State of the Planet

         At first when I looked at this poem I was just thinking man this is going to be really hard to understand I never really get poems. Or I think the poem is saying one thing and then it is saying another. But when reading this poem over and over again I felt like I was able to comprehend and understand some of it. This poem at first was kind of confusing. When I first started reading the poem a lot through me for a loop, but then looking up certain words really did help. The following words that Professor Corrigan told us to look up really gave me a better understanding towards the poem. The first line that caught my eye that I did not understand was “Lucretius, we have grown so clever that mechanics in our art of natural philosophy can take the property”. I was just wondering what the poem was talking about and was so off guard when reading. Then I looked up who Lucretius was which it told me he was a roman poet and a philosopher then it made more sense to me.  My favorite quote throughout this poem was “Your people, you know, were the ones who taught the world to love.” I liked this quote because it is true people really do control a lot. What people do and say can have a huge effect on anything. People have a huge impact on anything in life therefore you have to be careful what you say and do. Another quote that stood out to me was “People have been arguing for centuries about whether or not you thought of Venus as a metaphor. “ This was a quote that was confusing to me in the poem. I was able to better understand this quote when looking up Venus and understanding it was a Roman Goddess which represents love, beauty, and fertility. Still though, this quote is still confusing. One line that I liked in this poem was “Poetry should be able to comprehend the earth.” This quote really made me think of literature and how literature can be seen in real life it is not just a reading. We can actually be doing literature. With this quote is made me think of poetry and what affects it. Then it made me wonder if literature and poetry conflict at all. I guess I can just say that this quote really made me think a lot more just about poetry and literature.

Field Trip / Play

Our field trip to me was defiantly a trip to take! At first, I wasn’t really too excited about going. I was just thinking, man, we got to get up early. Then when being there I thought it was a great experience. Just talking to people with disabilities was pretty neat! My favorite part was interacting with the students. I honestly thought it was going to be really hard to have a conversation with them. Even one student was telling me about what was going on in Japan. This was a huge shock to me. I did not think they could contain a lot of knowledge. Another thing I thought was cool was when we first walked into the room where the students were the teacher told them to raise their hand and we would sit by them. Majority of the students all raised their hand. I feel like we could really make an impact on their life. We probably even made their day by just interacting with them. Next, another thing that caught my eye was when we were buying stuff from the disabled students. I mean those adults behind the counter really knew their math. I just think it is neat because they can do a lot of things that we can do. I think a lot of people, including myself, just kind of block them off of life. They think that they cannot do anything. I know before I went on this trip that is what I kind of thought that, until experiencing being with these adults. It was a life changing experience. In the classroom, I was happy we had the chance to talk to the lady in charge because she really educated me on a lot of knowledge I was not aware of. One thing that she mentioned was that all the disabled adults were different. They all had different things they not capable of and were working on. Without this home for these kids I do not know who would help them. This is a great chance for them to be taken care of and to learn important skills. I mean a lot of people that have kids like this need help and a break. We should be trying to help people like this as Christians, not turning our back on them. They are one of God’s children too. Another thing I thought was really neat was that some of the adults there were capable of having a job. This is a great opportunity for them because they can do things if people will let them. I like how publics work with them. One thing that was helpful before going to this home was reading the play we read in class. It was easy for me to have a better understanding on how people with disabilities act and sometimes it is not controllable. Without reading this play I would not of really known at all what to expect. Not even looking back at the play I can relate what I saw. It was defiantly a field trip I would want to go on again.

The Spirit of God Hovered

This story about disabilities really put my mind to think. It brought many questions to my head and made me really break things down. I could not imagine having a kid with a disability, but at the same time I would always keep it and take care of it to my best ability. I really liked in this story about how they related it to God because honestly I have never thought of this situation being able to be related to God. This was a great learning experience for me. The question that really stuck with me in the first page of the story was what is normal? I mean no one can really tell you what exactly normal is. The quote I liked was when the said, “normal is simply being created in God’s image.” Then with this it made questions pop into my head! What makes a person a person? Which is one of the questions that were asked. “We are told that we (the disabled) have an obligation to be cured by the prayers of the church rather than healed by people’s acceptance of us as we are.” I liked this quote because I really think that this is great to trust in God. Of course, whenever someone goes through circumstances it is going to be really hard to put your trust there. This can just be an example to anything in life. In the beginning of the story, I really liked how the parents did not blame God once for their child that was disabled, but rejoiced about the matter. Instead they were always positive about the matter. To me, these are the kind of parents I would love to have. I remember back in my childhood, after I was born, my parents were told that my sister was supposed to be handicap. The doctors told my parents to get rid of my sister because she would be a lot of work. Both my parents told the doctor they did not care and they are going to have her. Later in life, she turned out just as normal as every other kid. The doctors were wrong. This story really helped me in better understanding kids like this and gave me an idea of what people go through. I think it would take a lot of love and care to really take care of them. With God thought anything is possible!

Act 2

After reading Act 2 I had a better chance to really get to know the characters at a better level. Some of the characters surprised me in their actions while some made me laugh. One thing I thought was funny was when Norman was talking about how he would do the dishes when his Dad came. Even though his dead was not alive. One thing I noticed through this Act was how no matter what they lived their life and always tried to have fun. Never did they ever use their abilities be an excuse for anything they did. They always were laughing, trying to pick up girls, going to the library, and so on. One thing that was sad to me was how Lucien poured out his struggles to the senate. It really made me feel bad for people that have to go through this, but at the same time it gave me a lot of motivation towards thing. I mean I am watching people before me with handicap disabilities step out and do things I would not even do. Now when I see people with this case it makes me really want to help them out because I know they struggle. One thing that I really liked in this act was how Sheila visited Norman. They were just so excited to see each other. Even when Sheila crushed the flower that Norman gave her she wasn’t upset because she cared about him and knew it was an accident. This just shows how much she really does care about each other. I felt bad for Barry throughout the play though. Just knowing that his father wasn’t the best example for him and he was abusive was just sad to hear. Being brought up around that must really not be fun. I have never been in those shoes and could never imagine what he had to go through, but I know I would not want to go through it. In the end, I still respected Jack for doing such great work with the kids. It really takes a lot of heart and love to care for people.

Boy Next Door

The Boys Next Door was very entertaining to read. I think what I really enjoyed was the characters mainly because I really had the chance to get to know the characters at a totally different level. At times the characters started to sometimes remind me of my friends so I felt like I could relate which I thought was pretty neat! I actually enjoy reading a play like this because it makes me feel like I am part of the  play and was there. Whenever I normally read stories like this it always keep me interesting and wondering what the characters are going to do.

            One character was Lucien. I thought Lucien was a really motivated person. He was always trying to work himself and better himself. I liked this about him because I think that is important. He never really settled for just being him but always strived for better.

            My favorite character was Jack. The thing I really liked about Jack was how he really showed how he loved people. I mean not every day you see people like him, you have your couple out there, but he was different. Jack won my heart over just when he started to take over seventeen mentally handicap adult men. This would just be so much work and I don’t know if I could ever do that. Although, I understand that he was not perfect and did do some stuff that I did not think was cool like going crazy on Arnold. Then it really made me think about how everyone is not perfect though.

            Another character was Barry that I enjoyed reading about. I like his love for golf. One thing I like about him is how he tries to make people fall in love with golf. He tries to teach people. One thing that I noticed about him was that his behavior and things he does is not really controllable.

            Through the whole story I must say I liked it! This play made me laugh a couple times. I must say that I want to engage in the story more now. When reading this it made me realize how literature is so broad. I mean I strongly thought that literature was coming to life which I have never experienced before.