Chapter 52- Holding the Postition

I think this is trying to say that if you only hold on to the core of something (The Tao) for instance, you will know the most important things about it. If you believe and know the origin you will be safe and protected. When you see all the things the Tao is capable of you then can see the Tao as a whole. One must just free themselves for misinterpretation and judgement.. and once they do this.. they will see everything.


In the beginning was the Tao.
All things issue from it;
all things return to it.

To find the origin,
trace back the manifestations.
When you recognize the children
and find the mother,
you will be free of sorrow.

If you close your mind in judgements
and traffic with desires,
your heart will be troubled.
If you keep your mind from judging
and aren't led by the senses,
your heart will find peace.

Seeing into darkness is clarity.
Knowing how to yield is strength.
Use your own light
and return to the source of light.
This is called practicing eternity.

The Tao Chapter 2

I think it is trying to say that the whole world already has a comprehension of things before they are explained and once they are explained the definition loses its value. And it looses its value because once you know something.. it no longer contains its wholesomeness and it can gain a negative connotation. Like with Beauty. The whole world does know beauty before it is explained, but once you learn what it is you can tell the difference between beautiful and ugly.. and what if everything is meant to be beautiful.

Narraration: A Kid Getting Pantsed

First Person:

I never knew how tough high school was going to be for me until today. I mean yeah, being a freshman already sets the bar pretty low, but still I had no idea what was coming for me. I just told myself that if i mined my own buisness and just tried to be as nice as i could people wouldn't pick on me. But now I know better. Two weeks has gone by and already a terrible set of events has happened: Some junior spilled his milk all over me, two senior girls shoved me in a locker, one senior guy put me in a trash can and three junior boys put my head in a toilet. They all tried to tell me it was just my freshman intiation, but that didn't make any of those cruel acts permissable. Anyways, today was by far the worst day of my life. I was minding my own buisness in the cafeteria when some gang of seniors, i'm not sure who, ran by me and did the unthinkable. It was only when i felt the gush of air i had not been able to feel before that i realized my pants were on the floor. And right in front of a group of sopomore girls! I had never felt so embarrased in all of my life. I didn't know what to do, I was stunned. So instead of running like i should've, I remained standing ther like a lame animal...

Third Person Limited:

It was a typical day. All the seniors were sitting in one section of the cafeteria, all the juniors in another and so on. Gossip was in the air, as usual, and the latest weekend scandal was flooding the room. What came next was completely unexpected. It was the group of sophomore girls who got the lucky show, or maybe it was unlucky. (?) In a blink of an eye his pants were on the ground. The culprits were already halfway out of the room by the time anyone knew what was going on. Trish Jenson was the one who screamed. After that, everyone's eyes were on him. He was as still as a Buckingham Guard. The entire table of sophmore girls were laughing so hard they were in tears, in addition to everyone else in the cafeteria at that time. Oddly enough, the kid didn't move.

Third Person Omni Present:

After his pants came down was when everyone could feel his pain. He knew he shouldn't have gone to school this morning, everything in his being had told him no, but he disobeyed. No matter how things had gone in the past few weeks he had hope. Hope that was now nothing but dust in the wind. The weird thing was, even though everyone was staring right at his most self-concious place, he didn't move. He was stunned. When something as mortifying as that happens, you are no longer in control. When someone becomes truly traumatized their normal bodily functions are out of order. He wanted to move, we all could tell, but he didn't. Instead he just stood there like a deer in headlights and let everyone make the situation a thousand times worse. He knew he was never going to be able to live this down, he knew that for the rest of his highschool career he would be the kid who got pants. And in that moment, in one blink of an eye, he had the solution. Switch schools...

The Title of Eva is Inside Her Cat

This title truly makes no sense to me. But i guess thats just the point of magical realism in the first place. I mean Eva never truly went inside her cat, and it's not even a debatable question. In the text it said she didn't go inside her cat. So then why in gods green earth would the title say that she did? Well, if i'm supposed to have the answer in this blog, I don't. I honestly don't like the era of magical realism, nor do I enjoy reading pieces of this movement. In my opinion, they are pointless and a waste of my time. I could be reading something worth while and meaningful instead of having to crack the morse code of ever single world in these works. I mean it seriously makes me ill. I'm sorry to have to be so blunt but i do not enjoy sitting in a class and discussing for 70 minutes if this woman did or did not go inside of her cat. It amazes me that people actually become famous for stories like this.

The Metamorphosis

Part 3-


After I realized that I could make some thing of myself now, everything changed. My whole demeanor was totally revolutionized. I saw the world through different eyes. When i began to see that i now had a chance to better myself, given i had all theses new opportunities, i wanted to jump on all of them at once. So the first thing i did was moved to America because after all that's where the opportunities are. I applied to college which was a brand new concept to me and begun an independent study. I met a girl after only being there a few months, and she completely changed me. I know wanted to not only better myself, but also the world. After i told her my life story she encouraged me to help all the other kids out there who were like me. She wanted me to become an advocate for the poor, unloved, alone and afraid. Thats when i had the idea that with the help from my "father" i could start an organization to help needy kids. It would be a totally voluntary concept and a lot of fundraising would be needed. With this new thought in my head, i begun the first day of the rest of my life.



- Part 2


When I awoke I thought I was dead. I was surrounded by a bright white light, I felt clean and warm. Surprisingly though, I was not dead. I was very much alive. As my eyes began to focus, I could begin to make out the things around me. I knew a few things for sure, I was in a big room, on a comfortable bed, in clean clothes, surrounded my dangerously nice things and I could hear music faintly in the distance. I slowly creeped out of bed and began to make my way down the long hallway in an apparently massive house. Something in close proximity smelled delicious, making my stomach turn and making me realize just how hungry I was.  When I discovered the kitchen, there were many people making dinner and preparing the dinning room. They all pretended like I wasn't there, which isn't a shock to me... after all, it's how i've been treated my whole life. Then I suddenly heard a deep voice behind me and jumped a little in fear. I turned around to find a nice looking older man who began to tell me the story about how he found me and who he was. He ended with explaining to me that if i did not have a home or anywhere else to go he would love for me to live with him. Keeping my own survival in mind, i was not in any place to turn down this offer. After i accepted, he told me that he was a very wealthy man in India and i would be taken very good care of.  This my friends, is an understatement. This man had more money than i had ever seen in my life. I was living like a prince. I was the luckiest kid in the world. I had all the food i wanted all the clothes i needed and all the free time in the world. I was no longer the poor, dumb orphan child everyone used to know me as. I was re-invented. This man saved my life. This man, turned me into a child that I can be proud of. A kid that doesn't have to go on hating himself living in worthlessness. I am now someone that somebody else can love.

The Metamorphosis

Part 1-

I hate my life. I have no job, I am never happy, I have no money, I have no parents and I have no education. Yes, some may say that it is my own fault. Some may say that everyone was given the same opportunities to succeed and what you do with your own life is totally up to you. But, I severly disagree. I was and still am at a disadvantage. And no, i'm not using that as an excuse or as a crutch, I am honestly disadvantaged. I was found on the street when I was small, my jerk parents just left me by a dumpster in Lhasa, China. Can you believe that? I was found by some lady who sadly enough, already had two kids so she could not keep me. She tried taking me to the orphanages but they were all full. Finally, she found some man who agreed to take me in under his wing. His wife wasn't fertile and she had been wanting kids for a long time. Sounds perfect, right? NO. It was hell. They were the most unfit parents I had ever seen. We were poor, un-educated and they were cruel. Luckily, they both died. Sorry to be so blunt, but it's the truth. I thought I was so lucky... man was I naive. I was supposed to have a clean slate, a chance to start my life over and do whatever I wanted, but things were incredibly tough for me. I was living in a country that was extremely overpopulated. Meaning, there were no available jobs, expcially for someone like me who had no education, and there was no where to live for free. I had to leave China, but I had no money for any means of transportation. Thats when I realized that I had to start my journey on foot. It was when I reached India that I could no longer go on. I hadn't eaten in forever and I had been on my feet for longer than I can remember. Right as I begin to slip away from reality, I saw a man standing above me. I was too far gone to realize what was happening, so I just let myslef go in the arms of a stranger.

The Avante-Garde Movement

Avante-Garde: 


It began in France around 1850 and it was an artistic movement to try and revolutionize the current understand of art. It was a truly experimental movement that ended up branching off into many different categories of Avante-Garde. Courbet was one of the first artist who described himself as being apart of the Avante-Garde movement, and then Salvador Dali quickly followed. The word itseld means "advanced guard."   


Cubism:


This genre of the Avante-Garde movement was created by Pablo Picasso and Georges Braque in Paris, France between 1907 and 1914. The name "cubism" was created in order to describe the painting Demoiselles d'Avignon. Cubist work usually is flat, two-dimensional, and looks like a cut up puzzle. This particular type of art is very difficult to create because, like Mrs. Lenart said in class, the painter has to imagine the completed job before one ever even starts. The movement began as an intellectual revolt against the artistic expression of the previous era. These painting were no longer sensual, they were now dry and abstract. 





Photorealism: 


Evolved from Pop-Art, the most popular genre in my opinion that struck the U.S., Photorealism began appearing around 1960. If was first met with intense criticism but eventually people began to warm-up to the idea and it spread more wildly in the later half of the 1960's. Edward Hopper was a photorealism painter and he was very well known in the U.S. 

"National Eating Disorder."

In my belief, the United States of America is infected with something known as the "National Eating Disorder." To me, this means that mostly everyone in the nation eats whatever they want, whenever they want and however much they want. With only a slim few who care about where their food comes from, whether or not it's good for them, and how much of it they eat. "Within the last 20 years there has been a dramatic increase in obesity in the United States", which can easily be linked to the term National Eating Disorder. "Thirty-three of the fifty states have been statistically proven over-weight, with every 1/3 adults in them obese (http://www.cdc.gov/obesity/data/trends.html).

The Unexpected Tragedy.

Your senior year. Most people think this is the year when all the magic happens...that this is the year to do what you want and live your life to the fullest. What most people don't expect is tragedy. Well this, my dear friends is exactly what has happened to me my senior year, a totally unexpected tragedy.
Mostly all of my life has been devoted to one thing, sports.  I have played them all, and worked tremendously hard at them all so that I could be the best. Throughout my years different sports have came and gone, but one in particular stole my heart. Volleyball. Ever since the 6th grade when I began playing it a bond grew between me and the sport, one that has continued to grow ever since. Now, nearly 6 years later the relationship between me and volleyball has grown into much more than just a strong bond. It is my life. It's become the only thing I truly care about, and the only thing I like devoting my time to (aside from traveling). In relating this all to my senior year, one would think that this is both the saddest and the most important season of my life. This, my last season, is what i've been preparing for since the 6th grade. This is my last year to be seen by scouts, my last year to be with my team, and my last year to do the thing I love competitively.
So here I am, just beginning my senior year at RGNS, one of the captains of my volleyball team, and so excited to finish out my last season strong. That is, until the unexpected happened.

It was August 27, a Friday. Approximately 5:30 p.m. when my team was in the middle of practice doing a blocking and hitting drill. In this drill one would hit the set, then run under the net and block the next hitter. After this, you would shag your own ball and get back in line. To those of you who don't know, I'm a very good hitter. It was my turn, I did my approach and slammed the ball, then I ran under the net to block the next hitter in line who will remain un-named. She then, who by the way is a lot less experienced then I, went up to hit with incorrect form. I went up to block her incorrectly formed hit when the unimaginable happened. She fell into the net and both her feet crossed the line on to my side. It was too late for me to dodge her because I was already in the air. As I came back down I landed on one of her feet and rolled my ankle. It wasn't until after I heard the loud snap in my right ankle that I realized I was laying in the floor in agony. There were people around me trying to help but I was only concerned with one thing, my ankle. Which at that point it felt like it might as well have been broken in half, thats the amount of pain I was in. So here I am 45 minutes later at the hospital speaking to an Orthopedic surgeon when he tells me that  I have torn two of the four main ligaments under my ankle. When he told me it would be a 6-12 week recovery, I did not take the news too well. Who knew that someone could actually cry for 4 hours straight? So now here I am, with a huge black boot on my right leg and hopping around on crutches. Not only am I missing my entire senior season of Volleyball but I'm also now totally dependent on the people around me and can barely do anything for myself. I've taken depressed to a whole new level, so much for senior year.