each other, to where it hurts.

Its astonishing what people will do for love. Even when its not that "perfect love." Everyone has a need for someone to love them, and make them complete. Everyone can judge someone else's relationship by what they see and hear, but if your not actually in it, you wouldn't know how strong it truly is. Through someone else's eyes, the love they share might not look so great. But through their eyes, it might just be that "perfect love."
       
     

introductory paragraph assignment

         In the poem "I, Too, Sing America" by Langston Hughes the speaker's resentful optimism shows his bitterness  towards the way he is treated but his confidence in that some day he will be treated equally. Even though the speaker is mistreated now, because of his color, he knows if he tries hard enough that he will soon come out on top. He puts what everyone else sees him as behind him, because he knows they'll be ashamed once they see whats coming.

                                                                                                                                                          - Tabitha