Rip-Cord

I am an only child and was lucky enough to grow up close with two of my cousins.  Bobby and Tommy are the sons of my dad’s brother Kevin and growing up they have been like my two older brothers.  When I was younger, this meant that I pretty much did anything that I thought would make me look cool or to show that I could hang tough with them.  I was about 11 years old, when we were at Worlds of Fun in Kansas.  The older brother, Tommy, really wanted to do the rip-cord, but couldn’t get anyone else to do it.  We were signed up to go an hour later and left to roam the park.  So, of course, I volunteered and my dad felt obliged to join us.  I felt awesome and like I was the coolest cousin ever… for about 10 minutes.  Then the fear started to set in.  We watched someone go and started to realize just about how terrifying it would be.  But, backing out would be extremely “uncool”, so I had to just bite the bullet. 

It was finally our turn to go and we returned to the rip-cord area.  As the three of us walked out onto the platform to get rigged up to the system, I thought I was going to pass out.  The platform is in the middle of a makeshift pond and they were hooking us up to a lifting device that would lift us about 15 stories in the air.  Once our feet had been lifted off the ground, I knew this was it and was horrified.  We were lifted 15 stories in the air with our stomachs parallel to the ground.  The minute before my cousin pulled the cord felt like a century.  Once he pulled the cord we were sent plummeting towards the water and ground at an extremely fast speed.  I was momentarily concerned that we would hit the ground and it would be all over.  All three of us were screaming and I’m not even sure if you could tell who was who at that point.  After we slowed down and finally came to a stopping point, they lowered us onto the platform and unhooked all of the wires.  It ended up being kind of an exhilarating experience, but also rather terrifying. 

I found out later that the whole time we were being rigged to the thing and lifted up in the air, people were down there simply aghast that someone was letting their young daughter do this.  My mom was hearing everyone saying these things and thinking “oh no, what have I done?” the entire time.  I’m pretty sure that she would have kept her eyes closed the entire time if we had not asked her to take pictures of it.  My dad will still bring it up to this day and I still think about how I went through with such a frightening experience just to impress my cousins and myself.  

Grandpa Newman

My Grandpa Hawkins is one of my favorite relatives.  He is my mother’s father and one of the best men I have ever had the privilege to know.  He is the only grandpa I had growing up and he is more than I could ever ask for.  My grandparents often babysat me when I was younger and we always went to the cabin with them when I was growing up.  His favorite thing to do is fish and when I was younger, he taught me how to fish, to bait a hook, to change a lure, and so much more.  When I was little I always used to like to ride around in the boat with him and play with the minnows in the bucket until he needed another one.  As I got older though, I would actually fish with him and still enjoy doing so every now and then. 

He always has the best stories about growing up and will remember every single detail when doing so.  Now that I am older, he will tell me more than he used to, much to the chagrin of my grandma at times.  I think it was a story involving hitchhiking and being so bored that he and his friends were smoking the grass on the lawn.  Most of the time, his stories are humorous, but there are also a lot of lessons to be learned from them.  He is big on hard work and everything, but he also emphasizes being thankful for what you have and getting the most out of life.  For him it is all about enjoying the simple things and not asking for more, which is something I think most people can learn from. 

He is also one of the most patient and kind people I have ever met.  He has an extremely even temper and I cannot think of one time in my entire life where I have seen him get angry.  This seems so strange to me that someone wouldn’t get angry every now and then.  I asked my mom once if it was just because he was older now or if he had always been this way.  She told me that she had only seen him get mad twice in her entire life and that both times were for good reason.  You would have to have an incredible amount of patience and control to only get angry twice in 50 years.  I cannot imagine what that would take, and can only commend him for that.  I aspire to gain even one tenth of the patience and kindness that he has for other people.  I am so lucky that I have grandparents that are in their late 70s and still very healthy both mentally and physically, so that I can enjoy many more years with them and appreciate our time together. 

Our Cat Spook

When I saw the blog topic about a favorite pet, I knew exactly which one I would write about.  I love animals and all of our pets have been great, but there is definitely one that stands out in my mind.  I never considered myself to be a ‘cat person’, until our cat, Spook, came along.  When I was about 10 years old, my Grandma Lee got a tiny little Russian Blue kitten.  She wasn’t quite sure what to name him, but after several incidents in which he scared her two dogs and even once, where he scared himself, she settled on the name Spook.  I fell in love with this cat immediately and loved playing with him when I would visit her house.  He quickly went from being a tiny kitten to an increasingly large cat.  A few months after my grandma had gotten him, she passed away.  She had two cats at this point and they needed homes.  My aunt and uncle took her other cat Molly, who weighed about 7 pounds and my parents and I took Spook, who was about 20 pounds at the time. 

Losing my grandma was extremely difficult for everyone in our family, but in a way, we still had a piece of her spirit in Spook.  I grew up babying him and often pushed him around in a stroller, which he didn’t object to.  He quickly became my cat and tolerated much more from me than anyone else.  It has been 10 years since we inherited him and he is still alive and well.  He still weighs in at about 21 pounds, but the vet says he is extremely healthy. 

Spook is anything but an ordinary cat and often acts as if he is either a dog or even human.  He gives a whole new meaning to the phrase large and in charge and is definitely the boss of the household.  Even our 60-pound border collie/ lab mix, Suki, knows he is in charge and does what she can to stay out of his way.  It’s like he realizes her fear of him and can often be seen doing things in order to intimidate her or show her who’s boss.  He often sits on her bones and even attempts to chew on them in front of her until she squirms and whines enough for someone else to take it from him.  She has never tried to take it from him, just in case he retaliates.  He has also taken over the dog bed in my parents’ bedroom that is made for a large breed dog, and Suki has moved elsewhere.  His most recent entertaining story was when I was home for Christmas break and I was feeding them both.  They were both sitting in the room, when Suki took a drink of water out of Spook’s bowl.  The cat then proceeded to use his paw to dump the water out of the floor until I took it to the sink to empty and get him new water.  My mom says that this has been happening a lot lately whenever Suki tries to drink out of his bowl.  It’s as if he wouldn’t dare to drink out of the same bowl as the dog. 

He is extremely entertaining and intelligent and I miss him a lot when I am at school.  I love when my mom calls me with stories about our animals and lets me know how they are doing.  I feel like one of the things I miss about home is being able to have animals to come home to, which you can’t do here in the dorms. 

My Favorite Vacation Spot

My great-grandfather built a cabin in Nevis, Minnesota over 70 years ago.  Our family has been vacationing at the cabin ever since and it is one of my favorite places to go.  In my 20 years of life, I have only missed two summer trips to the cabin and it was not for lack of wanting to go.  Driving down the highway you can’t even see it; all you see is rows and rows of trees.  The turn isn’t marked and aside from the old faded mailbox, it simply looks like a path back into the woods.  It’s not until you make the turn and drive slowly around the curve, that you find the cabin, as if it were placed in the midst of this meadow by the lake. 

Everything still looks the same as it did when I was three years old running around feeding peanuts to the chipmunks on the deck.  The furniture is still the same, the cabin is still the same color, and the same Piggly Wiggly board game still sits in the cabinet.  Year after year, it is a constant and no matter how my life or I have changed, it is still the same.  One of my favorite parts of going to the cabin is the silence.  There is no phone, no Internet, and no TV, which sounds crazy, but when you need a vacation from everything else going on in your life, it is fantastic.  A lot of my friends ask me what we do up there if we don’t have any of that and it makes me laugh.  I get to spend time with my family; we play games, do puzzles, go fishing, go for walks, and all kinds of other things we don’t think to do while we are at home.  When I am there one of my other favorite things to do is read, whether it is out by the lake or up in the loft.  It gives me the opportunity to just read and think. 

I hope that I can make a trip up there soon because I have missed it so much.  It makes me stop and think about how I probably took it for granted when I was younger and could afford to go up there for a couple of weeks at a time.  I think that everyone should have some place where they can go to escape the stress and fast pace of life just for a little while; somewhere they can just rest, reflect, and think. 

Journey to the Top of Santorini

“You have three options: you walk up zee hill here, you take zee trolley, or you ride zee donkey up zis hill” said our tour guide.  I quickly scanned my options before making the decision.  The so-called “trolley” was dangling hundreds of feet in the air, on what looked like a decrepit wire, over the sparkling Aegean.  With hundreds of individuals venturing to the top on donkeys, walking looked to be a dangerous enterprise.  I was now left with one last option… to ride “zee donkey”. 

I was next in line; my feet felt as if they were glued to the platform and honestly, at the time I was hoping they were.  In front of me stood a red-faced Greek man yelling his instructions in Greek, of which I didn’t know a single word, and it became the point where instincts took over.  I gathered that to get up this hill I would need to make it to the edge of the platform and take a leap of faith onto my designated donkey.  There were no guides for the donkeys because they knew their way up the path which meant that jumping at the right moment was key; one moment late would land me in a pile of dirt, with my donkey leaving me in the dust. 

Somehow, I made it onto the donkey and began the journey to the top.  If I had made my decision based on which route seemed the safest, I began to second-guess my judgment.  But when you are halfway up a rocky Cliffside on the back of a somewhat unruly creature, there’s no going back.  All I could do was hold on tight and hope for the best.  Let’s just say I was a little less than thrilled when my donkey decided to stop for a quick snack on the side of the hill, dangling me just over the side of the cliff.  About three quarters of the way up, I was beginning to find hope that I was in fact going to make it there.  This occurred to me mere seconds before the stampede of donkeys that had just dropped off their passengers made it swiftly back down to retrieve someone new.  It was a whirl of chaos and anxiety and the scattered shoes along the trail suddenly made a lot more sense.  The last few minutes felt like hours but the donkey made one last turn and planted its hooves on flat ground.  I felt as if I had lived to tell the tale and quickly hopped off to join the other members of my group. 

After the tours that day, most of us took the trolley back down because we weren’t quite sure we could handle the reverse journey on the donkeys.  But at the end of the day, it was all anyone could talk about.  Out of all of the souvenirs and the tours that day, it was the donkeys that made the trip.  It was truly the experience of a lifetime; I mean how many people can say they have ridden a donkey up the Cliffside of a Grecian island overlooking the Aegean Sea.  I am glad that I made the decision I did that day and wouldn’t take it back for anything, it was definitely an experience worth having and quite the journey.  

Under the Ridge

I found “Under the Ridge” to be intriguing even though it was a depressing subject.  After reading the story, I needed to look up a little background information to see what Hemingway was writing about and found out that he was writing about the Spanish Civil War.  I thought it was really interesting that no one in the story had names, but figured that Hemingway had his reasons for doing so.  I knew that it wasn’t merely by accident or laziness.  All of the characters are instead referred to by rank or where they are from for identification.  This made me think about war and how it is not really the individual names that stand out because they are fighting as a whole for their country or cause.  You hear about who wins and loses but not about the names or stories of the individuals on each side. 

            I was really curious about the Extremaduran who seemed to hate everyone and everything except for those on his side.  At first, I was thinking that he was just extremely negative and tired of fighting.  After a while, though his attitudes made a lot more sense.  In war, it doesn’t help to be sympathetic to the other side or to be friendly towards anyone who is not on your side.  They are supposed to view their enemies as just that, the enemy, someone who they hate and are completely against.  If they stopped to think about each of the individual soldiers on the other side and allowed themselves to feel sympathy for those they were fighting against, it would be that much more difficult.  All of the emotional strain and trauma that soldiers endure during war would be much more difficult if they were attached to these individuals and against killing them.  I’m assuming that it is much easier to do what they have to do in war if they are convinced they hate them and detach themselves from it. 

            We learned that Hemingway had somewhat of a fascination with war and felt inferior because he couldn’t fight in one.  He eventually became an ambulance driver and was able to contribute but I have a feeling that Hemingway still felt a little less masculine because he couldn’t fight.  In the story the soldiers talk a lot about their thirst, yet refuse the water that would help their thirst and drink the red wine instead.  Taking the red wine as an image for blood you can see the thirst for blood that Hemingway sees involved in war.  He seems to think that all men have the desire for destruction and the desire to fight and kill.  This ties in with Hemingway’s other short stories with the themes of manhood linked with guns and hunting and his own life where not being able to fight in a war was extremely upsetting and emasculating.  Even though it was a story that I found kind of depressing and didn’t get much enjoyment out of I thought it was very interesting because it is not something most people stop to think about, but probably should.  Everything that those who fight wars go through is extremely difficult and does not seem to be something that is necessary to find fulfillment or complete masculinity. Overall, this is another example of a story in which Hemingway shows his slightly skewed view of masculinity and human nature in general.  

Suelli Meeting 3

            With spring break and two busy schedules, it has been a couple of weeks since Suelli and I have been able to meet.  It never fails that we will only be free on the days that the other has something to do.  I also found out that Suelli has two conversation partners.  She was originally paired with another girl, but her schedule with school and work was too packed to meet with Suelli consistently.  Now that the semester is coming to an end, she has more free time and is able to meet with her, so Suelli is trying to keep up meetings with the both of us.  This and my new job are making it a little more difficult to find a time to meet, but we are trying. 

            Our third meeting was a lot easier to find things to talk about and she seemed much more comfortable with her English speaking abilities.  She doesn’t have very much of the IEP program to finish so she seems more confident.  I found out that she is going to transfer to Richland College in Dallas to finish up her English so that she can begin studying microbiology.  This lead to a conversation about looking for apartments and all of the responsibilities that came along with it.  I explained that my parents said I needed to get a job before they would agree to let me move down here for the summer.  Suelli seemed kind of surprised and said that she finds it interesting how many people start to work at pretty young ages in the United States.  She said that it made her begin to think of people in her country, Angola, as lazy because they put off working as long as they can.  This really surprised me and it was something I hadn’t thought of before.  Since this is my first job other than working for my parents company occasionally in high school, I considered myself lucky for not having to really work until now and hadn’t thought of it as being young at all.  She also explained to me that because she is here on a student visa she isn’t able work.  I didn’t think about this but it made me realize how big of a financial commitment it would be for parents of international students because the students themselves can’t have a job to contribute. 

            The conversation then inevitably landed on summer plans and the excitement and stress of the semester coming to an end.  Suelli said that she had a lot of homework left before the end of the program including two papers, which she was dreading the most.  The most difficult part for her is grammar and spelling errors that I think are actually quite common.  One of the examples she brought up was the words that have different spellings for the different meanings including words like ‘there, their, they’re’ and ‘your, you’re’.  I thought that this was kind of funny, not because she thinks it’s difficult but because many native English speakers make these mistakes all of the time.  Even though English is their first language, they often do not know the difference or care enough to use the correct one.  So, Suelli, who is relatively new to English, seems more concerned with making the errors and therefore, probably does better with it than most of us.  Because of my meetings with her I will probably think a little more about how much slang I use when I speak and be on the watch for grammatical errors more than I have before.  I’m realizing that I take English for granted and just assume I know what there is to know because it is my first language without making sure I practice it correctly.  I have started to notice a little bit of a change already and I really do think that I will be able to take something away from this experience.  

The Short Happy Life of Francis Macomber

            Just by looking at the title of this story, I was not exactly sure what to expect from it.  Since it is Hemingway, I knew that it couldn’t really just be a short happy story about some guy named Francis Macomber.  I figured it was probably not going to be a happy or uplifting story either.  In the initial descriptions of the three main characters in the story, the Macombers and Wilson, you can already tell that there is more going on than there appears. 

Margot seems to have much more interest in Wilson than she does in her own husband, Francis.  The two men are clearly different from each other and Hemingway depicts Wilson as a strong individual that fulfill his ideas of the ideal man.  Francis on the other hand is portrayed as a complete coward through his actions on the hunt and how de deals with his wife.  Margot definitely has the upper hand in their relationship, which is not something that Hemingway would agree with.  It also seems like Margot is being unfaithful to her husband, definitely with Wilson, but most likely it has occurred before the story takes place as well.  When Francis reflects upon the lion hunt the day before, the reader is able to see the act of cowardice that they talk about early on.  Margot seemed to enjoy seeing her husband act like the coward that she thinks he is.  Their conversation about the lion hunt was interesting to me because of the complete role reversal of Hemingway’s characters.  Margot is talking down to Francis and just brushing off his attempts at a conversation.  She even says that she knows he will take anything and refers to him as ‘sweet’. 

The next day they go on another hunt and it is clear that Francis Macomber has gone through some kind of definite change.  Margot’s mood has also changed and she is not enjoying the hunt at all compared to the day before.  There are several lines that refer to how Macomber feels better than he ever has before and that he is without fear.  He exclaims that he wants to go after another lion because ‘what can they do to you?’ to which Wilson replies ‘kill you’.  At this point Margot is realizing that she has lost the control she had over Francis and is obviously upset by it.  I had a feeling that something bad was going to happen at this point.  Wilson knows that it wasn’t an accident but can’t say anything to anyone else because she knows about his illegitimate practices.  He does let her know that he knows what happened though and almost pokes fun by asking her why she didn’t just poison him. 

Even though this story was a little bit longer than the ones we have been reading by Hemingway, I found it interesting and realized that all of the details were necessary.   All of them were important as the story moved on and helped to make sense of what happened.  At the end of the story the title made a lot more sense to me because the happy part of Francis Macomber’s life was in fact extremely short.  He was finally able to break the power and control his wife had over him to stand bravely on his own.  I enjoyed this story because it was a little different from his other stories even though a lot of the themes and settings were similar.  It was a nice change to actually sympathize with a male character in one of his stories, instead of writing them of as chauvinistic and condescending.  

'Cat in the Rain' and 'The Sea Change'

            After reading more and more of his stories, it makes a lot more sense to me now why Hemingway had so many marriages and affairs.  The two stories  ‘Cat in the Rain’ and ‘The Sea Change’ by Hemingway show more dysfunctional relationships that seem either to be horrible relationships or ones near the end.  In his typical short story style, he only gives the tip of the iceberg with the rest left for the reader to discover.  The short scenes in each story are about random events and quick conversations without an obvious point. 

            In ‘The Sea Change’ there is a couple sitting in a bar having a conversation about an unknown topic.  The way the story is told feels almost as if you are listening in on their conversation instead of hearing it firsthand.  There is obvious tension between the two of them and it does not seem to be a stable relationship.  It is clear that the relationship is not going to last and that it is most likely ending, but that is about all you know for sure.  There is a lot left to think about after reading this story.  I was left wondering why they were breaking up and what specifically had happened between the two that left their relationship like this.  In a way, I thought that it was more interesting to tell the story in this way because you could use your imagination to think up all of the possible scenarios, instead of just being told what happened. 

            ‘Cat in the Rain’ also left a lot of questions unanswered, leaving the readers with little conversation and a bizarre scene involving a cat.  The main characters are a married couple from America staying in a hotel in Europe.  It is raining heavily and the wife is staring out the window.  Once she sees the cat, she almost becomes obsessed with going to get the cat.  She doesn’t find it, but at the very end of the story, the maid appears with it in her hands.  When she returns to the room without the cat she talks to her husband about it and seems extremely upset about not being able to get the cat that she had randomly found.  Her husband, just as he had in the beginning of the story, basically ignores her and shows no concern in the matter.  I found that as she seemed to be getting more and more frustrated in her conversation with him, I was too.  I felt like I was watching a woman get pushed to her breaking point where she became extremely frustrated.  It was clear that they were living by his rules and did what he wanted.  She had obviously been doing everything to please him without a concern for her own desires and needs.  The cat became her symbol for all of those things she wanted and either gave up or didn’t get because of him.  She couldn’t and hadn’t gotten or done anything that she wanted to, so all she wanted was that cat, right then.   She is looking to these material things because she is not being fulfilled emotionally in her relationship. 

            I really enjoyed ‘Cat in the Rain’ after I reread it and gave it more thought.  The first time I read it, the story seemed really trivial.  I realized that it could not simply be a story about a lady on vacation wanting a cat; it is Hemingway after all.  After I thought about it and read it, again I really started to enjoy it and could empathize with the wife.  Both of the stories however, shed light on Hemingway’s inability for stable relationships and that he obviously did not think to positively when it came to commitment and long-term relationships.  

Hills Like White Elephants

Just like the Hemingway stories we have been reading all semester, “Hills Like White Elephants”, is a perfect example of the iceberg style where little is revealed and there is a great deal beneath the surface.  A majority of the story is told through the dialogue between the American man and his girlfriend, where the two actually discuss little.  They mostly just talk around each other and do not seem to know how to communicate with each other.  Most of the time, they don’t even seem to be answering each other, but just saying what they feel without the other understanding.  Even without a direct conversation between the two, I was getting a sense that the story was about much more than Hemingway was letting on.  Though their conversation didn’t make much sense and it was fairly trivial, there was an underlying sense of something serious happening. 

            Once the idea of an operation was brought up in the end, I started to get the idea that what they were talking about could be an abortion, but wasn’t completely sure.  It was the only operation I could think of that would bring about all of the tension and frustration between the two. Just in case I was way off, I looked up a couple of interpretations of the story and found out that the consensus is that she is pregnant and he is trying to convince her to abort the baby.  She seems to be enjoying the idea of having the baby and doesn’t want to get rid of it, while the American seems to be attempting to manipulate her into having it so they continue as they are.  He is just playing it off as a simple operation that would be quick and painless, something that isn’t a big deal.  This obviously isn’t the case; it would be a horrible experience that would change her life forever, but he doesn’t care as long as nothing would change in his own life or negatively effect him. 

            It is all left up in the air in the end for the reader to think about.  There is no definite decision about it that is made and she simply just says that she is fine.  You don’t know the future of the couple, you don’t know exactly what their relationship is, and you don’t even know where they are headed.  After thinking about it they clearly do not have a good enough relationship to discuss something of this magnitude and most likely don’t care about each other enough to understand what the other one wants.  She is pregnant with his child, yet he just wants it all to be over so they can go back to the frivolous lifestyle that she seems to be fed up with and ready to move on from. 

            Overall, I thought that this story was an excellent example of the iceberg style and it definitely brought up a lot to think about and discuss.  I feel by telling the story in this way, I actually thought about what was going on and took a better look at what happened than I would have had it just been outright about everything.  It is a very interesting style and although I thought it was somewhat frustrating and disturbing I thought that it was an excellent and interesting short story.  

Meeting Suelli Again

My second meeting with Suelli went much smoother than the first. With minor scheduling conflicts, we were able to set up our second meeting with far less hassle.  One of my roommates, Kristin, was interested when I told her what I was doing so she decided to come along.  The three of us decided to meet at 1873 for lunch that Friday. 

Since it was only our second meeting due to the issues in the beginning of the semester, we spent most of it going over more of the basic topics and getting to know each other.   We talked a little more about the English classes that she was taking and what they had been going over recently. She had mentioned that she was at the intermediate level with only one more to go before finishing so I was curious about what topics were covered at that level. Suelli told us that in her grammar courses that week they were covering past perfect. It was then I realized that there are a lot of elements of the English language that I take for granted. I cant say I usually take time to think about the appropriate tense when I am speaking to someone. She admitted that this was one of the most difficult parts of learning the language because she still felt unsure at times about how to correctly respond or phrase something in conversation. Because she isn't confident in all of the grammar uses yet, she says it stops her from speaking too much because she feels self-conscious about making mistakes. I hadn't really thought about this as an obstacle before, but after thinking about my own experience in foreign language classes with oral exams, I could understand.  She asked Kristin and I what other languages we could speak and seemed surprised that we were only fluent in English. We found out that beyond her abilities in English, she could not only speak Portugese, but also Spanish and some Italian. 

We moved the discussion from languages and English classes to what we like to do in our free time.  It turns out that we enjoy doing a lot of the same things and even in Angola it isn't much different.  Even though there are a lot of shared activities, she says that the people and general feeling of the United States is definitely different.  It really isn't how she expected it to be, and although she likes the Dallas/Fort Worth area, she will definitely be returning to Angola after she finishes university.  One difference that she was missing the most was the food. If she wants anything like what she eats at home she has to cook it herself or go to visit family because there aren't any restaurants around serving it. She says the food here isn't bad but it isn't what she gets at home. Suelli really enjoys to cook and explained many dishes she loves to make that sounded delicious as well as difficult to pronounce. 

Our meeting started to wrap up because her family from Dallas was coming to pick her up for the weekend. She was going to spend the weekend with her cousins shopping and spending time together. Apparently due to some roommate issues, she often spends time with her family on the weekends. I can understand this and know myself that it is nice to have family nearby just to get away every once in a while.  I was getting ready to go back to my room and take a quick nap after the long week.  My roommate was making fun of me for all of the naps I take when Suelli commented that she enjoyed napping as well. I thought it was a funny thing to have in common, especially since we both said that when we were younger and were supposed to be taking naps, we hated taking them and often protested.

It has been an interesting experience so far even with all of the logistical problems in the beginning.  I look forward to our next meetings after the break and being able to teach each other some more along the way.

TIME Magazine 1928

The magazine issue I reviewed was TIME magazine Vol. XI, No. 8, which was published on February 20, 1928.  One of the very first things I found interesting was the first page of the issue, which was an advertisement for IPANA Toothpaste.  The reason I found it interesting was because at first glance I thought that it was an article before taking a better look.  The reason for this confusion came from the fact that this toothpaste ad had more text in it than many magazine articles I see today.  As I moved on through the rest of the issue, there were many different advertisements and they all had an incredible amount of text involved.  These ads are much different from all of the flashy advertisements we see in magazines today that rely largely on visual appeal.  I honestly think that if there were ads like this today people would take one look at all of the text and move on without reading about the product. 

Beyond the advertisements, there were several other things I found interesting about the magazine.  For instance, as I went through the articles and sections of the magazine, I felt more like I was reading a newspaper than a magazine.  It was broken up into sections covering different topics that the authors found newsworthy.  There were 7 full pages dedicated to national affairs, several for foreign news, and then smaller sections covering topics such as music and art, medicine, education, people, sport, business, and theatre.  Compared to most magazines I see today, the different sections just covered all of the relevant news of the week for that topic.  When I read magazines there is typically one or two main articles under a section that are about specific and concise issues, not just anything and everything pertaining to that topic.  I also found it interesting that they covered such a wide range of topics.  Today it seems that magazines have a more specific focus on certain areas, where some magazines are for entertainment, some for news, some for technology,etc. 

Because I don’t read TIME magazine very often, I wanted to make sure that I wasn’t attributing all of these differences to the change in times, in case it was something that was specific to TIME magazine.  To see if TIME really was different nowadays I took a look at a more recent TIME magazine issue.   I was reassured to see that the ads were much different beyond being in color now.  There was very little text and they relied more on pictures to sell the products to readers.  I noticed that the magazine was still broken into very similar sections with the same types of headings, but there was a difference.  Within each section, there were only a couple of articles that were specific stories related to the broad topic.  There wasn’t the same newspaper feel to the magazine where it was just little snippets of everything going on in each area. 

It is evident that there has been some change in the way magazines are made over the years, but it hasn’t been too extreme.  Most of the change seems to be from the formatting and style of articles within the magazine and how they try to appeal to the audience.  This was very noticeable in how the advertisements have changed and even the articles themselves.  Now they can appeal to readers more by providing fewer stories that provide more information, which gives readers a better chance to connect to them.  Overall, there weren’t very many pictures in the issue compared to the amount in magazines today.  Often times today even the news articles in magazines contain at least 4 or 5 pictures.  I was almost surprised by the amount of text in the magazine because it is something I attribute more to newspapers than magazines.  It made me think that during the time when this issue was published people were more willing to take the time to sit down and read everything.  Nowadays I feel as if most people don’t want to take the time to sit down and read that much when they look at a magazine.  They usually want to just flip through them, look at the pictures and read the short articles.  All of it showed how society has changed and how impatient Americans have become in a way.  I had never thought of looking at a magazine before to see how times have changed.  

Why? My Impressions of Modern Art

Why?

Ellsworth Kelly 'Curved Red on Blue'

When reflecting upon visiting the Museum of Modern Art on Friday there is one simple question that most easily comes to mind; why?  While I understand that there is a purpose and appreciation among a certain audience for modern art, I would find it extremely difficult to claim that I have the slightest clue or understanding for it.  There were few occasions where I walked up to the piece of artwork and was able to make a quick guess as to what it was about or what the artist was trying to get at.  Most of the artwork involved an initial glance, a review of the description on the wall, and several minutes of attempting to comprehend the meaning behind it.  For the vast majority of the pieces, I was still left in confusion as to the meaning behind it and the artist’s reasons for making the piece. 

Amidst the confusion and lack of understanding of modern art as a whole, I did enjoy some of the pieces and could appreciate the artistic process.  In one of the first rooms, the museum housed a couple of Anselm Kiefer’s pieces, including Aschenblume.  I will admit that I didn’t get the symbolism and meaning until I read the card next to it, but I thought that it was a tremendous piece of artwork that obviously took a lot of time and work to create.  As I moved from left to right while viewing the painting I noticed that it moved with you and seemed to be giving different vantage points.  I also enjoyed Alain Jaquet’s ‘Camouflage Boticelli (Birth of Venus)’, which played off of a reaction to Boticelli’s ‘Birth of Venus’ and a mix of modern influences with shell gas.  This painting caught my interest because it wasn’t completely straightforward and required a little background, but I didn’t find myself asking ‘why?’.  It isn’t that I am against art that challenges you to think, but I did have difficulties with finding some of the modern art being ambiguous to the point of frustration.  For instance, when viewing the museum’s entire set of Sean Scully’s ‘Catherine’ collection, I simply could not wrap my head around why someone would create 8 paintings that were simply stripes in different patterns and colors, all with the same title. 

After thinking about all of the artwork that I encountered I have concluded that I only have some general ideas of what modern art is about.  In class, we discussed how the modernism movement was a reaction to movements such as romanticism, realism, and naturalism.  The movement was rejecting what came before it and the expectations of society.  Thinking about the main goals of the movement, it seems like the modernist artists took these ideas to the extreme and tried to defy anything done before.  The artwork doesn’t answer or fulfill any expectations and challenges the audience however it can.  Just like the stories that we have been reading in class, void of satisfying conclusions, the pieces doesn’t have immediate messages or an overall apparent meaning.  Although I don’t have much understanding when it comes to the artwork, I will admit the artists succeed in forcing others to think and challenge society. 

Overall, I thought the trip to the museum and the experience with modern art was both interesting and confusing.  Even though I can appreciate the movement and those behind it I am still left with my initial impulses to ask why.  Why paint an entire collection of stripes? Why were so many works left untitled?  Why present a piece of scrap metal as a sculpture? Why so much ambiguity? Why?

Meeting Suelli

After several dozen emails, comparing schedules, and much confusion, I was finally able to meet my conversation partner.  I was honestly kind of nervous about the experience because I wasn’t sure how much English my partner would speak and how difficult it would be for us to understand each other.  I was beginning to think that there would be some issues because of all of the email difficulties. It took us several tries to set up a meeting time and place that would work with both of us.  Finally, we were able to decide on meeting at the Barnes and Noble bookstore on the corner of University at 2:15 on Tuesday.  Due to the scheduling issues and how long it took to make plans in the first place, it’s safe to say I was more than a little concerned about how all of this would go. 

At 2:15 on Tuesday, I found a table at the bookstore and began to wait for my partner to arrive.  When thinking about the emails that we had sent back and forth to arrange everything about our first meeting, I suddenly realized that I had overlooked one major detail; we hadn’t discussed how we would know who the other was when we saw each other.  In fact, all I knew beyond the meeting place and time was a name, Suelli de los Santos Mateus. I began to worry that this would cause further delay in the whole process and perhaps I would not get to meet my partner after all.  However, all it took was one quick phone call and some more patient waiting and my partner finally arrived. 

Suelli is an 18-year-old, Portugese speaking, girl, from Angola, a country in the southern portion of Africa.  I will admit that I had to look up its exact location on a map even though it sounded familiar.  I was pleasantly surprised to find out that communicating in person was going quite smoothly compared to all of our electronic attempts.  She informed me that she was in the high-intermediate level of the IEP classes with only one more level to go before completion of the program.  Because of this, she seems to be more advanced in her English than I had assumed. 

She told me a little about the IEP program and how it works to start out with.  One word that stood out in her description of the classes was “boring”.  After she described her typical weekly schedule of intensive English classes, with very little variation from day to day, I could see why she felt that way.  Suelli thought that it was indeed helping her learn English and that it was effective, but I can only imagine how boring it would be taking the same classes, about largely the same subject, every week, especially if your interests lied elsewhere.  For instance, she wants to move on to study at a university next fall to study microbiology, which doesn’t have too much in common with English studies.  When I asked her how easy or difficult she found learning English, she replied that the study of the grammar and mechanics was pretty easy and it was the actual speech that was most difficult.  As far as I could tell she was doing well with speaking English and there were only a couple of times where I had to break down what I was trying to say or ask into simpler parts. 

I also discovered that she chose to come to TCU and go through this program because she has had family and friends attend here and also has family members that live close by.  Having family in Texas was one of the same reasons I ended up attending TCU also.  I found it interesting that even though we were from two completely different parts of the world, we selected the same school for similar reasons.  I did have to explain where exactly Nebraska was by talking about its location in relation to bigger states she has heard of.  Honestly, I wasn’t surprised, as I have to do this with many people actually from the United States as well. 

Overall, it was a great experience and I am looking forward to our next meeting.  I learned a lot about her on our first meeting and cannot wait to learn more.