Life's Nothing But a Box Full of Andrees

We live in a society were sewing is an everyday thing. I knew this all along, but it didn’t become super clear to me until I took a CPR class with the American Red Cross. They told us about the Good Samaritan Law, which protects those who help others. Now why was this put into place? Because unconscious people were sewing those who saved their lives. The instructor told us that if the person is conscious you need to ask for permission to help them out. No matter how much CPR you know, you can’t help someone who doesn’t want to be helped. Now, the Good Samaritan Law protects people, but they are not the only ones who need protection. In a society where people can sew each other for any odd reason, companies need to have warnings in order to protect themselves.

So just what are these “crazy” and “odd” warnings? Well to start, have you ever noticed that Superman and Batman costumes for children have a warning label that states “wearing of this garment does not enable you to fly.” Now, you have to wonder. Did some little kid actually believe he was superman, jumped off a balcony and ended up in the hospital? I mean, obviously it is a costume, and humans can’t fly … period. Some amazing parents that kid has right?

Here is another warning, a clothes iron comes with a warning that says “Never iron clothes on the body.” You really need to think about how dumb people are. Everyone knows clothes irons are hot, and hot on skin=not good. Why would someone try to see if they had super skin and iron their clothes while wearing them? Gosh, you really have to wonder. Everyone is familiar with puzzles right? You get a puzzle, take the pieces out of the box and overload your brain trying to make all the little piece fit.  Thus, a puzzle requires assembly. Well, the puzzle company decided that they had to make it obvious to people, and on a 500-piece puzzle box reads “Some assembly required.” Did some child not know how to solve it, made a tantrum, and its parents sewed the company? What has our society come to?

Out of the list of stupid legal warnings, this has to be my favorite… cans of self-defense pepper spray have a warning that states “May irritate eyes.” What else would you use pepper spray for? If a random person is attacking you, and you have pepper spray, you are not going to spray them in their chest to make them back off. You aim for their eyes and hope they let go long enough for you to escape. I wonder why they put this label on, was it because an attacker sewed the pepper sprayer? Or was it because someone sprayed themselves in the eyes and sewed the company?

What a crazy world that we live in. People sew each other, and companies, for the most random things. The reason why this occurs is because we never like taking the blame, we enjoy pointing the finger at someone else, especially if we get money from it. What a crazy world.

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It is hard to believe now, but there was a time when race and gender completely determined what kind of life you led. If you were white-skinned you had all the power in the world and you controlled society. If you were white-skinned, you had to be subservient to those of lighter skin. There is one more piece to this puzzle though. If you were a light-skinned woman you had no rights. You had to follow what your father or husband said without saying a word about what you think. Women eventually got tired and organized themselves, starting the women’s rights movement. Elizabeth Cady Stanton was one of the women that started this fights for justice. In her piece The Destructive Male she exposes the fact that women are often seen as the weaker sex, due to the characteristics that make them women, and that what women have fought for was not given to them in the 14^th or the 15^th amendment.

In all speeches, the speaker tries to sway the audience to their direction by using rhetorical devices. Stanton starts right away with a distinctio, by making it clear that “’manhood suffrage,’ or a man’s government, is civil religious and social disorganization.” This distinctio elaborates on the definition of “manhood suffrage” in order for the reader to not be confused about what is going on. Later on in the passage, Stanton comes back to this thought by stating that the reason why government is so unfair and skewed is because men are only “half a complete being, with but a half an idea on every subject.” The reason why she says these two sentences is because she wants people to ponder the fact that a government where men and women can both speak their minds and decide is more representative of the whole country, rather than living in a male dominated society. Now is this not true? Isn’t our government better now than that of a thousand years ago? A time when men dominated society and women just ducked their heads and shut their mouths. We are human, and like human beings we decide based on our ideas, and we all know that men and woman think and make conjectures based on different things.

The reason why this piece is called The Destructive Male is because men were the ones who controlled society, and by doing so, destroyed the voices of women. By using enumeratio, Stanton provides a list of things that women had to do in order to “keep a foothold in society.” When I read this, I thought that I would have hated living in that period, since women were mere shadows of their husbands and fathers, always behind them and never speaking.

Another reason why this name is appropriate is because she gives examples, using the device exemplum, as to why men are considered “the stronger sex.”The things she listed included acquisition and conquest, which were really bloody is we remember history. The “male element” has just caused destruction according to Stanton, and needs the woman element to balance it out, therefore women should be allowed to vote.

I really liked this speech because the things she said must have caused a scandal during her times. Although she wasn’t totally disqualifying men and their abilities, she made them seem hopeless, blood-thirsty animals who need the thoughts of women to balance their destructive forces. The rhetorical devices were effective because at the end, I found myself seeing her point, although not on hundred percent. I think the reason why I didn’t agree with her totally is because I live in a different time period, which makes it harder to understand what is going on. All I know is, if I were to travel back to those days, I would be side by side Elizabeth Cady Stanton, making my loud voice be heard.

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Have you ever found yourself staring at a screen waiting for people to like your post or status? Have you found yourself getting mad at your friends because they didn’t like or comment on your post, picture, or status? Do you excessively update your status? If you have answered yes to any of these questions you might have a psychological disorder. Ooh, now it gets interesting right? A recent Western Illinois University study has correlated Facebook activity with narcissistic personality disorder.

So to set things straight, a psychological disorder is has 5 main characteristics: it is serious and prolonged, affects relationships, causes an abnormal response to event, it cannot be explained by your environment and it makes you persistently distressful. There are many types of psychological disorders and one of them is called narcissistic personality disorder (Remember Narcissus?!?!). This disorder is defined as a pervasive patter of exaggerated self importance, need for admiration and an exaggerated sense of self-importance, along with the inability to empathize. Although it is common for everyone to be arrogant and egocentric at times, people with this disorder have a constant need for admiration and attention, and are unhappy otherwise.

Christopher Carpenter, a professor at Western Illinois University, conducted a study where he, along with his students, surveyed 292 people to measure “self promoting” Facebook behavior—status updates, photos, updating profile information—and anti-social behaviors—seeking social support more than giving it and reacting angrily when people don’t comment on status updates. They called this the Narcissistic Personality Inventory. Carpenter and his students found that people who tagged themselves, updated newsfeeds more frequently, and had more friends on Facebook scored higher on the inventory. Although Facebook and other social media has been criticized for making people more arrogant, Carpenter’s study is the first to actually correlate social media with narcissistic personality disorder. What is astounding is that the subjects were asked to check how many friends they had and some reported they had 800 friends. Now, who knows and keeps in touch with 800 people? I mean, come on people live and breathe little, go for a walk and leave Facebook rest for a while.

Although this is an interesting study, the surveyed population was mostly college students and therefore causes the study kind of hard to work with. What I know for sure is that more and more of these studies will come now that we have an idea of what our technology is doing to us, or what we are turning technology into. Anyway, why don’t you go on your Facebook account and check out how many friends you have…you might be surprised to what you find out about yourself.

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I was looking for websites to do my bi-weekly blog on and I found this website that was listed and spoke about the 10 things to stop caring about in order to start a happier life:

1. Stop caring about everyone’s opinion of you
2. Stop caring about being politically correct
3. Stop caring about looking a certain way
4. Stop caring about what everyone else wants for you
5. Stop caring about the boundaries others set up
6. Stop caring about what everyone else has
7. Stop caring about the imaginary state of perfect
8. Stop caring about being right all the time
9. Stop caring about mistakes
10. Stop caring about things you can’t control

If I were to speak my mind about all of these 10, I will talk about #1, #3, #5, and #7.

So we here time and time again, listening to others tell us that we shouldn’t care about what others think. Now why is this important? If you were as malleable as metal and got shaped by the hammer of other people’s opinion, you would never have a good, sturdy shape. You would always be changing and would never become the real you. I like being me, and knowing that there is no one else out there that thinks and acts like me. I am not saying that I totally drown other others’ opinion of me, I pay attention to the opinion of those who mostly matter to me, those who I know will stick with me through thick and thin. Care about those who care about you, those who truly care about you.

As teenagers, and humans in general, we focus on the way others look. In our attempt to fit into society, we lose ourselves and copy what others do. Why should we try to fit in, only to please others? The only person we should try to please is ourselves. Save yourself the time and sacrifice of wearing suffocating clothes and looking like sausages in order to fit in. I like being me and I like knowing that no one can change that. So embrace yourself. Don’t care about what others do, or the way they dress, just be you. Express yourself and be true to yourself, just be happy.

“That’s impossible!” How many times have you heard that before? People always try to put obstacles in your path because they don’t want you become better or to be different. I bet that the Civil Rights leaders were told that their goal was impossible was time and time again, but they never backed up, and look how far we are now. Boundaries are set in order for society to become limited, for the thoughts of the average person to become shunned by the impossibilities. Don’t care about what others say can’t be done, if you try you can achieve

I really like how Marc framed the term “perfect” as imaginary. Perfect is in the eye of the beholder. What is perfect for one person is useless in the eyes of another. A lot of us focus so much on being perfect that we forget being ourselves. There is no such thing as perfect, so just be you an d be happy. Like Beau Lotto’s Ted Talk showed us, not everything we see or believe is true, so follow that advice and just be happy

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Will Rogers once said “Everything is funny as long as it is happening to somebody else.” Now, isn’t this just the perfect quote describing human nature? As I was looking for a topic to write about, I came across this quote, and I thought that this guy hit the target right on when he said this. How many times have you seen people trip, fall, and then start laughing at them? And you laugh and laugh and then… SMACK! You are the one with the face in the pavement. Now, things aren’t so funny are they? Why is it that we laugh when misfortune surrounds the life of others, but we don’t when it is our turn to fall face down on the pavement?

In psychology class, we were discussing our journal topic, and sharing our opinion about sharing our problems with other people. I was talking with my friend about it and she said that it was good to talk to others about your problems, because it helps you vent. We automatically started thinking of things that would happen when a person doesn’t vent, and she said “Imagine someone have an emotional break down at a coffee shop and it gets so bad that they break their laptop.” We immediately started to laugh.  I mean, can’t you just picture it? Picture a man, or woman, getting his/her coffee, and you sitting quietly at your table when all of a sudden, they start crying and throw his/her coffee on the floor. As if that wasn’t enough he/she walks toward their table, grabs their laptop and throws it on the floor. If you were there, it wouldn’t be that funny, but imagining it is. Now imagine this happening to you. In this case, there is a reason why this person is acting this way, and if you were in his/her shoes, I don’t think you would want others laughing at you. When people freak out like this, there is something terribly wrong going on.

On a lighter note, let’s go back to my first example. You are walking down the street with your friend and she falls on her face after tripping over a crack. You know she isn’t injured in any way, so you automatically laugh. Not only does your friend feel insecure because she fell in the middle of the street, but she also feels insecure because you are laughing. I admit it, I laugh when people fall, it’s just what I do, but I also don’t like it when people laugh at me. I know that I am not the only one who does this; I believe it is human nature. When my sister broke her foot at the homecoming dance last November, I couldn’t help but laugh. Not only was it funny because she had a cast on, but it was funny because of the way she broke her foot. She had been dancing with her friend, tripped over her friend’s foot and broke her foot. When she told me what happened, I started to laugh. I knew she didn’t think it was funny, but I did. I know that if I was in her place, I would have not been laughing either.

The whole point of this is that we shouldn’t laugh at others because soon it will be us in an uncomfortable situation, and not one of us enjoys people laughing at us. So the next time you want to laugh at something you think is funny, have empathy and think about the way you would feel if you were in that person’s shoes.

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That time has come once more, bi weekly reader time. As I was rushing and looking for something to write on, I came across a nice, funny quote. (Another one? Yes, I know I write a lot about quotes, but I enjoy doing it. If you take the time to actually think about them, there is a lot that you can reflect on.) How many of you have been told that watching TV fries your brain, or that TV makes you dumb. (I have heard that more times than I can count.) Why am I talking about TV? Because the quote I got a hold of today was aired on one of these shows. A yellow, fat, drunk guy once said, “Remember as far as anyone knows, we’re a nice normal family.” This fat, drunk guy was Homer Simpson.

This quote isn’t true just for this TV family, it is true for everyone. Taken literally, this quote speaks of families and how they want to be seen through the eyes of others. How many times have you had a family reunion and your parents say, “You better be good” or “Don’t do this, don’t do that, don’t wear this, don’t say this.” Parents give you a list of things you are not supposed to do, and by the time the reunion or get together starts, you heard so many things that you don’t remember what not to do. And then, your parents give you those scary looks when you do something or say something you weren’t supposed to, and you get the message. Now, why is it that in the public eye, we want to look a certain way? No matter how much screaming, fighting, or cussing goes on in your house, once you step out of your door, your family acts a different manner. Why is it that we do that? Why is it that we care so much about what others think that we make ourselves change? When we do this, we end up having two personalities: the “us” at home and the “us” in public.

So, being in AP Lang, we are forced to think and analyze things. This quote in a non-literal manner can be taken to the personal level. As far as anyone knows, you are fine, you are what you want others to see. You, and we as a public, put up certain borders and walls so that others see us a certain way. We dress a certain manner in order for others to identify us as part of a specific group, we talk a certain way, act a certain way, and even walk a certain way. Like people say, if you look like a duck, walk like a duck and talk like a duck then you’re probably a duck. But what people don’t realize is that a duck is something different while in its pond. That duck isn’t such a yellow color, and doesn’t have a quack. We are all different, depending on who is watching us. In order to really know people, you have to figure out the extent to which they are acting, for we are all actors in this crazy world so focused on appearances.

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Yeah, that’s right, I said it. The world is full of problems. People don’t care about helping others, all they care about is themselves and how the rest of the population views them. We all keep up with the latest, newest electronic devices—yeah, that includes your new Iphone. Now, I am going to tell you why all this dependence on electronics is really freaking me out, if we focus so much on the materialistic of things, what is going to happen to the world? The more that technology advances, the cooler the gadgets that we can buy get. Lately, it seems as if all that people care about is their materials, instead of looking around them and helping make someone’s day, or helping someone in need. This all sounds like blah blah blah—I know—but the reason I bring this up is because as I was looking for something to write about, I found this picture:

I really find that this quote gets to the core of our problems. I agree that we pay way to much attention to our materials. Most of us cannot go through an entire day without our phones, or our Ipods. Now, is it not true that people were created to be loved? Our own existence is due to the shared love of two people, and since our first breath, we ask and beg for love. There is no way that we can grow old without experiencing some type of love, it doesn’t even have to be with a significant other. Love always surrounds us, filling our everyday routines with a smile. This love is present through our friends, family, and even the things we love to do. But this love of people has increasingly become a love for materials, leaving behind that love for humans. The only reason why we need humans in our life is to please ourselves, please ourselves with the company of others, although we don’t really know them or talk to them. Is it not true that when placed in a room with complete strangers, and there is one familiar face, we sit next to that familiar face although we don’t know them? We use others to make ourselves feel better.

Our world revolves around technology and materials. This love for materials leaves the love for each other behind. Here is a simple question: when was the last time that you wrote a letter? A letter? Do people even write those anymore? Yes, A letter. That simple piece of paper inside an envelope that, with your writing, tells other person that you care about them. You cared enough to write the letter. You cared enough to put the letter in the envelope, seal it, put a stamp on it, and if you live in an apartment like me, you cared enough to walk down to the nearest blue mail bin and drop it off, and then turn around and go back home. Why am I mentioning this you ask? Because in these days, all that people care about is who has the most friends on Facebook, who has the most up-to-date devices, and who has the coolest and newest devices. But what people don’t realize is that the human love that we all need can’t be replaced by materials—although it increasingly is—because if we don’t love each other, then what path do we leave for  future generations to follow? If we care about our devices, isn’t it fair that we should take a break and love others, because sooner or later, we will be in need of a helping, and no matter how many friends you have on Facebook, if you only use others you will be a lonely soul.

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Looking for something to write about for my Bi-Weekly Reader, I came across a quote that spoke about one characteristic of life in high school, and of life in general. Most of the time we are afraid of doing something, even just to try, because we are afraid of failing. Failure has to be the human race’s biggest fear, because there are only a certain number of times that you can fail without letting it get you down. And once it does get you down, you realize that the feeling of failing is stronger than the hope for success, therefore you stop. Speaking about this human fear,  Winston Churchill stated: “Success consists of going from failure to failure without loss of enthusiasm.” Now, what is he trying to say? Is it just that trite phrase “never give up”? I believe that he was trying to say more than an adage, he is trying to state that the amount of times we fail should in no manner circumscribe our enthusiasm, because if it does then our chances of succeeding increase dramatically, until there is no chance of success.

I agree with this quote for one reason: thoughts lead to actions. No matter how many times you fail, as long as you have a positive attitude and enthusiasm you will succeed. If you concentrate on the things you did right and not on the mistakes you did, your disappointment will decrease and you will be ready to try again. I have noticed that this is true for me, and I bet it is true for many other people too.

When I  was little, I never had room in my apartment for a bike, so I never had one and I never learned how to ride one. In the summer of 2011, my dad’s friend gave my sister, brother, and I a bike that we had to share. At first, we were all super excited and said that we should take turns riding the bike around our neighborhood, but there was only one problem: none of us knew how to ride it. The three of us spent hours and hours that summer trying to learn how to ride a bike. The first couple of days, every time I failed at riding the back I felt disappointed. I mean, who in the world doesn’t know how to ride a bike by age fifteen?!?!? Those days, after a couple of minutes, I would give up and go back into my room to watch TV. I thought that I was never going to be able to ride and after seeing that my brother had learned faster than I did, I was even more disappointed and beat myself down for it. I don’t know what happened after that, but my mind set changed. I started to think that every mistake I made took me one step closer to accomplishing my goal. Then one day, I finally did it and was super happy with myself.

The thing is, the trick to success and to many other things in life is to keep your hopes and to always think positive. I know how cliché this sounds, but it really is the truth. So the next time you are about to give up accomplishing a goal, just think that every time that you are negative about your mistakes, then you get one step farther from your goal. Life isn’t about digging a hole in the ground with your negativity, it is about trying to make the best out of every situation and not giving into our species’ greatest fear: failure.

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