Speak Out

Hunger was a word we never used as an adjective in my house. “You are not hungry , you don’t know the first thing about being hungry Shannon”. My mother has actually said these words to me before, and I never understood it until the summer of 2010. “Global hunger now affects over a billion people worldwide” (Actionagiansthunger.com). Being told that hunger affects children all over the world casts a deep shadow on the lives of us who eat 3 full meals a day. “The diets of most of the 800 million chronically hungry people lack 100-400 kilocalories per day. Most of these people are not dying of starvation, often they are thin but not emaciated. The presence of chronic hunger is not always apparent because the body compensates for an inadequate diet by slowing down physical activity and, in the case of children, growth. In addition to increasing susceptibility to disease, chronic hunger means that children may be listless and unable to concentrate in school, mothers may give birth to underweight babies and adults may lack the energy to fulfill their potential” (FAO.org) The presence of hunger is everywhere in the world, and those of us who are lucky enough to have food available when we wish to eat it should be doing everything in their capabilities to help those who are not as fortunate. One act of kindness could make the difference in a life or death situation.

Getting educated is the first step to help out this worldwide epidemic. Is it humanity slipping away from the human race? Or is it pure ignorance that we don’t know the suffering happening all around the world? Watching an informational commercial of a starving child with Angelina Jolie speaking in a somber voice will not help poverty cease to exist. 1 in 5 people do not know the effect of hunger in the world. They do not know that 1.3 billion people live off a dollar or less a day, they have no clue that in 1991 46% of African Americans where hungry in the world.( thinkquest.org) The absence of information can be changed though, with the world completely connected today through social media anyone can post about these facts on “Facebook” “Twitter” anything. The average Facebook user logs on at least 3 times a day, one post with 30 friends viewing and retweeting can be seen by 125 people a day. Today’s generation has the ability to stay connected in each others lives and learn about there everyday details, why not spread a little knowledge about what is really important these days? Instead of what trivial movie you are going to see tonight.

”On March 2, OneRosemount, a group of 30 to 40 pastors, school principals and civic leaders, including the mayor, aim to pack about 285,000 meals to send to the Dominican Republic, where they will help feed 2 million Haitian refugees living there. "The idea was, 'What if we came together as a community to literally impact the world?'" said Bill Goodwin, pastor at Lighthouse Christian Church and event co-chairman.” (Startribune.com) Speaking out in your own communities is a great next step. Reaching out through the community to help reel in members will spread like wild fire. After school groups, after church groups, Girl Scout meetings, “soccer moms”, business dad’s. Interacting with others is a part of everyone’s daily routine. When educated people come together for a cause the result is usually positive. One person can spread the word, and one group can act. It doesn’t take up your whole day to spend thirty minutes at a meeting that’s goals aim to end world hunger. It is something very simple that can be done and ultimately be fun. I highly encourage such acts of kindness.

            “Be the change you want the world to see”. I can tell you first hand that seeing a third world country with my own eyes is one of the most life altering experiences I have ever endured. When I first set eyes on the poorest country in the western hemisphere I thought I had traveled back in time a hundred and fifty years. Houses weren’t even homes like we know, they were tents and muddy rubble slapped together. Worn down, were my only words to describe the country. Stepping off the plane into the new world I realized that I wasn’t in Kansas anymore. Adults and children alike swarmed the unpaved streets barefoot with worn out and stained clothing. I was trying to catch my breath when all of a sudden a girl about 7 years old ran up to me. She looked at me with this look of heart wrenching need and she held out her hand. I couldn’t give her anything, we weren’t allowed. If one person was given something everyone else would start to swarm. So I had to hold back the crackers I had in my backpack and the tears that had already started to swell up. My experiences in Haiti have changed my outlook on life forever. That is the final step in the movment against hunger, taking initiative. When you don’t just want something you work towards it, things start to happen.

            The war on hunger needs to be won in a victory, there are a lot of things that can be done to help it little by little. Getting educated on the topic, joining a team to fight it, and actually going to help will all slowly end this vicious battle against hunger. The fact is that people are dying because of the fact that they can’t have food in their bellies. Americans have the chance to change the world and help out every day. 40$ can feed a child for 50 days, a couple extra hands in a third world can be the difference in a whole village eating a meal. There are things that you can do to help out, you don’t just have to spend thousands of dollars on a trip. Spread the word, and together lets end world hunger!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

http://www.startribune.com/local/south/191553851.html?refer=y

 

 

 

 

 

http://www.fao.org/docrep/x8200e/x8200e03.htm

http://www.actionagainsthunger.org/impact/nutrition?gclid=CLvPqIz49bUCFQrqnAodngEArA

http://library.thinkquest.org/C002291/high/present/stats.htm

 

Purpose

There are two days that are the most significant days in life, the day you are born and the day you find out why. It is a confusing time in the middle of the two when certain occurrences will happen and you will not understand why. Mauricio Garcia raised a fantastic question in my mind when he spoke in front of our class. He made an example by talking about his experience coming to America from El- Salvador. He said that he resisted the entire time and wanted more than anything to be able to go back to his home country. The speaker didn’t understand what was happening to him until he had a glance of his purpose at a vending machine one day. Mr. Garcia had been in America for 5 years and still didn’t speak a bit of English. One day at a rest stop he was trying to get a Milky Way candy bar out of a vending machine, but the machine needed more money and was asking for more coins; because Mr. Garcia could not speak English he misunderstood and started SPEAKING, asking out loud for his chocolate. His hilarious accident raised a question in his mind about his purpose. Mr. Garcia then said to the audience, “If you want to understand your purpose, start looking at the circumstances happening all around you”. After he said that something in my mind clicked.

When I was little I was a very outgoing child. I never sat still and I would always love to be the center of attention. My parents said I would always have people coming up to them telling them that they would be watching out for me one day. When I was in high school I started to act, as I began my acting career I realized that this was something absolutely special to me. I wanted to do it all the time! As my skills became sharper and I began to do it on a regular basis I figured out that I might possibly want to do this for the rest of my life. Being able to cover up who I was, and able to express myself through another person’s character is absolutely phenomenal.  I have been too many competitions and scored magnificently in many stage shows, I even was awarded a talent grant to FSCJ. Looking back at my life a year and some change later I want to kick myself. I let all those opportunities go to be a rebel child. As Mr. Garcia phrased it, I should have taken my surroundings into account as I was washing a big part of what could have been my future down the drain. I see it now through a different lens, but I wish I had taken it into account.

            Mothers always have stories for everything, when I asked her about how she knew what her purpose in life was she told me an interesting story about how she knew she wanted to go into therapy. She brought me back to a time when she was younger (although she didn’t reveal how long ago) and in college.  She said she was in a convenient store buying groceries for the following week; she spoke of it to be a normal day where she was just going about her every day business. “I have always had a way about reading people’s emotions; I can always tell when someone is troubled”. There was a woman next to her in the aisle that looked very worried, my mom struck up a casual conversation and the woman seemed to lay on her life story to my mother in the middle of Wal-mart. She spoke about the children she was losing; the divorce she was going through with, the life she knew and loved was basically disintegrating in front of her eyes. After their three hour long conversation, my mother left the store and switched her major in college the next day to Psychology, my mother said that after she examined the situation she realized that her perspective of people changed and she wanted to help as many as she could. The circumstances that began to happen around her helped her realize that she was put on the earth to help people through their problems.

            In the Great Gatsby, the main character Nick goes through a very confusing part of his life where he decides to move east after coming back from WW1. Nick tells a tragic story about the everyday rich. Nick is a very honest guy, he is a caring man that lent out a hand to everyone and was a characters rock when he needed to be.  Throughout the whole story Nick was thrown around by different character’s and taken for granted multiple times, as the book comes to an end Nick realized due to everything happening all around him that it was time for him to go back to his old life and settle down, due to his circumstances that where occurring to others he knew he needed to get out of that life.  Another book that speaks about purpose is The Crucible. In the Crucible, John Proctor is an adulterous man ultimately put to death in a puritan society. John Proctor understood his surroundings as well when he realized that he didn’t want his word defaced, so he died for his cause. That was his purpose.

            After the purpose is revealed to someone, they start to realize that everything starts to fall into place suddenly. Things start making sense that didn’t before and there is more of an understanding about why certain things happened in their life that they didn’t understand before. People have a hard time accepting things that make them uncomfortable, they are very keen to being creatures of habit. When circumstances keep happening over and over again to someone they might just accuse it as bad luck, however luck may have nothing to do with it. It may be something to do with fate, as some like to believe and some do not. It is not for one to throw a pity party about, some are meant to be lessons and some are meant to show what their purpose is. It is all a matter of perspective, accepting that isn’t easy sometimes but it does have to happen. The way that everything plays out is up the “victim of the circumstance”. They can choose to deny what they think is certain, or they can chose to accept it and embrace all of endless possibility.

           

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Citied Works:

1.      Fitzgerald, F S. The Great Gatsby. Vol. 1. New York City: Charles Scribners Son, 1925. 1-180. 1 vols. Print.

2.      Miller, Arthur. The Crucible. Vol. 1. New York: The Penguins Play, 1967. 4 vols. Print.

Purpose.

Our class attended a speaking last Tuesday by Mauricio Garcia, he spoke about his life story moving to America from El Savador and what he encountered. Although his story was very moving one part in particular really stood out to me, and that was when he was speaking about his purpose in life. Mr. Garcia told the class that if we really wanted to know our purpose in life we needed to start paying attention to circumstances happening around us. He spoke about a candy incident that really moved him to learn english. I am not sure why this really spoke to me, but I am very sure it meant something because I felt that register into my synapses' out of everything that he said. I started to think about it, and I realized that a lot of things happen to people that we just cannot explain. It may not make sense at the time, but when you think about it looking back, something clicks. In my personal belief, everything happens for a reason and life can only be understood backwards.

Journal Entry #3

The Digital Nation video that we watched last week really got me to thinking, social media is a great new aspect to technology that can keep us connected no matter what, however what comes about technology now? The clip of the new army expirence center got me to thinking, and how healthy is it for kids 13 + to be active in a video game that is said to be a " expirence of the army" ? They can see war but they dont understand it like soldiers do, it gives the kids a false interpretation of what this means. What if kids get roped into enlisting by the glory they seem to see depicted in these video games. I dont really agree with that, although it is stated on their website that  these men were not recruiters it seems like the perfect oppurtnity for a soldier to influence a civilian.

"Reality"

When you turn on the Telivison and scroll throught the channels you encounter such shows as " the Real Housewives of Alanta " " Jersey Shore " " Amish Mafia " and such. Unfortunatley these shows do not show much about reality. In fact they are nothing like real life at all. The shows that pollute modern day cable are rather sickening. For example shows like " Jersey Shore " embrace a life that is not exactley wholesome or even fathomable to most young adults. Girls and Guys in there twenties get paid to live in a beachfront house while they go to the gym, drink, party and make fools of themselfs. This portrayal of the life that so many teenagers strive for is not healthy to this society. Unfortunatley it has started to occur alot. Shows following after that get deeper and deeper into the lifes of many young teenagers and now even childern because anything is avalible on television. We can not stop these shows, but it is important to the younger generation not to fall into the traps of "living for the night". Where will that land you in 10 years exactly? Working dead end jobs? Still getting excited over times when every friday you can go and get drunk and act like you have no brain in your head? It is not healthy to glamourise such a lifestyle. It should be more about the type of sucess that you want to achieve in life instead of the kind of parties that you want to attend and the popularity you wish to achieve. Although nothing is wrong with having fun, it is not the most important and critical thing in life and reality T.V shows do a horrible job at displaying how people should live now a days. I dont agree with it at all and I believe that in order to get America back on to a decent track for another generation these shows really need to stop. Its not healthy for the modern day youth.

Words- Essay #1 Final Draft.

 Words

A picture that captures the essence of the human heart can be looked at for hours; the same is with a picture one has a connection with. The photo can be something simple, however it is so quintessential to the onlooker that they stand captured in the essence of its simplicity. He can look at the photo over and over again and never get bored or want to move on. The picture speaks to him in a way that our words cannot. It is as if the picture is speaking in tongues that only the onlooker can comprehend. It is a connection with art that is so magnificent, almost like magic. In the art gallery I saw many pictures, and it wasn’t the first place winners that caught my eye. In the gallery I was captured by the simplest of photos; a girl standing at a window, pictures of triangular monkey bars on a playground, and a picture of a shiny motorcycle. These pictures where not metropolitan worthy and they did not make you ask life’s deepest questions. They were however meaningful to me, and that placed a connection between those photos and myself that is very unique. It might be a simple captured moment, but in this moment as Napoleon Bonaparte said “A picture is worth a thousand words”.

            Rachel Hammond managed to grab my eye as I was going through the gallery with her photo “Woman in the Window”. With poise and grace a woman stands tall with her shoulders back as she looks outside into what I perceive to be as an unknown. Poise is captured in this photo along with an essence of beauty, in a pure form. When I laid eyes on this picture I saw myself observing the world from my own window. I love to look out and watch the world go by because it is so peaceful. Judging by the quaint rustic window I would say that she is looking out at a hillside, where green grass rolls off the hills and the sky is as blue as it gets. I feel a newness about this photo; perhaps it is springtime, the flowers are blooming the air is fresh everything is about to start over anew. However, as sweet as this picture looks I also see a part of myself that I try very hard to suppress. I see a touch of sadness. This lady wishes to break the glass and go run in the fields and be as free as the birds that surround her. For some reason, the window pane is blocking her freedom and she can’t break loose.

            “To be a kid again” not so much the picture but the title stopped me in my tracks on this photo. The photo is a black and white portrait of a rusty set of monkey bars. While looking at this photo I was taken back many years ago to the joy and happiness I felt as a small child. I pictured my little self doing flips and clinging on to dear life as my biggest troubles where if I would make it to the next bar. The photograph was technically just a picture of bars on a pole on a clear day, but the photo spoke to me. The photo not only gave me a feeling of youthfulness and childlike joy. The photograph also triggered many memories in my mind of the life that I used to live, when my troubles where small and my smile was big, instead of the flip flopped order that it is now with life happening all around me. This picture was very moving, although it didn’t say much it brought back so many phenomenal childhood memories.

 Having recently been involved in what could have easily been a life altering motorcycle accident, the last picture that I saw before I left the gallery is still buzzing around in my head;  “A Perfect day to Ride” by Jessica Norman. This photograph captures a cruiser with sun shining on it and a clear beautiful day, simple right? Not to me, this photograph now contains something darker, a danger that I have recently encountered and do not wish to be near again. No way that this author knows the trauma that I am going through she is probably a bike fiend also just trying to capture a picture of her Sunday afternoon. The photo takes me back it brings back the deadly CRUNCH of metal on metal and a deadly force that YANKED me off the bike onto the cold midnight pavement. A million images surround my head as I see the bike looking peaceful and glorious; however none of the thoughts that swirl around in my head are peaceful or glorious in the slightest.

“A picture is worth a thousand words” an overused quotation, however it is very relatable in my opinion. As evident by the places that these pictures that I saw took me I am very apt to agree with Mr. Bonaparte. These three photos captured a moment in time and made it stand still, however it very much came alive to me. Flashbacks, voices, watching myself in my own past became a part of these pictures and it made everything surreal, just like I was living it over and over again. It is a peculiarity what art can do to the mind, but it is also so majestic. It takes you to places you know and places that you don’t, as Twyla Tharp stated “Art is the only way to run away without leaving home”.  

           

           

           

Journal #1.

I have taken two AP English Courses in highschool, so in my opinion ENC1101 was somewhat of a breeze. I had an essay due once every two weeks in ENC but I was used to writing alot. The only thing I wasnt used to was writing a journal, I had three entries a week due, basically a paragraph long. It was easy because I could write two of the entries on anything I wanted and the last one had to be class related. In ENC 1101 I was introduced to a variety of writing skills and I did learn a new type of pre planning, which is called free writing. Free writing gave me the chance to create a pattern out of the jumbled mess I have in my head when I start to write. That is the best thing I got out of ENC11-01.