Our family is what my father would like to say as "broken." Each one of us is different in our own ways. My older brother, P.J., who's the black sheep of the family and amazingly good at math (I think a perfect score on the ACT would prove that). He took all the moving the hardest, because we moved while he was in high school from a huge high school with a state qualifying football team in Poland, Ohio to small, dinky Maplewood, who didn’t even have a football team. So his very large, six foot two inches form, used his large thigh to play baseball instead. My parents were so proud of him, except when he started not doing homework, which is why he would average C’s and B’s instead of acing all of his classes. He managed to join the Navy ROTC at Penn State. Unfortunately, one night my father tells the family that while at Penn State University, P.J. got a concussion from fainting in the bathroom after seeing blood in the movie theater from “Passion of the Christ,” and he’s never been the same since.
Within a year and a half are my other brothers and me. First was Matthew, the quiet, hardworking, straight-A student that got on the Dean’s List a few times at Ohio University. Then me, the artistic one that was kind of outgoing and viewed as an "ok" student. And Danny, the partier and the most outgoing and athletic of the Wagner Family kids.
I remember my dad telling me at dinner one night, "Becky. What'd I tell you are the most important subjects in school?" This question as been droned upon me for years and knows the answer like a pop song, "Math and science?" My parents were always interested in those subjects and thought that you need to be able to survive in the real world; I somewhat believe that, but not to the extent that my parents care about those subjects. My father would just stare at me after he found out that I got a "C" in Trigonometry one quarter in my junior year of high school. You could say that I became the slacker one, but what amazes me more is how Matt would always be praised for his great grades and I find out later that he would copy his homework from someone else in school because he didn't have time to do it beforehand. I felt above him in that aspect, which made me feel a lot better. I was the band nerd who took the course so seriously, doing honor bands and solo and ensemble contest, because I knew that music is what I wanted to do with the rest of my life. So, you could say I just didn't try too hard in the subjects my parents loved, because I found no interest in them. I remember that very same year, we had the huge "Trig Project" as we all called it, and there were things we hadn't learned yet on it and it was a large portion of our grade that quarter. I had my partner, who happened to be one of my good friends by the name of Andrea, but she was just as bad at math as I was. I'm thinking "I have two brothers who are really good at math, so why don't I ask them? They know this and Matt took it just the year before."
I go to Matt's room, which is across the hall from me and ask for his help. He took the course a year ago and thought he was the best bet. He looks up at me as I ask him and he said "Sure. I'll see what I can do." Matt walks down the narrow hallway into the kitchen to the counter separating the kitchen from the dining room. After scanning the problems, he scribbles with the horribly cramped handwriting he has and kept erasing, jotting numbers and equations down, and erasing again. After only ten minutes, he gets angry and says, "I'm done. I don't remember how to do this." I was shocked; after all the times he said he could help me and my parents telling me that I should get help from him when needed, that it was just useless advice. Going down the stairs into P.J.'s room, was my last resort. His room was very dusty, messy, and cramped as he sat at a computer chair, playing World of Warcraft. I ask him if he could give me a minute and he's the loving brother, I think, and says "Ok. Let me see what you got here." This perfect-math-ACT-getter works so much harder as he looks over all the problems and writes on a notebook paper. P.J. sighed and gave me the project back in about a half an hour and says, "I'm sorry, but I could only get one problem." Honestly, I was glad that he could figure out one of the seventy-odd problems in the homework and thanked him. What I didn't look forward to though, later, is that I didn't get much done after that and asked all my friends for help and failed the "Trig Project"; this then left me with a "D" on my report card for trigonometry so my Dad was peeved. I can still imagine his face and him saying, "I'm very disappointed with you," which is the worst phrase that parents could ever say to you.
But honestly, I really tried to understand the "most important subjects" in school, but it wasn't useful. My brothers think I was babied, being the only girl, and not having to do everything that they had to do. My father didn't force me to take the ACT my sophomore year like he did with Matt and P.J., which upset Matt for some reason. My father understood by then that I was going to study music and didn't really need to worry about my ACT until I needed to apply to colleges. But my brothers thought differently, of course. Secretly though, I wish I could be as smart as P.J. and Matt are; I only got a 22 on my test and felt incredibly dumb compared to them (The second time I took the ACT, a boy threw up onto his test around winter time with the colds going around, and the proctors couldn't clean it up until break, and it happened only a couple chairs away from me. Paper towels do not help you forget it's still there).
About me being outgoing, I'm only outgoing to those I've known for a while, like my family and close friends. Moving around a lot when I was younger was a bit hard for me, and somehow made friends even though I looked like a nerd. My friend from home, Rachel, told me about when I first moved to Maplewood in the middle of fifth grade and how my rose tinted glasses made me look like a hippie, and they found that so humorous, that they started talking to me. I laughed when I heard this story the summer before coming to Ohio U, because we became really good friends somehow. I can say more to my friends than I can do my family, but I don't think of myself as the outgoing, party type that Dan is of the family. Danny will tell you differently because my father would tell him he couldn't go somewhere with his friends and he would reply, "You let Becky go to the movies with her friends, why can't I go?" Danny always wanted to be the one to be more independent than my brothers and I, which would always get him in trouble. My father, Danny, and Matt have the same kind of temper: bad. I am much more calm and can bottle things up like my mother and brother, P.J., which makes them more upset more than anything.
Matt was driving me home around midnight after we got the last book of the seventh year of Harry Potter and we were having a good time. I don't remember what really sparked it, but he got upset with me and started yelling at me. "I can't believe you. . . you are so stupid! All you think about is yourself," and a lot of other horrible remarks that I was trying to tune out at the time until he said, "Lisa thinks you're selfish too!" That really hit me hard; Lisa was our foreign exchange student we had my junior year because my father didn't want to have a male foreign exchange student because he was scared by his coworkers that he was "bringing a date for Becca" and that changed his mind immediately. Also, Matt started dating Lisa secretly for a few months and he was still with her at the time. She really loved the designated "Becky pieces" of pumpkin pie, they were so massive pieces. Anywho, I was upset because we were such good friends and I thought she thought well of me. And yet, I said nothing to him, which just made him more angry. Agreeing with him makes him angry also. Later, I find out that Lisa never said anything of the sort when I asked her on Skype--using a computer and webcam to talk to someone--and Matt denied ever saying it. But I knew. . .
Being calm is something I'm really good at portraying, even with friends. Especially in high school, there is a lot of drama because you see the same people everyday, so life has to be spiced up a little bit. It's odd, because my friends would try to seek advice from me and a lot of the things that I write, as of now anyway, has been philosophical and "deep" as my boyfriend, Reilly, had said. To my family, however, I'm not really viewed as philosophical or anything close to that. I usually find myself hardly saying anything at all when we have group discussions about politics or a related subject at the dinner table because I don't find it as important to me. I think the only "advice" I had ever given to my family was to Danny about a girl problem he was having; it was to see if this girl he was talking to really liked him or not. It didn't really matter because he didn't really accept my advice, but he appreciated that I tried, I suppose.
My family views me as the optimist, which I like to think I am sometimes. I can be a realist, don't get me wrong, but I like to look at the glass half full, as that overused saying goes.
Monday, February 23, 2009
Wednesday, February 18, 2009
RIF Second Reading
In the second reading of Running in the Family by Michael Ondaatje, there was a chapter that was entertaining to me called "Tongue." This involved the thalagoya, which is an odd, lizard creature that was said to make a child "become brilliantly articulate, will always speak beautifully, and in his speech be able to 'catch' and collect wonderful, humorous information"(73), if you eat the thalagoya's tongue. His Uncle Noel ate only half the tongue and he became "a brilliant lawyer and a great story teller, from eating just part of the tongue" (74). There are other uses, but I found it quite cultural and humorous that people would eat a lizard tongue to be successful.
In "Sweet Like a Crow" chapter, the italicized quote at the beginning was interesting to me:
"The Sinhalese are beyond a doubt one of the least musical people in the world. It would be quite impossible to have less sense of pitch, line, or rhythm" (76).
And the chapter, I'm assuming, is supposed to be a type of poem. Proving the quote by Paul Bowles about being unmusical by not usuing any sort of rhyme scheme and just made up of a series similes. But even with the similes, it all makes sense by the end of the poem with the line "Like the sound I heard when having an afternoon sleep/and someone walked through my room in ankle bracelets" (77). From discussion in class, we've characterized Ondaatje's writing as "lyrical," proving our writer to be contradictory to generations before him.
In "Sweet Like a Crow" chapter, the italicized quote at the beginning was interesting to me:
"The Sinhalese are beyond a doubt one of the least musical people in the world. It would be quite impossible to have less sense of pitch, line, or rhythm" (76).
And the chapter, I'm assuming, is supposed to be a type of poem. Proving the quote by Paul Bowles about being unmusical by not usuing any sort of rhyme scheme and just made up of a series similes. But even with the similes, it all makes sense by the end of the poem with the line "Like the sound I heard when having an afternoon sleep/and someone walked through my room in ankle bracelets" (77). From discussion in class, we've characterized Ondaatje's writing as "lyrical," proving our writer to be contradictory to generations before him.
Monday, February 16, 2009
Running in the Family
Michael Ondaatje's writing so far reminds me of Hosseini's The Kite Runner, by explaining certain cultural words that regular people don't know such as "the kitul tree still leaned against the kitchen--tall, with tiny yellow berries which the polecat used to love" (59). I love how the family always have stories to tell about generations before them and always have something to say when they are all together. Ondaatje uses a lot of allieration that I can't help but notice such as "British and Burgher blood" (41) and "Monsoon Meet in May" (50).
There's a lot of historical references, specifically one chapter dedicated to what was going on in the 1920s in Columbo called "Honeymoon." There also color references that bring out the color red such as "red cement" (17) in the beginning of the memoir; there was the walls that were "rose-red" (24) and Dutch daughter's "red dress" (27) that haunted their house in Jaffna. Red is a bold color and could contribute into describing the family and their storytelling. He also writes giving short sentences to start off a new idea and then he delves into it like, "During the week in Dorset my father behaved impeccably" (32). The story of how much of a pain his father really was all his life goes into greater detail when Michael further explains the engagements he had and so on. But to get his point across, he starts small, than goes into longer sentences just right after the first sentence: "The in-laws planned the wedding, Phyllis was invited to spend the summer with the Roseleaps, and the Ondaatjes (including my father) went back to Ceylon to wait out the four months before the marriage" (32-33). Overrall, it is a different read with more cultural perspectives so far.
There's a lot of historical references, specifically one chapter dedicated to what was going on in the 1920s in Columbo called "Honeymoon." There also color references that bring out the color red such as "red cement" (17) in the beginning of the memoir; there was the walls that were "rose-red" (24) and Dutch daughter's "red dress" (27) that haunted their house in Jaffna. Red is a bold color and could contribute into describing the family and their storytelling. He also writes giving short sentences to start off a new idea and then he delves into it like, "During the week in Dorset my father behaved impeccably" (32). The story of how much of a pain his father really was all his life goes into greater detail when Michael further explains the engagements he had and so on. But to get his point across, he starts small, than goes into longer sentences just right after the first sentence: "The in-laws planned the wedding, Phyllis was invited to spend the summer with the Roseleaps, and the Ondaatjes (including my father) went back to Ceylon to wait out the four months before the marriage" (32-33). Overrall, it is a different read with more cultural perspectives so far.
Friday, February 13, 2009
Father-Son Bondage
In memoirs, we learn about the author’s relationships with people in their family. In Fathers, Sons, & Brothers: The Men in My Family, Bret Lott suggests that the relationship with his father was the most influential in his own life. When becoming a father himself, the unusual bond he had with his father, Bill, helped him through fatherhood.
Bret had always had a view of this amazing father figure; Bill had a good job with Royal Crown Cola as vice president and supplied for the family. One instance that we see a bond begin between Bret and his father is when his father got a job back in California after moving from there to Arizona, and back again. Bill, known as the “father of few words” (7), comes into his room early in the morning and hands him an index card with the words:
“ ‘ God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference’" (8).
The thought that Bret would “appreciate that” (8) made a big impact on Bret to bring up in this essay; he was “stunned” and saw what he thought was “supposed” to be a smile from his father, which reveals how little emotion Bill actually shows to his son (9). This appreciation for his father continues on through the essay “In the Garage,” about organizing his own garage and the small amount of tools he has; “Like father, like son” (10). And he finished it off with a “discard pile outside, a pile so high I know I’ve done my father proud” (10).
What evolved the bond between Lott and his son, Bret, was the Royal Crown; Bill was vice president and had his sons start working for him there. The hero-figure Bill Lott represented was very pronounced when Bret was younger because children always view their parents as perfect superheroes. When Saturday chores were done, the Lott brothers went with their father to different stores to check out the RC pop that was displayed or still needed in the store. “This was our father, an adult, a man; and this was his job: to come into a store and talk of sports” (37). This image represents the further impact Bill had on his sons. Bret started out working on washing the trucks out with his brothers, when working was still fun. He moved up to sweeping out lots the next summer, Bill got to work one-on-one with Bret; he kept coming out day after day, teaching Bret how to sweep a lot by pushing with a push broom (41). It’s not that Bret didn’t know how to push broom, Bret just “dogged”(31) it because of the heat.
A significant turn of events occurs when Bill takes Bret on a stop they have to make because of the broken down shipment truck. Bret noticed a difference with his father but “didn’t recognize this joy in him, only wondered at why he seemed to be smiling when all we had before us was a long trek into the desert” (44). Because of his family growing, Bill had to give up his life of driving trucks to get a higher position to help support his family; this shows how caring Bill is of his family along, including the progression of his sons into the real world. Bret became closer to his father when working for RC Cola because Bill would always wake him up in the morning and they would get breakfast and M&M’s in the afternoon. Ironically, his father showed him later when he returned to RC Cola before going off to college, a donut shop that symbolized the connection between Bret and his father. “There was no waiting room here, no inside place from which to order . . . They had bear claws” (168), with bear claws being what he always got on the way to work with Bill.
For comic relief, the situation where Bret asked his mother where babies came from at the dinner table shows his father’s awkwardness, so to say. “My dad’s instantaneous reaction, enough to make me flinch. . . ‘Hey,’ he said again, ‘don’t talk like that!” (91) was quite astounding and was upset that he shouldn’t ask that during dinner. Years later, Bill had “The Talk” as people would say, but technically not so. It was so humorous to see Bill being so uncomfortable as “his eyes hadn’t yet mine. . . I had him, had him in a way I’d never known before: my dad, powerless, stunned” (94). Bret didn’t really gain any information from his father, but this moment of weakness that shined through made him ever closer with him. The image of his father’s laugh that “was a good laugh, a solid laugh, a kind of laugh I hadn’t heard or seen before: It was a laugh that didn’t take me into account, didn’t pretend to cajole me or to praise me. He wasn’t even looking at me. This was just laughter” (94). This particular part of “The Talk” memory was something new Bret learned about his very shy-like father.
By the essay, “Royal Crown 2,” Bret self focused on his father and how he truly impacted his life, even though he just writes and doesn’t do the kind of manual labor his father taught him as hard work. Because of the guidance Bill gave to Bret; waking him up early and eating “Cornnuts and M&M’s together” was what Bret said knows “only now, were his attempts to guide me and my brothers the only way he knew how” (189). And because of this guidance and the effort he put into his children, Bret understands the great bond between his father and himself.
Bret had always had a view of this amazing father figure; Bill had a good job with Royal Crown Cola as vice president and supplied for the family. One instance that we see a bond begin between Bret and his father is when his father got a job back in California after moving from there to Arizona, and back again. Bill, known as the “father of few words” (7), comes into his room early in the morning and hands him an index card with the words:
“ ‘ God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference’" (8).
The thought that Bret would “appreciate that” (8) made a big impact on Bret to bring up in this essay; he was “stunned” and saw what he thought was “supposed” to be a smile from his father, which reveals how little emotion Bill actually shows to his son (9). This appreciation for his father continues on through the essay “In the Garage,” about organizing his own garage and the small amount of tools he has; “Like father, like son” (10). And he finished it off with a “discard pile outside, a pile so high I know I’ve done my father proud” (10).
What evolved the bond between Lott and his son, Bret, was the Royal Crown; Bill was vice president and had his sons start working for him there. The hero-figure Bill Lott represented was very pronounced when Bret was younger because children always view their parents as perfect superheroes. When Saturday chores were done, the Lott brothers went with their father to different stores to check out the RC pop that was displayed or still needed in the store. “This was our father, an adult, a man; and this was his job: to come into a store and talk of sports” (37). This image represents the further impact Bill had on his sons. Bret started out working on washing the trucks out with his brothers, when working was still fun. He moved up to sweeping out lots the next summer, Bill got to work one-on-one with Bret; he kept coming out day after day, teaching Bret how to sweep a lot by pushing with a push broom (41). It’s not that Bret didn’t know how to push broom, Bret just “dogged”(31) it because of the heat.
A significant turn of events occurs when Bill takes Bret on a stop they have to make because of the broken down shipment truck. Bret noticed a difference with his father but “didn’t recognize this joy in him, only wondered at why he seemed to be smiling when all we had before us was a long trek into the desert” (44). Because of his family growing, Bill had to give up his life of driving trucks to get a higher position to help support his family; this shows how caring Bill is of his family along, including the progression of his sons into the real world. Bret became closer to his father when working for RC Cola because Bill would always wake him up in the morning and they would get breakfast and M&M’s in the afternoon. Ironically, his father showed him later when he returned to RC Cola before going off to college, a donut shop that symbolized the connection between Bret and his father. “There was no waiting room here, no inside place from which to order . . . They had bear claws” (168), with bear claws being what he always got on the way to work with Bill.
For comic relief, the situation where Bret asked his mother where babies came from at the dinner table shows his father’s awkwardness, so to say. “My dad’s instantaneous reaction, enough to make me flinch. . . ‘Hey,’ he said again, ‘don’t talk like that!” (91) was quite astounding and was upset that he shouldn’t ask that during dinner. Years later, Bill had “The Talk” as people would say, but technically not so. It was so humorous to see Bill being so uncomfortable as “his eyes hadn’t yet mine. . . I had him, had him in a way I’d never known before: my dad, powerless, stunned” (94). Bret didn’t really gain any information from his father, but this moment of weakness that shined through made him ever closer with him. The image of his father’s laugh that “was a good laugh, a solid laugh, a kind of laugh I hadn’t heard or seen before: It was a laugh that didn’t take me into account, didn’t pretend to cajole me or to praise me. He wasn’t even looking at me. This was just laughter” (94). This particular part of “The Talk” memory was something new Bret learned about his very shy-like father.
By the essay, “Royal Crown 2,” Bret self focused on his father and how he truly impacted his life, even though he just writes and doesn’t do the kind of manual labor his father taught him as hard work. Because of the guidance Bill gave to Bret; waking him up early and eating “Cornnuts and M&M’s together” was what Bret said knows “only now, were his attempts to guide me and my brothers the only way he knew how” (189). And because of this guidance and the effort he put into his children, Bret understands the great bond between his father and himself.
Wednesday, February 4, 2009
Prewriting
Our family is what my father would like to say as "broken." Each one of us is different in our own ways. We have my older brother P.J., who's the black sheep of the family and amazingly good at math (I think a perfect score on the ACT would prove that). My other older brother, Matt, is the good straight-A student and is on the Dean's List here at Ohio University. And my little brother, Danny, is the most outgoing of us all and really smart. Me, I am viewed as the outgoing, an "ok" student along with being the "artsy" one of the family.
I remember my Dad telling me at dinner one night, "Becky. What'd I tell you are the most important subjects in school?" This question as been droned upon me for years and knows the answer like a pop song, "Math and science?" He would just stare at me after he found out that I got a "C" in Trigonometry one quarter in my junior year of high school. You could say that I became the slacker one, but what amazes me more is how Matt would always be praised for his great grades and I find out later that he would copy his homework from someone else in school because he didn't have time to do it beforehand. I felt above him in that aspect, which made me feel a lot better. I was the band nerd who took the course so seriously, doing honor bands and solo and ensemble contest, because I knew that music is what I wanted to do with the rest of my life. So, you could say I just didn't try too hard in the subjects my parents loved, because I found no interest in them. I remember that very same year, we had the huge "Trig Project" as we all called it, and there were things we hadn't learned yet on it and it was a large portion of our grade that quarter. I had my partner, who happened to be one of my good friends by the name of Andrea, but she was just as bad at math as I was. I'm thinking "I have two brothers who are really good at math, so why don't I ask them? They know this and Matt took it just the year before."
I go to Matt's room, which is across the hall from me and ask for his help. He took the course a year ago and thought he was the best bet. He looks up at me as I ask him and he said "Sure. I'll see what I can do." Matt walks down the narrow hallway into the kitchen to the counter separating the kitchen from the dining room. After scanning the problems, he scribbles with the horribly cramped handwriting he has and kept erasing, jotting numbers and equations down, and erasing again. After only ten minutes, he gets angry and says, "I'm done. I don't remember how to do this." I was shocked; after all the times he said he could help me and my parents telling me that I should get help from him when needed, that it was just useless advice. Going down the stairs into P.J.'s room, was my last resort. His room was very dusty, messy, and cramped as he sat at a computer chair, playing World of Warcraft. I ask him if he could give me a minute and he's the loving brother, I think, and says "Ok. Let me see what you got here." This perfect-math-ACT-getter works so much harder as he looks over all the problems and writes on a notebook paper. P.J. sighed and gave me the project back in about a half an hour and says, "I'm sorry, but I could only get one problem." Honestly, I was glad that he could figure out one of the seventy-odd problems in the homework and thanked him. What I didn't look forward to though, later, is that I didn't get much done after that and asked all my friends for help and failed the "Trig Project"; this then left me with a "D" on my report card for trigonometry so my Dad was peeved. I can still imagine his face and him saying, "I'm very disappointed with you," which is the worst phrase that parents could ever say to you.
But honestly, I really tried to understand the "most important subjects" in school, but it wasn't useful. My brothers think I was babied, being the only girl, and not having to do everything that they had to do. My father didn't force me to take the ACT my sophomore year like he did with Matt and P.J., which upset Matt for some reason. My father understood by then that I was going to study music and didn't really need to worry about my ACT until I needed to apply to colleges. But my brothers thought differently, of course. Secretly though, I wish I could be as smart as P.J. and Matt are; I only got a 22 on my test and felt incredibly dumb compared to them (The second time I took the ACT, a boy threw up onto his test around winter time with the colds going around, and the proctors couldn't clean it up until break, and it happened only a couple chairs away from me. Paper towels do not help you forget it's still there).
About me being outgoing, I'm only outgoing to those I've known for a while, like my family and close friends. Moving around a lot when I was younger was a bit hard for me, and somehow made friends even though I looked like a nerd. My friend from home, Rachel, told me about when I first moved to Maplewood in the middle of fifth grade and how my rose tinted glasses made me look like a hippie, and they found that so humorous, that they started talking to me. I laughed when I heard this story the summer before coming to Ohio U, because we became really good friends somewhow. I can say more to my friends than I can do my family, but I don't think of myself as the outgoing, party type that Dan is of the family. Danny will tell you differently because my father would tell him he couldn't go somewhere with his friends and he would reply, "You let Becky go to the movies with her friends, why can't I go?" Danny always wanted to be the one to be more independent than my brothers and I, which would always get him in trouble. My father, Danny, and Matt have the same kind of temper: bad. I am much more calm and can bottle things up, which makes them more upset more than anything.
Matt was driving me home around midnight after we got the last book of the seventh year of Harry Potter and we were having a good time. I don't remember what really sparked it, but he got upset with me and started yelling at me. "I can't believe you. . . you are so stupid! All you think about is yourself," and a lot of other horrible remarks that I was trying to tune out at the time until he said, "Lisa thinks you're selfish too!" That really hit me hard; Lisa was our foreign exchange student we had my junior year because my father didn't want to have a male foreign exchange student because he was scared by his coworkers that he was "bringing a date for Becca" and that changed his mind immediately. Also, Matt started dating Lisa secretly for a few months and he was still with her at the time. She really loved the designated "Becky pieces" of pumpkin pie, they were so massive pieces. Anywho, I was upset because we were such good friends and I thought she thought well of me. And yet, I said nothing to him, which just made him more angry. Agreeing with him makes him angry also. Later, I find out that Lisa never said anything of the sort when I asked her on skype--using a computer and webcam to talk to someone--and Matt denied ever saying it. But I knew. . .
Being calm is something I'm really good at portraying, even with friends. Especially in high school, there is a lot of drama because you see the same people everyday, so life has to be spiced up a little bit. It's odd, because my friends would try to seek advice from me and a lot of the things that I write, as of now anyway, has been philosophical and "deep" as my friend Reilly had said. To my family, however, I'm not really viewed as philosophical or anything close to that. I usually find myself hardly saying anything at all when we have group discussions about politics or a related subject at the dinner table because I don't find it as important to me. I think the only "advice" I had ever given to my family was to Danny about a girl problem he was having; it was to see if this girl he was talking to really liked him or not. It didn't really matter because he didn't really accept my advice, but he appreciated that I tried, I suppose.
My family views me as the optomist, which I like to think I am sometimes. I can be a realist, don't get me wrong, but I like to look at the glass half full, as that overused saying goes.
I remember my Dad telling me at dinner one night, "Becky. What'd I tell you are the most important subjects in school?" This question as been droned upon me for years and knows the answer like a pop song, "Math and science?" He would just stare at me after he found out that I got a "C" in Trigonometry one quarter in my junior year of high school. You could say that I became the slacker one, but what amazes me more is how Matt would always be praised for his great grades and I find out later that he would copy his homework from someone else in school because he didn't have time to do it beforehand. I felt above him in that aspect, which made me feel a lot better. I was the band nerd who took the course so seriously, doing honor bands and solo and ensemble contest, because I knew that music is what I wanted to do with the rest of my life. So, you could say I just didn't try too hard in the subjects my parents loved, because I found no interest in them. I remember that very same year, we had the huge "Trig Project" as we all called it, and there were things we hadn't learned yet on it and it was a large portion of our grade that quarter. I had my partner, who happened to be one of my good friends by the name of Andrea, but she was just as bad at math as I was. I'm thinking "I have two brothers who are really good at math, so why don't I ask them? They know this and Matt took it just the year before."
I go to Matt's room, which is across the hall from me and ask for his help. He took the course a year ago and thought he was the best bet. He looks up at me as I ask him and he said "Sure. I'll see what I can do." Matt walks down the narrow hallway into the kitchen to the counter separating the kitchen from the dining room. After scanning the problems, he scribbles with the horribly cramped handwriting he has and kept erasing, jotting numbers and equations down, and erasing again. After only ten minutes, he gets angry and says, "I'm done. I don't remember how to do this." I was shocked; after all the times he said he could help me and my parents telling me that I should get help from him when needed, that it was just useless advice. Going down the stairs into P.J.'s room, was my last resort. His room was very dusty, messy, and cramped as he sat at a computer chair, playing World of Warcraft. I ask him if he could give me a minute and he's the loving brother, I think, and says "Ok. Let me see what you got here." This perfect-math-ACT-getter works so much harder as he looks over all the problems and writes on a notebook paper. P.J. sighed and gave me the project back in about a half an hour and says, "I'm sorry, but I could only get one problem." Honestly, I was glad that he could figure out one of the seventy-odd problems in the homework and thanked him. What I didn't look forward to though, later, is that I didn't get much done after that and asked all my friends for help and failed the "Trig Project"; this then left me with a "D" on my report card for trigonometry so my Dad was peeved. I can still imagine his face and him saying, "I'm very disappointed with you," which is the worst phrase that parents could ever say to you.
But honestly, I really tried to understand the "most important subjects" in school, but it wasn't useful. My brothers think I was babied, being the only girl, and not having to do everything that they had to do. My father didn't force me to take the ACT my sophomore year like he did with Matt and P.J., which upset Matt for some reason. My father understood by then that I was going to study music and didn't really need to worry about my ACT until I needed to apply to colleges. But my brothers thought differently, of course. Secretly though, I wish I could be as smart as P.J. and Matt are; I only got a 22 on my test and felt incredibly dumb compared to them (The second time I took the ACT, a boy threw up onto his test around winter time with the colds going around, and the proctors couldn't clean it up until break, and it happened only a couple chairs away from me. Paper towels do not help you forget it's still there).
About me being outgoing, I'm only outgoing to those I've known for a while, like my family and close friends. Moving around a lot when I was younger was a bit hard for me, and somehow made friends even though I looked like a nerd. My friend from home, Rachel, told me about when I first moved to Maplewood in the middle of fifth grade and how my rose tinted glasses made me look like a hippie, and they found that so humorous, that they started talking to me. I laughed when I heard this story the summer before coming to Ohio U, because we became really good friends somewhow. I can say more to my friends than I can do my family, but I don't think of myself as the outgoing, party type that Dan is of the family. Danny will tell you differently because my father would tell him he couldn't go somewhere with his friends and he would reply, "You let Becky go to the movies with her friends, why can't I go?" Danny always wanted to be the one to be more independent than my brothers and I, which would always get him in trouble. My father, Danny, and Matt have the same kind of temper: bad. I am much more calm and can bottle things up, which makes them more upset more than anything.
Matt was driving me home around midnight after we got the last book of the seventh year of Harry Potter and we were having a good time. I don't remember what really sparked it, but he got upset with me and started yelling at me. "I can't believe you. . . you are so stupid! All you think about is yourself," and a lot of other horrible remarks that I was trying to tune out at the time until he said, "Lisa thinks you're selfish too!" That really hit me hard; Lisa was our foreign exchange student we had my junior year because my father didn't want to have a male foreign exchange student because he was scared by his coworkers that he was "bringing a date for Becca" and that changed his mind immediately. Also, Matt started dating Lisa secretly for a few months and he was still with her at the time. She really loved the designated "Becky pieces" of pumpkin pie, they were so massive pieces. Anywho, I was upset because we were such good friends and I thought she thought well of me. And yet, I said nothing to him, which just made him more angry. Agreeing with him makes him angry also. Later, I find out that Lisa never said anything of the sort when I asked her on skype--using a computer and webcam to talk to someone--and Matt denied ever saying it. But I knew. . .
Being calm is something I'm really good at portraying, even with friends. Especially in high school, there is a lot of drama because you see the same people everyday, so life has to be spiced up a little bit. It's odd, because my friends would try to seek advice from me and a lot of the things that I write, as of now anyway, has been philosophical and "deep" as my friend Reilly had said. To my family, however, I'm not really viewed as philosophical or anything close to that. I usually find myself hardly saying anything at all when we have group discussions about politics or a related subject at the dinner table because I don't find it as important to me. I think the only "advice" I had ever given to my family was to Danny about a girl problem he was having; it was to see if this girl he was talking to really liked him or not. It didn't really matter because he didn't really accept my advice, but he appreciated that I tried, I suppose.
My family views me as the optomist, which I like to think I am sometimes. I can be a realist, don't get me wrong, but I like to look at the glass half full, as that overused saying goes.
Sunday, February 1, 2009
Revised Image of a Hero
Mary Karr’s view of her own sister in The Liar’s Club, has grown into a positive light than in the beginning of the memoir. Lecia, Mary’s sister, is just like any other sister; she knocks Mary down to get attention from her mother (265). However, through the traumatic events that occur, Lecia becomes prevalently an adult figure to take care of Mary and herself when neither parents could.
Lecia had thought logically when Mary and herself were left to chose who they wanted to live with. When “Lecia’s gaze went very level, as if she’d seen this choice coming across the far sky like a weather front” (193), Lecia knew that this was coming; she was realistic and knew that her parents could get divorced and coming straight down to it, she already planned for this to happen. Most children try to ignore when their parents seem to be going downhill, but Lecia prepared for it. She thought it only logical that they would stay with her mother because if they “left Mother by herself, she’d get in capital-T Trouble” (193). It made sense after their mother being Nervous and knew that their father would survive better without them. Lecia was the one that said “Let’s go back in there and break it to them” (193) and was the one who organized what to be done because Lecia had to be the strong one to help make the decision and to be able to tell them who they wanted to live with was, I could imagine, a very difficult thing to do; Mary was in no condition to do so because she wanted to “curl up in a ball” (192) when she found out the news. Lecia was the one to be an adult and lead her sister through that storm.
When in Colorado, Mother decides one night after drinking, of course, decides to pull out a gun she thought she needed to protect herself in the disgusting town of Antelope. This drinking spell made Mother threaten to shoot Hector, the step dad, after he himself had been drinking and was trying to pay Lecia to play “America the Beautiful,“ but refused. This made Hector call Lecia a “bitch;“ Mother’s nervous came to the point where she really wanted to kill Hector, but because Mary blocked him with her body, somehow stalled the murdering mind. Lecia’s valiant efforts were focused on saving Mary and herself by staring “up with an expression that struck me [Mary] as lawyerly, like Perry Mason’s at the jury box” (251). And once that didn’t work the following quote struck me as valiant:
“She was off on another tack. The look in her brown eyes under the shiny blond shelf of bangs was no longer set. It was weary. And the accent she used next was pure Texan… She was buddying up, appealing to Mother’s fury, which she’s apparently adjudged immovable” (252).
Lecia then offered herself to help cover Hector up, but instead of doing it with Mary, she did it for her. “When Lecia took her place beside me looking wholly empty of herself. She was telling me to run. But in her pass-the butter voice” (253). This “pass-the-butter voice” was Lecia’s way of concentration as she was trying to be calm through the whole situation with their Mother’s gun pointed towards them; her goal was to make her to go get help and wasn’t noticed when she ran towards the Janisches’ house.
Furthermore, Lecia stuck out as the strong, static character that Mary need for support. “Her sudden solidity and power, the sheer force of her will” (251), was pronounced and concludes Mary’s want of a relationship as to the lonesomeness her parents made her feel throughout the divorce. Through these traumatic events, Lecia became parent-like when she needed to be. Lecia became the adult Mary needed at such a young age that never would again be viewed as a child through her eyes.
Lecia had thought logically when Mary and herself were left to chose who they wanted to live with. When “Lecia’s gaze went very level, as if she’d seen this choice coming across the far sky like a weather front” (193), Lecia knew that this was coming; she was realistic and knew that her parents could get divorced and coming straight down to it, she already planned for this to happen. Most children try to ignore when their parents seem to be going downhill, but Lecia prepared for it. She thought it only logical that they would stay with her mother because if they “left Mother by herself, she’d get in capital-T Trouble” (193). It made sense after their mother being Nervous and knew that their father would survive better without them. Lecia was the one that said “Let’s go back in there and break it to them” (193) and was the one who organized what to be done because Lecia had to be the strong one to help make the decision and to be able to tell them who they wanted to live with was, I could imagine, a very difficult thing to do; Mary was in no condition to do so because she wanted to “curl up in a ball” (192) when she found out the news. Lecia was the one to be an adult and lead her sister through that storm.
When in Colorado, Mother decides one night after drinking, of course, decides to pull out a gun she thought she needed to protect herself in the disgusting town of Antelope. This drinking spell made Mother threaten to shoot Hector, the step dad, after he himself had been drinking and was trying to pay Lecia to play “America the Beautiful,“ but refused. This made Hector call Lecia a “bitch;“ Mother’s nervous came to the point where she really wanted to kill Hector, but because Mary blocked him with her body, somehow stalled the murdering mind. Lecia’s valiant efforts were focused on saving Mary and herself by staring “up with an expression that struck me [Mary] as lawyerly, like Perry Mason’s at the jury box” (251). And once that didn’t work the following quote struck me as valiant:
“She was off on another tack. The look in her brown eyes under the shiny blond shelf of bangs was no longer set. It was weary. And the accent she used next was pure Texan… She was buddying up, appealing to Mother’s fury, which she’s apparently adjudged immovable” (252).
Lecia then offered herself to help cover Hector up, but instead of doing it with Mary, she did it for her. “When Lecia took her place beside me looking wholly empty of herself. She was telling me to run. But in her pass-the butter voice” (253). This “pass-the-butter voice” was Lecia’s way of concentration as she was trying to be calm through the whole situation with their Mother’s gun pointed towards them; her goal was to make her to go get help and wasn’t noticed when she ran towards the Janisches’ house.
Furthermore, Lecia stuck out as the strong, static character that Mary need for support. “Her sudden solidity and power, the sheer force of her will” (251), was pronounced and concludes Mary’s want of a relationship as to the lonesomeness her parents made her feel throughout the divorce. Through these traumatic events, Lecia became parent-like when she needed to be. Lecia became the adult Mary needed at such a young age that never would again be viewed as a child through her eyes.
Subscribe to:
Comments (Atom)