Will We Ever Win?

                    If you're thin, pullin' a walking disease.
                    If you're not, they're all screaming obese.
                    If you're straight, why aren't you married yet?
                    If you're gay, why aren't you waving a flag?
                    If it's wrong, you're knowing it.
                    If it's right, you always miss.
                    You can't win, no...
                    You can't win, no.

                    If you speak, you'll only piss 'em off.
                    If you don't, you're another robot.
                    If you stop, they just say you quit.
                    If you don't, you might lose your shit!
                    You can't win, no...
                    You can't win, no...
                    You can't win, no...!
                                        -- You Can't Win (Kelly Clarkson)

    While in the car with my friend, this song came on the radio and I was suddenly reminded of my English 1A class. Recently we'd discussed controversy in media and how, while sometimes hypocritical -- for example, Dove's "True Beauty" campaign --, it really is necessary that these campaigns continue to fight these stereotypes that have rooted themselves into our society. The world is so diverse and yet in the media that we as a whole are saturated with -- movies, commercials, advertisements of all sorts -- there is this narrow-minded view of what is acceptable and proper. There are "fantasy girls" such as what Dove's campaign was trying to break away from and "Men's Men" commercials and so much more that are so disgustingly stereotypical.

    I'm not a big Kelly Clarkson fan, but these lyrics really resonated with me and it's definitely a song that I will be adding to my iPod to hear more of when I need that empowering reality check that we live in a society full of expectations and quick judgement.

The Things They Carried

      In The Things They Carried, the first chapter is actually called "The Things They Carried" and while it tells the related stories of Martha, a college student back in the States, and Jimmy Cross, the lieutenant of the troop, along with the death of Ted Lavender, the bulk of the short story is about the items the soldiers in Vietnam carried with them on their tours. Of course, the obvious things were hoisted upon their person, such as ammunition and other necessities for the war. Tim O'Brien stresses the weight of all these things, which sounds daunting when you're reading about all these items and seeing all these numbers accumulating with each addition. But there are other things the soldiers carry, keepsakes to ground them to reality, to remind them of home, remind them of a time and place away from the Hell they're in. While these things have a physical weight, what seems to weigh the most is the emotional baggage that accompanies these items and haunts the soldiers' minds.

      This short story got me thinking about my cousins on my father's side of the family. While I only ever see them a few times a year if I'm lucky, I'm very close with them and have always sort of looked up to them as brothers who lived very far away from me. Both of them serve in the military and have been stationed overseas in hostile environments. My cousin Jeff currently has been serving six months in one of the Middle East countries; I can't remember which though, possibly Iraq, Afghanistan or Iran. This story made me wonder what they carried and how much weight they had pressing down on their shoulders so far away from Thanksgiving meals full of laughter and family.

      One thing is for sure, the further I read into Tim O'Brien's The Things They Carried, the more respect I have for what my cousins have gone through.

IKWTCBS Review

I finished I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings last week and was honestly intrigued by how the book ended. While reading a romance novel, Marguerite finds her own sexuality ignited. Curious and seeking to understand, she plots to be intimate with one of her neighbors but finds the whole event itself to be awkward and afterwards it leaves her feeling indifferent. Three weeks later, she realizes she's pregnant and hides this fact from everyone (but her brother Bailey, of course) before ultimately she has to tell her step-father. Once her son is born, she is terrified of handling him. Marguerite believes that she will break him, but in the end she comes to accept that she and her newborn will be just fine.

To me, this was a very realistic kind of ending. The whole book felt realistic, never fake or forced, and yet it still had that flare of imagination and beauty to it. For me that was what was most enjoyable while reading the memoir. Maya Angelou's writing itself is mesmerizing, adding on the story only hooked you page to page even further. I never wanted to stop where the class requirement said to stop.