My Favorite Teacher

I’ve had many great teachers and professors throughout the years I’ve been in school, but I think one of them deserves credit for how much I have continued to enjoy learning.  When I was in fifth grade, my U.S. history teacher was Mr. Baumgardner; he was just out of college and beginning his teaching career.  He expected a lot out of us right away; we took notes on fill in the blank outlines he printed out for us and listened the while he lectured for the whole class time.  We even had to write short essays on our tests, which is a lot more than most fifth graders are expected to do.  From this description it might sound like Mr. Baumgardner was the kind of teacher that kids would dread having, but he knew how to keep us entertained and interested.  He brought in reproductions of historical artifacts from sailing ships or World War II.  He ordered a set of ancient coins and let us try to clean them and see the writing printed on them.  He even held a plastic axe while he lectured...if anyone started to fall asleep he would hit the edges of their desks with it (very entertaining).  I learned so much about history that year that it quickly became one of my favorite subjects. 

Since I went to a small private school for middle school (there were about 30 people in my grade), teachers often taught different classes each year.  I was fortunate enough to have Mr. B. for two more years, for world history and Texas history.  In world history when we studied the Greeks, Mr. B. told us to make shields and spears and bring them to school.  After we finished discussing the battle of Thermopylae, we spent two weeks outside being trained as a hoplite army.  We marched in formation and learned commands that the Greek armies would have used.  At the end of our training time, we got to have a mock battle and fight each other this way.  It was a fun experience, and I still remember a lot about this period of history that I might have forgotten otherwise.

 

During Texas history the next year, we got to participate in another exercise like this.  This time we reenacted the Grass Fight, a small battle from the Texas Revolution where Texan troops attacked a Mexican mule train.  We went outside onto the soccer field; half of us pulled wheelbarrows full of hay across the field while the other half attacked.  Mr. B. gave us all cans of silly string to use as weapons. 

I’ve never had another teacher who taught like Mr. B.  I learned so much during the three years I had him as a teacher, and I owe my essay writing skills to him.  None of my other middle school teachers thought that kids our age could pay attention to difficult course material or write essays, but the early start I got from Mr. B’s teaching style prepared me for high school and college too. 

The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock

Since we read this poem at the beginning of the semester, I have thought back to it again and again.  It is one of my favorite poems from the course.  I learned the word “solipsism” for the first time during the discussion of this poem, and I think that term applies to all of modernism in one way or another. 

I love this poem because I can picture it very vividly in my head.  The narrator is an aging man, and the poem chronicles his thoughts as he analyzes himself in the mirror.  The ‘you’ he talks to is himself.  He stares into his reflection, getting ready to go out to a party.  I picture him as someone just on the edge of high society: too wealthy to be excluded from exclusive social events, but not rich enough to be acknowledged or safe from society’s critical eyes.  Prufrock knows all the people at the party because they are always the same people.

 I think this story would make an excellent short film.  I thought about trying to film it for my final project, but I didn’t have the resources or the movie-making talent to do it justice.  I would love to see it filmed starting with Prufrock in front of the mirror.  After that, it would fade from this image slowly.  A lavish party scene would fade in, with the silhouette of Prufock’s reflection still in the background.  The party scenes would be a different tone or a little blurrier than the mirror scenes to show it is a daydream.  Once Prufrock’s reflection faded out of the scene, I would film the party as if the camera was mounted on his forehead, so the viewers could see everything exactly as he did.  I wouldn’t show his face at all except in the mirror. 

The reason I think this would make a great film is the way Eliot writes.  The language he uses and the way he structured the poem made me feel everything Prufrock felt.  I was (obviously) able to picture the whole thing in my head, and I got a real sense of the situation.  Phrases like “pinned and wriggling on the wall” create a tangible feeling of the discomfort and near panic that Prufrock feels in his position in life.  His question of “do I dare disturb the universe?” shows how monumental of a feat it would be for him to change who he is and break out of the shell he spends his life in.  This story reminds me a little of the last one we read, “The Secret Life of Walter Mitty,” because both the characters live their lives completely in their heads.  The only difference is Prufrock’s dissatisfaction with himself; Walter Mitty seems content to live in his head. 

There are some great allusions in this poem too, like the beginning passage, the reference to Hamlet, and the mention of Michelangelo.  These add a level of sophistication to the poem, showing that both Eliot and Prufrock are well educated.  

Even when I am writing this blog, months after first reading the poem, I feel so strongly for Prufrock that I wish I could reach out, touch him on the shoulder, and tell him to live his life in a way that will make him happy, before it’s too late.

Molly

When I go home for breaks, I realize how much I miss my pets.  I first noticed it over Christmas break, when I think I annoyed my family by yelling “Aww! Look at them! They’re so cute!” anytime one of my cats or my dog did anything remotely interesting (like stretch, or yawn...or roll over).  After about five of these outbursts, my parents and sister just stopped looking up from what they were doing at all.  As I read the list of possible blog topics for class, I knew I wanted to write one about my dog.  My cats are alright too, but they only like me sometimes.  And my dog, Molly, has a much more interesting story.  

All three of our pets are adopted from rescue organizations, so it’s hard to say what breed Molly really is.  She’s salt and pepper colored, with a big black spot on her back, pointy ears and a curled, fluffy tail.  She looks like a combination between a blue heeler (if you know what those look like) and something small, like a Chihuahua or terrier.  Molly has quite a personality, and when I walk her down the street she holds her tail up high in a haughty way.  This always makes other dogs bark at her and try to get off of their leashes.  My family has had Molly for about nine years, since the summer I was in fifth grade.  

That summer, my mom and I volunteered to work a few days a week at the Humane Society of North Texas near our house.  Well, my mom actually worked, and I mostly played with the animals.  The shelter wasn’t very big; there were probably only about twenty animals there at a time.  If any of the animals were especially friendly they roamed the shelter freely and got to stay in the front office.  From the beginning of her time there, Molly was that dog.  She never barked and even though she was only about a year old she reacted calmly to everything that went on.  My mom and I both loved her because when we sat down to play with her, she would crawl into our laps and put her paws on our shoulders, like a hug.  I’d never been “hugged” by a dog before, so I thought she was pretty special. 

Towards the end of the summer, we heard the good news that she’d been adopted.  On the day her new owners were scheduled to come pick her up, we said our goodbyes to her and hoped she would be happy at her new home.  A few days later, she was still there.  No one ever came to get her or called to say they’d changed their minds.  My mom and I felt like this happened for a reason, and that we were supposed to adopt her instead.  We brought my younger sister to see Molly, and she loved her too.  We bought her and took her home that afternoon.  I couldn’t stop smiling, petting Molly as my mom signed all the paperwork.  During this whole process, my dad was away at a conference for work.  We didn’t tell him anything until after we adopted Molly, since it all happened so fast.  My mom worried that he would be upset when he came home since he didn’t get to help us decide, but as soon as he got home, Molly jumped in his lap and hugged him too.  After that there was no doubt that Molly would stay.  Nine years later, she still hugs me every time I go home to see her. 

Conversation Partners

Since my conversation partner decided to stop responding to my text messages after spring break, I thought it would be a good idea to write about the conversation partner program in general.  When I found out at the beginning of the semester that we were going to meet with the ESL students to help them learn English and gain experience with other cultures, I was excited.  I think the program is a great idea, and when the pairs work out, like a lot of them did for the class, it is a fun learning experience.  At first I thought Pamela and I would become friends, because we got along well at our first meeting with few language problems.  She offered to bring me pictures of her home in Brazil and we talked about going out to dinner in some restaurants around Fort Worth.  But with Pamela's busy schedule of classes, her job, and the fact that she lives about twenty minutes from TCU, several of our next planned meetings had to be canceled.

It wasn't until right before spring break when we met again, and Pamela told me she was probably going to transfer to TCC next semester since it is closer to her house and cheaper. Maybe she meant she was leaving TCU right after spring break, because I didn't hear from her again after that.

I wish I had gotten a chance to know Pamela better.  I loved hearing stories in class and reading other people's blogs about their conversation partner experiences.  I would have enjoyed meeting Pamela for lunch every week at the same time, or taking her to play pool in the Rec center.  Even though it didn't work out as well for me, I had a good time getting to know Pamela as best I could and learning a little bit about another culture.  The conversation partners program is an interesting way to approach TCU's global awareness credit.  It may have gotten off to a rocky start for some people this semester, especially with the "unintentional winter break," but I hope it continues to be part of the curriculum for this course.

The Tunnel of Oppression

When I went through the tunnel of oppression last week, I wasn’t really sure what to expect.  Only I and one other girl went through in my group, and at the beginning a volunteer handed us nametags to give to each other.  Mine said “failure” and hers said “zero.”  It was awkward having to put such a mean label on a total stranger, but it made me realize that even though we don’t go around sticking tags on people, we all mentally do this every day.  Just seeing the word “failure,” and thinking about being labeled that way made me uncomfortable, which I think was the point.  

The first room we went into was about Hindus in Bhutan, who are being oppressed by their Buddhist government.  There were pictures of starving people and piles of people’s belongings thrown into the streets.  I learned that there are quite a few Bhutanese refugees living in Fort Worth.  It made me want to get involved, since there are people living right here in Fort Worth that I could help.  I am not always able to donate money to charities overseas, and it is also hard to know if the charities are actually legitimate.  I will probably try to find some more information about these people to see if I can get involved and help them.

The next room was dedicated to the child soldiers and suffering in the Congo.  We watched a video that showed many horrible images.  There were pictures of children sleeping on the ground outside juxtaposed next to pictures of American mothers kissing their children goodnight in bed.  In another set of pictures, American boys chased a soccer ball, while children from the Congo wielded guns almost as big as they were.  Even though I’ve seen images from the Congo before, it is hard to relate to them because nothing we experience in America is anywhere close to that bad.  Seeing images of happy families right next to the suffering children really put everything into perspective for me. 

After that, the third room’s topic was gay marriage.  It showed some pictures of gay and lesbian celebrities, and we watched a short video about Prop 8 and protests advocating gay marriage.  I liked this room, because since we live in a free country, it isn’t right to tell people who they can and can’t marry.  With all of the other freedoms people have in the US, I don’t see how letting gay people marry each other would change anything. 

The next room was the most shocking and disturbing to me.  It talked about female circumcision, which apparently happens in a lot of less developed countries and villages.  The walls were covered in stories of women who were forced to go through this torture by their own relatives who thought it was a good idea.  It was hard for me to read about this, and it seemed like the ultimate form of oppressing women.  All of the women whose testimonies were up on the walls said they felt humiliated by the “surgery,” and it even said men preferred wives who hadn’t been through this. 

The last room was about the number of gay or lesbian young adults who are homeless.  It is sad that people are kicked out of their homes because of their sexuality, but I didn’t understand some aspects of this room.  The statistics said things like “36 percent of all homeless adolescents are homosexual.” To me, that doesn’t seem like a terribly high percent.  I would have liked to have other statistics to compare this one to, so I could think about it in perspective...Maybe it is a lot compared to the overall number of homosexual people in the US.  I think this room could have focused on just the number of homeless children.  That seems like a big enough problem without the sexual orientation aspect.  That room was the last room in the Tunnel.  I would have liked it if there were more rooms in the tunnel; I expected at least ten or fifteen topics.

The Tunnel of Oppression was a great experience for me.  Not because I enjoyed learning about other people’s suffering, but because everyone needs to know that these things happen in the world.  I am glad TCU does the tunnel, and I’m glad I was able to go through it.  It college, it is easy to get wrapped up in the “bubble” of campus life.  Even though it is often painful, it’s good for us to be reminded that, as the more privileged individuals on this planet, it is our duty to help those who are less fortunate.

Disappointment

A few weeks ago, I turned the TV on in my room just for some noise while I worked on homework.  There was really nothing on that I wanted to watch, but I ended up leaving it on TLC’s relatively new show “Extreme Couponing.”  I didn’t have any interest in watching this show at first, but as it continued I began to ignore my homework and watch in disgust.  This show is absolutely ridiculous.  It follows several women around each episode as they go through their grocery shopping, trying to save as much money as possible with coupons. In my opinion, coupons are really only helpful if they save you money on something you were planning on buying anyway.   

On this show the families spend hours, even days, cutting out every coupon they can find before doing their grocery shopping.  When they shop, the people on the episode I watched buy enormous amounts of food: one woman bought something like 60 packages of cold cuts, and another bought around 30 containers of cream cheese.  These people have normal sized families.  They don’t feed entire communities or give to the homeless.  Each family filled several shopping carts to the brim, and one couple even checked out separately, with at least two carts each.  These people spent over 1,000 dollars on their purchase, and after putting the cashiers through the torture of scanning thousands of coupons, they walked out with their masses of food for less than 100 dollars.  The part of the show that disgusted me the most was when they got home to put away the food.  These people have entire rooms that are already filled with food from previous shopping trips.  One family had so much that they kept cereal in their own closets, and stuffed hundreds of packages of toilet paper under their children’s beds.  This is just crazy.  One family had enough food, BEFORE their televised shopping trip, to feed their whole family for nine years.  And they still go grocery shopping. Regularly.  I have no idea what is wrong with these people, but I think this is sick.  Our consumer culture has become so obsessed with buying things and getting the best deal that people go to extremes like this.  Most of the food they buy will be stale or expired before they even get close to consuming it.  No one in the world needs nine years’ worth of food stored in their home just because they like to see how much money they can save at the grocery store.  Especially when there are people, even in the United States, who worry about where their next meal will come from.  How can people be so selfish?  TLC promotes this show like it is a great thing that people can save this much money.  I think they should show it as a group of people who need serious therapy.

Don’t get me wrong, I love a good sale as much as the next person.  But come on, how much does one person really need to buy?  There is a point where saving money just turns into plain greed, and these people are way past it.  I obviously have a strong opinion about this, but anyone who hasn’t seen the show should watch it and see what they think.  I think it would be hard not to be absolutely disgusted. This show made me disappointed, both in society for allowing something like this to happen and be considered a good thing, and in TLC for making a show that promotes this.  I haven't been as disappointed as I was watching this show in quite a long time.

Poor Francis Macomber

I don’t know why, but I felt like Margot was going to kill her husband from the beginning.  The title made it obvious that he would die, and as soon as she was introduced I just got a feeling.  Everything she says to her husband is designed to undermine him in some way.  She is very aggressive. I know you hate that word, Dr. Williams, but I think it’s necessary here.  She keeps reminding Francis of his failure with the lion.  When she asks at dinner if Francis shot the eland, she immediately asks if they are dangerous when Francis says he did shoot them.  If he is happy about something or having a good time, she has to shoot him down.  I did think some of Margot and Francis’ conversations were funny though, because she is so mean to him in such a sweet tone.  I can just picture the scene in my head.  It seems like something that would be on a sitcom.  I liked the way Wilson analyzes Margot.  He says that American women are the cruelest in the world, and this section where he describes her sounds like he is describing an animal that he is hunting.  He clearly labels her as a predator, which is completely accurate. 

Wilson to me is a funny character.  He is so manly that he is almost ridiculous.  I feel like Wilson is Hemingway’s alter ego, which I thought was funny.  The whole time I was reading the story I just pictured Hemingway writing this and wanting to be Wilson.  He is the epitome of Hemingway’s idea of manliness: he hunts, he drinks, he sleeps with women but isn’t married to any of them, he breaks the rules, and other men are jealous of him.  He is also a fairly level-headed character who provides a contrast to Margot and Francis’ violent relationship. 

I hated reading about the hunting parts of the story, because I don’t understand the desire to hunt things.  Reading about it just makes me sad for the animals.  I did like the way Hemingway described the way the lion felt when he was shot though.  It was heartbreaking to read, but it gave me a real sense of the scene.  It set the ending up nicely too.  When it said “he felt a sudden, white-hot, blinding flash explode inside his head and that was all he ever felt,” I wasn’t sure if it was the buffalo’s feeling or Francis’.  I figured it was Francis, but I still wasn’t sure that he was shot.  I thought maybe he had a heart attack or something because of his excitement. 

I think Margot killed her husband on purpose.  She couldn’t stand not having control over him, so she did the only thing left that she could do to control him.  Shooting Francis was so desperate and cowardly that it shows she was really powerless to him once he found his confidence.  Like Taylor said in her blog, Margot is now afraid of her husband and she loses control.  I don’t think this is really intended in the story at all, but something was weird to me about how Wilson suggested leaving the gun in the car with Margot.  I felt like maybe they planned to kill Francis together.  When Wilson kept mocking her at the end it made me feel like he had talked her into doing something that she didn’t really think through.  The last thing he says to her is really creepy to me.  He will only stop when she says please, showing that he has power over her and he is in charge of the situation.  That is the line that made me think he might have set her up to kill Francis, because it seemed manipulative and controlling.  Like I said, I don’t think this is what Hemingway intended, I just thought it was interesting to read it that way. 

I felt bad for Francis.  I think he went on this hunt in the first place to prove himself.  He seemed like an okay guy, and both society and his cruel wife had him trapped and emasculated.  Instead of finding his masculinity and courage like he expected on the trip, he is further mocked by Wilson's manliness and the incident with the lion.  When he finally does take control and find himself, he only gets to enjoy it for a few minutes before it gets taken away with a cowardly shot.  His wife shoots him in the back of the head, while he is turned around and defenseless like an animal.