"The Three of Us"

Towards the very end of the book it appears that Julia Blackburn has finally began to establish a relatively healthy relationship with her father. They would go out to the pub and talk about books or his poetry and "If things were not going well, then he would thrash about in a net of remorse and despair and irritation, but I didn't feel burdened by the drama of his troubles, simply because he didn't blame me for them" (261). She finally had the weight of feeling accountable for her fathers irresponsible actions. She was not longer the child trying to be the parent to the parent. He had also grown up in a way, finally realizing that the problems of his life were not caused by his daughter. Despite the many past tribulations, they have both moved on.

Near the very end of the book, and of her mothers life, Julia is also able to finally develop a mutual friendship with her mother. Her mother thinks "Funny to have lived close to Julia for the last twenty years, the two of them not more than eight miles apart - ten minutes by car - and yet they were not close at all, until now" (305). Even though they had always physically been close, it took Rosalie (Julia's mother) being on her death bed for them to reconcile and put the past behind them. Though they mostly resolved to forgive and forget, sometimes that is the best option because rehashing old struggles would really have not benefited either mother or daughter. As they talk and discuss some of their pasts, they realize that really they had more in common than they ever imagined. The book concludes with Julia Blackburn finally establishing healthy relations with parents, she herself overcoming the many traumas of her childhood and marrying a man who she loves and who loves her in return.

Blackburn, Julia. The Three of Us: A Family Story. New York: Pantheon Books, 2008.

"The Three of Us"

We see Julia's life start to fall apart when she is seventeen and more of her parents character traits begin to manifest themselves in her. From her mother it seems that she has inherited a terrible taste in men and an unexplainable need for their attention and devotion. She describes her relations with a man named Enrique saying "It was true that he and I had only spent five weeks together, but I felt that he held my life in his hands and I wanted to explain this fact to him, without being demanding or admitting how much he had hurt me" (182). Like her mother, even after he rejects her, she still cannot let go and move on. She lingers to the ideas of what they had and what they could have had if only... She makes a short, teenage relationship into a bigger event, giving herself to someone who was not doing the same for her. It is a very sad example of how, no matter how much she observed what her mother had done wrong, she nevertheless followed in her footsteps.

Possibly even worse than the characteristics she got from her mom, were the habits and feelings that she got similar to her father. Despite seeing the effects of the drugs on her father both physically and mentally she gets involved in marijuana saying "Theo smoked a huge amount of dope and I began smoking too" (183). I was shocked when I read this because I knew from her telling that she hated seeing her father constantly popping pills. She blamed the pills on many of his emotional problems, and yet she was getting involved in the same thing just with a different type of drug. The fact that she is smoking because the guy, Theo, who she was dating at the time also shows her likeness to her mother in her willingness to do anything to be close to him. A bit ironically she has many of the same feelings as her father when high on the drugs or coming down from a high saying "my heart was racing at different speeds and I was sure I was about to die. I decided that if I didn't die, then I would kill myself in the morning" (183). Just like her father she plunges deep into a suicidal despair. The drugs turning her into the very man whose habits she despised from whom I was sure she would learn to stay away from drugs and alcohol. After all she saw first hand their detrimental effects. I was wrong.

Blackburn, Julia. The Three of Us: A Family Story. New York: Pantheon Books, 2008.

"The Three of Us"

As we dive deeper into Julia Blackburn's childhood we begin to learn a bit more about the little things that just helped her get through the day. As her parents become increasingly distant and her father grows in his addictions and violence, she finds friends in her animals. She says "Now, when I came home from school, my fear of what dramas might take place that night was balanced by the anticipation of being in the company of my bushbaby" (106). It is clear that she, as an only child with parents that were for the most part caught up in their own careers and troubles, desperately sought love and affection-something she found in this small animal. As many animal lovers have said, even when no-one else is there, your pet will be waiting for you when you get home, no critisizm or harsh words-just unconditional love. We see the depth of her connection with her bushbaby name Congo when she expresses her feelings after his death. She says "When I was told he was gone I felt as if I had lost my brother, my lover, my closest friends" (106). From this we see just how alone she was and how she longed for a companion. Just someone she could count on and who would care for her unconditionally.
After seeing how much she loves this small animal, the only true companion she has, there is a sad irony about the events that led to her father and mother's final separation. In 1961, after the death of her bushbaby, she finally got what she had always wanted-a dog! However, it turned out the dog was "too nice" and this disturbed her father so he began trying to literally make her dog meaner and unfortunatly-he succeded. This turned out to be the cause of the splitting of their family. The family was sitting down to lunch and Blackburn's father and mother were arguing as usual and when her mother set their lunch of hearts on the table, her father lifted them up and flung them at her mother. Of course, the dog went to grab the hearts as they fell to the floor. Seeing this, her father became furios at the dog and he "picked up a heavy mahogany doorstop, raised the weight above his head and prepared to smash it down on the dog's skull" (115). Luckly Julia was able to push her father over just in time to save the dog. Her father had actually tried to kill their small dog! This was the last straw, a few days later Julia's mother picked her up at school and announced that they would be staying with friends for a while-her and her father were getting a divorce.

Blackburn, Julia. The Three of Us: A Family Story. New York: Pantheon Books, 2008.

"The Three of Us"

As the memoir continues, it is becoming increasingly evident that jealousy is an underlying theme that provides for emotional tension between many of the people in Blackburn's life. Her mother seems to express the most irrational jealousy, she was even jealous of the attention her new born daughter was getting which caused her to resent her daughter for most of her life (44). She was also jealous of her husbands relationship with a man named Francis saying "Francis was her childhood friend and he [her husband] had no right to steal him away" (57). It is very evident that the problem was not her husband hanging out with Francis, but about her own insecurity. She constantly wanted to be the center of attention, instantly despising anyone who took that attention (especially her husbands attention) away from her. At first I couldn't understand this, how could a mother be jealous of her own daughter? But as the memoir continued and I learned more about her childhood, I began to understand.
Growing up, Julia Blackburn's mother had one sister who was two years older. She was always the favorite of the family, everything seemed to start to fall apart after Rosalie (Julia's mother) was born. Julia bluntly said that "Their father loved Boonie and he didn't love Tuggie" (73). Tuggie was Rosalie's nickname and Boonie was her sister Vivienne's nickname. I can't even imagine how a father could actually truly not love his daughter, but evidently he did. He even went to far as to encourage her sister to beat her, often joining in the abuse himself. Rosalie's mother's feelings were not much different saying "She made it clear right from the start that she didn't like her second child, not one bit" (74). Rosalie clearly received no love or affection as a child, being literally hated by bother her parents and being constantly abused, ridiculed and criticized. From this it is easy to see how she ended up with such low self esteem and a need to be in the center of attention. It is also somewhat ironic that it was her sister, who was always the much favored suicide they ended up committing suicide.

Blackburn, Julia. The Three of Us: A Family Story. New York: Pantheon Books, 2008.

"The Three of Us"

Throughout the memoir, Julia Blackburn writes accounts of what she remembers, and of what people around her at the time have told her, she also inserts many of her old diary entries, pictures and occasionally faxes between her and an old friend in which they discuss events of their childhoods. I was a little shocked when she described what she used to write in her diaries as a young girl saying "I write about how I go to school every day, except when I am sick, or tired, or hung-over in which case I stay in bed and write about that instead" (13). She was not very old, only in her early teens so I was very surprised about her so nonchalantly talking about having a hang over, as if it was no big deal. But as I thought about it more, it really doesn't surprise me because of the clear lack of discipline by either of her parents. They were far to occupied with their own lives and careers to feel the need to take responsibility for her.
Neither Blackburn's parents or any of the adults in her life seemed to have any problem with her consuming alcohol. In fact, one morning when she went down into the kitchen after getting ready for school her mothers "partner" who was living with them (she called the men who lived in their spare bedroom lodgers) asked "Brandy?" (17). She denied his offer but nevertheless we start to see that she was treated as if she was much older my all the adults around her. As we read more it is clear that she really did not have a lot of friends and most of her time was spent around adults-namely her parents friends. She was clearly very mature for her age, having to cope with her fathers alcohol and drug addiction, as well as his abuse towards her mom. As the memoir continues, we divulge deeper and deeper into the rather twisted lives of the Blackburn family.

Blackburn, Julia. The Three of Us: A Family Story. New York: Pantheon Books, 2008.

"The Three of Us" by Julia Blackburn

For my third quarter blog am reading a memoir by Julia Blackburn called "The Three of Us: A Family Story." On the very first page of the memoir Blackburn essentially sums up the relationship between her and her father saying "He was disastrous in so many ways, yet I never felt threatened by him. I could be frightened of the madness and the drunken rages, but I never doubted the honesty of his relationship with me and that was what really mattered" (1). From this quote one can tell that despite her fathers drug addictions and alcohol abuse, she still saw him as a father figure and cherished her relationship with him. However, I did find it odd that despite watching him go into insane bouts of rage where he lashed out and even became delirious, she still respected him. I continued to lose respect for her father as I learned about his relationship with her mother. She further describes her fathers relationship with her and her mother saying "My father never hit me; except once when the three of us were sitting down to Sunday lunch at the big round table and he lunged sideways at my mother with his fist, but got me by mistake" (6). She acts as though it is all okay because he didn't mean to hit her, but he was still trying to hit her mother, which in my opinion is just as bad! It is strange to me how she makes such an animal act seem not out of place at the family table, leading me to believe this was not the only time he lashed out against her mother.
Not only did she have a very strange relationship with her father, her mother was not exactly what one would call "normal". In the very beginning of he memoir she summarizes her relationship with her mother saying "Right from the start I was her sister and her confidante and eventually, her sexual rival, as the boundaries between us became increasingly dangerous and unclear" (2). From this sentence, and what we learn later on, her mother was not terribly "maternal." She wanted a companion, someone she could talk to, not a daughter-someone she had to raise and take care of. She even goes so far as to say that her mother begins to see her as a sort of rival in attracting the attention of men. Both of these strange insights into the lives of her parents and their location at the very beginning of the book lead us to believe that they played a key role in her development despite their clearly dysfunctional natures.

Blackburn, Julia. The Three of Us: A Family Story. New York: Pantheon Books, 2008.

"Space" Suffering and Change

After Carol experienced a near death experience, Jesse began to suffer from horrible depression. Her mom was not a mom at all, addicted to Valium, smoking and drinking, she slept and watched T.V. all day, rarely speaking or eating. Jesse says "I disappeared inside my own body. I had the sensation of walking around and looking at my feet and my hands as if they were only remotely connected to anything I would call myself" (268). She had begun to feel that it was easier simply to retreat into herself, ignoring everyone around her. She had lost all felling of self identity, she was just floating through life trying to block out all the pain, suffering and hardships of everyday life. Despite her father hardly being home at all with his work at the junior college, he even began to notice Jesse's behavior and decided to take her to group therapy. However this really didn't help at all because she felt that what she had done was nothing to the stories of the other teens in the group. So, not wanting to look out of place, she "started to lie" (271). She mad up horrible stories, she even seemed to be outdoing the others, real life stories. Despite the lies, she learned from the experience that she never wanted to do the things that the other people told stories about. Or the things that she made up lies about doing.
In one two years everthig seemed to change. Carol went off to norhern florida to go to College, Jesse, after graduating from high school a year early began attending the junior college where her father worked. She maried a boy she met at college at 17, her father and mother got divorced after her fathers health began to fail. Then Jesse said "We got a divorce. My parents, both ill, both living on my fathers's pension in separate rooms in my rented house, decided to remary" (318). Putting it lightly, her life was a mess. Shortly there after, he father died of a heart attack, and her mother then died just over a year later. However, despite how horrible it all seemed, it was not until all those terrible things had happened that Jessa was really able to move on in her life and make something of herself. Jesse said that "After my parents died, that all change" (322). She had been working menial, low wag jobs, but after their death she got a job as a perfessor, began writing books, remaried, and had a daughter. The think to learn from Jesse Le Kercheval's story, was that no matter what stands in your way, there is always a way to move o and make something of yourself.

"Space" Racism

In the early years of her life Jesse Lee Kercheval lived a very sheltered life, she moved to Cocoa florida from Washington D.C. She lived in a small community in Cocoa and looked at the world through very idealistic eyes. Durring the summer when she was fifteen, she went to a three week YMCA camp. There she see's and hears fist hand the racist ideals that were all over at that time. Not only that, looking back on her life she saw instances where she saw blacks being treated differently and didn't understand why. She had "seen a sign posted in a resturant window" that said "Whites Only" (221). She hadn't understood why and had questioned her mother about it. She recalled that her mother explained what it meant, seeming to be embarrised by Jesse's question and clearly in dissagreement with the sign. Yet after Jesse asked her "But if we won't let them come in our resturants, then they might no let us go in theirs" (222). To young Jesse this seemed obvious. She saw that there was no difference what color your skin was, a resturant was a resturant, no matter who owned it. If only more people could have viewed the world the way she did.
At camp, we see that her ideals have changed slightly, nothing is as simple as she thought it was when she was young. She was friends with black kids at camp it made no difference to her what the color of their skin was, in fact one of her two best friends at camp was a black girl named Celia. There were also two black girls at the camp on scolarships, but they kept to themselves and really had no friends beside each other. Celia didn't like them at all, and when Jesse questioned her she said "they just tell everybody in the world that black people are no better than trash, no better than poor ignorant trash" (224). She thought that because they were on scolarship and had secondhand swimsuits they were making her, a fellow black person, look bad. She strongly believed that no one had to be poor, they just had to work hard. She seemed dissapoined in other black people, like they were being lazy. Yet Jesse, doesn't understand she even says "I guess I thought blacks were better than us" (229). She knew that white people discriminated against black people but she didn't realize that it went the other way. That black people, thought the same thoughts about white people or some against other black people. It just goes to show how she looked down on white people for being racist, how she believed that everyone was the same. Skin color doesn't matter.

"Space" Changing Ideas

As I continue to read about the life of Jesse Lee Kercheval I can not help but be saddened by the loss of her innocence and of her idealistic views. We begin to see a very new Jesse from the one that we had originally gotten to know. She goes from being a young rambunctious girl, to a pre-teen who is forced to face things that someone at her age should not have to deal with. This change became extremely apparent to me when she began to talk about the death of neighbor hood pets and the way they coincided with how life ended up turning out for their owners. It was an extremely gloomy observation for such a young girl to even notice, let alone really think about. Speaking about Arrow, the neighbor’s dog, Jesse says "looking back, I can't help feeling that Arrow's death foreshadowed David's sisters, the first tragedy preparing the way for the next" (157). First the Mizes dog died, he was running full tilt and ran directly into a pole and immediately died. Then only a few years later, the Mizes daughter was involved in a one-man car crash and died instantly. Even now I'm not sure I would have even considered this connection, this intricate weaving of fate. Yet at barely twelve years old, Jesse stated it as simply a harsh fact about life. Then, after her two dogs got in a horrible fight, sending one to the emergency room, Jesse talks about the deeper implications of her parent’s decisions give up one of the dogs. To her family the dogs were part of the family, she wondered what hidden meaning this event could have saying "If Gretel was my mother's four-legged daughter, what did it mean that she was willing to give her away in the name of harmony and practicality?" (159). Jesse considered the dog, Gretel to be the dog version of her, so she actually wondered if, because her parents were willing to give gretel away, if they would also do the same with her. If she just became too much to handle they could just hand her away because it was the easiest thing to do. This really opened my mind to how much the family and even neighborhood you grow up in affects essentially how you’re mind works and what you believe.
Not only did her beliefs and feeling about her family change, her past idealistic views began to change to accept what was, rather than trying to change it. When she was young she dreamed of being an astronaut and saw no reason why she could not accomplish this, after all she was just as capable as any boy was. However, her enthusiasm for the subject decreases and she begins to accept the sexist views of society saying "A year ago, it had seemed impossibly unfair that women couldn't be astronauts, real astronauts. Now I was only bummed that it meant I couldn't blast off in the Maltezo's Airstream and spend ten days nearly alone in "space" with Paul" (166). He focus begins to shift from her hopes and aspirations of the future to what is going on right at the moment. She begins to be interested in boys and not so much about changing society for the better. This seemed ironic to me, because I would think that as one grows up and become more educated they would seek to further themselves and the world. Yet it seems in Jesse's case anyways that as one grows up, they lose their passion, and optimism that they can do anything about it. Her family life continues to collapse and she really starts to make it apparent. She has accepted it, though she doesn't like what has happened she feels powerless to change it. When talking about the prospect of going home after swim practice she says "I hated the idea of being in the house with only Bertha, Lucky, and my drugged mother" (177). In the past we saw her overlooking her mother’s problems, but here really for the first time we see her acknowledge them. She no longer insists on looking at the good side of everything and ignoring the bad. She sees what is there and accepts it, feeling small and hopeless; there is nothing she can do so why bother. It is so sad that such a young girl so full of ideas, optimism, and spunk, is growing up to just embrace the way things are, wither she likes them or not.

"Space" - Growing Up

In this section of Space a memoir, Jesse Lee continues through the fourth grade, still not wanting to go to do school or do homework, just content spending her time playing outside with her best friend Marly. However, she reveals what we would considered very old-fashioned ethical beliefs, that would even be considered racist and sexist. Lee explains how in her fourth grade class the children are split into different "supposedly like-minded groups," which were all supposed to be equal but as she explains it is clear that her group is the "advanced" section of students. She makes a harsh observation of the way the groups are formed saying "You don't have to be Advanced to figure out how the system really wored. Almost all the black and poor kids were in Basic and seeed to spend most of their school days helping the janitor." This seems like a harsh analysis of the school system however, coming from a fourth grader is simley an innocent observation. Even at a young age she recognized that other poople were getting diferent treatment because of their skin color or social standing. She doesn't seem to understand really why this is but also doesn't seem to be terribly bother by it, that was just how things were in her mind. Today, though, this is despicable, and rightly so, why should kids be grouped by the ammount of money their families have or by what ethnicity they are. The SHOULD be grouped however into "like-minded groups" because people who are at roughly the same level will be easier to teach as a group than kids who are at all different stages of learning. However this does not make one group "better" than another.
Lee also makes a comment about the occupations of women vs. the occupations of men. Refering first to her and her classmates specifically and then women in general she says "We were too busy talking, too busy with our bodies to keep up with science. No wonder women weren't the first ones on their way to th moon". I would concider this a very sexist comment except for the fact that it is coming from a fourth grade girl, reflecting on the connection between how her and her classmates on and the fact that there aren't many female astraunats. I don't think that she is saying that women couldnt have been the first people on the moon, after all she herlself want to be an astraunaut when she grows up. I think that she is almost expressing dissapointment at women for getting distracted and not reacing their full potential. In her memoir this is really the first section where we see Jesse as more than an innocent and ignorent child. It is clear that even though all she really wants to do is have fun, and has no interest in school, she is by no means uninteligent and has an observation based understaning of the world.

On the Waterfront

In the film On the Waterfront there are three main social groups involved. There are the mob members, the dock workers, and the cops. To the mob bosses, any worker who speaks out agains what the mob is doing is a traitor or a "stool pigeon." They believe that the workers owe them loyalty, after all they are the ones who proviede them with work and money so that they can provide for themselves and their families. Therefore exposing their secrets and revealing what they have done is a staunch betrayal. The bosses constantly push the workers around and make them do things they don't want to do but the workers are just suposed to take it because they "owe the mob" for everything that they have. The workers hate the way the mob runs the docks and they despise how they are treated but they are to affraid of the consequences they would face if they revealed the truth about the mob activity. However, at the same time they feel a certain loyalty to their fellow workers and even to the mob bosses because they have all leaned on each other and provided for each other for a long time. After Terry stands up against the mob, all the men who used to be his friends refuse to talk to him, they don't want the mob bosses to think that they are associated with Terry. However, after a time they come around and realize that all their loyalty should be to Terry and their fellow workers NOT to the corrupt mob. Meanwhile the cops are just trying to find out the truth about the mob which, until Terry testifies, is extremely difficult because noone will betray the mob and be an "infomant on criminal activity."
I believe that what Terry did, which was reveal what the mob had done, was the right thing to do. He ended up losing his brother and was beat almost to the point of death because of it but in the end it bennefited all the dock members and made the mob pay for the years of abuse they had inflicted on the workers. I believe that when you see any sort of injustice it is your duty to speak out against it. When people in power are taking advantage of the little people, if all the little people would stand up and unite against the people in power they would be able to overcome them. But often everyone is to afraid of the consequences to stand up and do anything so they let the unjust behavior continues. However if you stand up and make a stand, then others will be able to follow suit and you can change the world for the better. On the same note though, it is not ok to stank up against society or be "a tattle tale" if you are doing it only for your own good. The fundamental differents between a "stool pigeon" and an "informant on criminal activity" is that a "stool pigeon" is one who betrays their friends for their own good while an "informant on criminal activity" stands up against what they believe is wrong for the good of the society as a whole.

Society vs. Family in All My Sons

In All My Sons, we see a stark change in Joe Keller. In the beginning he is portrayed as a relaxed, easy going man who plays with the neighborhood children and lovingly teases his family. However, as the play continues, Keller becomes anxious and defensive when anyone mentions the death of Larry or the cracked cylinder heads. Keller snaps on Ann when she suggests that it could be possible that Larry died as a result of the cracked cylinder heads. He says "Those cylinder heads went into P-40's only. What's the matter with you? You know Larry never flew a P-40"(32). He seems to be convincing himself more than he is concerned with convincing Ann, but never the less, he flies off the handle on Ann who he practically raised. When we find out that it was indeed Keller and not Ann's father who decided to patch up the cylinders, it becomes clear why he was so quick to stand up for Steve. Yet when he confesses to Chris, he continues to justify what he did, saying "Chris...Chris, I did it for you, it was a chance and I took it for you. I'm sixty-one years old, when would I have another chance to make something for you"(70). Keller looked at the situation as having two possible outcomes. Either he could take responsibility for his actions and suffer the consequences, or he could put the blame on Steve and pretend that he did nothing wrong. He justifies the decision he made to put faulty supplies in the hands of young men who would depend on them for their lives, because he knew that if he threw them all away and started over, the business would not be able to make it back from the lack of income. Also because he knew that the government would not be happy that he was behind in supplies that they badly needed. He wanted to be able to make something for his son to take over when he returned from the war, so he sacrificed others lives for his family's welfare.

I strongly disagree with the decision that he made. It is one thing to want to provide for your family and try to give them a better life then you had, but it is another to put the lives of others in jeopardy in the process. Plus, not only did he kill the men flying in the 21 planes, he also essentially ended Steve's life by naming him as the one responsible for trying to patch up the cracked cylinders. There may be circumstances when it is ok, or best to put ones family before society but this definitely was not one of them. When it becomes a question of money and comfort, versus life, in my opinion life always wins. By choosing to put others in danger so that your family will be wealthy, you are basically saying that your family's comfort is more important than someones life. Sometimes you have to make sacrifices for the common good, it may not be easy but in the long run it will pay off, if not for you than for your children and your childrens children. You will never be looked on highly for your chances for personal gain before the welfare of others, but you will forever be looked onto with respect for commiting a selfless act for another.

"Space" - The move

As "Space" a Memoir of Jesse Lee continues, we see Jesse Lee's family slowly growing apart, as a result of the families’ recent move to Cocoa Florida from Washington D.C. At the age of 10 Jesse has an open, idealistic mind that welcomes the new opportunities and exciting adventures she believes the move will bring. She has a fascination with space and she can't wait to see a live shuttle launch from her own front yard. Her anticipation of the move and her disappointment that time seems to be against them is shown, "we missed the Surveyor 1 launch, then four days later, Gemini 9. We could have been right there." Jesse is speaking to her sister Carol who was two years older and, like her mother, was not terribly enthusiastic about moving to a hot new state. Whereas Jesse could not wait to be done with school to saying "when I looked at my history lesson, the world swam in incomprehensible rows over the page, like I was still staring at the ocean's waves." This not only shows her impatience but also that there really wasn't anything important that she felt like she was leaving behind and would miss. We see the optimistic young mind of a girl who, instead of looking at the negatives looks at the positives, seeing Florida in a very idealistic way. We could all learn a lesson from Jesse Lee, that no matter what situation we are forced into, if instead of dwelling on the unfortunate situation, we see it as a new opportunity, a new adventure, our lives could be much happier.

In sharp contrast to Jesse, we see her sister and especially her mother; look at their approaching move with a sense of impending doom. Though Jesse seems oblivious to the depth of her mothers sadness and irritation at having to move, we see it clearly when her friend comes over to say goodbye and says " think about it Mary, it's not too late to change your mind." She then responds saying "the girls, besides, my furniture is already there." Though Jesse at such a young age dismisses it as nothing, we can see that the move was very hard on Mary and she had even considered leaving her husband so she would not have to uproot and move across the country. Only continuing to verify the idea throughout the memoir that the relationship between Jesse's parents is anything but close. Her father goes to work everyday but her mother stays home drinking, smoking and lying around because there are no jobs available in her line of work. Sadly Jesse begins to realize that her mother isn't the same person that she was when they lived in Washington. She seems to have given up, but on what we are not sure. Carol, who is only two years older than Jesse, seems to have taken on the motherly role or caring for both Jesse and her mother. We see this especially when Jesse says to her mother, after cutting her foot because she was running barefoot which her "mother" told her not to, "Carol's going to kill me." Then "my mother nodded, as if now we both understood...we sat there a minute more, like we were kids hiding out." It is a sad realization that 12year old Carol is trying to play the mother to keep her family together by trying to prevent anything from going wrong. It is becoming clear as the book goes on that the family situation is deteriorating and Carol feels responsible for holding it together, while Jesse’s young mind fails to see the signs. As I read I can't help but wish we were all still like Jesse, viewing every day as a new and exciting adventure instead of a dreaded event that can't be avoided.

"Space"

For my second quarter outside reading I am reading "Space," a memoir by Jesse Lee Kercheval. In the prologue we are given an idea of what Jesse's life was like at the time she wrote the book and we are given a glimpse of her life through a brief explanation of why she had written the memoir and we get an idea about what roles her different family members played in her life. She starts the process of writing the memoir by having her sister send her some family pictures. We can tell that up until she decided to write it that she was more than happy to put the past in the past, forgetting about any childhood trouble. As she explains the pictures we are continually given the idea that her mother was not really where she wanted to be, she seemed distracted in all the pictures, like she was stuck. Before you even start the official book, you are prepared for a very emotionally detached family.

Jesse was a child during the time of the vietnam and where she begins her memoir she is ten years old, her sister Carol is 12, and they are just beginning to move from Washington D.C. to Florida. She is young and ready for new experiences, wile her mother and sister are less willing to accept the change, all so her dad can switch jobs. She explains how her mother and her mothers mother grew up in families where emotions were not public affair and even the diner table is public. The only really private place is your head, and if at only 10 years old Jesse would begin to show to much emotion her mother would seemingly drift away until she stopped. This is a continuing pattern in the book, the dialogue is very cold, straight to the point with no person feelings clouding it. Even though both her parents had jobs it is evident that the male was considered the bread winner and ultimately the head of the family.

"His Name is Jimmy"

I happened apon this story and at first didn't really feel like reading a whole story, short or not but as I began I was moved by the authors writing and the message she was sending. The story is narrated by a woman who is recalling her childhood and specifically her relationship with Annette, her familys maid. The narrator describes Annette a like a second mother to her, always there when she need her and wise beyond the times. The setting is not described but it is portrayed as being durring a time of partial racial seggregation. Annette was an African American woman who belived that everyone should be treated equal, no matter what their color, religion, or background. This was a belief that she implanted into the narrators mind forever. And which the narrator has carried with her through life and has passed down to her own children and the children she tought. She reminisces in the story about a time when she was 15 years old and was working at a resturant. She became friends with a boy named Jimmy, she talked of him as if he was just like anyone. So you are taken aback when you read on and the owner of the resturants threatens that unless she stops associating with him, she will lose her job. She couldn't understand this and refused, the next time she was at work Jimmy was gone. He was African American and her associating with him "didn't look good." It really reminded me of how hard it is for people to move forward and accept the idea that everyone was created equally. You see in the innocence of the young girl and wonder, why can't everyone think that way? It seems obviouse to me that the color of your skin does not affect your personality or anything about who you are. If everyone was blind, and there were people with white skin or the people with black skin could you tell who was who? NO! Yet to this day people judge others and treat them differently because of the color of their skin. This was a very touching story about the innocent life of a girl who we can all learn something from, and I would definitely recomend reading it.

http://www.jhedge.com/story/nofic/namejim.htm

Photography in the Beginning

When photography first came out, artists (such as painters) were afraid that their work would be replaced by photography and so they began to learn the "art of photography." In the early days of photography, it was not really an art form but a way of capturing a scene, in a very rigid and lacking artistic values that made them more that simply a record of light and shadow. The original cameras were very large and unmanageable, making them difficult to transport. They also had extremely long shutter speed so the subjects had to remain completely still for quite some time. By the 1860s, shutter speeds had decreased and photographs began to be printed onto cards that could be given to friends and family, or sent to people further away. Photography really took off when it began to be printed on paper beginning the production of magazines such as the National Geographic which vastly influenced americans views on the world around them. Through pictures they were able to view different parts of the world that they would most likely not have the chance to see first hand. There are many uses of photography from art, to magazines, to capturing family memories it plays and integral part in todays society and helped increase the knowledge of the early american society.

Analysis Photograph

Sleep Deprivation

I decided to write about sleep, I know almost everyone I know seems to feel perpetually tired. Multiple studies have been done showing the affects that lack of sleep can cause, especially on teenagers. In an article in a Psychology journal, it was said that lack of sleep in teenagers can result in poorer grades, more car accidents, inability to focus, ADHD, and depression. They even went to far as to say that when tested, areas where teenagers get the most amount of sleep there is a substantially less amount of teen related car accidents and crime. For a long time people believed that as people got older there need for sleep gradually decreased, however, it is now known that in fact, teenagers need more sleep than younger children and adults. In fact, teenagers need about 9.2 hours of sleep wile adults need only 7.5-8 hours a night. Wile this is all very interesting to me, I had to think "yea right," as if I have the time to sleep that much during the week! For that reason people have been trying to push back school start time, because it is believed that something in the brain causes teenagers to want to go to bed, and get up later. And so by starting school later, they will be able to focus more, and get more sleep. I think this is a good idea, but at the same time, if school starts later, than it gets out later, leading to less time for homework. It seems that the problem is not when school starts as much as with sports and the piles of homework we get every day, there is very little time for sleep.

http://www.apa.org/monitor/oct01/sleepteen.html

Homer, a Feminist?

It seems to me that Homer was closer to an early feminist than and old-fashioned sexist. He repeatedly shows thins in his portrayal of the goddesses as well as the Penelope, and other female characters. Athena, the goddess of wisdom and warfare, shows immense power over Zeus when she convinces him to turn the tied of the war to favor the Greeks. Even thought she is a woman, her opinion is respected, and her power is not debated. Also, the Greeks goddess Artemis was called the god of the hunt and wild things. This shows that the Greeks did not believe that the only thing women could do was stay at home and have children. Not only was this true among the gods, but among mortals as well.

When one glances at the women of ancient Greece, it would be easy to see why they would say they were portrayed in a very sexist manner. However, if you really read, and understand how Homer portrayed women, you would easily see that this was not the case. When Odysseus writes about the relationship between Penelope and suitors, he shows that no matter how much they want her to marry one of them, they cannot lay a hand on her. She stands her ground against a crowd of men and is shown to be the head of the house, temporarily taking the place of Odysseus. Also, Penelope and the wives of other prominent Greek figures evidently have an influence over the decisions of their husbands. In this, Homer shows that their opinions were valued, and they were not considered to be just property. Throughout the Iliad and the Odyssey, Homer seems to express an early sense of feminism rather than the expected, sexism.

Halloween.."

Because it is starting to feel more and more like fall everyday I decided to write my article about the strange holiday, Halloween. A family in Farmington has built a haunted house in their backyard to raise money to support the soldiers fighting over seas. This year, the sixth annual "Support our Troops Haunted House" goes from the Farmington family's backyard to the Dakota State fair ground where it will be open to the public for the first time on October 10th and 11th. The Beyls currently have two sons serving in Iraq, and their goal is to raise support for all the soldiers through earnings from the haunted house. All money raised will go towards care packages, memorials, cards, and letters. I thought this was I great article because it turns a fun, crazy event into something more. A way to support the people who make it possible to freely express your beliefs.

Aquion, Jeannine."Scarring up some support for the troops this Halloween." Star Tribune.com. September 17, 2008. Star Tribune. October 1, 2008 .