Jan 21, 2009

Most of my day yesterday revolved around the Presidential Inauguration. From about 9am until 3pm my eyes were nearly glued to the t.v. for obvious reasons. The entire day was intriguing to me for a few reasons, not too mention the main objective of witnessing history. The first interesting moment was when now former President George W Bush and his wife Linda, met President Barack Obama and his wife Michelle at the front steps of the Whitehouse for coffee. It was truly a changing of the guard moment, from a past and present of turmoil and dispair to a future of proposed hope and change. Even the physical interaction between them represented this to me. There was a moment of pause when they met on the steps, one waiting for the other to throw out the first hand for a shake in a case of 'who should be in charge of conducting this action?' After a second or two of akward pause and limited action, the two simultansously moved toward eachother and extended a hug rather than just a handshake.

I don't want to give my play by play on all of the events in the ceremony so I'll move right on to my opinion of the 44th American President Barack Obama's Inaugural Address. (I want to preface this by saying that I did not vote for Obama last November, nor did I buy into much of what he was campaigning throughout the year.) First of all there is absolutely no debating President Obama's skills as an orator, he is very well spoken and is poise and confidence amazes me. This was certainly a skill that this country needed to see executed on such a monumental day for our country. Not merely because he is the first African American President (by all means that is an amazing feat but to me, growing up without ever being racist or subjected to those who are) but because of the peril our country is facing, especially in regards to our economy and the war, and how these things affect the ENTIRE WORLD. It is not conceited to admit that when something goes wrong in the United States, it will most certainly affect the rest of the world and that is very evident right now. Back to President Obama's speech though, I was thuroughly impressed with what he said. It was motivational and uplifting and whether or not these changes can be made instantly, it is necessary to light a fire under the ass of our American citizens as the actions that need to be taken need to be taken in a collective effort. Just because Obama was elected does not mean that everything will automatically be better. I can only hope that he fulfills his end of the claims he makes, but it is also up to us as Americans to do our part in bringing this country back to where it needs to be and contributing what we can to take these necessary measures. If nothing else, I hope that after yesterday the morale of this country was lifted and that we see the severity of the situation we have created for ourselves. Just as we have bound together in the past, it is necessary for our country to act as one again and bring back the important foundation we were built upon for the sake of our future generations.

Needless to say I was inspired by Barack and his genuine attitude towards the United States. You feel his compassion when he speaks and it is easy to see that he not only cares about seeing a change but he truly believes in what he stands for. Or should I say, what we stand for as the United States of America. I am now a believer of President Barack Obama and I pray that he has the strength to fulfill and complete the necessary tasks at hand. God Bless America, we are surely lucky to live in such a free country. Now lets not take advantage of that and let it fall to hell.

Jan 16, 2009

In class we went over the subject versus the object. I am going to be honest, I was a little confused at first and that definetely coincided with my approach in writing down how I am a subject at times and an object at others. For example:

I am subject as a college student to learn, observe, and acquire the necessary skills to make me a qualified business person. 

-Now this may not be entirely off, but the examples given in class from others were more along the lines of "I am a subject as a player on the team." As I am no longer the member of any specific team or organization right now I took the perspective of being a subject almost of my own life. To take the responsibility to learn and set the proper foundation for me to go where I want to be in the future. I started to think hard about things that I am a member of, such as being a student at Eckerd College, being an American, and being one that hopes to enter and be successful in the business world someday. If this makes sense, I pretty much took a stretch to connect me being both a subject and an object. 

Just for fun I typed 'subject v object' in a YouTube search and chose to watch this video (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ivxkN8q-OXU)of a high school english teacher explain the difference between subject and object pronouns. Although this is very elementary and looking at these two terms in probably the most basic manner, it actually helped me better understand the difference between being the subject and being the object. Moral of the Story: keep it simple stupid! Sometimes taking a step back and looking at things simplistically helps temporarily remove the specific meaning and result in a better understanfding of it. 

Jan 15, 2009

Today we went downtown and took a self-guided tour through the Florida Holocaust Museum. As I have been there before (and to the Holocaust Museum in Washington D.C.) I knew what to expect as far as the intesity of the museum. It made me rethink our discussions in class on Wednesday about what a museum might necessarily stand for. I remember one girl proposing that memorials and museums might be in existance merely for our guilt and sorrow for those that lived through or were involved in taumatic and drastic events. Although this may be a part of the reason for some people, I still firmly believe that such monuments are erected as a payment of hommage, thanks, and recognition to those that have made sacrifices and endured such major events throughout the history of mankind. 

To those who may disagree I pose these question:

-How did you feel in the museum today?

-Would you rather that museum not existice?

-Did it not stir up passion and emotion within you in recognizing the horrific events that take place in the world, specifically between 1939 and 1945?

This story deserves to be told, it deserves to be heard, and it damn well better be recognized. Esablished American writer Maya Angelou once said, "There is no greater agony than bearing an untold story inside of you." It is not only a nice thing for us to do in paying respect to those who endure such tragedies, or erect monuments for those who have led us to triumph in the past, it is our RESPONSIBILITY as PEOPLE. How else will we learn from previous generations? How else will our preceding generations learn? We must address and evaluate events such as the Halocaust in an attempt to insure that nothing eve remotely like this will ever happen again. 

Lets all just respect, appreciate, and learn from others.

a group of Holocaust survivors:

No one should ever have to endure things like these brave people have. Thats not what life is about.

Jan 13, 2009

Out of curiousity, I googled the percentage of troops that are coming back from our current War on Terror and suffering from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. Out of the 6,201 troops surveyed, a portion from Iraq and a portion from Afghanistan, the studies revealed on average one out of every eight soldiers returning suffered from PTSD. The article I read was from MSNBC.com and had some other interesting information with similar statistics from the Vietnam and Persian Gulf Wars.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/5334479/

This summer I watched an MTV special titled, "Kanye West Homecoming Special" in which a few U.S. citizens whom had each served in Iraq thought they were being interviewed for a MTV News segment when Kanye West enters their house and sits down and has a conversation with the soldiers. Each one of the people selected suffered from severe PTSD. The neat thing was that they all followed hip hop closely and were so used to listening to what Kanye sang to them, that they felt so amazed to have one of their musical idols enthrawled in the stories they were giving to him. On top of that before Kanye West left their homes he did something very special for each one of these veterans. As they all had trouble holding jobs, let alone even being out in public at times, Kanye offered financial help specific to each of the different situations. For example, Kanye paid the mortgage for one man's house for at least a year (I Cannnot remember if it was longer) and promised another couple that their child's tuition would be fully paid for when their child reaches the age and attends college.
----Now I know this was unfortunately only a few of the brave U.S. citizens that have served in the war and suffer from traumatic issues, but it is wonderful that MTV and Kanye West collaborated for this event. As a business major myself I can be cynical and look at this as a means to boost Kanye's public image, but that notion was removed from my mind after observing the genuine interaction and amazement from Kanye as he sat and just shot the shit with these veterens. It makes me proud to be an American, and more importantly proud to be a living, breathing person. Deep down no matter what the circumstances traumatic events occur all the time and it is so powerful to see people helping other people through their hard times. It dosn't always just have to be financially, as an emotional crutch can be 100x more powerful. It almost seems ludicrous to say, and maybe I am just an optimist, but if we all take a step back and resolve issues intelligently and diplomatically- why isn't world peace attainable?


I am not sure what triggered the rant I just went off on but hopefully it makes sense because I don't want to edit it...I want to reread it next time I post a blog and see how my thoughts came out tonight.

As for now, lets just thank Mr. West:

http://www.mtv.com/shared/promoimages/bands/w/west_kanye/veterans_chicago_072108/281x211.jpg

Class discussions are always engaging to me. At times I feel we overanalyze some of the elements of our texts, but I admit that is probably due to my simplistic nature. I typically take things as they are (not to say I don't analyze and assess things) but I feel like the group conversations we have consist of so many differing points of view, and exposing myself to this is definitely a good thing.

The website for the museum we visited...

http://www.armedforcesmuseum.com/home.html

There are some video clips and a photo gallery if anyone was interested.

I am growing more fond of the little exercise we do in the beginning of class everytime we meet. This is another example of fun things which interest me that we usually don't dip into in the business classes. Which is okay...it leaves more of an excuse for me to do so on my down time. Nonetheless I enjoy it in our class.

Here is the man of the hour. Isn't it fun to try and figure out what he may have been thinking when this pic was taken? Analyzing the facial expressions and body language of one of the most influential psychoanlaysts ever is surely something I am not qualified to do. Tha hand on the hip gives a little fierce attitude look, haha I like it....

Writing Wrongs: Trauma & Texts (Jan 6, 2009)

-I liked the opening exercise with the circle, squares, and triangle. I drew a big circle of the world and shaped in countries with me flying in a G4 around it so I got lucky and felt good about myself when you read the descriptions. I felt that it was oddly true how the meanings really did relate to me and things going on in my life right now. Bravo.

-Enjoyed listening to the view of the pysch majors as they shared their thoughts on some of the concepts....in trying to avoid and ignore certain traumatizing thoughts you will actually tend to think about it more, resulting in a build up and bigger chance of exploding in a traumatic flash-back-sort-of-deja-vu experience. Hmm...ponder that one for a second...

-While discussing Forgetting Lot's Wife, we got a little sidetracked with the whole 'was he counscious for the incestuous intercorse or not". I feel that we didn't get to spend as much time on some of the other important ideas from the introduction. But then again Im sure we will endulge in these concepts when we reach them in the core of the book.