We're the Mesopotamians!

I found this new song by They Might Be Giants called "The Mesopotamians". There's really not much to the song and it doesn't make any bold or amazing statements, it just happens to be VERY catchy! So I have had it stuck in my head forrrr...... A long time! I need to get a new song stuck in my head. Or a life. One of the two ;). 2012 has been really good for me so far. I've gotten to drive a go cart, have a very cool party, and discovered the dancing game Just Dance 3. Granted I'm not that fantastic at dancing, but it's really fun! And perhaps as fun to watch others play it! I recently rediscovered my fondness of caramel apple suckers. Those things are so highly addictive! I had forgotten how much I liked them until I went to my grandma Barbara's for my birthday. She had remembered from when I was littler how I used to really like them, so she had gotten a bunch of them for the party! And although I hadn't had one in a long time they were a big hit at the party, and I took a lot of them home only to become readdicted to them! Also gas prices suck. Did anyone notice that? I've begun my second level of spanish this semester and I can now ask someone how to get to the concert. Which I plan to use immediately, because I love to spend all of my spare time in Mexican concerts! Not really, although maybe I should try it? Perhaps it would enhance my understanding of spanish. My great grandpa Franz can speak several languages! I was very surprised to find that he could speak other than English (Which was not his original language, in fact it was maybe his third) Swiss, German, (something else) and was working on Spanish (which he has me cornered on so I must be impressed lol!). Anyways, I've got a couple of meetings tomorrow, busy day! GoooooooddddddBYE

Some Rather Random Rambling

Sometimes I wonder what is wrong with our youth. Why are we all so seemingly lazy? The work we’re asked to do for school is not only necessary for our own educational good, but in all reality not so very difficult! So why are there problems with slackers and idiots? Are not the taxpayers paying for our education, supplies and teachers? Are not our troops out fighting for our rights as Americans to learn? And even those cunning few of ours get bad grades for one simplistic reason or another. Why would we keep a system that is not working for most students? But even the most challenged student can learn from any system if they truly desire it. So what’s the problem? Is it the youth or the educational system? Well maybe a bit of each. I think our adolescents should apply themselves more. We want a better, stronger nation equipped with more mindful and genius adults. Kids need to know their history. They need to know how to read, spell, and anything else. Too many kids feel ashamed when they need a bit of extra help in school, all they need is a little help, but they’re placed in things like special ed, and made fun of by their schoolmates. Schools have become destructive to the attendees. They learn that at school you’re bullied, or even the coolest of the participants find themselves to be constant victims of scorn when they wear clothes that aren’t quite in, or say things that aren’t quite right. What can the schools do about that? That’s not their fault that the children are sarcastically hurtful… right? No. but who CAN be held responsible? Our society has become less and less nurturing. Instead of explaining to a young person one thing or another without shock or dismay, we instead express an appalling amount of scorn for their stupidity in not having known such things before. And thus we imbue in each young individual a reluctance to ask, for fear they might appear dumb. But not knowing something, even something typically commonly known, does not make someone stupid, and we as humans need to realize that for everything we know by heart now we once had to learn from someone else. Isn’t that something? Every single little thing you know once had to be explained to you at one point. So it doesn’t matter who doesn’t know the score of the Sunday football game, or who forgot the name of a particularly well known band. It doesn’t matter who knows the biggest name brands in clothes, or who memorized the names of every Lamborghini ever created. Someday none of this will matter. The lyrics to that totally hit Black Eyed Peas song isn’t going to help you when you need to get a job at NASA. In fact it might even make you seem, ironically, stupid. Every teen in America is wrapped up in the entertainment world. We are more interested in the newest biggest musical artist, actor, or general entertainment performer than we are in learning of our forefathers. Those great men and women who fought for our country, freed the slaves, made women equals to men and more. What?! How can that be? We’re more interested in some gaudy attention starved, greedy, money crazed individual than one that literally died for us, died for our country? Wow. That’s bad. No wonder we’re all coming out greedy liars. We’re learning that greedy liars prosper; and they do. That’s not to say that I think every entertainer is an idiot, but taking a glance at the general bunch of them they appear no deeper than an everyday puddle. We’re missing out all the scientist kids. The teachers, the rocket scientists, brain surgeons. We need kids who want to succeed in a good way, and these days we’re missing out on them a lot. All of these kids have potential, they’re smart, and they could succeed in big ways, except for the fact that they idolize totally immoral and unethical people. What if it was a popular trend to be a fan of useful jobs? That would be something! Can you imagine the sort of nation we could build on children uncorrupted by Lady Gaga? Children who grew up in a nurturing environment without the sarcastic scorn every time they didn’t know something? I don’t think it would be a good idea to have entirely sheltered people, because this would only leave us vulnerable to shock and breakdowns further down the road, but I do think that if we were MORE sheltered, less vulgar, and more overall freethinking, perceptive and intelligent, we would be an unstoppable force of brilliant youth.

Mary Rowlandson and Olaudah Equiano

Mary Rowlandson and Olaudah Equiano were two very different people that became historical figures. Who would have guessed that each would have been put in similar situations?

Olaudah Equiano was sold by people of his own race, loaded onto a cargo ship like common cattle and chained beside many other people in similar plights. They couldn’t all speak the same language, they would often get sick or die, and were treated cruelly by the white settlers. The cargo hold which he was loaded into was filled with a terrible stench, which assaulted him immediately. One of his biggest comforts while on board was finding a small group of his own countrymen whom spoke his language; they explained to him that the white men did not plan to kill him, only take him to a new land to be a slave. He was comforted in knowing they expected nothing worse from him than work. They would be beaten for not eating and other things such as impertinence and disobedience; at times they feared justifiably for their lives. He was trapped in a place of fear and hardship without escape.

Mary Rowlandson was also trapped without escape. She, her family, and her sister’s family were all occupying her house together when it was attacked by Indians. The Indians took guns and hemp oil from Mary’s own barn and surrounded the house. They cast the oil on the house and set fire to it, then began firing on the house with the guns, and shooting at any person that tried to escape. It was a horrific sight as the panicked people frantically chose which fate to resign to. Some fled, darting from the house. The adults each took charge of several children but even so most of the children (including Mary’s baby child) and all of the adults aside from Mary were shot. Mary herself was taken prisoner by the Indians and experienced a similar feeling of captivity to Olaudah as the Indians kept her hostage.

Mary Rowlandson and Olaudah Equiano had something else in common; they both wrote accounts of their experiences. Although this might seem inconsequential, in those days it was what made the difference in making historical figures of these otherwise ordinary people. Mary was simply a hardworking wife and mother; and Olaudah an everyday slave. Through their use of imagery, and accounts of their encounters you can feel the fear, tension and anger they felt in their times of captivity. You can smell the stench of the cargo hold as Equiano is brought in, and feel the horror of Mary as she watches the Indians carelessly massacring her children and relatives. These accounts were mainly covered over at the time, as many settlers tried to display colorful and exciting accounts of the new land to attract settlers from England. It wasn’t until times like those for the abolitionist and feminist movements that these stories became sought after and devoured by the leaders of these movements.

Mary Rowlandson and Olaudah Equiano were two very different people who made a difference with their accounts of the wretched experiences they endured. Although they had innumerable differences, in this single experience they came to be comparable through similar endurance.