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.