Failing: It's Not Fun

Fears can develop in various ways: from a traumatic event, from painful memories, and even for no reason at all.  Many of us fear certain things, and I am no exception.  People might consider me a bit of a worry-wart or a scardy cat, but all of my fears and anxiety can be attributed to my biggest fear of all -- failure.


I don't know why I am so afraid to mess up or to make a mistake, but for some reason the thought of failing at something scares me.  It is true that I am a bit of a perfectionist and that I try my best in everything that I do, but sometimes I try too much and it takes a physical toll on my health.


I believe that this fear developed because of my childhood.  I am an only child so ever since I was little I have viewed myself as the only chance that my mom and dad have to be successful parents.  That is a huge burden for an eight year-old girl to carry around.  Because I was so afraid of my parents being disappointed in me or my grandparents being disappointed in my parents, I have created this fear of failing.  I know deep down that I probably am doing alright and that my family is proud of me, but this fear is one that is not easily shaken.


As I am sitting here stressing over this blog and trying to make it sound perfect, I am thinking to myself, what can I do to overcome this fear of failing?  So far the only solution I can think of is to relax and to picture myself doing well in the future.  Fears, especially mental ones like this, are often hard to get rid of, but I'd imagine with time and practice, these types of fears can be suppressed and dealt with.  I just have to learn how to enjoy life and to not stress out about everything all the time; it's going to be hard work!

Semiotic Analysis: The Wonderful World of Wal-Mart!

How are Americans perceived?  Large and in charge, demanding, impatient, diverse, and loud are just a few suggestions.  And what do people think of when they think of American culture?  Well, there are many answers, but I personally think of Wal-Mart.

Wal-Mart embodies basically every American stereotype -- the prices are low, the stores are conveniently located, and the people are, well, diverse.  It is truly a one-stop-shop which plays into our country's need for instant gratification; there is nothing that you can not find at Wal-Mart.  The stores are also easily navigated and well organized to help make one's shopping trip that much quicker.  The people who shop at Wal-Mart range from the lower class to even the wealthy, from backwoods Americans to new citizens; everyone shops here.  Because there are so many different types of people that shop at Wal-Mart, the stores are usually labeled in multiple languages, mainly English and Spanish.

One big characteristic of Wal-Mart though is their prices.  Their prices are extremely low compared to a lot of stores because of their outsourcing; they send a lot of jobs over to China.  This is very American because Americans today seem to think that they are too good for these factory jobs, they deserve more money than what those jobs will pay.  Since Americans turn their noses up at jobs, many are finding themselves out of work and out of money, and Wal-Mart is the only place that they can shop because of the low prices.

It is easy to say that Wal-Mart not only embodies the American persona of impatience, diversity, and connivence, but it is also consuming the public.  It is no secret that the gap between rich and poor is growing exponentially in this country, and Wal-Mart is becoming a monopoly because of it.  So many Americans already rely on these stores to get their basic needs, and as Americans continue to shop there, the jobs in China will keep growing and Americans will keep losing jobs (that they would turn down anyway), which would cause even more people who will depend on Wal-Mart's low prices -- a vicious cycle has been created.

It seems as if our economy is failing just so we can save a few dollars....we're in a sticky spot America.

A Global World

As I looked over the words from President Obama's inaugural address, I noticed the usual patriotic words such as "nation", "America", and "spirit", but there was also one other word that had caught my eye -- world.  I started thinking about how countries interact with each other on a daily basis now; communication is so easy!  Naturally as I scrolled through the past presidents, I realized that the word "world" was dying out and being replaced with words like "union" and "country".

When our country first was established, our founding fathers had to try to do something that was never done before -- unite a bunch of strong states that formed a weak confederacy.  In the early stages of our history, the politicians were not primarily concerned with helping foreign nations, they were concerned with the development of their own.  It is no surprise that I saw so many words like "union" and "constitution" from our early presidents.

I have never given it much thought until now, but government has turned into not only sovereignty over a nation's land, but into a global affair.  The world isn't such a big place anymore.  Back in the day, the handwritten letters or messages to other countries took weeks and even months to arrive.  Now with a few clicks of a button, government officials from America can be video chatting with government officials from China; this is really quite remarkable!

Since nations are so connected now, we all have to be conscious of what we are saying or doing, making sure not to offend another country.  A country's business is also less private; news spreads fast and when any scandal or war springs up, everyone will soon know about it, either providing aid or criticism.

A global world in my opinion is not a bad thing, it helps make everyone more cultured and worldly.  The global market also is a huge benefit from the development of this -- needed products and resources can be shipped to any part of the world!  To conclude, it is not surprising that our country's focus has shifted from itself to the world.  The United States have become united and stable, and with the help of technology, we can now focus on our global interactions, and our presidential speeches are starting to reflect this ideal.

Golf and Writing: How Do They Relate?

It is no surprise by now that I love to golf; anyone who knows me will agree to that.  Golf is not a challenging game physically, but it is mentally.  It takes a lot of practice and persistence to even be able to hack yourself around the golf course, while praying to God that you don't take a ten on the hole.  But once you become good at golf, it's a lot of fun, and as you look back on all of the hardships that you had faced to get there, you realize that it was all worth it and that you had learned valuable life lessons along the way.


Obviously it is a little hard to golf up here in Wisconsin in the wintertime due to the snow and the ice.  There are heated driving ranges which golfers can use, but they are just not the same as hitting off grass.  Often I find myself struggling in the spring to find my swing; I'm out of practice, and I have lost the rhythm and tempo of how I usually swing a golf club.  If you're not a golfer, it is hard to identify with that, but to a golfer, losing your swing is like losing your left arm -- you'd give anything to get it back.  As the spring turns into summer, my swing usually comes back, and I am able to shoot my usual scores which makes the game a lot more fun again.  I can only find my swing through practice and persistence though.


I compare this to writing.  When I was little, I LOVED to write -- I even wrote a twenty-four chapter "novel" when I was ten.  After I had finished that massive amount of writing, I was so pleased with myself and so happy with how it turned out.  As I read through it now, I find grammatical errors and spelling mistakes, fragments and run-on sentences, but I realize that I would not be able to write as well as I can today if I had never made those mistakes in my adolescence.  Writing takes practice, just like golf.


I still love to write now, but now I find that I only write for school, I never write for fun.  Right now I'm out of practice for writing poetry and short stories, all I know how to write is reports and essays.  I feel like if I can get a chance to  write and compose creatively again like I used to, I would enjoy writing a lot more than I do.  I feel like if I just practice and keep going, I will find the creative voice that I had as a child.

Secularism vs. Religion

For one of my choice essays I read "Is That All There Is?" from the New Yorker's "Critic at Large" section.  I chose this essay at first because it dealt with religion, and religion intrigues me.  I was hoping it would bring a new side to the Atheist-Believer debate, but alas, I was wrong.  The essay didn't bring up any new theories or points for me to either agree or disagree with.  To be honest it reminded me a lot of my philosophy class last year.

Because I found this essay in the "Critic" section, I thought it would be more edgy and criticize atheism instead of religion like many of the other editorials do, but after reading it, I'm not sure what side the author was on.  At first I thought it was pro-religion, then throughout the whole middle section the author was providing points of why atheism or "secularism" is better, and then commented on religion again.  I must say that I am quite confused after reading this.  The author said that secularism was better because it dealt with facts, but he also commented about how people "need" religion so there will never be a 100% following of secularism. 

(If you're getting confused reading this, I completely understand!)

All in all I would have to say that this essay was simply mediocre.  It didn't provide any new thoughts or view-points on the common debate, and it used a lot of unnecessary long words.  Plus he totally confused me with his last thought,"Secularism can seem as meaningless as religion...".  Is he refuting both?  How is that possible?  I must say that this essay has left me with a lot of questions...

What I Have Come Up With After Fifty Hours of Intense Labor...

I chose to read A People's History of the United States by Howard Zinn for my choice novel.  Many of you may say, "eww, a history book," and yes, I would agree that it is filled with boring history excerpts and stories that may not seem relevant, but overall it was a fabulous read.  Best of all, it explains why certain things are the way they are today.

Zinn didn't write the conventional white man's history book, he wrote American History through the eyes of the groups of people that were oppressed throughout our nation's relatively short, yet brutal 235 years: African-Americans, Native-Americans, women, Irish-Immigrants, Italian-Immigrants, factory workers, poor whites, gay Americans, and Latin-Americans.  He told stories of brutality and discrimination that almost breaks the reader's heart.  

The most surprising facts that Zinn presented, in my opinion, were all of the horrible and inhumane things that our government did to Native-Americans.  I had always wondered why the stories of Natives were in the beginnings of our history books but never in the middle or the end, but now I have figured out why -- they were never part of our society, they were just pushed onto reservations out west and forgotten about.

I was also very surprised about how far back our economic unrest trails.  Maybe it's because I was born in '93, but it always seemed to me that this recession is a newer problem, but as I read further and further into the book, I found that we never really had any economic stability...ever.  The richest one percent has always controlled a majority of our funds, and it made me think: if this gap between rich and poor hasn't been fixed in 235 years, will it ever be?

Lastly, it was really unsettling reading about how much corruption and hypocrisies our government has been guilty of.  For example, the U.S. over and over again stopped rebels in different countries from winning their independence from their unfair and tyrannical governments just so OUR economy wouldn't suffer.  I'm sorry, but didn't we win our independence from Britain?  We should understand more than any other country what it's like to have a ruthless government ruling over you.  The bombing of Hiroshima is also a great example.  A day before that attack was put into action, the government had received a letter from the Japanese government saying that they wanted some have some peace talks to try to work everything out, but the government ordered the attack anyway and then claimed that the letter had gotten lost when a media source had outed them.

The point of this book was certainly to bring the horror stories of our history into the light and to criticize the government for oppressing so many people, however I don't believe it was written to turn people against the United States government.  Zinn just wanted to bring the wrongs of this country to the government's attention in hopes of change for the future.  Even with its many faults, I still love this country, and I believe that it can become one of the greatest countries the world has ever seen if it can finally sincerely mean the words that our forefathers wrote for us, "We the people."

"The Prevailing Opinion of a Sexual Character Discussed"

I must say that this article is well written, but boy, were there a lot of words that I didn't know!  This article made me realize that my vocabulary needs some work, but good thing I have a forty-word vocabulary assignment that I have to do!


After I powered through the vast unknown vocabulary of this obviously revolutionary article and figured out what a majority of these words mean, I noticed that Mary Wollstonecraft was writing about women's rights and the oppression that they, or shall I say we, faced back in the eighteenth century.  In her opinion, she seemed to believe that women were seen as inferior because of their gentleness and their "stupidity".  Wollstonecraft also commented on how men believed that women should be faithful servants and tend to their every want and need. She stated that men almost thought it was a woman's "duty" to serve a man, be in need of protection, and possess gentle and innocent characteristics -- characteristics that showed "weakness".  Men were obviously thought to be the stronger sex and because of that, "brutal force has...governed the world".


There were a few things about this article that confused me, but the most prevalent one was Wollstonecraft's views on the relationships between men and their wives.  All I got out of that section was that men believed that "[women] were made to be loved, and must not aim at respect, lest they should be hunted out of society as masculine".  I have to admit that she lost me a few times in her long explanations.


Wollstonecraft's article definitely took me a while to understand, there were so many long, almost run-on sentences and the vocabulary was off the charts, but I do have to agree that women back in the colonial period were stepped on and sadly stepped over.  Women back then were nothing in society, and women throughout the next few generations fought so hard to obtain their rights.  It makes me proud to know now that men and women are mostly equal today.

Is Google Making Us Stupid?

Today it is so easy for us to sit down to do a research paper, open up the internet to look for some good sources to back up our argument, and end up on facebook or youtube five minutes later.  Let's be honest, it happens to all of us.  I would accredit this diversion to the influence of the internet -- an information god that promotes immediacy, convenience, speed, and most of all distractions.


Nicholas Carr, the author of this essay, touches on not only the influence that the internet has on our culture but also on the effects of it personally.  He says that the internet is changing the way we research topics by making them easily accessible, and it is also changing the way we think.  Before the invention of the internet, people used to be able to focus on long articles and novels and were better at the skills of deep reading and deep thinking, but now, a study conducted by a few scholars from the University College of London has proven that people are not reading deeply into the articles, they are merely skimming.  Carr has even experienced this for himself:
               
                "What the Net seems to be doing is chipping away my capacity for concentration and contemplation. 
                My mind now expects to take in information the way the Net distributes it: in a swiftly moving stream of 
                particles.  Once I was a scuba diver in the sea of words.  Now I zip along the surface like a guy on a Jet Ski."


Carr believes that as we use our "intellectual technologies", a phrase that was coined by the sociologist Daniel Bell, we start to resemble their characteristics.  A great example provided was the invention of the clock.  Instead of listening to our senses and the rhythm of our bodies, we now have a man-made schedule engrained into our minds of when to get up, to eat, to go to work, and to go to bed.  If the trend continues, we will inevitably start resembling the characteristics and attitudes of a computer, which in my opinion is extremely boring.  We will be a machine.


Carr had also mentioned that the media is changing as well.  Since our lives are so immersed in the internet, the older, more traditional forms of media -- newspapers, magazines, the radio, and television -- have to change their methods of giving us information as well. Carr explains that "Television programs add text crawls and pop-up adds, and magazines and newspapers shorten their articles, introduce capsule summaries, and crowd their pages with easy-to-brows info-snippets."  Because we are so focused on maximizing speed, efficiency, and production, we need our other forms of media to represent this as well.  If they don't we shift our attention elsewhere.


Personally I think that it is really sad that humans, animals that are capable of building the Egyptian Pyramids, the Great Wall of China, and the Colosseum of Rome without computers, rely so much on them today.  I feel like people are loosing their personalities in technology, they are simply becoming robotic and following down the path that our society thinks will eventually lead each one of us to success, money, and happiness -- people are almost afraid to think for themselves now.  I also believe that the invention of the internet has implanted the idea that it is bad to be wrong.  We need to know everything or we are labeled as stupid and unintelligent, when in reality, it is the other way around.  We gain most of our knowledge from experience and mistakes, and if we "know" everything, do we really know anything at all?


There is another side to the argument though that I find valid.  The revolution of the internet has helped us connect with people all around the world, and in turn has helped people help so many other people who are in severe need.   It has made it possible for people in the United States to connect with people in Russia in a matter of seconds, and French businessmen are now able to buy and sell things with businessmen in Australia.  Technology and the internet has helped develop our global economy, which is actually really cool!  Yes, technology has changed our thought processes and shortened our attention spans, but it also has done a lot of great things for the world.


With everything new there are pros and cons and the internet is no exception.  We just need to use it responsibly.  It is like alcohol.  It is fun to use occasionally and in moderation, but if you use it way too much, it can have damaging effects.  I believe that if we can just find a nice balance between technology and healthy thinking habits, the internet can be a very good thing for the world.

Skunk Dreams

"Skunk Dreams" is an essay from The Georgia Review and was written by Louise Erdrich.  This has to be one of the more interesting and unique works that I have read.


Erdrich starts the essay by telling the reader about when she slept on a football field one beautiful, spring night in North Dakota, and a skunk happened to climb on top of her and fall asleep.  At first she was terrified of the wild animal, but soon she started wondering if skunks can dream, and if so, what about?  Erdrich then mentions that perhaps they were dreaming each other's thoughts.  She then continues on to say how cheap, cold, run-down motels give her the best dreams and explains that she had dreamt of a fenced in place where trees ran for miles inside it -- she said it almost seemed to transport her into the future.


Eventually Erdrich left North Dakota and moved out to New Hampshire, where, in her words, she was "urbanized".  She stated that the outdoors there were unimpressive -- "the sun did not pop" and the land seemed to contain "undramatic loveliness" -- but over time she became used to it.  Although she misses her home in North Dakota, she finds solace in the wind.  She loves how "windy days were like sitting just out of sight of an ocean, the great magnetic ocean of wind."  Because of her newly acquired love of the wind, Erdrich starts walking in the woods every day, further and further in.  Soon she stumbles across a fenced in place that looks exactly like her dream; it was a hunting club.  She longs to get inside the fence and to run with the animals (at a safe distance of course) and sees the fence as an obstacle that she needs to overcome.  


Finally Erdrich finds a way into the fence, and since then, has been inside of the park through various means.  She also talks about the hunters and the animals but noticed that skunks are never hunted for fun, they're just trapped and moved, never bothered.  Erdrich then offers the readers one last bit of advice:
                         " We should take comfort from the skunk, an arrogant creature so pleased with its own devices 
                           that it never runs from harm, just turns its back in total confidence."


As I was reading this nice yet confusing essay, I found myself wondering what the theme of this actually was.  At first I thought I was reading a work that talked about how everything in the universe is connected in one way or another, but then Erdrich started writing about actually finding her dream and overcoming an obstacle to achieve her desire.  Then she ended the essay with the notion that we shouldn't run away from our fears, we should face them head on.  Don't get me wrong, I thought this was very well written, but I am just a little unsure of what the message or moral of the story is; it seems a little scatterbrained. 
Maybe I'm not exploring the essay deep enough and there is a point to it that I missed entirely.  


Regardless of my confusion, I liked this essay, and I think that this will prompt a good class discussion in the future!

Talk of the Town: The Effects of 9/11

The two essays from The New Yorker's "Talk of the Town" section, in my opinion, were very well written.  I especially loved how the first essay was told through the eyes of a witness of 9/11, and the second essay criticized the government's reactions to the attack.  The two contrasted yet complimented each other perfectly.


The first essay was written by John Updike who told his story about witnessing the attacks on the twin towers.  Updike explained that he was looking out the window of his tenth-floor apartment in Brooklyn Heights when the planes crashed into the two towers.  I thought his description, "smoke speckled with bits of paper curled into the cloudless sky..." was a great way of showing us with words what he was seeing.  As the essay went on, he continued to paint beautiful, yet horrific images to explain how tragic this event actually was.  However tragic and horrifying the attacks on 9/11 were, I liked how he ended the essay on a positive note; it was kind of a happy ending.  
                  "...walking around Brooklyn Heights that afternoon, as ash drifted in the air and cars  
                  were few  and open-air lunches continued as usual on Montague Street, renewed the  
                  impression that, with all its failings, this is a country worth fighting for."


The second essay was much less charming.  This seems to have been written for one reason and one reason only: to complain about the government.  The author Susan Sontag explained how she believed that the government needed to stop saying that "our country is strong," and that it also needed to be less comforting.  She states that the public needed to know the reality of what was happening and accuses the political leaders of concealing the truth of the situation.  I do agree that, as the people of this country, we deserve to know what is really going on, but after a terrifying event like 9/11, we, as a nation, needed the government to act as a mother hen and comfort us and tell us things will be okay.  Besides the uprising of slavery and the Depression, September 11th was probably the darkest day in American history; an untouchable super-power was brought to its knees by a couple of terrorits.  This was a time where we needed the government to lead, unify, and guide us out of the aftermath.  Sorry Susan, but we weren't ready to hear all of the horror stories of war that were yet to come.

What You Want (and Probably Don't Want) To Know About Me!

Howdy y'all!
    
My name is Halle Siebert, as most all of you know, and I am a senior at McFarland High School.  I am absolutely excited to start my senior year and to see everyone again....but having said that, summer can stick around a little longer!

      
Some random facts about me are: 
       - my right eye has a freckle
       - I love Dr. Pepper
       - I have seen almost every Disney movie and I own 80 of them
       - I am a lover of God and I willingly go to bible camp
       - I listen to Michael Jackson and Eric Hutchinson non-stop
       - Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday
       - I truly believe that Prince Harry is my soul-mate.

As you can see, I may like a lot of things, but I really only have five passions in life: my family, golf, traveling, the Badger basketball team, and of course, Joe Mauer.

Something that is really cool about my family is that I don't have any brothers or sisters, but I do have three cousins that I am very close to.  Alex is a year older, and Nathan and Mathew are a few years younger.  I do everything with these three, and I don't think that I could live without them in my life.

It is no surprise to anyone by now that I love golf.  To be honest I love everything about it.  I love everything from the relationships you make with students from other schools, right down to that putt I should have made to save par.  It's a challenging game, and in return it has taught me work ethic, persistence, and a whole lot of patience!

I also love traveling and I am a major history buff!  My dream vacation would be to start in Maine and drive down the East Coast to Florida, or to start in Scotland and travel all over Europe and end in Greece.  Gosh, I hope I can take those trips some day!  I also hope to major in History in college.

Speaking of college, I hope to attend the University of Wisconsin-Madison next fall; it is really the only college for me and I love their men's basketball team.  I have season tickets to the games, and I live and die with the Badgers.  In my opinion, the Badgers are the best team in the Big Ten, and the Big Ten is the best conference in the NCAA.  Hands down.

Lastly, I love everything about professional baseball games!  I love the strategy behind the game, I love the players, and I even love the smell of the roasting peanuts at those dirty kiosks in the stadium.  Now, after saying this I may be severely judged, but it's okay because I feel that all of you need to know this.  I may be from Wisconsin, but I do not like the Brewers, my heart lies with the Twins.  I don't know what it is about them, but I am a huge fan and I love Joe Mauer.  Joe is the light of my life, the apple of my eye, and I am going to marry him.  Seriously.

Now that you all know far more about me than you cared to, I just want to say that I can't wait to start this class second quarter and get to know all of you better!

Have a great summer!