So Many Ways To Say It

This summer I read a lovely book called The Five Love Languages for Singles by Gary Chapman. The book is not fancily written nor difficult to pore over; indeed, it is perhaps the most simplistic book I've read in a very long time.

The Five Love Languages is just as its title suggests: the five different ways of communicating love to others: through time, touch, words, gifts, or service and which of these is most effective for every different person.

It was a wonderfully relatable book as it featured a bountiful supply of real stories about real people and their real struggles. It has caused me this summer to see people in a very different light.

This novel explains how to determine a friend's love language and how to fill it--complimenting a friend whose language is words, giving a hug to a friend whose language is touch, and so on. This has made friendship take on a different perspective for me; now I want to find out my good friends' languages and be able to make them feel loved.

I've been able to rebuild a broken relationship with my dad, hold tight to a best friendship that is falling apart, and make an outcast feel a little more wanted just by giving her a hug.

It's so simple.

Well, I'm off to find another way to tell my recently returned sister that I love her.

Gnarly Brains

I feel that part of my head has been twisted into a gnarly tree stump after such strenuous reading. Miss Wollstonecraft certainly had a long-winded way of saying things, didn't she? (Makes me wonder if I ever do that.)

Many parts of this piece I had to reread and double reread--and I'm pretty sure some of them do not qualify as legible sentences.

I couldn't help but feel edgy at the way she worded some of her ideas, using phrases like "it is a farce" and "contempt of the understanding" (paragraphs 11 and 16).

I did find interesting her paragraph on how kings are treated differently, how it is completely unfair for men who show no better qualities than others are revered in paragraph 69 (it was also at this point I figured out "shewn" really meant "shown" and apparently those olde Englishe people didn't know how to spell).

It made me wonder why kings or celebrities or the like are so "treated with a degree of reverene that is an insult to reason," as she put it, when they are just average Joes in most aspects. What makes a king or president special enough to photograph, admire, and obey?

Miss Wollstonecraft made a good and completely unrelated point when she said that "Fondness is a poor substitute for friendship" (paragraph 39) as she explained that two marriage partners could not have a good friendship if the man always viewed her as a frail, sickly thing, that instead they needed a common respect and equality.

This article reminds me a little of Jane Eyre and the fight for women's equality amidst a society in which women were little more than pretty little jewels to be admired and then forgotten. It makes me very glad to be an American and, while perhaps not everything is equal, it is far fairer than it once was.

My brains at the moment

My Girl Hallie

As I contemplated this article, I was reminded of my favorite radio drama, Adventures in Odyssey (besides being distracted by the boxes of links that led me to too-long pages), in particular the episode My Girl Hallie.

As I had never heard of 2001: A Space Odyssey (coincidental title), I was unaware of Adventures in Odyssey's play on the aforementioned film; however, upon reading the first paragraph of Mr. Carr's article, I at once saw the correlations--the machine's emotion contrasted with human stoicism, the final words, et cetera--and was greatly pleased to have made connections.

I also felt both guilty and scammed at the research mentioned of students unable to concentrate: by the end of the third paragraph, my concentrating was drifting. Thoughts of Ray Charles and trimming my fingernails distracted my attention from the very colorful description of sea words and scuba divers.

Throughout this article I was unable to find a specific cure for our stupitidy (now that's just sad.) except for the simple act of reading.

So I suppose I should be off to read some lengthy essay that will enhance my brain.

Scent of Chimera

As I pored over our most recent piece of literature, I was struck with a sense that I had read something similar previously. And then it dawned on me on page 345: The Catcher in the Rye was just like this!

It was at that moment that I decided I did not like the reading with the lengthy sentences and off-topic paragraphs. However, there is much to be delved into.

On page 345, Ms. Erdrich mentioned a quote from a Mr. Adam Phillips: we "never know whether obstacles create desire or desire creates obstacles." This I felt I could connect with, for I have pondered that subject myself. Why do we like the things we do? Is it because we cannot have them? Is it simply in human nature to want what we are not permitted to possess? Or do the things we want purposely make themselves unattainable?

The following paragraph also made me stop and marvel. If we did not have something to overcome, we could never grow. While this principle is obviously the building block for life, the manner in which Mr. Phillips expressed it blew me away: "Without obstacles...There would be nothing to master."

I feel that the timing for this piece, as tangent-loaded as it may be, could not have been better: I have just freshly returned from a week-long journey into the mountains of the Upper Peninsula, and as Ms. Erdrich weaved her colorful descriptions of the forest, I felt I could imagine them more vividly.

"The world turned dazzling green, the hills rode like comfortable and flowing animals. Everywhere there was the sound of water moving (342)".

Talking Towns

Upon reading our first assignment of the year, I was delighted to discover they were both in some way optimistic.

I personally found John Updike's piece to be more relatable than Ms. Sontag's because of his literal proximity to the destruction and his hopeful end; he saw it not as an end but as a time to remember and be grateful for his remaining treasures: a glorious New York, a dignified sense of freedom, and his wife and kin. Yet he was not oblivious to the lives lost, the work to be done, the pain dealt. "The nightmare is still on," he consented (paragraph 2, page 2), but he imagined the views of the martyrs better than I had.

Susan Sontag was a bit harsher in her condemnations of America; however, she still protruded a sense of dignity--empathy for complete strangers, even--and that of America's greater purpose. While her pointed comments about President Bush nettled my loyalties, her powerful, emotional speech on America's flaws stirred in me a sense of renewed patriotism, that I should help the cause to make America more than just strong. She also caused me to think about the other side, those who made martyrs of themselves to further a cause.

For a moment I could imagine them, disallowed to say a last goodbye to their families, tears welling in their eyes as they saw all the innocents in the plane they would take with them, a tight thudding in their throats as their last moments of life faded into the blur of broken windows. They were people.

I wish I knew why they did what they did. I wish I could have done something. Maybe I'll get the chance next time.

And in the meantime I can fold money into the Twin Towers.

Who? Me?

Hello, and welcome to the very first edition of this exciting new adventure just waiting to be unraveled!


(The duck says hello.)

As thrilling as the entirety of my life may be, these are the bullet points of my major discoveries:

1. Stopping and smelling the flowers. What's the point of life if I can't drive over a turbulent bump in the road, slip and splash into a gigantic puddle of mud, or marvel at the watercolor paint streaked across the sky just before the sun goes down? Maybe a cookie isn't that exciting in your world, but in mine it makes things a little brighter.

2. Doing one thing at a time. By "discovery," I really meant "trying to discover." I try to see that huge mountain of dishes as just a spoon there, a bowl here, and soon enough it's all done. This is much harder to put into practice when faced with mind-boggling homework assignments and college applications, but somehow it makes my life a little easier to focus on one assignment at a time and forget about the jumbled mess still on the floor.

3. Loving for real. I don't mean the fluttering butterflies or screaming "I LOVE YOU!" to a best friend; I mean desiring the best for someone even if it costs everything. I mean showing a friend love through whatever they need. I mean seeing people through God's eyes, knowing that though they may be a monstrous pain at times, they have a grandiose purpose, too.

That's who I am--who I'm trying to be, at any rate. Maybe one day I'll be good at it.

Look! Duck! How exciting!