You Can Have Whateva You Liiiiiiike

Without globalization, none of my dreams would be possible.
My dreams:
- meeting a Geisha
- moving to Paris and working as a street artist
- eating imported pasta
- buying chairs made my rugged Italians

Ok. So perhaps none of these are my dreams, but they may be someone’s. And my dreams certainly do include traveling to different countries, learning about cultures and customs, and experiencing a life different than the one I’ve grow up with. These dreams would not be possible without the aid of globalization.

This has, more or less, made everything accessible. I can drive a car made from another state, or I can get one from Japan. I can watch a movie from California, or France. Globalization has opened doors that wouldn’t have even been imagined before. It allows constant communication, exchange, transportation. It must be pretty obvious that I am grateful for globalization. I think that it has produced a lot of opportunities that have been, on a whole, very beneficial for my culture. However, I realize that it is a much more complex issue that just “Globalization is great”. It has led to an array of problems...growing consumerism, a widening space between the wealthy and the not so wealthy, etc.

But I think the pros outweigh the cons. The exchange of information has allowed many to educate themselves on different cultures, helping them further understand the people living with them on this earth. In my opinion, it has helped increase awareness on a plethora of issues and has started to reduce cultural tensions.

And there are tangible things I have gained from globalization. I can watch Paris, Je T’aime as many times as I want. I can listen to Israeli rap stars spitting hot fire. And of course, like Foer states so many times, I can watch the great sport of soccer, from any country in the world, in America.

Lions, Tigers, Da Bears, Oh My

Growing up as a little girl in the almost suburbs, sports were forced to become a very important part of my life. My parents decided that my siblings and I would benefit from gathering with other youngsters and playing any sport that was in season. I’ve played many: basketball, soccer, volleyball, and even “t-ball” (bad experiences caused my career to be cut short, and I never progressed to soft ball). These little league adventures helped me in all the standard ways, like teamwork and dedication and what not, but they also helped ensure that sports would always have a place in my life, no matter what.

I haven’t been a part of a sports team since 8th grade, but I still continue to play whenever I can. For instance, it’s considered a good day in my book if I got to play a pickup game of ultimate Frisbee in the park. But even if I’m not actively involved in them, sports still work their way into my life in one way or another. My family always turns the Bears game on, so I have spent many Sundays doing my homework either watching the game or speculating the results of the game by my father’s shouts from the other room. I also have a very sports enthusiastic boyfriend (ay boo =] ), who has strengthened the influence of sports in my life via Sox games and football education.

But putting all the influences my family and friends currently have on my sports life aside, I think they’d always be present in my life. I don’t know whether this is because of my introduction to them so early on in my life or because I just like being active. Whatever the reason, they’re there. And I’m very thankful for that, because they not only bring happiness to me, but bring me closer to the ones I love.

And IIIIIIIIIIIII Just Want to Thaaaaaank You

I’m thankful for so many things in my life, from my family to BBQ Chicken Pizza to sleeping in on weekdays. I’m thankful for a lot of people in my life, including my many great classmates.

Annie Burns is much more than my philosophy classmate. She’s a friend, a mentor, and most importantly, a sister. She is so caring and helpful. She is usually willing to offer me some of her food in the first few minutes of class, and always reminds me to finish the homework we were assigned. I’m thankful she sits next to me in a class like philosophy, since she has many opinions (some goofy, some serious) and is never embarrassed to share them. Thanks Burnsie.

But Annie isn’t the only one I’m thankful for.

Vlad: Even though we know you are a nark, you’re still a great guy. You always make me laugh and although you have a problem showing up to class, you surprise me by still being prepared. Thanks Vlady Vlad.

Courtney: You crazy kid. You are a great person to work with. You are always on task and make sure that I am too. You are the group motivator and without you, we’d be nothing. Thanks Banana Girl.

And last, but certainly not least…

Nicole: You’re not even in my period, but I’m still thankful for you. You are always down to talk philosophy, from what our opinions on The Road are to the thoughts of classical philosophers. You don’t judge people for their thoughts, and the fact that you try to understand why people say and think the way they do is very inspiring to me. You are more than just my classmate, girl, and I have so many reasons to be thankful for you in my life.

Anyway. Thank you all for making my Philosophy experience superb.

Dear MC Cormie

Dear Cormac McCarthy,

I want to start off by congratulating you on the great name. Was it fun to have in grade school?

But down to business. I just finished one of your books, The Road. Cormac, I gotta say, I really loved it. Well done sir. I do have some questions though. I know you're a busy guy, but I'd appreciate some answers.

I'm curious, Cormac. What was your inspiration for this book? Were you trying to send your readers a message about how we need to change our society? Or were you just writing? Now, I hate to assume Cormie, but I think you were trying to warn us. So I guess what I'm really wondering is what happened in your life, what have you witnessed, that has led you to create such a chilling account of a realistic post-apocalyptic chaos. If you could just shoot me a letter back with this explanation, that'd be great.

Here's another one for ya. Do you have something against women? I know that in many of your books you don't shed a nice light on them, and sometimes you barely shed a light at all. For instance, in The Road there are almost no feminine influences. We are briefly introduced to the mother, who leaves her family for death. This didn't effect my enjoyment of the book, I'm not asking you to insert more females characters or to make them a more vital component of the plot. Cormie, I'm just curious if you've had a bad experience, and if you have, I'm sorry. We're really not all that bad.

MC Cormie (can I call you that?), last question. Do you teach writing workshops? I really dig the poetic style you used when writing The Road and I'd like to try it out, hopefully with your help.

Your curious reader,
Hannah

Objection! Defending Charlie B

Poor Charlie B. Past the lips stained with alcohol and ever present cloud of smoke was a great man. He was a smart guy and understood humanity. He was brave enough to face the wrongs in our society head on. Let’s take the poem we read in class, “Dinosauria, We”. He confronts the issues he saw around him and then offered his audience a startling, yet possible, view of what our world could become.

The problems he brings up in “Dinosauria, We” are still present in our society. He referenced things above our control, like a college graduate working a minimum wage job and political injustice. But he also was able to identify wrongs that we can correct, like the lack of communication that occurs between people nowadays and the progression of unnecessary violence. It doesn’t seem that Bukowki cared about writing things that would be accepted or comfortable to read. He wrote in a straight forward way that forces his readers to face what is around them, and even ahead of them.

While Bukowski does make some crazy claims on what our society could turn into, I think it’s something to be admired. Even if our “this” doesn’t turn into the chaotic vision that Bukowski predicts, he still makes us think about the effects our decisions could have on the future. Do we want everything around us to be obliterated with nuclear warfare? Of course not. But if you think about it, this is a very likely possibility if we don’t change our ways. While Bukowski does say some outrageous things about what could lie ahead of us, he does this so that we can change the outcome.

So was Charles Bukowski a crazy drunk? For sure. But he was an intelligent one, who had a lot of important messages to give.

This is the story of a girl

We need more Ms. Wax’s.

It’s plain and simple. The classroom today needs more people like Ms. Wax.

I’ve liked Ms. Wax since she became my division teacher 3 years ago, but last year when I had her for Mixed Media that changed. It was an experience that I wish everyone could have. The amount that she cares about and pushes her students is unbelievable to me. She is the reason I want to be an art teacher when I get older.

I have seen Ms. Wax rise above her duties as a teacher more times than I can count. She doesn’t just care that a student is physically in her class room; she makes sure they’re ok. She has worked with students to get past their disagreements with other teachers, talked with them about their relationships, and even helped them handle a death in the family. She doesn’t ask her students about themselves or care how they’re feeling because she gets paid to do it. She’s such a genuinely nice person, she can’t help it.

And even though I’ve appreciated when Ms. Wax asked me how I was doing or was just friendly to me, I’ve learned more from her in the times when she pressured me. She knows that all of her students are bright people with great ideas, and therefore doesn’t allow them to slide through her class. She pushes them. She makes sure they’re challenged. One time she caught me doing homework for another class while I was supposed to be creating, and she immediately made me stop. While at the time I would’ve just liked to finish my homework, I now thank her for doing that. After that I never worked on other things while in her classroom. I didn’t just do this out of respect for her, but she made me want to excel in her class. She made me want to go to the limits of what I thought I was capable of and then go further.

I think if more teachers forced their students to challenge themselves like Ms. Wax does, kids would be more passionate about learning. They would see past their grade to the more important part of school, to this knowledge we’re supposed to be getting.

Education is such a great privilege, you know.

Hey Mama

My mother has always been there as my teacher. While I have learned many fun things from her, like how to talk my way out of a ticket (extremely true story!), most of the lessons she taught me were serious and required her to work very hard to make them stick in my head.

For instance, my mom taught me not to shoplift. I was around 8 years old and my mother had taken me to Claire’s. If you’ve ever been in a Claire’s store, you know that the workers must get paid minimum wage and therefore have no desire in tidying up. The floors were always filthy, covered with various colored and glittery objects. I, in my youthful innocence, got it into my head that it was a universal rule that everything on the ground was free (actually). I loaded up my pockets with anything I could find and walked out, proud of my day’s accomplishments. (Note: Not one person said anything to me and no sirens went off…Claire’s Corporation, if a child can steal from you that easily, there’s a problem). When I buckled myself into the backseat, I laid out all my goodies next to me. My mother, being the responsible woman she is, looked back and asked me where I had gotten all my trinkets from.

“Don’t worry Mom,” I said. “They were on the floor.”

She immediately turned the car around and made me return all of the stolen goods. It was not a happy day.

Other than that, my mother has taught me about honesty, responsibility, and death. It was not easy for her to teach me these lessons, but she did without flinching. I think that’s because it’s her job. As my mother, she needed to step outside of her comfort zone to expose me to things I needed to know. And I really appreciate that. I know that you read this blog, Mom, so anyway. Thanks.

What You Know about That?

After reading the ideas of many classical philosophers for this class, I’ve realized that it is necessary to question what we know to be true. There are many ideas spread by people that are influenced by their view of the world, making them not necessarily true for me. And let’s not forget conspiracies and flat out lies. Our society is not always an honest one. So we know not to trust everything we hear. But this realization leads us to the real question: How do we know what we know?

I have no definite answer for how we can be certain about anything. In fact, I think it really depends on the person. We all see the world differently, so naturally, we all find our truth in different ways. Personally, I verify what I know using a combination of methods. I can find knowledge through my senses. For instance, I know that boiling water is painfully hot, or hot to me, because I have been burned by it before and know how it made me feel. I also think that we were all born with a certain amount of knowledge. Some great examples of this are universal morals. We are not taught from a young age that killing someone is wrong, but there is something in all of us that tells us so.

There are, however, some ideas that I have had no direct contact with that I believe to be true. For instance, I have never experimented with electricity enough to make my own conclusions, but I believe what scientists tell me about it. There are just some things (usually ones that require logical, not sensory, thought) that I just believe because of what others say. Of course I wish that I could prove everything I know, but as of now that’s not possible. For now, it is easier to get through life using my own knowledge along with the help of discoveries others have made.

Too Many Choices

Since the beginning of Philosophy, people have wondered why we are here. Considering the fact that very wise people have been debating this for ages, I have no problems admitting that I can’t answer this question. I can, however, explore some possibilities for what exactly “our meaning” in this world is. And since we just finished it, why not start off with a quote from Candide?

I read this book last year and throughout both of my readings, this has stayed one of my favorite quotes. It comes from one of the many philosophical discussions Candide and Martin have.

“ ‘But what was this world created for?’ said Candide.

‘To drive us mad’, replied Martin.” (p. 95).

Martin has a very pessimistic view on the world, making his idea that the world was not made for any good reason expected. However, I don’t think that his view has to be taken negatively. Put a positive spin on Martin’s statement. Perhaps this world was created to make us question and investigate it, a task that would drive many people “mad”. However, to enlightened philosophers (which we are all striving to be) this is actually a rather interesting task. It would be as if everything that we know and experience was created just for us to ponder about. An intellectual jungle gym for philosophers, if you will.

And now that we have identified a possible reason that the world exists, we can tackle why we do, what our meaning in life is. So for the purposes of this blog, the world was created to be questioned. Therefore, our duty as people living in the world is to explore all the questions that are offered, from “Why is grass green?” to “What is the purpose of genocide?”. A very wide range of topics, for sure. If you think about it, the infinite options of what we can question could be quite maddening. But maybe that’s the point. If you will.

Modern Day God What?

There are so many different interpretations of “God” these days. Sometimes it seems like no two people can agree upon what “God” means. So how are we to cover all these varying opinions? We can’t. But let’s try, with a little help from some modern songwriters.

Some people believe that God sent Jesus to Earth to help common people and relieve them of their sins. They have faith in God and his plans for them. They are also very grateful that Jesus suffered for them. Sufjan Stevens writes in his song “To Be Alone with You” that he would “swim across Lake Michigan…[and] sell [his] shoes” to be reunited with Jesus. He regrets that he will “never know the man who loved [him]”. Even in this current age of doubt, people like Sufjan stay true to their ideas and maintain their faith in God.

Another more recent interpretation of God is presented by Joan Osborne. She introduces a idea that maybe God isn’t such an infinite being that cannot be known to us, that he could actually be quite common and familiar, in her one-hit wonder “What If God Was One of Us”. She references how some people have such a loose idea of what “God” is and yet do not find a problem with this. She begs the listener to think about concrete facts. For instance, she asks “if God had a name, what would it be?” and “if God had a face, what would it look like?”. While Joan maintains that “yeah, yeah, God is good”, she pounds the idea into our heads that God could in fact be “one of us”. Some people think of God as this all powerful being, but Joan reminds us that we can’t be sure of this, that he may be just like us, “just trying to make his way home”.

As we can see, even in the year of 2010 people have come no closer to finding a definite meaning for what “God” is. I have heard many different opinions on the subject and am nowhere close to making sense of it all. For me, I’m not sure if that will ever be possible.

Poor Guy

In the first chapter of Voltaire’s Candide, Candide is thrown out of his house for kissing the hand of his lover, Cunégonde. While today’s standards for PDA and such have lowered since this scene was written, this was still an extreme reaction. Candide did not deserve such a strict punishment for his crime. I think that Voltaire purposefully over exaggerated this event in order to further his satirical approach to Candide, this time poking fun at the story of Adam and Eve.

This scene resembles the old tale of Adam and Eve in many ways. Pangloss, a clear authoritative figure for both Candide and Cunégonde, is the God of the story. He teaches both of them about almost everything and they look to him as the ultimate source of knowledge. When Cunégonde sees Pangloss “experimenting” with a girl, she is much like Eve being tempted by the serpent. She goes to try what she has learned with Candide and their innocent action is taken as offensive. As a result, Candide is severely punished. This over reaction proves Voltaire’s satirical intentions.

To me, Voltaire is trying to criticize man’s idea of God. Adam and Eve were simple creatures. They only knew what God taught them, and one way or another they learned that he could create. Why was it so wrong of them to try to replicate this? They couldn’t have known any better. And either could Candide and Cunégonde. They learned everything from Pangloss, so naturally if they saw him doing a certain action, they would follow. It is unreasonable that God would kick Adam and Eve out of the Garden of Eden just because they imitated him. This story of God seems awfully hypocritical, and I think that’s what Voltaire is poking fun at. We see how ridiculous it is that Candide is literally kicked out because of an innocent kiss, so why can’t people see how the banishment of Adam and Eve is equally unbelievable?

My sister Rachel rocks and is my Socrates...She is Rock-rates.

My obvious choice for a modern day Socrates is Miss Tyra Banks. Her knowledge of human nature and educated questioning of sex tape celebrities is truly inspiring and sometimes even life changing. However, an essay about Miss Banks would be TOO easy for me to write. Instead, my chosen modern day Socrates is my older sister, Rachel.

Much like Socrates, my sister is very educated. She has always had a yearning for learning, which has paid off for her, as she is probably one of the most intelligent people I know. I’m not sure if this is exactly what causes her curiosity, but I do know this: she asks me more questions than anyone else. While at first her questions were annoying, and I would often dismiss them or yell at her (in the way that sisters do), I’ve grown to realize that there is a point behind her actions. My sister’s constant questioning really makes me think about what I say. I used to say a lot of things without thinking them through, but my sister has changed that. Whether we’re talking about my parents or a school assignment or what color I should dye my hair next, she always makes sure I can back up my opinions and really understand what I’m trying to say. This has also helped me verbalize exactly what I’m trying to say.

Again, like Socrates, my sister has a habit of catching me in my logic and making me look silly. I used to get frustrated by this but I’ve learned that she does this because she loves me. By questioning, she forces me to think about my opinions and why I feel that way. Sometimes I’m able to argue back with her, confident with my thoughts, and even question her back. And sometimes I end up proved ignorant, like one of Socrates’ pupils, and end up changing my opinion. While it’s not the easiest to have my sister question a lot of what I say, it is definitely beneficial. I feel much more confident after talking with her, almost enlightened. Thanks sis.

Think About It

Many young philosophers are familiar with the phrase “the unexamined life is not worth living”. Socrates, the man behind the quote, is considered a father of philosophy for a reason. Even if one does not agree with his view, it is certainly a complex thought and a great subject for debate. I do agree with this statement and think more people ought to practice what ol’ Socrates was preaching.

I have come to believe that the reflection of one’s self is a very important part of life. Many people act a certain way and say certain things without knowing the whole meaning behind them. Examining your life can help you understand who you are and why you do things in that certain way that you do. Thinking about yourself in this way can lead you to make major changes in your life. But even if this reflection doesn’t inspire a change in you, it will help you understand who you are. This understanding of who and why you are can lead to an enlightened and happy life, something I feel is an essential part of being.

And if you won’t examine your life for yourself, at least do it for those around you. I’d like to think that turning inward could cause people to not only understand why they are, but why others are. Hopefully this revelation in how they and others think would lead to more acceptance in the world. This could be just wishful thinking, but what else is a teenager to do?

Many young philosophers are also familiar with the phrase “ignorance is bliss”. While this is a complex statement just like Socrates’, I do not believe this one. Ignorance towards your life may be the easy route to take, but ultimately a fulfilling life is not an easy one. Examining your life is a difficult and intimidating task, but I think if we think ahead, it’s the best choice.

Eulogy of Hannah Bernard

Hannah Bernard, although young when she passed on, made an impact on the world around her. She not only affected her family and friends, but also peers at her school, and even the occasional stranger. Her optimism rubbed off on many and although it took a long time, she died a fulfilled person.

Hannah loved to help others. Whether she was sending a surprise pizza to a
loved one or filling out a survey for a friend in need, she did what was in her power to make those around her happy. She believed that a healthy, successful community was very important for her and others sanity and she tried to show this by acting for others every day. She was human, but no one would accuse her of having anything but good intentions for everyone she knew. She thought that humans were overwhelmingly good and tried not to focus on the bad in people.

Hannah was most well known for her positive attitude. Many people close to her agreed that hardly a day passed when she didn’t try to find the good in a situation, in both her life and others. She did not always have a beautiful life, but none the less she tried to find the beauty in everything. She was always looking for the bright light at the end of the tunnel, a clear example of her optimistic outlook on life. It came as no shock when someone once told her she was too happy, which ironically, she didn’t think was possible.

Hannah loved to see new things. She loved to experiment artistically, whether it was with pen or colored pencil, and was happy when she was creating. However, she was happiest with people. Her confidence in humanity led her to get great satisfaction from others, whether they were her closest friends or strangers on a stage. Her excitement for life will be missed.