Writing Reflection 2

“The historical novel is, for me, condemned,” he wrote to Sarah Orne Jewett in 1901. “You may multiply the little facts that can be got from pictures and documents, relics and prints, as much as you like — the real thing is almost impossible to do, and in its essence the whole effect is as nought: I mean the invention, the representation of the old consciousness, the soul, the sense, the horizon, the vision of individuals in whose minds half the things that make ours, that make the modern world, were nonexistent.”  -Geraldine Brooks on Henry James

Henry James further commented on writing about the past to Sara Jewett saying  “…Any attempt to write about a time more than 50 years removed from one’s own was worthless and should not even be attempted.”

Do you agree or disagree with Henry James that the past is impossible to represent?

I disagree with Henry James statement that the past is impossible to represent in writing.  I understand what he’s saying but he’s still wrong.  It is harder to represent the past when it is more than fifty years removed from your own, but it is not impossible.  It is harder because you won’t normally find living witnesses and documentations maybe lost or tampered with.  Also it may be harder because you your self didn’t live in that past to which you are writing.  

One can represent the past very efficiently in writing.  The main way for a writer to represent the past is to put aside the technological and modern differences and focus on human emotion and human nature.  It doesn’t matter that we speak differently now or that we don’t live in log cabins and wear wool garments every day.  What matters is the predictability of mankind.  The specific situations may be different but the reactions are going to be the same.  As a species we haven’t evolved much at all.  Yes, our technologies have improved and we’ve found better ways to survive but if you look back through history you’ll notice that no matter how civilized we may become we still have the same human instincts.  We have the same fears, curiosity, wants, hopes, and dreams. 

Our intellect is no greater either.  People seem to think that just because these people lived hundreds of years ago that they must not be as smart or civilized as we are; that we as a people now must be completely different from those before us.  What about Socrates, Einstein, Shakespeare, Archimedes, the Wright brothers, Humphrey Davey?  I don’t believe we have anyone in our time with their intellect, their ability to see beyond the ‘norm’ and the accepted.  There’s also the example of the Great Pyramids and Easter Island.  We can’t even figure out how these buildings were made.  You also have to look at the aqueducts in Rome and realize that they weren’t even the ones who invented it.  It was actually the Assyrians in 691 B.C.

So going back to whether or not a writer can represent the past efficiently is no question.  Just imagine yourself in that era.  To get in touch with the past all you have to do is a little role playing.  For example say you want to know what it felt like to live in the 1600’s, just go to Williamsburg or Jamestown where they have exact replications of that period.  Say you want to know what it feels like to have to make a living by farming like so many of our ancestors did, just go to some small rural town and you’ll find out.  Or maybe you want to know what it is like to live in a village, just go to South America or Africa.  You can even reenact being an Indian on America’s reservations.  It is easy to escape the modern world because the modern world only occurs in clusters.   There are so many places around the world where time has stood still and you won’t see much, if any, modern advancement.

Weblog 4

The first thing that enters my mind when I think of Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution is survival of the fittest.  In order to survive a species must evolve in certain ways to survive in the environment it is in.  If it does not evolve when the environment or habitat it lives in changes it will die.  The species that have not evolved die more often than the ones that have.  Making the majority of the species evolved.  The evolved species then passes evolved genes to its offspring.   This makes the number of species that have not evolved less and less until there is no more in existence.   Charles Darwin found his theory when he went to the Galapagos Islands.  He found species there that were similar to the ones he had studied; only they were slightly different.  They were the same species but were different because the environments where they lived were different.  This means that each one had to evolve differently to stay alive.  This is how and why we came to categorize all of the different species in a certain order, genus, class, phylum, and kingdom. I believe every species have gone through some kind of evolution to get to how they are today.  Our environment has been changing since the beginning of time, and it won’t stop changing.  Each species will have to evolve to keep up with the changes in their habitat.    One specific example of this is obviously the homosapien.  It is commonly thought that humans evolved from apes.  There are many fossils to prove his theory.  Most species that have evolved came from much larger species.  The dinosaur is one example of that.  Lizards are thought to be descendants of dinosaurs.  The reason many species are smaller now is because today’s environment cannot sustain large appetites.  Some species could not evolve so they became extinct.  They did not have enough food or the climates changed and were not able to live in a new environment.   The process of evolution is extremely slow and an internal change.  The smallest change in DNA will evolve you in a great way.

After reading Charles Darwin’s Understanding of Natural Selection I realize that the main reason his work became so successful, in part, was ‘because of his clear and elegant literary style’.  He used popular literature to explain his scientific concepts.  He gave to much detailed information in all of his research.  I did not realize before exactly why he was so much more popular than all of the other scientists. 

I also did not realize how painstaking the evolution process is and how the body preserves everything good and gets rid of everything bad until the evolution is done.   Also I realize now that the evolution process can only act as a good towards the species than bad.  I also did not know about the sexual selection.    Natural selection can modify and change the relationship of one sex to another in a species.  The two sexes can have completely different habitats in life. 

From the reading I realize that I had a pretty good understanding of Charles Darwin, but there is always more to learn.  His theory is extremely simple yet profound.

Weblog 3

I have had several animals through out my life.  It is always amazing to see the distinct different animal personalities in animals.  I have never been able to train my cats.  They have a set routine, but no tricks.  When I call my cats names one always responds to her name and the other, well, would respond to any name.  I did have a Sheltie mix, Zack, and he was the smartest dog I have ever seen or known.  I unfortunately don’t have him any more but when I did he was a quick learner.  He was too hyper for my dad so we sent him off to be a rescue dog.  I remember the first time I saw how smart he was.  I was taking him on a walk and like most people walking there dogs, I was the one being walked.  As he was dragging me along I decided to teach him the trick of healing.  With in two tries of stopping every time he yanked the leash and shouting “heal”  he learned the trick.  I find that when you want to teach an animal something persistence and consistency is key.  Positive reinforcement is the best way I’ve found in teaching dogs.  I haven’t wasted much time trying to teach cats or anything else for that matter.  Some dogs aren’t as smart as my dear Zack was so with them the positive reinforcement usually does the trick.  With the more stubborn ones you just have to be consistent.  I have found that scolding them at any time, especially a while after the bad thing was done, is not only harmful but extremely ineffective.  Animals don’t and won’t remember what they did in the past that was so wrong to their owners nor can they comprehend why they are being punished.  I recently tried to teach my mother in laws Irish setter the same trick but her dog needs a lot of positive reinforcement.  She is smart but unfortunately since her owners don’t train her to do any thing it can be difficult to teach her commands.  Every time I would stop in the middle of the road with the Irish setter as say heal she wouldn’t understand.  There was maybe once that her behavior seemed to be catching on but because I don’t constantly train her she doesn’t hold on to much information.  Every breed is even more different than each animals personalities.  My mother in law also has Chihuahua’s and that can’t learn any tricks.  They know what ‘biscuit’ and ‘outside’ mean but that’s it.  And just like my cat they come to any name that is called.  They are attention whores for sure.  I’ve seen some people train cats but I have no idea how they do it.  I’m sure it takes an extreme amount of dedication and a lot of treats.    I think that positive reinforcement is good for both animals and humans.  The same results are gained when you reward someone for a certain behavior.  I found Susanne Langer “Signs and Symbols” to be very true and enlightening.

Writing Reflection 1

There isn’t many stories I tell.  Actually there is pretty much none.  I sometimes ad lib as I’m explaining something that happened or I may exaggerate to emphasize a certain point.  Once I have children, and have someone to tell stories to, hopefully I’ll have some interesting tales to tell.  For now though, there’s the story of how I met my husband, Kyle.  I like to tell people how we met just because of the unusualness of our relationship.

I was nineteen living with my best friend.  She had just had a baby and we were looking for a roommate.  Kyle was trying to get accepted to schools close to where his girlfriend at the time was attending.  She had gotten into UVA but unfortunately he did not.  Instead Kyle got accepted to VCU at the last minuete.  He could have gone to other schools but out of fate he picked VCU.  Because of his late enrollment, most of the places to live near the college were already rented out.  That is when he came upon my friend and I’s add in the paper.  I remember my friend telling me I wasn’t “allowed” to go out with our new room mate since it could possibly mess things up.  I figured it wouldn’t be a problem because she described him as preppy and at the time I didn’t go out with good guys.  I had some weird liking to guys that treated me like crap.  So on the day Kyle moved in I was busy tiddying up the place for his arrival.  The door bell rang and I opened.  Standing in front of me was an average looking guy, a bit shorter than my type, but regardless a felt a weird flutter in my stomach and my heart sped up a bit.  At the moment I wasn’t sure why because he wasn’t at all my type.  He was a total surfer dude and he actually knew what he wanted out of life.  When he was finished moving in his things he left, and it was a couple days before he returned.  In the mean time I remember not being able to stop thinking about him.  I told my best friends sister that there was something about him that made me think of him all the time.  There was something so different about him and the way I felt when I thought of him.  It wasn’t lust at all.  I told my bestfriends little sister that he was special and that I’d marry him one day.  I didn’t know how I knew we would end up together.  I could just feel it.  Obviously he broke up with his girlfriend to be with me.  We started dating even though we were room mates.  He came at the perfect time because about a month after he moved in my best friends little boy past away in the night.  He gave me his shoulder and company.  With out him I don’t know how I could have gotten through that ordeal.  I did have my best friend, but since it was her child I didn’t want to upset her further by talking about what happened.  So ultimately that drove a huge wedge in our relationship.  The land lord of the house we were renting ended up kicking everyone out.  Kyle was stuck with no where to go.  Kyle stayed with me at my parents until we found an apartment.  Because of Kyle’s income he couldn’t afford to live on his own and since he was hundreds of miles away from home I told him I’d rent a place with him.  We’ve been living together ever since.  Most people can’t believe that we lasted since we’ve been room mates since we met.  We had the most fights in the beginning of our relationship.  As we grew together and fell in love the arguements slowly drifted away.  Our relationship was tested to the max in the beginning and now nothing can test us.  We knew that since we had gotten through everything that had happened to us that we would last forever.  We got engaged four months after we met and married four years later.  We are together now, stronger than ever.  We don’t argue, well I don’t call it that.  We yell at each other if we need to and let our frustrations out.  Once it everything is out we either pretend the yelling match never happened or we talk about it.  At the end of the day we know the yelling isn’t personal, it’s natural, and it’s okay.  That is my favorite part of our relationship.  We can never stay mad at each other for long and we don’t let our pettiness get in the way of our love.

Naturally I shorten the version I tell people.  Sometimes I change facts, depending on the audience.  Maybe I’ll add some more romance when I tell it to my future children.  Hopefully through living out my life fully I’ll gain many stories to tell.

Weblog 2

At 21 years old I anxiously sat on my small blue sofa that barely fit in what was more a room than an apartment.   Trembling with fear I looked over at my soon-to-be husband sitting next to me with only support in his eyes.  Then I glanced over at my future mother-in-law across the room before looking back down at the phone in my hands.  I felt my heart racing, like I was being dropped from several stories plummiting to earth, and I fought back the tears with all my strength while I dialed the dreaded number to my mother’s house.  

At 18 years I thought I was finally an adult and of course I couldn’t have been more wrong.  On my 19th birthday I became engaged and moved into a very small apartment in the Fan District of Richmond, VA with my future husband.  Everything was okay until, at 21, I realized that my mother was going to claim me on her taxes, again.  In turn that legally made me dependent, since I was not married yet, which meant that I would not be able to help pay the bills with the measly money my student loans would supply me with.  If I couldn’t get the money to pay the bills I would have to work full-time while going to school full-time, which is a very difficult task.  My husband was already doing that strenuous task and in addition to that his mom would give us some extra cash each month and took out parent-student loans to help us.  The money would suffice for a while but my mother-in-law was about tapped out and a little irritated, along with myself and my husband, that my parents weren’t contributing very much. 

I knew what I had to do but was torn between doing what was best for my husband and I or doing what was best for my mother and father.  My mom just lost her job, going from $80 k a year to what ever little bit of money the government gave her each month, and my dad was working odd jobs, never earning more than $20 k a year.  To make matters worse,  my pregnant 24 year old sister moved back home and did not contribute to my parents’ bills.  Whatever ’extra’ money my parents could spare went straight to my sisters’ doctor bills and they paid an extra 200 bucks a month just to keep her on thier health plan.   Never the less, it was pretty obvious to me my mother needed the the extra money the deductible could give her on her tax return.  While I felt terrible about telling her that she couldn’t claim me, I knew that if she couldn’t help me with the bills then she shouldn’t be able to claim that I was dependent on her.  I knew it just wasn’t fair to my husband or to my mother and father-in-law if I did not contribute more to our finances.  So I made that dreaded call that caused my mother and I so much grief and strained our relationship, unbeknownst to her, even more.  At that very moment when I said ‘I’m sorry but you can’t claim me on your taxes this year’  and resisted her crying pleas, I became-literally and emotionally-an independent adult.  The feeling swept through me, a feeling I hadn’t felt before, I was grown up.  I faced a fear and over came it and the satisfaction that I got from it was empowering.  After the phone call I no longer felt regret of what I had just done, like I thought I would.  I was sad that I hurt her and I was even more sad because I knew her situation too well and there was nothing I could do for her.    

Through this experience I learned to grow up, to be independent, and to stand up for my self, even though I may hurt feelings along the way.  As I look back I see how needy and dependent I was.  I had wanted every one else to do things for me.  I hung to people feeling I needed to be supported because I felt I couldn’t be independent.  I see that the reason I never wanted to argue and why I said yes to everything was because I didn’t want anyone upset with me.  Because I had these feelings I did alot of things I knew was wrong, I did things I didn’t really want to do, and I let people walk all over me.

Weblog 1

The Prodigal Son is a parable in the Bible most of us are familiar with but this story is a real one to me.  

My sister is three years older than me but in many ways has a harder time learning her lessons than I.  We have both had our trouble and misjudgements in life but luckily mine ended before hers really started.  It all started with the Internet.  I suppose like the rest of us my sister was looking for love and acceptance, but unfortunately that is not what she found.  She met a man on the Internet whom she thought was her soul mate.  Not listening to her sensible sister she flew off to Washington state to meet with this man.  On the other side of the country everything started out wonderfully like she said it would.  She got a great job and the  man she met was just a dream, so much so that he wanted to marry her.  Shortly after the proposal my sister became pregnant and her dream shattered when her fiancee went to prison for reasons i do not recall.  So she was stuck a thousand miles from home pregnant and on her own.  She started to borrow money from my parents and disregarded all the advice from her friends and family.  She ended up losing her job and moving in with her future mother-in-law.  When the man she was to marry was finally released she still remained at her future mother in laws with her future child and husband.  All the while she was still borrowing money from my parents.  My parents were very upset at this situation.  My sister was still really young, too far from home, and was a pregnant college dropout.  And on top of all of this she stopped going to church.  Being that I am from a very strong christian family all of these things were of a great upset to my parents.  What had happened to their daughter?    I was enraged at the situation, because if she had just listened to everyone she would not be in her position.  Eventually she saw that her perfect dream was not going to work out due to the fact this man was cheating on her.  My parents rushed to her aide in Washington and brought her home.  I was mad with jealousy.  I was the good one, I was still in school, I had my own place, and I had a job.  How come she was getting all the attention?  Why were they so happy for her when she messed up?  I never saw a reward for how responsible I was, so why would they even talk to her right now with all of these things she has done?  I confronted my mother with these questions and she said my sister was like the prodigal son in the bible.  My mother told me that all the things my sister had done had not changed her unconditional love and as long as my sister needed her help she would be there.   What about me, I asked her, what reward do I get?  And she said to me that her love is unconditional for both her girls and when I am in need she will be their for me as she is f0r my sister.  

And so when I reread the story of the prodigal son I was no longer jealous, I was glad.  I realized how wonderful it is to have two loving parents.  I was happy my sister was loved and in a safe place now with her family.  I was also happy that I was not unfortunate as she was and that something more beautiful than I could have imagined came out of this story.  If none of this had happened I would not know the little girl I love most in this world, the little girl that made me want a child of my own, my beautiful niece Elizabeth.

Introducing my first blog!

I’ve used myspace and such but never found the time to mess with a blog.  I don’t really have anything exceptional to say and even if I did who would read my blog.  My feelings are that when and if I need to say something I should say it to someone;  there fore, I can use email or the old fashioned telephone to get my point across instead of a not so personal blog.  But hey, this is a learning experience after all so I suppose I’ll give it all I’ve got.  Hopefully someone will find me some what amusing and give me some good responses!  I do look forward to this new experience and I’m sure I will learn something from it.  But, I must say I do feel as though I am talking to myself.

Yours Truly