Toddlers and Technology

As I walked in to babysit a four year old tonight I noticed that her focus was completely off. She was glued to her mom's Kindle fire watching Barney episodes one after another. She didn't greet me as I came into the room and she kept her eyes fixed on the screen as her dad was saying goodbye. I don't know what it is with children/people and technology, but it is as if that is all they are focused on nowadays. When I was a kid I spent most of my time playing outside with hula hoops and sidewalk chalk. I grew up alongside the growth of technology. So as I lay in my bed typing on my phone, I realize how consumed the world is with pieces of glass and metal called technology. If you really think about it, humans today would not be able to function without their I Phones and Kindles. With everyone stuck taping away on their screens, face to face confrontation has gone down the drain. People rely on speaking to each other via social networking where conversation flows more quickly and easily. I don't like this downward slope society is headed towards and witnessing a four year old glued to a screen doesn't give me much hope. I don't want the aspect of face to face communication to disappear completely just because of how convenient talking on phones is becoming.

Poetry Blues

Whenever I think of poetry I think of long boring passages or poems about something really random. Poetry has never really struck a chord with me because I don't really understand most poetry. I like the romantic side of poetry, but the literary side sounds like a chore. Reading 6-8 poems a night seems very daunting. It takes a while for the meaning behind a poem to register, so hopefully I will get better at analyzing poems. Poetry seems like it is very broad because I think of it as either being old and long or short and blatantly obvious. I didn't realize that poetry could just be a few lines of anything you want it to be. I always thought that poems have to follow a strict pattern and rhyme scheme but apparently that is not the case. I like that poetry can be beautiful when it is written in a simple way. I think that my writing skills are even worse than my writing skills. I want to get better at analyzing why the author chose the words they chose an why that is important. I want to learn the different type of rhyme patterns and what purpose they accomplish.

Adventure

My new outside reading book is "Into the Wild". It is about this man who goes by the name Alex. He graduated from college and came from a wealthy family, but he was very unsatisfied with his life. He ditched his life and belongings one day and set out for the west. He lived a lifestyle of adventure and curiosity. He lived off nature and whatever people offered along the way. He stretched his journey from Houston to California. His mindset along the way was very unique because he believed that in order to experience happiness and inner peace you have to abandon the commercial lifestyle that most people live. I think his lifestyle was very extreme, but to some extent you have to give up things that are holding you back from experience life to the fullest. I think an easy thing to give up would just be spending so much time on your phone or glued to a screen. There's so many beautiful things in the world and I think a lot of people miss them because they are preoccupied. Alex just didn't give up his phone, he gave up his car, family, and life savings to see the true beauty in the world which was the landscape surrounding him.

Denver's Change

I was pleasantly surprised when I read the end if Beloved. I was surprised by the power and strength Denver gained. I didn't expect the girl who acted like a child and threw fits to mature into a lady that took matters into her own hands. I think it was caused by her mom growing sick and Beloved growing overpowering. I think when people are placed in hard situations they are left with no other choice but to grow up and deal with it. Denver was forced to face the people that shunned her and her family. That took a lot of courage to stand up for her family and deal with the consequences of her mother's mistakes. I can only imagine the fear Denver felt to go ask for help and for a job. Denver transformed into an adult and her actions spoke much louder than any words that she has spoke. Denver surprised me in a good way. I was happy to find out that someone in that house finally grew up and took action for what was haunting them. It was refreshing to see Denver change her attitude about her life and her family.

Too Much Love

My emotional response to Beloved is mixed because I can not decide whether I believe Sethe's actions are okay or not. I think Sethe had the right intentions in protecting her children from slavery. She could have chose to hide her children rather than murdering them. I think that it's hard to put yourself in her situation because its hard to imagine what that would be like. It would be so scary to live in constant fear of losing a loved one because of the evil actions of a few people. I think Sethe's love for her children is over bearing and ridiculous. She guarded Denver from the outside world and she basically cannot function in social situations. Often times today parents are still overprotective at times. A common bond though is that that it is all out of love. Too much love can be bad because it leads to being overprotective. A great parent knows when to back off and let their child live the way they want to live and they need to let go at the right time. It's hard for me to imagine having that much love for someone and allowing myself to act in such that way. I think Sethe crossed the line when she killed her child. Out of all of her options she chose to take away the most precious gift, which is life. Life can never be given back and it's a shame that Sethe was so selfish to take that away from her daughter.

My Future

It's really strange to think about the future. I spend a lot of time daydreaming about what my life will look like 5 or 10 years from now. I have come to the conclusion that right now, I have the ability to take literally any path in life. I could become a doctor, a lawyer, or a politician. I have the power to control what my life will be like, to some extent. Right now I can choose what school to go to, what to major in, and how much time I invest in studying. It's exhilarating and terrifying all at the same time. I can choose to take the easy path or to take the hard path. I can choose who I hang out with and who I invest my love in. It's all my choice and it's all up to me. I think it's great to have a set path in life and most people have that, but I find it much more interesting to live on the edge, so to say. Many high school students have everything through college planned out, like what sorority they want to be in, what they want to major in, what state they will be living in, and who they will associate themselves with. Personally, I think that this closes them off from discovering who they want to be later in life. I think that the first year of college should all be about finding who you are. If you go into college, or any situation with it all mapped out, you may not make the mistakes or fortunes that shape you and make you who you are. I think that I will go into college with an open mind and open heart to soak up anything, good or bad, that comes my way.

Beloved

Beloved is a very interesting book to read. I think that the topic is very strong and it is written with a lot of passion, but I just have a really hard time connecting with the characters and the plot. I find the whole thing with the ghost baby strange. I also find that Denver acts really strange for her age. I guess Denver acts this way because she has been isolated so long from society. I have know idea when there is flashbacks or when it is just normal present tense. I find the language hard to understand because it is written like a poem and I don't really get poems. I cannot connect with Denver even though we are the same age because I think she is too closed off. It took her a while to accept Paul D. and I find that strange because he provides her mom with happiness. Usually when someone close to you is happy, you become happy just because they are happy. I don't know when this story will connect to the newspaper article, but I know it has some connection. I really enjoyed The Road compared to this story because even though it was full of literary connections, they made sense and made the story full of depth.