The blog that no one reads

Over the last couple weeks I've been finding the blogging a little disappointing. Thinking of things to write about can be tricky at times but not too much of a problem. The bigger issue I have is finding other people to comment on. Many blogs I go and look at within our class don't often have new posts, and the ones that I do find are often short and don't cover anything of any relevance (at least to me) making it difficult to comment on.

The same can probably be said about my blog. Since no one comments it means I'm likely uninteresting or people just have nothing to say. I don't particularly mind, but it does make me wonder if I need to improve my writing. That can't happen immediately though so I'm not too concerned with it, as I write more I should improve.

Anyhow.. what more should I say? I haven't said much, don't want to put this up. I noticed Native American stereotypes within some advertisement the other day. I probably wouldn't have thought anything of it before this class. The advertisment was for a morphsuit (which are strange enough, full body plus face 'suit') showing a man with a Native American styled hair drinking. I can't find the image but it was on their website. And I just realized the hair itself is a stereotype. It's parted long braided black hair, and I don't remember if there was anything else identifying him as Native American, so that itself is a little assuming of me but what can I do.

We watched a documentary today, and I found it interesting. I was a little put off by how quickly it jumped around from topic to topic but it did bring up some important ideas. That we are putting so much money into foreign countries like Iraq while neglecting our own citizens is unacceptable. The amount of money spent in Iraq and Afghanistan is just terrifying. I can't compare it to government spending for Native Americans because I don't have information on what all the government does but I did read something interesting. Planned Parenthood (which has received a lot of pressure from republicans in office who want to end government spending to 'help balance the deficit') received 75million from the federal government last year. That turns out to cover roughly 3 minutes of our two wars*1. The government has too many problems I feel.

This is Rutherford Birchard Hayes, the 19th president. (whom I am proud to a degree to be related to, side note, though I dont know to what all he did while in office, this quote made me happy). Back then it was recognized that the government is run by corporate interests. This hasn't changed. Republicans, Democrats, they're both in the corporate pocket. Giant corporations are lobbying in Washington D.C. for legislation improving their business, giving them more profit, and often counter intuitive to the people.

I am getting a little off topic I feel, so I'm going to come back to my point. The government is not looking for the people's best interest. They should be, there may be some individuals that want to, but as a whole, they are not. I feel that the Native Americans will not get the help they need as long as the government is out for corporations. I feel before the Native Americans can get help, we need to fix this problem.
I encourage anyone who reads this not to take my word for it. Do a little research yourself. I admit I am a little biased, and I did not actively look for evidence for what I said here, it's largely from memory of what I have read (which may or may not have been biased information/opinions to begin with). So if you are interested in what I have said or unfamiliar with these issues, do a little research. Form your own opinions, you may be surprised with what you find.


*1 I did not confirm this information, but it can't be far off I'm cure.

In doing the Annotated Bibliography...

Through doing the annotated bibliography, it has given me a better sense of direction. As I have said before, I am one who is not easily satisfied and often likes to change my topic when I find something else that interests me. For my proposal I settled on Native American education. I thought I would research and discuss how they have progressed and whatnot but through doing the bibliography I have discovered that idea to be way too broad. I have now narrowed my idea to researching primarily the boarding schools many Native American children were forced into. It's not due until next week, but this is also getting me thinking hard on my outline. I have not written anything down but there are many ideas. Of course, that should be natural considering I just went through 10 sources covering this topic.

One thing that is kind of bugging me is I cannot place where I had heard the name Richard Pratt before. He is the man who thought up the idea of stripping the natives of their culture through the boarding schools. I am certain I have heard the name before but not so sure if it is the same Richard Pratt or a coincidence. I am convinced it must be the same man but I still can't place it, though he is a famous historical figure so it shouldn't be surprising.

The merit of Native American stories?

I am an aspiring scientist. I love and intend on majoring in chemistry, and am taking biology now. As such, I am in a sense attached to scientific method. Documentation, is always important, and with this comes the initial idea that Native American stories cannot be trusted. You cannot put any merit into those, they're just stories, myths, they are not written down or documented, they probably change over time. At least that was my initial thought.

Today, in watching a documentary on Native Americans, I realized this isn't exactly correct. The documentary told of one particular story of a whale in a lake. Had I not heard the rest of the story, I would have thought it was bullshit. I don't mean to be disrespectful with that, but how can you trust a story of unknown origin like that? However, modern geologists have discovered whale bones and remains quite far inland. It was this discovery that showed that the story is true. The whale remains date back 10,000 years, yet the unwritten story lives on. That's just amazing to me.

I am not going to say I blindly believe any Native American story, but this shows me that I can't just disregard them blindly. If one story can live on and remain at least to a degree accurate, I'm sure other stories can as well. It may not be proof, it may not be scientific, but the stories do hold merit.

Paco and Kohl, nicely done.

I was impressed with how well they came in and talked to us for a full two hours. I think many students are used to others coming in and talking to us or lecturing for a few hours on varying material but not used to doing it themselves. I dont know how I would go and lecture on something for two hours. That they are students much like us, and were able to keep going for so long impressed me. That they had very limited notice and time to prepare was all the more impressive. That they were able to come and talk for nearly 4 hours, unscripted and with little notice proves they have put a lot of thought and have experienced quite a bit, be that good or bad.

One thing in particular I noticed was I believe, and I'm sorry but I cannot recall who is who, but in the discussion it was mentioned that .. Okay, I want to say it was Kohl, the younger one, that started talking about wanting to be white, and various stages he went through. I cant help but recall from that Tatum's Identity Stages. I didn't take notes and therefor can't go into too much detail about his past and the stages he went through but there were clearly similarities between what he has experienced and gone through, and what Beverly Tatum talked about in their article.

I was largely quiet while they were here. While there were plenty of opportunities to speak about something, I never really felt that I had anything to add for the most part, but I think that was alright. It by no means meant that I was not paying attention. I look forward to them coming back in the coming weeks, and seeing what more they have to talk about.

Unrelated notes of my life

Note this is not related to English, I just want to share what has been going on in my life a little bit seeing as it's rather out of the ordinary for me.

I was flooded out of my apartment 4 and a half weeks ago, and was living in a hotel. I just recently got to move back in on Wednesday after being kicked out of the hotel by our insurance company. While we returned home Wednesday, our stuff was not delivered until Thursday. It was delivered in box after box after box and filled our apartment. It was a very hectic week, where we were supposed to receive our stuff on Monday and they were still doing work until Thursday. I have spent much of my time since then trying to unpack them and create some order. So far my room is livable and in order for the most part and nothing else really. My mom is in Virginia, left on Sunday and will return on Wednesday. I need her help to clear up a lot of the boxes seeing as it is mostly her stuff in the way.

Speaking of my mom, she is leaving soon. She is a civilian working for the government, and has applied and been approved for a deployment to Afghanistan. She leaves March 4th and will return no sooner than August 29th. She wants to do this to help me pay for my education, as well as hopefully save up some money for a house since we've been living in the same apartment now for over 11 years.

Oh, I quit my job as well. A couple weeks back I realized I do not have the time this quarter to be working as much as I was. I really didn't want to quit and hate not having an income but I felt that I didn't have any choice. I need to do well in school and I knew I did not have time to do everything that is assigned to me while I am working as much as I was. My last day was Superbowl Sunday, and I hope to soon be caught up with my school work, but there's a lot to do and balancing it right now is tough. I know I can do it though, and at least I don't feel stressed about English right now. Still, my Calc 2 class and Zoology class give me quite a bit to do, and quite a lot of content to catch up on.

I have discovered something

I may take away something very important from this class. It is no secret I have taken this class before. Writing a research paper is something I know how to do. I know all the parts of it, whether I am good at it or not. I'm not saying this class has no meaning to it, but it's not as though it teaches me some new skill that I have never learned before. It is always good practice writing a research paper especially since I want to go into a science field and may end up doing something similar quite often depending on what I end up doing.

I think I may take away something better than that though from this class. I have never been one to really enjoy reading. It may come from when I was young having an incompetent  or substandard elementary education and being slow at reading much of growing up. I could read but as I said, slow. I was a very slow reader and was always frustrated and as such have never really liked reading. Of course I say that even though much of my time like many is spent reading things on the internet. It's funny how we classify things differently like that, it all depends on the sources.

Sherman Alexie's book The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian was the first novel I've read in 4 years. The first book I've read since sophomore English and To Kill a Mockingbird. In reading it, I discovered something that I now see as important. I ENJOYED READING IT. Yes, this class has shown me that I can enjoy reading a book. Not only that, but I read the book in about 4 hours. 200 pages in 4 hours. I know it has a lot of short chapters and pictures in there, but I still found that to be much better than what I used to read at. I remember when I was younger trying to time myself as I read and often finding myself at 3 minutes/page and I absolutely dreaded reading.

My big decision now is what to do next. I have discovered that I can enjoy reading. I don't need to buy/download audio books to enjoy the story of a book like I have done in the recent past, I can read them myself. The real question is do I want physical books or an E-reader. I enjoy having everything in a compact format like a hard drive for all my movies rather than dvds, but at the same time I think it might be nice in a way to have a bookshelf full of books. Am I taking this too far? I read one book I liked and now I'm thinking about getting a bookshelf full, maybe I'm taking it a bit too far too quickly, but the idea's the same. There would be no benefit to having physical books over an e-reader would there?  When an E-reader can store all my books in the size of a single book or smaller, I would be hard pressed to think of a reason to get physical books aside from aesthetic reasons.

For the record I have a book picked out or rather a series of books to read. I listened to half the audio book before and enjoyed it. I really want to read the Incarnations of Immortality series next, by Piers Anthony. Presuming I enjoy those, I'll try to find more. My only struggle right now aside from my previous mention of what media do I want, is time. I do not know when I will have time to read anything for my own pleasure considering I am currently behind on school. I must first try to catch up, so it might be a little while.

Thank you Sherman Alexie and Melissa Estelle.

Diversity Training

I went to a Diversity Training session with Eric Davis last Friday and really enjoyed iF. I went in expecting it to be a 3 hour lecture and was pleasantly surprised with how he decided to do things. The topic that we spent the most time on was oppression of minorities and the need to understand that. He gave us an example of if we were to all play monopoly, but since he’s invited us to his house, and has provided food and drink, he decides he will take Boardwalk and Park Place and the railroads. This fits in rather well with how things actually happened, seeing as up until the last 50 years there was not equality by law, and even after that was attained it doesn’t just go back. The later part of the example of monopoly is he agrees not to cheat anymore, he won’t give himself anything more, as though that makes things out to be on an even playing field. He tries to give these little concessions to appease the other ‘players’ but the fact is he’s nice and safe while if any one of us land on his property we’ll be bankrupt.

Another example Eric Davis gave us involved us all coming to the front of the room. He took one volunteer to lay on a table as his subject to emphasize his thoughts. At one point, he had the guy on the table lay at an awkward tiring position, and then stepped away for a minute. When he returned he asked why none of us helped the guy on the table, and everyone was sort of dumb founded. It seemed he wanted to show us how we are sort of programed to follow orders. He didn’t order us not to help, but it was implied through his orders. We thought we were observers while he only had one volunteer only to learn we were all playing active rolls in this simulation.

Another interesting thing we did was try to decipher a “language” on the board. He showed us a bunch of symbols in no order, and we tried to learn them with them making little to no sense. He then showed us the symbols in their natural order and it became very clear. It was an example of how something might make sense to one but not another. What you say or do may not be see the same way if people are from a different background.

I’d say what hit me the most was the last exorcise we did. It was an exorcise intended to show it what it may be like if we were to come out as being gay to our family and friends. We had 10 pieces of paper, and were instructed to put down 4 names of people important to us, 3 ways we relate to others (family mostly, like son, father, ect), and 3 institutions/places we belong to. I had the most trouble just with the first part. I really couldn’t figure out who was important to me, nothing came to mind and that saddened me a bit. When we had something written down on each is when he told us to tear one of each up. It is gone. We didn’t know why initially but I was quite okay with this. To me, the first one I ripped up just made sense. I ripped up my uncle, who I don’t see much anyhow, my job which I’m quitting, doesn’t bother me much, and cousin (my relationship with my cousin, that I don’t see much). Next had to pick 2 more of our choosing, got rid of my Karting and my mom since she’s leaving anyhow to Afghanistan for 6 months. I was left with 5 cards when he came by and took my grandpa from me, and my grandson card, leaving me with my dad, being his son (a little repetitive), and a student at Cascadia. It was only then that he revealed to everyone what the purpose of this exorcise was. I must admit I didn’t put much thought into that, but rather how empty it made me feel to begin with. That has been on my mind much of the last week actually, I keep thinking about it trying to figure out how to fill this void. Of course right now I don’t really have the time. I’ve been doing nothing but going to school and to work and home if you can call it that.