Week 16: Being in Character

Summer BCE 40,000

Oh great Cave Lion why did you choose me as someone under your protection?  Why did I have to be born of the Others and why did you have the Clan raise me then curse me?  I know I have faced every challenge you have set before me, but I do not know how much more I can take.  I am now out in the wilderness without my only child, Durc, to be raised without me.  

I am finding it hard to trust in you right now though I know you have never steered me wrong.  I have not always known your reasons for testing me, but every time I have come out on the other end with blessings to spare.

Being on my own out in the wilderness is something new to me.  I would take long hunts back when I was near the cave, but I always had Creb's hearth to come home to.  Now I have no hearth, no cave, and no people.  

Yesterday I crossed a river with all my possessions floating on a log.  It would have been so easy to just stop kicking and let the river take me and my possessions away.  It was so hard to cross, but I did it even though it took every bit of energy I have.  I have no idea what I am supposed to do next.  I have no where to go and each day is new and mysterious.  I just have to have faith that you my totem will not leave me and guide me where I am supposed to go.  

Word Count: 269

Week # 15: Giving Thanks

The older I get the more I realize I am turning into my mother and the more I am actually okay with it!  My mom, Lynne, is by no means perfect, but she is a very kind, warm, creative and fiercely independent woman.  Most importantly my mom has always loved me with 110% of her heart.  I have never for a second doubted that I am loved or cared for, which I know is something I am extremely grateful for.

My mom is a bit eccentric.  After my parents divorced when I was 9 we moved into a much smaller house in the rougher part of Menifee.  She poured herself into turning our tiny 2 bedroom house with a large overgrown backyard into a home.  My mom taught me that what makes a house a home or really what makes anything worthwhile is hard work, creativity, and passion. 

Our backyard turned from a bunch of weeds, glass, gravel, and an abandoned washing machine into a whimsical wonderland full of fun cement creatures and creations.  I always felt proud of our house.  It was not the biggest, or the best, but we (my mom and I) made it our own.  I am not afraid to try new things directly because of my mom and the freedom she gave me.  When I was 16 and wanted to redo my room she let me do whatever I wanted, including learning how to cut and install tile. 

When I was 11 and missed having a pool, my mom found a used above ground pool.  She bought the supplies and the pump, but I had to level the ground.  I learned how to use a line a water to level and the amount of work I did to install and maintain our small above ground pool made me feel even more accomplished. 

I am so grateful that my mom lives close by, and even though she is not in the best of health (she is 71 and smokes about 2 packs a day) I am able to spend time with her at least once a week. 

Word Count: 351

Week # 14: Issue you are passionate about

I am pretty passionate about teachers not inserting their personal political and religious views into their class, which makes this topic tricky for me.  There are controversial topics I am passionate about, but I want everyone to feel safe with their own opinions.  So I am going to discuss why I think it is important to try and remain objective as an educator.  I think the main reason I don't want to share my beliefs or political views is because I want my classroom to be a safe space for my students to be able to express themselves.  I don't want them to ever feel that if they believed something different than me, I would judge them harshly.  I also feel that taking my belief system and politics out of the equation allows student voices to shine.  This does not mean I won't point out potential logical flaws.  For example, it will be hard for me to not want to discuss scientific evidence with a student who claims that the earth is flat in an essay.

Some educators would argue that by trying to keep myself objective and hiding these parts of my personality students are not exposed to different views and that I am not making my own bias clear.  In all reality I am sure that some of my bias' are clear just by what I say and what I do.  I am human and it is hard to be completely objective.  There are also beliefs I have that I will be the first to acknowledge I have no logical reason behind them.  For example I am against the death penalty, mostly because the thought of state sanctioned execution makes me feel a bit ill.  I still cannot watch any execution on TV or in a movie.  I have to cover my eyes when we watch the hanging section part of Capote.  In this case it is purely my feeling and I can see the logic and validity of someone who believes different than me.  Just personally if I can't even stomach the idea of it in fiction I don't know how I can support it in reality?  I share this about myself because I know my reason is illogical and I doubt my reason for being anti-capital punishment will sway anyone in any direction.  

Word Count: 387

Week # 13: Myers Briggs 16 Personalities and my book

I have taken the Myers Briggs personality test several times and I always get INFJ as my personality type.  Today I took the 16 personalities version of the MBTI test to make sure I was still the same and I got INFJ- T.  When I looked over the traits of a T (turbulent) vs. an A (assertive) INFJ, I became a bit discouraged.  Basically Ts are more insecure than As which in turn has some negative impacts.  Of course I want to be an A, but I also know that I still struggle with some insecurities (who doesn't?).

What is unique about INFJs is that they are the rarest personality type (only 1% of the population are INJFs).  Some strengths of INFJs are that they are creative, insightful, inspiring, decisive, determined and altruistic.  I feel comfortable and confident saying that I am creative, insightful, determined and altruistic, but I don't think I am inspiring or decisive.  Maybe this is where the T from my INJF- T comes in?  If I was more confident and self assured perhaps I would feel differently?  The weaknesses of INFJs are that they are sensitive, extremely private, perfectionistic, always need to have a cause, and can burn out easily.  I can see all of these weaknesses in myself and I have to be really careful to look out for them.  I have gotten better about being sensitive and extremely private.  I used to be the high schooler that would cry over low tests scores, had to had straight As and based my self worth on  my GPA.  I like to think I have grown past this but the urge is still there.  I am taking some classes at CSUF and I do find myself checking my grades a bit compulsively. 

I just finished re-reading A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, by Betty Smith.  I feel that the character in the novel that is most like an INFJ is the main character Francie.  Francie like INFJs is an introverted deep thinker.  She spends most of her childhood reading and even tried to read every book in her local library in alphabetical order.  Francie is also very determined.  Her mother decides to have her bother finish high school instead of her because she knows that Francie will find a way to finish.  This ends up being true.  

I think that Francie does not show the altruism that is typical of an INFJ.  Francie cares about knowledge and learning for her own benefit and there does not seem to be a higher purpose behind it.  I completely relate to Francie's love of reading and use of reading as an escape when she is experiencing hardship.  I feel that Francie cares more about knowledge for knowledge sake than I do.  I love learning but if I don't see a greater purpose behind it, it hard for me to stay dedicated.  For example I could never have the patience to read every book in a library in alphabetical order.  

Word Count: 498

 

Week # 12: Do you think evil is born or made?

I believe that evil is generally made. I do not think people are born evil unless they have a severe mental disorder like people who are sociopaths or psychopaths.  We are born with certain traits and tendencies but we have free will to encourage them or not. Often people that have done something that is considered evil have had harsh experiences that lead them in that direction.

Even some people that are sociopaths or psychopaths are able to fight against their nature and not do evil. According to THE CRIMINAL PSYCHOPATH: HISTORY, NEUROSCIENCE, TREATMENT, AND ECONOMICS 93% of psychopaths are in the criminal justice system.  The remaining 7% percent could have not been caught committing a crime or are actively fighting against their nature. 

How many people are actually psychopaths and born evil?  According to Karolina Sörman at Karolinska Institute in Stockholm, who conducts research on psychopathy only about 1% of males are psychopaths.  This 1% does not account for all the evil acts created by humanity.  

A majority of evil is caused by people's upbringing, perspective, and inner pain.  It is common knowlege that abuse runs in families.  The reason why could be partially genetics, but also that it is hard to break the cycle of abuse.  In the case of Perry Smith from the novel In Cold Blood, I wonder if his mother, Flo Buckskin was abused as a child or if her parents were alcoholics?  If they were then that would partially explain her behavior and why Perry experienced so much neglect.  

Word Count: 248

Week 11: Brain Dump *Private*

I decided to make this post private.  It is on my personal blog (https://msvprivateblog123.blogspot.com/?zx=7a8a443d043ee815).  Make sure you turn the settings to private so no one can see it :)

Week # 11: Brain Dump

Writing just what is going on in your mind is a crazy and disorganized process.  Right now I have had a tension headache for 2 days and I keep on thinking of the pain on the left side of my face.  I also read a lot of books about mediation for fun........and to help me fall asleep.  Anyways expert mediators are supposed to be able to handle higher levels of pain than us non experts.  They learn to be curious about their pain and make friends with their pain.  So I am trying to use days like today where I know I will have a dull pain all day to take a step back and be curious about it.  

Another thing that is on my mind is that I have to write everything down to make sure I remember it.  I have not kept up my to do list the last couple of days and it makes me feel disorganized and that I am constantly forgetting something.  Speaking of which I forgot to post Digital Friday until this morning.  It was something I forgot to write down and it just slipped my mind.  

The English teacher part of me is pained by how disorganized this post is.  There is no theme and I just ended the last sentence with a verb!  But the point is not perfection.  The point is to become comfortable with your inner voice and your writing voice becoming one. 

 I really wish you could make some posts private without making a separate blog.   I guess that defeats the point of blogging?  Blogging is something people do to share their ideas with the internet so by its nature it is public, but where is the space for private thoughts when the format of a blog is more comfortable?  

Word Count: 302

Week # 9: The turning point

I just finished the non-fiction book Dreamland: The True Tale of America's Opiate Epidemic by Sam Quinones.  This novel weaves together several stories of heroin addicts, their famines, and the drug dealers from a small town in Mexico.  For the heroin addicts the turning point being prescribed prescription pain pills. There is a sad story of a star football player who suffered a knee injury and was prescription Oxycontin.  When he ran out of Oxycontin he went to heroin because it was cheaper. In order to afford his new habit, the football player began selling heroin and bought a gun for protection. He ended up dying from a gunshot wound during a drug deal.  

I think you could argue that there were many turning points in this football player's life.  If only he was not prescribed Oxycontin then he would not have ended up dead before the age of 20.  Another turning point was moving onto heroin and another was deciding to sell heroin. He had the opportunity to change at any one of these junctures, but the addiction was too strong. 

The football player’s story is that of one bad decision after another.  Once he was addicted to oxycontin it seemed like he was set to follow a path downhill to his eventual doom.  The most disturbing part of this story is that it is one of the many stories of young people who have died too soon due to opiate addiction.   

Word Count: 245

Week # 8: If my book was a song it would be "Mad World" by Gary Jules

I recently finished Dream Land by Sam Quinones.  The book is about the American Opiate Epidemic and how we got to the opiate crisis we are in today.  It weave the stories of young illegal Mexican dealers who are seeking a way out of poverty with the lives of rich, white, suburban teens who have everything and still feel the need to escape and isolate themselves first with prescription painkillers and then later with heroin.  I have always loved the song "Mad World" by Gary Jules.  Remember watching at the end of the film Donnie Darko when I was a teenager and thinking that is what life can be like for some people.  It is a mad world.  Teens who have so much are wanting to escape.  There must be something our society is not providing to our youth to make them feel like there is "no tomorrow" and that they should want to "drown their sorrows."  You contrast the experience of these teens with privilege and to the drug dealers from this small town in Mexico and the contrast becomes a bit wild.  They dealers come from extreme poverty and should have many reasons to want to escape into a drug induced dream world but they don't.  Instead they are focused on pulling them and their family out of poverty.  

I am not sure what the solution to the opiate epidemic is, but I do think that Sam Quinones points to how the problem is deeper than just over prescribing prescription pain killers.  We have to look at what is causing people to want to escape or numb their emotional pain with drugs in the first place. 

Word Count: 278

Week # 6: Capote

My first thought about the movie Capote is that it is about some deeply flawed human beings both the two criminals and Capote himself.  Capote uses his fame to weasel his way into the lives of the people of Holcomb and the criminal's live himself.  He appears to be there for them and has empathy but is doing so only for his own gain.  He uses the pain of especially Perry to entertain his friends.  It seems like a sick experiment and from what I know about Capote's life after publishing In Cold Blood, I think Capote paid for it with extreme guilt.  

Both Dick and Perry are also deeply flawed.  They committed a horrible murder and end up paying for it with their lives.  It makes me wonder about human nature.  How can people cause each other so much pain and for what?  Money? Fame? Fortune?  Is this the natural consequence of society measuring success in terms of fame and fortune over contributing to the good of humanity?  

I finished reading Killers of the Flower Moon: The Osage Murders and the Birth of the FBI.  Both this novel and the movie Capote are about true crime and a person's journey uncovering the reason why the murders occurred.  In Killers of the Flower Moon: The Osage Murders and the Birth of the FBI the motivation was greed.  I have read the novel In Cold Blood a few times.  I think one of the motivations was greed but I would not argue it was the main motivation for either Perry Smith or Dick Hickock.  

Word Count: 263

Week # 5: Quote that speaks to you

“Wisdom cannot be imparted. Wisdom that a wise man attempts to impart always sounds like foolishness to someone else ... Knowledge can be communicated, but not wisdom. One can find it, live it, do wonders through it, but one cannot communicate and teach it.” 

― Hermann Hesse, Siddhartha

The reason this quote resonated with me was because of a podcast I listened to this week.  The episode was You 2.0 Decide Already by NPR's Hidden Brain.  Basically, we learn that humans are the only animal that can use their imaginations to predict the future, and guess what we are terrible at it!  Often what we predict will happen and what actually happens is completely different.  As I was listening to this episode I kept on thinking both how right this premise is and also how I would not be able to understand the ideas presented in this podcast at the same level a few years ago.  I feel that I have enough experience at this point to realize that things do not end up as bad as I predict and are not worth the worry I put into them.  Applying this wisdom in real life is another challenge.

It feels liberating to know that there are scientific studies out that that prove humans suck at predicting their own futures.  I have a tendency to try and overthink a problem in hopes that all that energy will allow me to "out think it."  Instead of actually solving the problem, I end up creating additional fictional problems and what if scenarios that add to the problem.  The only thing thathelps when a worrisome situation comes to fruition is just being present in the moment and dealing with things as they come.  

Word Count (not including the quote): 277

Week # 4: It's all about the plot

So far in my book, Killers of the Flower Moon: The Osage Murders and the Birth of the FBI, the plot is going slow but I feel like it is going fast.  At this point I think over six Osage Indians have been murdered.  A few were shot in the head, two were blown up in their house, and some were poisoned.  There are some vivid gory details explaining the state of the bodies, which made me second guess reading this before falling asleep.  Despite the gore, I have been nightmare free so I will probably continue to read this before bed.  

The plot itself is slow because there is not much progressing on the case itself other than Tom White, a former Texas Ranger, was put in charge by the F.B.I.  The last 40 pages or so have been about the history of Tom White.  Tom's life is so interesting and full of action that it feels like the book's plot is progressing when it is not.  Tom's dad was the sheriff of Austin, Texas and their house was literally attached to the jail.  Tom witnessed a lot of action in his childhood, including his first hanging at the age of 11 (I think).  Tom's  but I am learning so much about Tom White and his background that it feels like the plot is going faster than in reality.  

Word Count: 232

Week # 3: Character(s) and Setting

I am currently reading Killers of the Flower Moon: The Osage Murders and the Birth of the FBI  by David Grann.  Fun fact about this non-fiction novel is that it is currently the number one seller on Amazon in books on Native American History.  Normally I am not a huge fan of non-fiction, but sometimes a true story reads like fiction.

I found the setting of this novel, both the time (1920's) and the place (Osage Indian Reservation in Oklahoma) compelling mostly because they both are beyond my current reality.  In the 1870's the Osage tribe made a smart move when forced to buy land from the US government to form their reservation; they kept all the rights to mineral and oil deposits.  This later made the Osage Indians very rich despite their lower social status.  The contrast of the restriction of reservation life and the forced assimilation of the Osage people with their abundant wealth makes for a story that is a vignette about a unique time, place, and people.  Despite their wealth the novel depicts the Osage reservation as mostly empty space with few stores or towns for that matter.  The one brick building was the School in the capital of the Osage nation that was used by the U.S. government to force assimilate the Osage children.  This cold, stark, imposing, brick building standing out in the middle of the main town is a apt metaphor of the relationship between U.S. government and the Native Americans.  Both the this building and the U.S. government obviously do not fit in with the surrounding environment and culture but are there as an act of defiance.   

Word Count: 278

Week # 2: Vulnerability and Writing

I feel that my writing ability is above the average American adult.  I am particularly proud of my ability to craft an email that conveys both my message and my tone accurately.  We all have our talents right? However, when I compare myself to some of my peers with my same level education, I still feel a bit inadequate.  I enjoy writing and I feel that I am able to get my thoughts on the page with relative ease.  I think a trick with writing is to know that there is always room for improvement and not take your "areas of growth" personally.

I am not as self conscious about the flaws, my tendency to misspell words, or favoring certain words or phrases, until I am reluctantly forced to share my writing with my peers or students for that matter.  Part of the problem is that writing hits a sore spot for me.

I am a terrible speller.  I have vivid memories of failing pre-spelling tests in elementary school, my peers telling me I was dumb, coming home crying, and then my mom drilling me for hours on the week's spelling words.  I would ace the spelling test on Friday and then later forget the spelling of the words.  My spelling has improved significantly since then, but it will always be a weak point.  I will always get a little extra anxious about my spelling when I write something on the whiteboard, but I will endure. 

I share this because everyone has their "thing" that is a weak point and source of insecurity.  Unfortunately, for a lot of people it has to do with public speaking or writing.  The harsh truth is that the only way you are going to get better at anything is by just going for it and trying your best to ignore your own insecurities. I know how scary it was for me to decide that I wanted to be "good" at English even though it did not match my strengths.  Every time I gave my high school teachers one of my essays I felt so exposed and afraid.  Besides being stubborn, what helped me was to know that my sophomore honors English teacher was a terrible speller too.  He was so confident about his own intelligence, writing, and ability to communicate, that it made me feel that there was hope for me to improve my writing as well. We all have areas to improve and the truth is there is no perfect writer.  All writers work on improving their craft.  It is up to us to only compare ourselves to ourselves.

(Word Count: 436)

The Week in Review # 1

Reading is an escape for me. Looking back the trigger for me becoming a "reader" was my parent's divorce when I was in the fourth grade. I remember checking out Sadako and the Thousand Paper Cranes from my school library and reading it over and over again.  I think reading how Sadako was able to face the harsh reality of her leukemia and eventual death by creating a new goal for herself, made my own struggle seem so small.  Reading that book gave me a healthier perspective on how to face challenges, setbacks, and suffering with grace.  Of course I do not think I was that deep at in the forth grade, but I do remember thinking about Sadako every time I was really down in elementary school.  

You would think that someone who reads to escape reality would love science fiction and fantasy. I am all for Harry Potter, Lord of the Rings, Dune etc., but my true love is literary fiction that depicts the sometimes harsh reality of human existence.

I am also an insomniac so several nights a week I wake up and read until I am able to go back to sleep. I usually read a non-fiction and fiction book at the same time. The non-fiction book usually puts me to sleep in 20-30 minutes, while I can read the fiction book all day if I am in the mood. There have been several nights I have not slept much at all because I just want to finish the next chapter of the novel. Currently, I am reading Little Fires Everywhere by Celeste Ng and it is hard to pull myself away.

I do not have favorite books, but I do have a few favorite authors. I have a soft spot for John Steinbeck. I love both East of Eden and The Grapes of Wrath. My two favorite authors that are currently alive are Neil Gaiman and Barbara Kingsolver. I love the magical realism, hint of darkness, and purity in Gaiman's writing. Kingsolver is a feminist, master gardener, poet/author, and has a background in biology. What is not to love about her?

My independent reading choice will depend on my mood and if I finish Little Fires Everywhere before we officially start. I have both The Killers of The Flower Moon: The Osage Murders and the Birth of the FBI and Hillbilly Elegy: A Memoir of a Family and Culture in Crisis on my list of books to read.