Monthly- Archives: May 2012

May 19, 2012

OSCAR S

The River of Life

“Bilbo used to say there was only one Road; that it was like a great river: its springs were at every doorstep, and every path was its tributary.” Frodo, The Fellowship of the Ring

Bilbo Baggins had a very consistent way of life, but when Gandalf with Thorin and Company came, everything changed. Bilbo never wanted to go on the journey to the Lonely Mountain to find treasure, even though he is a descendant of the Took family who are unlike the Baggins clan, in that they like adventure. He was shy around other hobbits and enjoyed but often evaded their company. Bilbo never wanted to be pulled away from his normal way of life, in a way his stream, but by straying away from it he was changed forever: because of this, Bilbo has been remembered by many people.

That great river is my daily life which leaves a path behind me that people will remember. All the smaller streams and tributaries are the things that have changed or added maybe just a single word into my life, whether good or bad. A river cannot determine what is going into it; it just takes what it is given. Also like a river, my life goes around things that I cannot get through. The river goes through the easiest path, involuntarily. The small tributaries may make the river clean, fresh, and full of game, while others can bring poison and filth. The smaller tributaries, like debate club and jazz band, also have their input in my life. My daily life is filled with these experiences. My sister, mother, father, other close family relatives, and good friends may be the primary tributaries that flow into me and add to the formerly miniscule river, and most of the time, my family will give me good advice, help, and guidance, while every once in a while, they hurt or frustrate me. My friends also provide the same: they bring laughter and excitement into my life, which therefore makes my life full of color and happiness. They, to, will occasionally say a few hurtful things that will make an ugly bend in the river, almost like a bruise in my heart. The smaller and less important tributaries are people that I have only met once or twice, or a stranger that just said one word to me. It might be a piece of advice that changed my life; maybe they made me feel horrible about myself. It might just be a “Hi!” or it could be a swear word.

I cannot have total control who adds what into my life. All I can choose is the way I make of it. My first reaction to a statement or action of another may be one-sided; however, I might be able to change my reaction, so that it works to my advantage. If someone said, “You got a horrible grade,” I might take that as criticism, but I could look to it as an opportunity for improvement. In life, if I can’t solve a problem, all I can do is just go around it and move on. I may need to do much more work and take much more time. For instance, if I have a friend that I have difficulty getting along with, it’s almost impossible for me just to be nice to him. I have to take a longer route and try to say nice things to him or her, or do kind things for them. Afterwards, I go and play with them or talk to them during class or lunch. It may take a few weeks but in the end, I have finished my detour and am now friends with that person.

Once, my dad missed an exit in the Grand Canyon where there is an exit every 20 miles or so. To make things worse, there was really bad traffic so the cars were barely moving. This is unlike city exits, which are relatively close to each other. Once you pass an exit it may take a very long time to get back on track: just like floating along a squiggly river, once you pass a certain spot, you may see it again and may need to go 5, 10, maybe 20 times the distance to reach your destination.

I always have a high expectation of myself, but if it took me seven times longer to do anything, I would think that every achievement was a huge leap. I will then learn to be more accurate and careful with my work so that every final product is satisfying. If I handed in my test later or practiced piano slowly and very carefully, I would improve much faster, but perhaps accomplish less. Sometimes I don’t want to take time to do things, and I cut through the task quickly, like a straight river, but I may have missed something very important or valuable in-between. When I write essays, I frequently rush through them and I don’t reread them unless I am required to. If I took more time and if I was more careful, I would probably get higher grades on the essays and improve my writing. I will also face obstacles or situations in which I cannot take the quick way out. I need to take more time dealing with these obstacles. The problem could be a relationship with friends, or picking which college to go to. Taking a quicker or longer path will either bring good or bad fortune, and I could regret it for the rest of my life or I could be proud about it forever. I may need to pick which college I go to. If I pick one that I later on regret, I’ll never be able to forgive myself. It could also be daily things, like, if I need to study for a test. The wisest choice may be to study but sometimes I don’t because I think I am prepared. Afterwards, I could be remorseful for not studying, or, I could walk away with an A.

From time to time, I make decisions to separate from my main life and just go off to other places, like a nature walk. It’s like just finding the time to lay on a hill, stare at the clouds and relax. I may also ask for guidance for a problem. Sooner or later, I turn around and go back with the flow. When I go to a different place, a small stream breaks of the river and goes to where it wants to go. It takes its time and then after its objective is complete, it turns back around to the main river. I may go back to the place once in a while but I never stay. Before, I was a small stream, slowly building up over time. After all my wandering and waiting, that’s when my river finally reaches the end and enters the oceans and seas with all the other hundreds and thousands of rivers, all joining together. All my experience is helping me build up for the end, the ocean, as all rivers and streams must come to an ocean. After all this time, I now prepare myself for storms, lightning, and waves of adulthood.

May 17, 2012

LARRY H

COURAGE

Courage is a trait; it helps create heroes and aids in the destruction of villains. People all over the world have gained this trait and used it to protect what they believe in and what they love. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was an African-American social rights activist who fought for the rights of blacks in the United States till the day he was killed. He faced many troubles such as constant death threats and pressure from the government to stop his cultural movement. Even though these obstacles blocked him from achieving equal rights, King had the courage to lead his people and perform peaceful protest. As a result of his courage, King ultimately succeeded in his civil rights movement and brought equality to all of the races.

King must have felt fear when he received the death threats sent by people opposing his movement. Eddie Rickenbacker, an American WWI fighter ace once said, “Courage is doing what you are afraid to do. There can be no courage unless you are scared.” Fear will cause one to be courageous, in fact, it is a call for courage. When fear is nonexistent, courage is not needed. Courage is the process of overcoming a certain fear. It is only when fear exists that the act will be seen as a courageous one. This kind of courage starts from an impulse but can slowly grow and eventually become a massive force. Someone once said, “Every oak tree once started out as a couple of nuts who stood their ground.” The nuts who were courageous enough to stand and stay strong will grow to something unbeatable. The oak tree, which started out as a couple of nuts, is large and strong and cannot be easily toppled. Every courageous man will start out as something weak. Later they will gain even more courage and eventually that person will change the world just like Dr. King.

An Indian corporate executive and a teacher, Keshavan Nair, felt that courage could lead people into discovering more of their traits and gifts. “With courage, you will dare to take risks, have the strength to be compassionate, and the wisdom to be humble. Courage is the foundation of integrity.” One with courage will have the willpower not just to take risks but also the willpower to gain a string of new skills. Courage will open new doors and aid a person to gain not just bravery, but also compassion and humility. If this courage is not part of one’s foundation, one will lack integrity. Without integrity, one will not grow and gain new traits and wisdom. The sprout has died and the core of the oak tree will never be established. With the foundation of courage the tree will continue to grow and achieve its maximum height and strength.

May 17, 2012

HELEN (HANYU) L

A Wish’s Journey

It starts with a shiny penny plunging through the fountain.

It continues with the quick flick of a fallen eyelash.

Next it’s blown and travels the air from a dandelion,

And it blossoms when met with a shooting star’s dashing flash.

It is dazzled when encountered by a simple wishbone.

It is secured by the finding of a four-leaf clover.

Lastly it’s sealed with the sight of eleven-eleven.

Making the chances of that wish becoming true closer.

May 16, 2012

HELEN (HANYU) L

State = Author

Alison Bechdel

State by State, a Panoramic Portrait of America, holds a very promising title. At first look, the readers learn that the editors made a vow to dissect each piece of the country, state by state. However, the question is how the book does so. The book could have been a guidebook about all the states, providing statistics, fun facts, and cool places to visit, so visitors could figure out where exactly they want to go. It could’ve been a poetry book, containing artistic descriptions of each place in the U.S. It also might’ve been a sort of biography of each state, informing the readers about each state’s journey. State by State however, is unique in its own way since it is made of fifty personal essays, each written by a different author.

Matt Weiland and Sean Wilsey first thought of the idea of State by State back in 2002. They kept in mind that projects like this were done before on a greater scale, such as the Works Progress Administration American Guide series of the Federal Writers’ Project in the 1930s. The WPA State Guides contained vivid and detailed histories of each state with descriptions of every city and town. The format was formal and uniform, comprising essays on the state’s history and culture, along with descriptions of its major cities. Writers would get in their cars and tour the state, gathering information and photographs. However, the editors for State by State wanted to tackle this on a more personal level: they wanted to reach out to the readers in a closer and friendlier way than the WPA by publishing a personal essay about each state.

Personal essays, unlike other analyses and compositions, define the subjects in a completely different way. Personal essays are essays that are based on the author’s opinions, beliefs, background and memory, and can create a writing piece that is unique and persuasive. The essays in State by State mostly view the state through the eyes of a native. This book showed off a different side of America: the feeling, the intangible yet pervasive sense of the state. Most of these personal experiences one is unable to obtain by looking through a guidebook or history book. The readers live and feel the state from the essay, and in the end, discover the authors as well.

In Vermont, Alison Bechdel reveals both herself and the state. This personal essay had style that is creative and original; Vermont is one of the two graphic, or comic strip, essays included within State by State. Bechdel had been keeping a journal from the age of ten and learned to express herself through the collaboration of words and illustrations. The author is able to express her thoughts and opinions, facts, flashbacks, dialogue, and other information through drawings of herself in the mountainous environment. Not only is this appealing to read since she provides illustrations, but at the end of the essay there is a map detailing attractions and activities Vermont offers. Bechdel takes the reader step by step through her reasoning for moving to Vermont; she relocated from the Twin Cities because she wanted to live with a lover, but she stayed, after breaking up, for the place. When explaining why she stayed, she not only reveals Vermont’s appeal, but also her own interests, personality, and struggles.

What makes an essay personal? First off, the memory of the author connecting through to the present helps boost the intimacy of the text and readers, bound as we all are by memory. Alison Bechdel in her personal essay on Vermont, illustrates a flashback in the comic about her grandpa taking her to see a movie: “He took me to see “The Sound of Music” when I was four. It moved us both profoundly. While it evoked memories for him of his Tyrolean childhood, it became a memory for me – my earliest erotic experience.” This is appealing to the readers because they feel as if they’ve tasted a bit of the author’s past, and can feel how it connects to why she’s living in Vermont now, in that she seems to connect to her ancestors. Also she refers back through the 20th century all the way to the Revolutionary War. Both the state’s and Bechdel’s past seem to be interwoven qualitatively; this provides the readers with a mental timeline, which guides them to acknowledge Bechdel as a true Vermonter.

The author is persuasive and clever. “I was confused, of course. I’d fallen in love not with this person, but with this place.” This reveals who she is and how she was in love with Vermont, rather than the person that brought her there. Also, “What’s so compelling to me about the mountains? Is it that there’s always somewhere to go? Is it the supramundane perspective afforded by a summit? Is it genetics?” The repeated “Is it …” provokes us to learn all the reasons why Bechdel would stay in Vermont. “I always feel a little out of place, but it’s place, of course, that binds me to these people.” This reveals that the reason she remained is that she truly adores the state, viewing it as more than the people there. Through this, the reader can feel as if Vermont is Bechdel and Bechdel is Vermont, since the place is what keeps her lingering: “…our microclimate, our brief spring-times, the particular contours and declivities of our rural, plural habitat.” The readers feel an invisible bonding among the citizens of Vermont, their unique love for their state, and their independence.

In this graphic essay all the words are capitalized. Each of the letters, as if screaming, draws the reader into the context. While the capitalized font expresses more anxiety and confusion when compared to normal lowercase letters, the story seems to be based upon this anxiety and confusion, since Bechdel perhaps discovered more about herself through it? She realized her love for the place, and recognized how it superseded her need for relationships. Indeed, another one of her partners left because she refused to move down into town with her. Bechdel is dedicated to the place and loves its mountain features and great scenery, and she’d rather stay at the isolated mountaintop to enjoy the view rather than move down into town to socialize. “Here at last was the elusive conjunction I had longed for. I was close to nature, but had not left civilization behind.” Vermont provided her with both nature and civilization, which resulted in a great attachment to the place.

After reading through the author’s memories, descriptions of, and reasoning for why she stayed, one can see why she was so driven to write and illustrate this essay. She wanted to create the piece because of the beautiful scenery of the state. Also, she wanted to show how Vermont, in the end, is truly her own best reflection, and a place where she can be herself. The author is driven by the urge to express her opinion on how Vermont is all about living in the mountains and their captivating scenery, and about separating oneself from most social communication.

The overall impact for the readers is that Vermont is the best of both worlds – you can enjoy nature while you can go to town and be social. Some, like the author, relish spending time outdoors, admiring mountains and breathtaking views. Others work in town and are close to civilization. Many own shops, “Independent bookstore, independent hardware store, independent stationery store! … and wage war with human nature at large.” It is the author’s intentions of writing the piece that reveals the State, and herself as well. These ideas drive the personal essay, reach out to the readers, and reveal to them the strong bond of the author and the state.

Alison Bechdel lives in Vermont today, and after reading her essay on Vermont, readers can understand why she never left. The essay takes the reader deep down into the core of the state and shows readers that it is independent yet connected within. The essay uncovers what makes Vermont Vermont: the trees, beautiful scenery, its loving sense of bonding, and heroic mountains. However, by doing so, the essay takes the reader down to the core of the author as well. Bechdel explained with her memory of ‘A Sound of Music’: “Absence of Nazis, presence of hills. The same reason I moved to Vermont.”

The State by State collection shows off America in a personal way. The readers live and feel the state from the author’s intimate descriptions. State by State certainly lived up to its name since the book uses carefully crafted personal essays to explore one state at a time.

May 15, 2012

HANNAH H

State by State: A Panoramic Portrait of America, edited by Matt Weiland and Sean Wilsey, is a compilation of fifty personal essays, written by fifty talented authors. Each piece is unique, but all strive to reach the same goal. Every single one of the fifty writers and reporters whose names are in this book wants to succeed in capturing the essence of the state he or she is writing about. Weiland and Wilsey’s goal with State by State was to replicate the Works Progress Administration’s American Guide Series of the 1930s on a smaller, more personal scale. The Federal Writers’ project assigned over six thousand American writers, researchers, and others to put together
something that would represent America. Each state had a guide, some of which were over 500 pages, composed of essays written on all imaginable topics of that state. Weiland and Wilsey thought that 21st century America needed something similar to the Guide Series, a book that would explain America to the people who lived in it. As Weiland put it in his preface to the book, “despite drive-time radio and the nightly news and the Sunday paper, despite all the books and blog posts, the documentaries and songs, America and the lives lived here remain strangely and surprisingly under described.”

The essay I chose to focus on in State By State was Missouri, written by Jacki Lyden. In her essay, she explains Missouri to her audience by giving historical background on St. Louis, and recounting her experiences with a Bosnian man, Suki, who runs a newspaper in the state, and her trip with him to Hannibal, Missouri— the city that thrives around Mark Twain and his fiction.

While Lyden herself is not a Missourian by birth, she had been to the state before her trip where she met Suki. “I first came to St. Louis in 1985, as a young NPR reporter, there to chronicle the city’s struggle to stagger back to life”, Lyden writes. I believe that this makes Lyden very qualified to write an essay about a trip in the state; as she had experienced Missouri before, she was not completely new to the place, but she had also not grown up in Missouri, so her impartial eyes would be open to observe the state.

One of Lyden’s main points in her essay was that St. Louis was a city that had started out so full of life and slowly lost all of its excitement and enthusiasm. “Once the fourth largest city in the United States, St. Louis was a ghost of its former glory. It was as if all the descendants of its pioneers had kept going west, no longer full of adventure but frightened urban refugees, turning their backs on the city as fast as their forebears had come.” Lyden stresses the point that Missouri has so muchto offer, and yet it has not reached its highest potential since its early beginnings. “Only the architectural grand dames were left to mourn the suburban flight… though the soaring Saarinen arch at the western edge of the Mississippi River was beautiful, a 630- foot steel masterpiece, it seemed like a mocking tombstone.” Lyden also points out that “Union Station, a ninety-year old masterpiece that local residents claimed saw more traffic during WWII than Kennedy Airport on any given day, had just been refurbished for $176 million”, and then quotes loft developer Leon Strauss’s words during an interview with her: “the sense of abandonment in St. Louis is so profound, so uniquely ‘St. Louisian’ that we’re able to take over 100 acres of the Central West End without a single newspaper or radio station asking a question about it.” Lyden states that when she attended the party to open the lofts, “Almost no one came”. One can sense the bitter-sweetness of what Union Station and the Saarinen Arch represent through her descriptions. Lyden brightens the mood a bit by then going on to state how the Bosnians are helping bring the city back to its former glory.

Much of Lyden’s essay is focused on two men— Sukrija “Suki” Dzidzovic, and Samuel Clemens (Mark Twain). Suki and his wife and his two daughters escaped from Sarajevo after they had had enough of the siege that was going on there. (The Serbs wanted to create a new republic, and tried to take control of an area in Bosnia and Herzegovina, causing a lot of fighting). Lyden introduces Suki first, by giving background information on Bosnian immigrants in St. Louis. “Refugees of religious and ethnic persecution have helped make St. Louis grown again… St. Louis is now home to approximately fifty thousand Bosnians— the biggest Bosnian population outside Bosnia itself.” Suki is their “unofficial spokesman”. Lyden then goes on to describe Suki, saying that he “speaks with the confidence of Dale Carnegie, Charles Atlas and Donald Trump”. Suki is not afraid to say what is on his mind, and he is fearless when it comes to doing what he thinks is right: “I like to break the rules… I feel bad when I comply with them, when things are too normal… There was a police car in middle lane and people in front of me didn’t like to pass him. I pass police car and look at him and he look at me. He put his lights on. My wife turned to me and said, ‘You are crazy.’ I say, I am individual. Here is supposed to be country of individuals.”

Lyden focuses on Mark Twain to capture Missouri’s essence, when Suki and she visit the city of Hannibal, his hometown. “There are, one must admit, far too many businesses in Hannibal using the name Mark Twain, from a ready-mix concrete company to a counseling center.” Suki already has a great impression of the legendary author. “When Suki was a boy in military school in Sarajevo, he read Mark Twain’s The Adventures of Tom Sawyer… he remembered the hiding in a cave, the sense of heroism for a young boy, the liberation of a slave, and being part of something important. ‘It was a story to show boys they could be something positive’, he says.”

Then Lyden and Suki enter the Mark Twain Boyhood Home & Museum, where the curator shows the two the home. Certain things catch Suki’s publisher’s eye, including “a typical type of box of the time… you would have to arrange all that moveable type with a justifying stick. Suki looked wan at the thought”. Most importantly though, Suki notices a “…tiny stove in the Clemens’s parlor. ‘Just like a sheet metal one I made from cans of peppers in Sarajevo… in which we could burn the furniture when we were under siege’”.

Together, Clemens and Suki represent Missouri as well as is possible. Clemens represents the Missouri that we know today. We know Mark Twain and Huckleberry Finn and Tom Sawyer and farming and segregation. Suki represents the Missouri that people will know in the future. They will know about Suki and Bosnian immigrants who helped the state of Missouri become again what it was back in Clemens’s time. “’My newspaper exists because I am selling ads, but do you think it is Bosnian community that supports me the most? No. It’s the Americans. They’re the ones who advertise… There are maybe 200 or 300 small business owners in Bosnia’s St. Louis community. They read the paper and pass it on. But the Americans. They advertise. Right now, only six out of the paper’s fifty- two pages are in English, but someday will be 100 percent English’”, says Suki. Lyden successfully uses the parallels in Suki, who embodies the hope of a thriving Missouri, and Twain, who symbolizes the once-flourishing Missouri of earlier days, to portray the state to her readers.

ARCHIVE