Monday, December 21, 2009

The Last Supper

No matter how many presidents this country has, or how many troops we send all over this planet, it will never be perfect it probably won't ever come close to being the way that Jesus and God were trying to make either. Even though we don't know how they imagined the world today I'm sure they saw it way differently than it is. Which I think is the point that Andy Warhol was trying to make when he created the art piece know as " The Last Supper".
Andy's art piece shows Jesus and his disciples at the Last Supper and surrounding the picture is a Dove logo, a GE Health care logo, and a sign that says 59¢. The GE Healthcare logo and Dove logo symbolize the good things that this world contains like homeless shelters and charity organizations, it also symbolizes the things that Jesus did to cure the ill. The 59¢ symbolizes how much this planet is worth, because all of Mother Nature's creatures are slowly vanishing and the world has come to a point in life where we have to climb a mountain to feel like we have accomplished something when the truth is that we have accomplished nothing . Every single day people go out to work polluting the air, chopping down trees, and murdering animals and humans. God's creations are being taken over by selfish humans that think they need cell phones, computers and money.
So in the end Andy Warhol is trying to open our eyes and show us that technology and pollution are ruling our world and that we are too weak to resist the temptations as small as chopping down trees and killing innocent creatures. Andy really was trying to prove that love makes the world go round , not money or technology.

Nightmare in the Dells

If this is a nightmare, than it’s the worst one I’ve ever had. I did nothing to be put through this unbearable torture. I’m eighteen, it’s my senior year in high school, and somehow I’m stuck on this idiotic vacation with my family to a place where I’ve always had fun, but not this year. This year everything is gloomy and almost every day it’s raining, Wisconsin Dells I can’t believe it, Wisconsin Dells Christmas break without a tree, decorations, or Hue. As I sit at the cafĂ© counter drinking the bitter black coffee, I feel a tap on my shoulder as I turn ready to argue because someone has ruined my moment of peace and quiet, I realize it’s only my little sister Amy.
“Hey Vince! Mom wants to know if you’re going to the water park with us because we’re leave now.” Amy always seemed to be so happy these days but it wasn’t always that way, ever since this summer ended we’ve switch personalities completely, almost like someone took us and transformed us into our opposites, like we were their lab rats, there to experiment on whenever they wanted to. But despite our differences we have forever been “super-glued” to each other, as some say, nothing could ever come between us or break us apart. So although I was not in my best mood I decided to answer her awaiting question joyfully.
“Ummm… nope, no, I think I’ll walk around town for a while, just to get some fresh air.”
“Are you sure?” she whined.
“ Yeah, I’m sure.”
“Do you want me to stay and talk with you?”
“No, you don’t want to stay and listen to me talk, you’ll just get bored.” I said joking around. “Besides it’s Christmas break you need to enjoy it while you can, so go to the water park and I’ll meet up with you at the pizza place for lunch. Okay?”
“Okay, I’ll see ya later then!” she said with a smile that never touch her eyes. Amy hated seeing me like this all the time, but I could not help it, for my life has no meaning to it anymore. Ever since this past summer August 1st, on my eighteenth birthday. When my cousin Hue was on his way back from my house, I was with him in the car telling him that we should turn around now before the rain got any worse. Just then the car spun out of control and as we collided with the semi truck I got one last glimpse of him as he slipped away from me and life.
Quickly I try to shake the dreadful image from my head, grab my coat and rush for the exit. As I jerk back the tears threatening to spill over, I look around outside and the flashback appears in my head once more.
~He left me. Leaving me there to bear the pain by myself. Leaving me there to sit in that hospital bed thinking to myself why? Why was I the only survivor of that car crash? Why was it his life that was taken and not mine? At that point in my life I felt like dying right then, right there, somehow I made it through the harsh mourning but my personality has yet to fully recover. ~
Outside I start in a direction towards an alley that was dark but light enough to be safe, where a bum lay asleep with one boot on and the other kicked across the sidewalk. I felt sorry for him but he most likely did this to himself, he probably had a life before he was a bum, and by looking at him I could tell that this one was a drunk. Once he was in the middle of his senior year he left home and headed out into the real world thinking he was living the life of a star, until he had no money and was wasted, and now he just doesn’t know where to start or how to get his life back on track.
It was then that I realized that the bum sleeping with one boot on was me, me all alone, me searching for a shoulder to cry on, me with a messed up past, me stuck in the middle of a big mess which is exactly what this city was. No it was exactly what this world was, nothing but a mess.
Finally I get it, even though Hue is gone I shouldn’t let that push me into the shadows, because that bum has it way worst than me obviously, his life actually is a nightmare, and I have so much to live for. I’m definitely not trapped in a horror world, no, I’ve just put myself in an everlasting daydream that I can easily break free from.
I reached into my pocket and pulled out a twenty, placed it in the bums hand, turned and walked into the sunlight heading towards the water park to spend the day with my family. On my way there I figured that if I was really living in a nightmare than where’s my tragic ending? If this is truly a nightmare, then bring on the bad guys, and if this is really a nightmare than show me the monster because that’s the only thing holding me back, so show me the monster.

Thursday, December 10, 2009

Speak

Imagine your worst nightmare has come true; it started on devouring your insides and is going to finish you off in no time. If you don’t speak up soon about this desturbing nightmare, it will have already eaten you alive. So what’s holding you back from telling someone the truth? Telling someone all the pain you feel and all the confusion filled to the rim in your head? You don’t know who to turn to or what to say, therefore your world is nothing but a dark, doomsday, danger zone, pure disaster. The sun will never shine again until you fight the darkness and beat the odds, like Melinda the main character in the novel Speak by Laurie Anderson.
In some cases people tend to have mental breakdowns and can’t get back on track for a while. When that happens a whole weekend without talking to a friend is torturing, and a whole week without communication would be like committing suicide, and sooner or later people will stop talking to that person if they’re not giving any effort to communicate back. For example in the new Twilight movie, (The Twilight saga New Moon) Bella Swan the main character goes into a depression stage, and isolates herself from everyone. Sure enough everyone gets tired of being rejected and ignored so they stop attempting to make a conversation with her. But the difference is that Bella didn’t want to talk to anyone, and Melinda did.
So why did students at Bella’s school try to talk to her but the students at Melinda’s school wouldn’t attempt to talk to Melinda? The answer is judging a book by its cover, when kids see other people they judge them by their looks and not their personality. Melinda’s school was hooked on first look judgment and playing this huge game of “monkey see monkey do”. The problem with that is some people aren’t truly satisfied with their social life. For instance on page42 in the book, Heather wants to fit in so she join the Martha’s, a club that treats her with no respect and only keeps her to be their slave, but if she would have found a true friend she would have never had that problem.
Speak starts as a book that’s just about a depressed, scared girl with a horrific past, but in the end the author really tries to stress her opinion and persuade others to love people for who they are not their money or looks. Also that hard work pays off, Melinda didn’t just give up and stop trying to tell people the truth, she just sucked it up and had a “love me or hate me” attitude which helped her pull through the hard times.