Guadalupe Peak

From the first time I laid my eyes on mountains, I remember thinking to myself "how cool it would be to climb one." Since my family travels a lot during the summer months I have seen many mountains before but I had never had a good opportunity to actually challenge myself to reach a summit. Whenever I travel with my mom and sister it is usually a very planned out trip in which I do not get much say in what we do, but I'd much prefer that then sitting at home. The weekend before spring break this year I was finally able to talk one of my friends into going to the Guadalupe Mountains National Park to climb Guadalupe Mountain. Since it was the highest peak in Texas, naturally we had to climb it! With no previous climbing experience and neither of us being in great physical condition, I knew in the back of my mind it was a terrible idea. But nevertheless the Friday he got out of class I picked him up from Lamar University and we made the eleven hour drive to west Texas. It is hard to realize how big Texas is until you drive across it, it amazes me how vast it is. That night when we pulled into the National Park it was already about 9 o' clock and we did not think all of the camping sites would be completely filled so we did the next best thing and slept in my car. As I reclined the seat in my small 2 door car, all I wanted was a sun roof and it would have been perfect. I'm actually glad we slept in the car, because it got COLD that night. We had 2 big blankets each but it was not enough. Every few hours I would wake up and turn on the car and blast the heater until it was hard to breath because it was so hot. Luckily we made it through the night and woke up to the view of Guadalupe Mountain, or so we thought. We stepped out of the car to the frigid air and started stuffing our backpacks with 10 water bottles and a few bags of almonds, pistachios, and beef jerky. Once we finished getting everything ready and signed the hiker's sheet to state when we expected to return, we headed off down the trail. It was 8:30 in the morning and the sun had yet to come over the mountains, so we were both freezing. As we kept walking, I could not help but look up every few seconds at the massive size of what we were attempting to climb. About thirty minutes into the climb we took a break and a few sips of water, we looked back down the trail at our progress and I was impressed. We could see my car in the distance and it was tiny! Nearly two hours passed and we had almost reached the summit, which I thought was strange because I read that the round trip hike would take about 8 hours. I thought that we were almost god-like as we got to the highest part of the trail that we could see, I did not think that we would have made it up to the top so fast! As we approached the top of the trail, we were able to see off in the distance another peak that seemed to be twice as high. It did not occur to me that the mountain we were walking on was hiding an even bigger mountain behind it! We were devastated, we decided to take another break and think about how we just got tricked by mother nature. We sat for a few minutes eating beef jerky, and by this time I had gone through about 2 bottles of water. On the trail behind us were a father and his 8 year old son that had been walking a good ways behind us for an hour or so, they stopped and talked with us for a few minutes and told us that they were avid climbers. The father also let us know that the peak that we saw in the distance was still not the Guadalupe peak which we were trying to reach. Once they walked off we started laughing and realized how far in over our heads we had gotten, but we could not give up now! We kept on going and pushed ourselves harder than ever before, stopping every 10 minutes to sit on a boulder that paved the trail. After another hour and a half of hiking we reached a campsite that was on top of one of the lower peaks. This is where I realized I was starting to get a pretty gnarly blister on my right foot. I decided the best option was to take off my boot and continue on only wearing a sock. I took about 2 steps and realized that was a terrible idea and that I would have to suck up the pain and deal with the consequences later. We continued on for another good two hours and around every corner the trail seemed to get steeper and steeper. This was about the time when the father and son were making their way down, and let us know we only had about 20 more minutes to go to the summit! We did a few calculations and figured that 20 minutes for them was about 45 for us. But we were too close to even consider turning around now. After countless more stops and my legs about to fall off, the peak was in our sights. After more strenuous hiking and at one pointing crawling on my hands and knees we finally made it to the top. The first few minutes on the top I was not able to enjoy it because I felt like I was about to die but once I caught my breath and stood up, the view was absolutely gorgeous and I could not believe that we had actually made it. After a 4 mile hike up hill with a total elevation gain of three thousand feet, a ten year dream of mine was finally accomplished. It made me realize just how out of shape I was and needless to say I have tremendous respect for anyone who partakes in this activity! Once we took it all in we realized that we had another 4 miles of hiking to do, but fortunately it was mostly downhill. I cannot wait to climb another mountain one day, and I plan to do so in Alaska this summer!

The Negative Effects of Light Pollution on Sea Turtles

I have never been fully aware of the light pollution problem, I knew that certain animals like sea turtles are very susceptible to it but never realized exactly how much it is affecting them. The City Dark, a documentary directed by Ian Cheney, helped to open my eyes to the fact that our light pollution has the potential to kill thousands of sea turtles each year. For millions of years the turtles have adapted to follow the moon's light into the ocean, but recently mankind has created a new light source that attracts them and leads them in the wrong direction, the light bulb. If a newly hatched turtle gets confused and goes in the wrong direction, they quickly lose their strength and become easy targets for predators on the beach. The purpose of this paper is to help people understand the problems with light pollution on our beaches and even just in general, and potentially create solutions to this growing problem. I plan to use rhetorical appeals, logos, pathos, ethos and kairos to help convince the reader of the problem at hand. For logos(arguing with reason), the simple fact that you can save on your electricity bill by turning off the lights each night would be enough to convince me! Everyone has a soft spot for babies, and most people would agree that baby animals should be protected from harm. Pathos(persuading with emotion), will be helpful to convince the reader because no one likes the idea of a baby struggling to survive whether it is a human baby or a sea turtle. In the past 100 years our planet has industrialized so much that the natural world can't keep up with it, and mankind has a responsibility to help protect the environment. Ethos(persuading through moral authority or credibility), can be used to show that we need to protect our environment for future generations. Finally kairos(arguing at the right moment or to stress the timeliness of an issue), can help the reader see that in our growing society that if we do not start trying to find solutions to this growing problem, it can easily get out of hand and destroy our home. During The City Dark, Ian Cheney interviews a few of the volunteers that go out and help the sea turtles each hatching season. While this is not an ideal solution, it is at least helping the survival of thousands of turtle hatchlings each year. These are helpful sources because they are firsthand accounts of the problem. So far most of my research has come from databases from the Lee College libraries website, along with a few very helpful websites that have multiple links to websites with great information. Without this research I would still have no clue how important light pollution is to our environment and how much it is hurting it.

Light Pollution

Ever since the Industrial Revolution, pollution of all forms has increased exponentially. NASA astronaut Don Pettit discusses the shifting ways cultures view themselves: "There was a time when smokestacks showed how affluent your society was, but we look at these now almost with disdain. Light, or light pollution, will probably fall in this same category. Where now we equate the wealth of your society with how many lights you can burn at nighttime, ...in the future ...affluent societies... will still be producing all the necessary light they need for nighttime use but not so much light that it bleeds off into space and spoils our nighttime sky" (qtd. in City Dark). This is why it is important that the next generations realize how negatively light can affect the environment. I am sure that eventually our society will not be putting off nearly the amount of light pollution we do now, but how long will it take for this resolution to occur? I feel that most people have no idea how light pollution is currently hurting the environment and also themselves. Richard Stevens, epidemiologist at the University of Connecticut notes that "epidemiological studies... have shown that women who do shift work are at one and a half to two times the risk of breast cancer compared to women who do not do shift work" (qtd. in City Dark). Shift work sounds bad enough as it is but when there are proven studies to show that it can nearly double cancer rates, I think I'll pass. Hervé Descottes, a lighting designer in City Dark, have a very bright future ahead of them, no pun intended. Once larger portions of society start to see the negative side effects of lights, in nature and in their own lives, lighting designers such as Descottes will be in high demand to find ways to reduce the runoff light pollution. There are many ways the everyday average Joe can contribute to help reduce light pollution. Such as buying covers for larger outside lights, that will help focus the light towards the ground instead of releasing it into the atmosphere. Or perhaps turning off the lights completely if they are not necessary at all hours of the night. Whether it is trying to reduce cancer rates or saving countless migrating birds from flying into skyscrapers every year, light pollution is something that we can control.

Sea Turtles

Light pollution is something I have been completely unaware of until recently, I have never given it much thought and did not realize exactly how drastically it affects our lives and other living things on earth. Chad Moore, of the National Parks Service, reminds us, "When we add light to the environment, that has the potential to disrupt habitat, just like running a bulldozer over the landscape can. Darkness is a necessary habitat for nocturnal animals, so what's the habitat for people?" (qtd. in City Dark). As soon as Moore mentions bulldozers I immediately am reminded of the rainforests of Venezuela and the Amazons, where every day thousands upon thousands of acres are destroyed every day. I support the development of all countries but at what cost are we going to pay in ten or fifty years from now when such important parts of the world are completely eradicated? Major cities such as New York and Houston, can also have quite a negative impact on nature even though most people are not fully aware of it and those negative impacts can be nearly as bad as the bulldozers in the rainforest. Sea turtles being one of the few animals affected by cities, are now considered an endangered species largely due to the fact that large towns or cities such as Galveston or Miami are located extremely close to the beaches where sea turtles bury their eggs in the sand. Cities are very often beautiful to look at after the sun has set, but those beautifully designed buildings are also the cause of countless newborn sea turtle deaths. Over millions of years sea turtles have evolved to follow the light of the moon and stars into the ocean, one hundred years ago that was still not a major issue because of the lack of development. But now with technology as advanced as it is, shortly after the turtles emerge from their sand covered eggs, the night lights of the city attract the turtles in the wrong direction, away from the water. Chaney states that "Every summer tens of thousands of [Florida sea] turtles, already a threatened species, are lost to disorientation" (City Dark). Fortunately around the coast there are many volunteer organizations that are able to help prevent thousands of sea turtle deaths each year, but it is still not enough. There are things coastal cities could do to help the cause, but it would probably be "bad business" if they had to shut off their lights a few nights a year to allow the newly hatched turtles a safer journey into the sea. Until I researched this topic a little more, I had no idea that light pollution caused the sea turtles to become disoriented and eventually get lost and die. We could immensely help the turtles and other types of wildlife affected by lights if more people were aware of the situation and the negative side effects of our lights.

The Arm and The Poet

After getting a better understanding for "The Poet" by Tom Wayman in my previous entry and the discussion in class over the poem "The Arm" by Stephen Dunn, I immediately was able to make a connection in these two pieces. Both of them seemed to be describing how people view things, whether in deep detail like in "The Arm" or they view and classify certain groups of people a certain way like in "The Poet". Once I got a better understanding for "The Poet" I was able to come to the conclusion that, what he was writing was stating how a vast majority of society may look at a minor group of people or a particular person. It showed how someone could be classified to have learning disabilities using a checklist of items the person may not be capable of doing such as, "Cannot give clear verbal instructions Does not understand what he reads" (Wayman 3-4). So even though society may view this person at a lower level than they would view someone who is 'normal', they are still rejected by the vast majority or are a very small percentage of society. Similarly in "The Arm", the man stops to look at the broken off doll arm for a long time, playing different scenarios in his imagination of the possibilities of how the arm got to where it was floating in the pond. Eventually the dog he was taking for a walk began to pull on its leash urging the man to move on to continue their walk, being bored of standing there on the leash while the man just stopped to look at the arm. During our in class discussion over this poem, I instantly thought of "The Poet" when we said that the dog could be viewed as the rest of society not stopping to take the time to imagine how that arm got there, how most people are living too fast paced to stop and appreciate little details. Little details that could have potentially changed one person's life. From my opinion of each of these poems, I feel that is shows that everyone is different. Whether they are literally considered to have learning disabilities, or perhaps maybe they are just someone who has a hard time fitting in with everyone. Whether they occasionally stop to appreciate the small details surrounding them in everyday life, or walk right past them going about their day. Everyone one views themselves and others differently, just how no two snowflakes or no two fingerprints are exactly alike. Some may be extremely similar to another, but they are never quite exactly alike.

The Poet

             One of the few poems I have had a difficult time grasping, is "The Poet" by Tom Wayman, it truly confuses me because I am not sure what the author is getting at. It basically lists a way to test for the 'Detection of Learning Disabilities' as stated above the work. The author does nothing to explain however, what it is that he is writing about. Whether it is to get a point across or if he is simply just listing this checklist of things to aid in the detection of learning disabilities.

                I feel that it is a safe assumption that the author of this poem, is either writing about himself or even perhaps another poet that he knows. The checklist he is going over are how society set the levels and standards for him as a human, whether it is him acknowledging the fact that he is different or has a friend who may be viewed different by the rest of the population. Eventually it states that this person "Cannot handle 'yes-no' questions" (Wayman 6), but maybe whoever it is that he is talking about can easily understand and comprehend calculus and quantum physics. Maybe this person is extremely complex but society as a whole will never take them seriously. Because whenever a person is thought of to have a learning disability, they are usually thought of as helpless and needing constant care provided for them.

                Or perhaps this poem could be talking about poets in general, who don't always give the exact clear answer people are looking for. Poets write poems that are written like riddles most of the time and don’t actually mean what they say, and can have several different interpretations, poets may not always like answering a simple 'yes-no' question.

                This poem could perhaps even describe a person using the right side of the brain, the side which uses a more creative approach. One that isn't focused too much on exact meaning. While the left side of the brain is the more analytical side, the one that uses exact and precise meanings and measurements, the side that is writing about the person the author is talking about. The side that is describing the right side, and saying that it is not quite up to societies standards of intelligence, even though they may be more intellectual than the people setting these 'learning disabilities' for them.

                Throughout this poem, I was able to get an idea of who it was describing, but since the author really says nothing else in the poem besides the what the checklist states, it was hard for me to grasp the reason for him to write this. But now that I have thought more in depth about it, it seems to make more sense to me then when I first read it. However my interpretation of this is probably completely different than what yours may be. I usually do not enjoy reading or writing about poetry, but coming to terms with what this poet is writing about, in my mind at least, is very enlightening and I enjoyed it.

2 Poem Comparison

                The two poems that seem to resemble each other the most from 180 More, are "Hate Poem" by Julie Sheehan  and "What I Want" by George Bilgere. Both are very similar, since both poets write about someone they truly deeply hate.  Both authors still seem to have strong feelings towards the person they are writing about, or else they probably would not be writing about them in the first place. Hate, on the opposite end of the spectrum from love, is one of the strongest feelings you can have for someone and each of the authors from these two poems show that with some similarities and differences.

                In "What I Want" the author is reminiscing of past lovers from all over the world he had experiences with, but he always came back to one specific one that he had the deepest feelings for. Most of the girls he had been with, whether a one night stand or what seems to be described as a short relationship, seemed to be happy memories coming back to him. Drinking wine in Spain to lying out in the backyard to watching clouds expand yet he always comes back to his ex-wife, wishing for her to die or become permanently injured in an odd peculiar way.

                While in "Hate Poem" the author seems to be currently attached to the person she is writing about, as if she is so in love with them  that even though she hates so many things about them, she can't leave that person. "You know how when I'm sleepy I nuzzle my head under your arm? Hate" ( Sheehan 17).  Everything about the author and what she does hates the person she is writing about,  the flick of her wrist and the sock lint stuck in her third toenail on the left foot hate this person. I read an article over this poem and the author stated that she was actually using the word hate and interchanging it with love, to show how two such intense emotions are able to be put in replace of the other in any sentence and still make perfect sense.

                Both of the authors of these two poems obviously still have powerful feelings for the person they are writing their poem about, whether it is obvious hate like in "What I Want" or whether the author of "Hate Poem" is actually talking about love but just wanted to play around with her writing. I love the way George Bilgere writes his poem about his ex-wife going from happy thoughts that have helped carve his life and who he is then taking a drastic turn in the opposite direction, still talking about things that have defined his life, but he puts them in a very negative light. Julie Sheehan on the other hand takes every little thing she does and says that it is in spite of how much she hates her partner, every single little detail signifies the hate (or love?) of that special someone.

Prayer In My Boot

     

                The poem from Prayer In My Boot by Naomi Shihab Nye, was definitely the one I have the most questions about out of the fourteen poems we have read for class so far. From just the title, it seems to be talking about a soldier who could be keeping a little piece of paper in his boot that he occasionally writes his prayers on after seeing the rest of the world throughout his travels in the military. "...For our tracks which disappear the moment we leave them..." I think its saying that we can't change the past as the days go by that what happens, happens. It then goes into describing the average elementary classrooms in the United States, with happy, cheerful, bright posters along the walls. Compared to the "...classrooms of our cousins on the other side of the earth..." classrooms that are not so fortunate, that may be ragged and tattered "...and in these rooms the students raise their hands and learn the stories of the world..." Even without all of the benefits and without being as spoiled as the students in the classrooms of western culture, our "cousins" are still happy and willing to be in their class room learning, even though they may not have the newest textbook or even any textbooks at all.

                 I think the narrator purposely left out much more background information, to make you curious as to who the character with the prayer in the boot could be. Whether it is a soldier or perhaps just a backpacker in the back country of less developed societies, and it bothers me not knowing what perspective to look at this poem in. It could even be a missionary on a mission trip. I think what motivated the author of the poem is the fact that we have it so good in our country, and most people don't appreciate what they have.  There are people here complaining that the screen on their phone cracked while there are still children throughout the world barely eating enough rice every day to survive.

                "...For library books in alphabetical order and family businesses that failed and the house with the boarded windows and the gap in the middle of a sentence and the envelope we keep mailing ourselves..."  I think she is trying to say we should be appreciative of the fact that we have enough books in one spot that they have to alphabetized to be able to find the exact one that you need. That even though a family business failed, at least a family had that opportunity to start that business in the first place and that house with the boarded windows, once offered much more protection to a family then an hut in Africa made from clay and leaves. That we may have some gaps in our sentences but we should be grateful that we are somewhat literate and finally that even though  we may be mailing ourselves a letter because someone may not be talking to us right at this moment, that we should be glad that we have the ability to communicate to anyone that we so please.

Response to Stitches: A Memoir

David Smalls' Stitches: A Memoir is a beautifully illustrated graphic novel of his memories as a child. Despite the disturbing and haunting events that happen to David throughout the book, I could not put it down once I began reading it. The first few pages of images show David's home life as a six year old, and it is evident that his childhood was not a happy one in a loving home with a loving family, like it should be. At the beginning of the book, you see David, sitting at the dinner table with his mother, father and brother in complete silence. This is when the author informs the reader of each of the family members way of communicating, each of their own languages. The mother has "her little cough," with the occasional sobbing behind closed doors, and the slamming of cupboard doors. As soon as his father got home from work he would go straight down to the basement to hit his punching bag and his brother, Ted, would constantly beat on his drums. But David would get sick, in order to get his own needed attention.

Within the first few illustrations you see David drawing a white rabbit, and later in the book find out his fascination with Alice in Wonderland. David's artistic skills help him escape from the silence and confusion of his family, to create his own friends within his imagination. He would occasionally dress up and pretend to be Alice, trying to find the hole to that other magical land in which talking animals and singing flowers existed, where he could get answers and find some sort of guidance. The same guidance the white rabbit had given Alice throughout her time in Wonderland. Yet he found no such mystical land in which the truth was revealed to him, just more lies and more abuse.

About half way through the book David starts to have a recurring  dream, a dream in which David goes through a series of smaller and smaller doors until he eventually stumbles upon a giant room scattered with piles of tattered books and never ending mounds of rubble. A scene of chaos and confusion just like the world Alice had entered, but this one was not filled with talking animals and singing flowers.

Towards the end of this graphic novel, when David is fifteen, we meet his psychotherapist. It is most peculiar how David Small portrays his therapist, with the body of a man and the head of a white rabbit. But with perhaps a little more insight, it is clear to see that this odd anthropomorphic therapist is like David's own white rabbit in his wonderland. While Alice rejects everything in the real world as a world of nonsense, David's world of nonsense is more like being told the truth, the exact opposite of Alice's wonderland. The new therapist almost becomes a father figure to David, helping him to see the truth in  life, which no one else has ever shown him. In fact most people never attempted to show him, they tried to hide it from him.

After reading this graphic novel, it amazes me that David turned out the way he did. It is a safe assumption that David's life would be drastically different if it were not for his therapist. Through the silence and confusion of his household growing up as a child, constantly being yelled at or lied to, or having his parents go on a shopping spree with big ticket items such as cars and boats, while their own son has an unusual massive growth on his neck. No child would be left mentally or emotionally unscarred from such experiences. Drawing, the very thing David would do to escape reality as a child, became the very thing that would help David Small illustrate this beautiful masterpiece. 

My Creativeness

As a young child my parents forced me to start playing the piano, they signed me up for one lesson every week. After about two years of that I just could not stand playing the piano anymore, practicing the same scales time after time, playing and practicing the same old songs for weeks or even months at a time, and the thought of performing in a recital in front of a couple of hundred people scared the crap out of me when I was six years old. Even today performing in front of people is not my idea of a good time. About a week after I had quit my lessons, I realized how much I actually enjoyed playing the piano. At first I was a little embarrassed to play in front of my parents, because I had no idea how they would have reacted to me playing it. But after a few times of messing around with it, I finally sat down and started playing a bunch of songs out of memory. They were surprised that I actually started playing again for my own enjoyment. A few years down the road, I was at my grandparents house and stumbled upon an old trombone and trumpet that had belonged to my uncles. I got them out and played around with them for a few hours, eventually until my lip swelled up due to the brass mouth piece. When I was in fifth grade when the junior high band directors came to our school to let us try out the different instruments. Knowing from previous experience that I could not play any of the brass instruments, I had to pick from the woodwinds. I got a chance to try out most of the different woodwind instruments, but the one that stood out to me the most was the alto saxophone. So that is what I picked to play. That following summer before I started sixth grade, my mom bought me my very own saxophone, and played around with it for hours every night for weeks on end. For the first few weeks all of the squawking and squeaking sounded like a bird being tortured to death. But eventually I progressed and it began to sound better and better each day. By the time I got to high school, the new directors wanted me to play the baritone saxophone because they had none for the marching band. I eagerly took the chance, but realized a little late that the baritone saxophone weighed fifty more pounds than my previous alto. It was not a big issue because I'm a pretty big guy, and naturally a little more exercise was not going to hurt me. Throughout high school, I started listening to classic rock and some metal which eventually led up to me receiving my first electric guitar in tenth grade. Out of all the instruments that I have played throughout my life, it is still my favorite, I intend to play for a bit tonight once I finish writing this blog entry.  So I guess the best way for me to channel my energies growing up was with music, from the piano to the guitar, I have always loved playing well known songs and adding a little twist to it or making up my own. Throughout my time at school I was never a social butterfly, but I never got bored if one of my friends could not hangout that night, because I was always able to sit down at the piano or pick up my guitar and play  until it was time for bed. To this day I still play my guitar every night out in our separated garage, so I do not disturb my parents. I occasionally pick up my saxophone and wipe the dust off of it and I am a bit rusty at the piano, but a few minutes of practice and I can usually get back to where I was pretty quick.  

Childhood Memory

The first thing I remember from my childhood memory happened when I was around 4 years old. It was a pretty normal day overall. I had gone to my elementary school that morning, Stephen F. Austin, and after that my school bus had dropped me off at my daycare that me and my sister went too. After a few hours at the daycare my grandma came to pick us up to take my sister and I back to her house. As soon as we saw her car pulling up we darted to her and were ready to go, as usual my sister got to sit in the front seat of the car since she was older than me and I always got jealous of her for that. Since my grandparents only lived about ten minutes away from my parents house, we would often go over there if my mom or dad had to work late which was fine with me cause I loved it at their house. After we got buckled up she started talking to us about how our days at school had been, if we were doing good in our class and if we liked our teachers, how our friends were doing and if we had homework that night. Eventually the small talk ended and she informed me that on the upcoming weekend we were going to be visiting Schlitterbahn in New Braunfels, the worlds largest water park. I had never heard of it and had absolutely no idea what is was and for reasons I am still unsure of I started crying and whining to no end, if you had seen me you would of thought my pet goldfish had just died or something. I was a very upset kiddo, I cried and complained for the rest of the ride until we got to the house where my grandpa finally calmed me down by taking me out on their golf cart. Its not like I hated the water, or was afraid of anything so I am not sure why I began to cry like that. Of course that weekend eventually came around and it was the most fun I had ever had in my life, from the sun being out to the awesome tube rides. The whole time I was there I could not stop thinking about how silly of me it was to be whining about such an awesome place. I am not sure why I had started crying and complaining about going to Schlitterbahn in the car that day, and I am not sure why sixteen or seventeen years later I can pretty vividly recall that memory, but I can. Maybe it is because I had just never been to it or heard of it before so I was just scared, or maybe it was for a different reason. For whatever reason it was I think its funny I made such a big deal out of something that turned out to be so awesome and fun.