Independent woman

Writing topic pg 783
I am a twenty year old women who grew up knowing that I could be whatever I wanted to be. When I was little I would always tell my mom that I wanted to be a King, she said “Sure honey you can be whatever you want, but why a King not a Queen?” I would say “Because everyone listens to the boys.” It was at that time when my mom wanted to make sure I knew that I didn’t have to be a boy to be heard. My mother stayed at home while we were little, but before we were born she was an RN and only stopped to see us through our first five years, before school. My parents always made sure that I knew that I could be whomever and do whatever I wanted in life. I have an extreme type of personality so when you tell me I am just as good as someone else and that I need to be independent I take that to the max. I think that in this world today there are still many people who consider women to be the weaker gender. I know that thru the years we have evolved to the idea that women do not have to cook and clean all day and bow down to their man. However, do I think that men are completely comfortable that women are holding a lot of the top positions at big name companies? No. I personally am a big activist for women’s rights and equal rights and I think that there shouldn’t be any barriers, weather that be race, religion, sexual orientation, gender, we are all people. Although I do realize that there is a lot of work that needs to be done for the rest of the world to agree with that theory. I also need to take a step back with my own journey of becoming an independent and respected women. I am so caught up in proving that I can be the best, make good money, have a great job, be strong and independent that I am unable to let a man in at all. I often times find myself paying when I go out with someone, not because he doesn’t offer, but because I refuse. I also tend to get upset when a man assumes he needs to help me to my door. I kick myself for it afterwards, and realize hello its called “being a gentleman.” I need to find that middle ground of standing up for who I am as a women, but also letting a man be a man. In regards to Woolf’s attitudes about women I thin that it still is relevant. We as a nation are constantly evolving, but we are not there yet.

old fashioned views

Writing topic pg. 589

My family is what some would call “old fashion.” Not only my parents but all of my in laws have there mindset stuck somewhere back in the 70’s. They view marriage as something between a man and a woman and preferably they be of the same race and religion. They are also very concerned with things such as sex before marriage, dating before the age of 18, etc. Even though I was raised in a family that was very closed minded I seem to have turned to be a direct opposite. I am Caucasian and I have a preference of dating African American men. I grew up in a predominantly black community so in my opinion that is why I am more attracted to that race. I have dated Caucasians and when I brought them home to meet the family it was never an issue my parents were accepting and he fit right in. However, I knew that I was only really talking to those guys so that my family would approve not necessarily because I liked them. In order to be fully happy I followed my heart and started to date an African American. I wasn’t nervous to bring him hoe because I know that my parents love me no matter what so I knew that they would still accept him. Eventually I told them about him and they were very skeptical and after I talked to them they spread the word like wild fire through my family. I was very upset because my entire family had something negative to say before they even met him. I eventually worked up the courage to bring him to meet my immediate family and it went really well. My parents were able to see passed the color of his skin and realized how amazing he was and that he made me really happy. I was very excited that my parents were able to look past there “old fashioned” up bringing and open there mind to new things. I wish I could say the same for the rest of my family. My grandparents are still disgusted with the idea that I would date outside of my race, but its ok because I am comfortable with who I am. I am also very proud of my parents for opening there eyes to the 21st century. Since then they have also become more understanding of things such as gay marriage, different religions, and inter racial dating in general. I see a lot of my parents in this story, but I am glad they were able to except me and my choices.

imagine there is no heaven... i rather not

“To choose unbelief is to choose mind over dogma, to trust in out humanity instead of all these dangerous divinities.”
I have spoken out about my beliefs in several posts and here I am again to say that I am a Christian. Unbelief was never an option for me, so to say “to choose unbelief,” is something that has never crossed my mind. I was raised in a home where we went to church every Sunday, went to bible study every Wednesday and prayed to God every morning, unbelief was never an option. I believe that there is most defiantly a higher power, I think that it is my faith and belief that allow me to see the goodness in the world. I can not imagine walking this earth everyday, without knowing that I was put here for a purpose and my life means something. I know that there are a lot of people who do not believe in a God or a higher power, that there is no heaven or hell, and to those I say “why not believe?” I have young brothers and sisters and they are always asking me about Gods existence. When will they see him? What does he look like? How do we know he is real? Etc. I relate it to the story The Polar Express, I am sure many of you know the story where the boy is getting a little older and he does not believe in Santa anymore, he tries to sneak down every year to catch Santa putting the presents under the tree but he never spots him. He then dreams of a trip he takes on The Polar Express, a train that is going to the North Pole. Throughout the trip he is asking many questions, Why? When? Who? Etc. his unbelief is quite apparent. In the story the sound of a bell is used to represent your belief. During the story the boy finds a bell that fell off of Santa’s sleigh, he thought it was broken because he was unable to hear anything when he shook it. However at the end of the story when Santa had appeared and everyone received exactly what they wanted from him, he shook the bell again, and to his surprise it rang. The bell was never broken, it was his disbelief that stood in the way of him hearing the sound of the beautiful bell. I tell my siblings this story in hopes of relating Santa to God and the sound of the bell to hearing God’s voice. It is not that God does not exist or that we can not see him, it is a choice on whether or not we choose to open our ears and eyes to him. I think that a lot of people have a hard time believing because they cant physically prove the existence so a lot of people can not wrapped there head around the idea that “it just is.” I can tell you how I know that my belief is not in vein, everyday I wake up to take in another breath, when I am on my last dollar a job comes through, when you feel like you just cant take it anymore, suddenly you are given a boost of courage and strength. If that is not proof, then I don’t know what is.

first impressions matter

Writing topic # 1 pg 371
Since I could remember I have always been very interested in my appearance, not in a conceited way, just that I liked to look polished. My mom always use to take me to pick out my clothes for school and she would never let me get what I wanted. So over summer leading into 6th grade I begged her to give me my spending allowance and let me get my own clothes. It took a lot of persuading but eventually she caved, finally I would be able to get whatever I wanted. So my friend and I got dropped off at the mall and off we went, my budget was $150 and that was suppose to buy me all of my clothes for summer/fall. I began buying and it seemed as though as soon as I got there my money was gone. I bought a very cute handbag for school, two pairs of shoes ( to ensure that I would match), two pairs of jeans and one shirt. I came home and showed my mom and she began to laugh, she said, “Well it looks like you will only have one shirt to wear for the whole week, but maybe people wont notice since your handbag is so great!” I knew that she was right I spent so much money on the handbag that I forgot the whole purpose of why I was there in the first place. Needless to say she took me back to the store and had me refine some of my choices to less expensive pieces so that I would have enough to last me a few months.
The moral of the story is that I have always been very interested in how I come across to others, I would like to say that I learned from that experience but I simply did not. Still to this day what I wear and how I appear to others is important to me. I am the girl who has to have her hair done, face on, and fully dressed just to run to the grocery store. I believe the reason I am so caught up on my wardrobe and such is because I have always been the “big girl,” therefore I feel like I have to try twice as hard to look good as someone who has a smaller frame. Since I am a plus size women I tend to draw heavily towards things I know will always fit, such as shoes, earrings, necklaces. Purses, etc. I must have over 20 purses, 50 necklaces, 100 pair of earrings, and now that I think of it I can probably open shop selling accessories. Ladies? LOL. I make sure that when I get ready my hair is done, make up on, and my outfit is coordinated and well put together. I am very hard on myself, but it is because I know that there will always be that one person who notices something wrong, so I have to play the role of that critical eye. I think when people look at me they think confident, got it together, well maintained, cares about herself, etc.
I feel as though I am coming off a little materialistic so I want to clear that up I am not a label whore or anything like that. I jut really like to look put together and give a good first impression. I think in reality now from writing this I realize I maybe hiding behind the clothes and accessories. I like to make sure that I look so well maintained and manicured because in the inside I am losing my mind and I am unable to control most things in life. The way I dress, I can control that, that’s easy for me.

Death, Life, and Growing up

Making Connections pg 161

“Hanging Fire” by Audre Lorde and “From the Diary of An Almost-Four-Year-Old” by Hanah Mikha’il Ashrawi are two powerful poems in which life and death is discussed. In “Hanging Fire” the girl being depicted is fourteen years old and in high school. You can tell by the reading that this girl is extremely insecure and is trying very hard to measure up. In the first stance she says “and my skin has betrayed me…how come my knees are so ashy” She is going through and pin pointing all of what she sees as “flaws” on her body. She then goes on to say “what if I die before morning and momma’s in the bedroom with the door closed.” The feeling I get from that line is not that she is afraid of dying but that she is afraid she will have been forgotten, or as though no one would even notice. Throughout the rest of the poem she states other things that she needs to fix or get done, always trying to impress someone, yearning for that approval to fit in. The attitude that she has towards life as a fourteen year old, is a fairly typical one. I think that as a teenager your main focus in life is to fit in, to be liked, to make sure you have all the right things. I believe that this girl is seeking some kind of attention and that is why she uses the door being closed to describe the idea of nobody being there, no one paying attention to her. This poem has a very sad tone to it. Then their is the poem “From the Diary of An Almost-Four-Year-Old,” this poem has a tone of strength, love, and wisdom. This poem depicts a girl who has been shot in the head but a soldier, because of this injury she has lost one of her eyes. This girl stays optimistic throughout the poem, when she starts to think about her life with only one eye she says, “it could be that inside our heads we have one spare set of eyes to make up for the ones we lose.” It is that optimism and strength that set the tone for this poem. The girl in this story is only four years old however, she is not afraid of dying, or only having one eye, she is however considered for others. She hears of another girl who also list an eye, a 9 month old, she then says “ I’m old enough, almost four, I’ve seen enough of life, but she’s just a baby who didn’t know any better.” Even though this girl is only four and had just lost an eye, she was able to empathize for someone else instead of feel sorry for herself. I think that this little girl is a pillar of strength and it goes to show just how innocent a child is.