Crash && alliance

1.I saw Crash for the first time last night and thought it was intriguing.
2.I decided to choose Hansen as character because he is personally my favorite character. Hansen is a young man who is a kind and held up his own for many years. He is a new cop but his partner is a cruel, racist and twisted man who trust to pollutes Hansen's mind.
Hansen seems like a dynamic character, in fact I think all of the characters are dynamic. For an example Hansen is seen as a young smart and diverse man but at the end he kills a kid that was innocent. We base a person's character on their actions when we need to realize that life does so much to a person. As the movie goes on Hansen becomes a person that he really isn't because of life's frustrations and unpredictablity. Our behavior doesn't only affect ourselves but our lives connects with so many other people.
3.The theme of the movie is that a person is the way they are for a reason. A person isn't just cruel, there is a reason why that person is cruel. Life has run it's course to people and based off of their situation they act the way they do. This movie portrayed the theme well because it shows life's situation as lifes intertwine with each other.
4.This movie has brought up alot of thoughts and now as I watch movies I will see the theme. Watching a movie with a thought of literature helps you catch alot of stuff that you could easily miss because just watching it as just entertainment you are often too relax to be aware of everything that is happening.



I went to Alliance on Friday at 10am. I had planned on going this coming up Tuesday but made a last minute change in plan. GOing to Alliance was almost like bringing out the story The Boys Next Door to life. The lady told me about the people there and how they try to teach these people the basic ways to live life. FOr an example on girl was taught to drive a gold cart and that was her special job so everyday she would drive people from one building to the next. It was something that was special to her only and gave her happiness in the simple thing that she could do. They also are partnered with business like Publix and Publix agreed to give them small special jobs that they could do like sewing. These jobs are simply yet it helped the people find accomplishment. Some of the people are able to stay on their own just like the boys next door, where they would all stay in one house and try to function together while others live at home or in a special home. THis faucility does so much to help these people through life. IT's hard enough living life as "normal" people do but when you are mentally disabled it has to be so much harder yet there are people who are will sarifice so much time to help those in need.

What we talk about when we talk about love

What We Talk about When We Talk about Love is about two couples sitting around the kitchen table talking about love. Mel is the main speaker who has been marriage to Terri for 4 years and the narrator, Nick, has been married to his wife for a year and a half. The four people are drinking gin and Mel and Terri talk about Terri’s first love, Ed. Terri claims that Ed loved her while Mel just thinks Ed was mentally disabled. “My God, don’t be silly. That’s not love, and you know it,” Mel says. “I don’t know what you call it, but I sure know you wouldn’t call it love.” “Say what you want to, but I know it was,” Terri says. “It may sound crazy to you, but it’s true just the same. People are different, Mel, Sure, sometimes he may have acted crazy. Okay. But he loved me. IN his own way maybe, but he loved me. There’s love there Mel. Don’t say there wasn’t.” The couple debates on what love really is and how could a man how loves Terri so much hurt her? Mel goes on to talk about how he hates his ex wife and struggles with the question of loving her so much when they were married but now he wants her to die. What changed it for them and why does love change so quickly? The question they struggle with is what is love really? How do you measure it and how is it defined? But as the story goes on they slowly get drunk as the night draws late.

The first time I read this story just as a story. It was intriguing but I never thought about it. As I read this story again and again I understood how complex it really is. We put love into this definition, just like Mel. He claims that love is just the typical definition whereas Terri claims that Ed loved her even though he threatened her. So when I read this it makes me personally wonder whether love is simply the typical feeling or it is something more complex. How do we know that what we feel is really love or is it just passion and desire? What makes us love for now and not forever? Mel used to love his ex wife deeply but then a few years later he can’t stand her. “There isn’t a day that goes by that Mel doesn’t say he wishes she’d get married again. Or else die,” Terri said. “For one thing,” Terri said, “she’s bankrupting us. Mel says it’s just to spite him that she won’t get marriage again. She has a boyfriend who lives with her and the kids, so Mel is supporting the boyfriend too.” How can we define which love is legitimate and which love is temporary and is there such thing as temporary love or is that just infatuation?

As young adults we are about to make serious and important decisions for our future. Who to marry and when do we know who to marry. People claim that the divorce rate in America is 50% and it goes up higher if you’ve been married before so as I read this story I wonder what love is really. As I look around on campus and talk to my fellow classmate I wonder who is in love and how long will they be in love for. Can love be a temporary thing yet truly love or is legitimate love everlasting? Is love this “you just know” feeling that I’ve been taught all of my life and does everyone get that feeling? If it is that “you just know it” feeling then what about the people who get married just because they have a baby together then over time they truly do love each other? I suppose love can be a gradual movement as well but then at the same time if you can gradually fall into love…can you gradually fall out of love. If so, is that really loved or is it just the thought or feeling of love? I have a friend who loves to be in love. I’m not completely sure what that really is but that is how people describe her. She has been so in love that she wanted to marry the guy, 3 months into the relationship. Here I am sitting on the side thinking that this woman is crazy but I can see how in love she is. They were glowing with “love” and they had so many plans and to me it was impulsive but who am I to judge what I don’t know. I don’t know how she feels. What if she does love this guy with all of her heart? There are crazy stories like that you know?! Crazy people getting married 3 months into their relationship because they “knew” it was meant to be and they have lasted. My pastor is one example, 4 months into the relationship “knew” they were meant to be and got married. So my friend is heads over hill for this man and I’m doubting the relationship. Is love irrational or does it follow a pattern? Going back to the story Ed used to beat Terri and she still claims it to be love. “He did love me though, Mel. Grant me that,” Terri said. “That’s all I’m asking. He didn’t love me the way you love me. I’m not saying that but He loved me. You can grant me that, can’t you?” So is this love or is this just an imagination of what she wants to be love? Now I go back to my friend how eventually broke up with her boyfriend after so many months and doesn’t even talk about him. He cheated on her with some chick from his school. Now you have to wonder where does love come from and how far does it go? He loved my friend but at the same time he loved this other chick and she loved him. After the break up they don’t talk, not even mentioned his name. So was that love? Does love come and go so easily? With all of her heart she claims that that was her love, but is that the correct usage or love or is love so simple that we look so deeply for a meaning that isn’t really there?

enormous wings

So I read the story the Very old Man with Enormous Wings and to tell you the truth that story was confusing. To understand it I read it a second time and I still didn’t truly understand this story. But I can tell you that it was sad how the Old Man was taken such advantage off. He supposedly was the reason for the baby to get better and to thank him they threw into a hen pin. They is scrutinized by a bunch of people and harassed. In the end he ends up helping that family make a lot of money for them to redo their home and to get new clothes and to repay him they did nothing. It was because of him that they had so rich. The parents won’t let the baby get near the Old Man when he’s not even dangerous. He didn’t hurt anyone throughout his stay and he hardly even moves as is. In the end the Old Man turns into a crow and flies off and the wife is glad to be rid of him. I must have misunderstood this story because I see that family as being ever ungrateful.
Anyways this story was just odd and confusing to me but I still like the illustration. It was very creative to give it the least. I could tell you I couldn’t come up with anything like that. To make a story about a Old Man and the chaos that comes with him and then to have him turn into a crow. How interesting this is. Where does one come up with such a story? I feel like I read the story wrong because somehow the morals or the reasoning behind the story was very unclear. It was defiantly interesting though. Creative and Interesting.

act 1

I had never really thought about mentally disabled people before. I mean I know about them and I know life tends to be harder for them but really I’ve never taken the time to see how they really take life. After reading the first act I realize how being mentally disabled can really affect the life that you live. Lucien is a 50 year old man who is slow in his thinking. He often repeats things over and over again, and he doesn’t understand the most basic things in life. He has a hard time understanding the world around him. “I stand before you, a middle-aged man in an uncomfortable suit, a man whose capacity for rational thought is somewhere between a five-year old and an oyster. I am retarded. I am damaged. I am sick inside from so many hours and days and months and years of confusion, utter and profound confusion. I am mystified by faucets and radios and elevators and newspapers and popular songs.”
This is a man how feels so much but cannot understand. All of the people he lives with are also mentally disabled. Living from day to day is a struggle for them. They struggle to understand why buying 17 boxes of wheaties at the grocery store is overkill. They talk over each other and don’t listen to each other. The life that they live are chaotic and confusing while they live together; they don’t truly understand each other. It’s like they are just living, they can’t function on their own. How hard is it to be this way but then again when you are in this stage…do you really know? We sympathize because we compare ourselves to them but they don’t know to do that. To them, they are “normal” living a blissful and happy life (for the most part).

act 1

musuem

“I went to the Polk Museum of Art for this assignment, and I stayed there for at least 40 minutes.” Honestly I love museums. I think they are so fascinating. Back at home I use to go to several museums, spending my summer at the museums. It’s so cool looking at artwork and things that people see with their minds. I wish I could draw or paint or mold cool stuff together, but I have very little talent in this field but I do love to look at people’s work. Polk Museum allowed me to see the creativity that people are so blessed with. Each painting and artwork was so special in its own way and so full of stories. Why would someone paint something like that? What were they thinking to have that pop in their minds? Some artwork had so much colors or lack of and in those paintings you can really see the intensity of the person’s feelings and thoughts. This is the reason why I love painting and artwork more than books and poems. I am visual so I can see it and plus I can see their mind and emotions on one page. Words are good but if you can tell a whole story with a few colors then that’s true talent.

As I was walking through I saw this ceramic that was truly captivating to me. It was simple but cool. It was a cup with faded colors; there were only three colors on it. The pattern just twisted its way up the cup. The simplicity of it was just so amazing to me. How art isn’t just talents, it’s the story and the intensity of each object. THis is the clay that I have based my poem on. As the artist sits and thinks of what they will do with this pile of clay and what they would have thought.


I sit thinking
what will you become today?
Just as the father molds me
he molds me into the person I will be

what will you become today?
will you tell the intensity of my pain
will you tell my love for another
or will you just simply be

which one of my story will you tell
will you display my loneliness
that i face on my own?
in your colors and shape that i will mold

which one of my story will you tell
will you explain the happiness that i have
the love ones in my life
the blessings I have in such abundance?

or will you display my sorrow?
will you oh clay tell the story of my loss
great things I have given up
to be at this very place i've come to

oh pile of clay
here you sit in my hand..
which story will you tell
what will you become today?

beauty

"Beauty isn't always carefully planned and programmed. Sometimes it's just a matter of slowing down and giving the mind and soul time to be reflective and responsive, and then looking or listening and going with what is seen or heard. The writing, the music, the painting the art will begin to open doors as it advances, without my always knowing where it is going or what the end result will be."

How true is this quote? Sometimes we try too hard t find beauty. We spend money to go on a cruise or go across the country. We feel like going to a unfimilar place brings more beauty to us when really it is in the simple things that are usually around us. The bad thing about the fimiliarity is that people get bored with it, people forget that it is there. There is beauty in the the lake on our campus but its too close or we see it too often to find too much beauty in it. We define beauty with money such as "a beautiful wedding" or "a beautiful dress" those things cost money when true beauty is often simplicity. It's the way a tree sways to the breeze, the way a bird sings to another. Beauty is in the way your little girl laughs or a the way traffic flows. Beauty does depend on the person but not just in any way, it's a person who has thought and realized with his mind what his heart desires.

The poem speaks of painting and art as an easy way to find beauty. Is that not the truth. Sit down and pull out your coloring utensils or perhaps pull out your guitar. It is in sitting still and let your surroundings resentates in your mind. Let your mind wonder, not to just anything that will cause distraction, but to the nature. Art and music will cause you to slow down and to relax. It causes you to think and wonder and in these times you will find that beauty is everywhere.

questions

In Professor Corrigan's paper he talks about the darkness. Not just any darkness really but the question of "where is God in our darkness?" This is a question that people ask when they go through a rough time. Only in dark times though. Most of us don't take time to think about this question unless we are hurting. It doesn't cross our mind when life is dandy. Why would we need to think about such things? In fact unless we look for it we won't even realize that those times and thoughts exists. Suddenly pain and suffereing falls on us and we are taken back. When we have come to the point of hopelessness, death, illness or a loss of some sort we fall apart. We hurt and cry out to God for him. We cry to him and deserpately demand for his attention. We want answers while he waits. People tell us everything is going to be alright. How do they know that? Can they look into the future and see that in a few months we pull through just fine? Or is that just to make us feel better? Do they even believe that everything will be ok or is it just something people say in those times? Perhaps they went through this sort of thing and came out just fine therefore they are cheering for you through their experiences.

But what about the people who don't make it through ok? I mean several people go into deep depression, injure themselves, withdrawl from the world or even kill themselves. They didn't end up ok. So in the end some of those encouragements turned into lies. THey were not ok. How dark does it get before God turns from us? I mean really. God doesn't stand darkness, he's perfect so he can't mess with that stuff. So what happens when we hit rock buttom?