Ants (Tanka)

Tiny ants crawling

one step at a time they go 

with such swift movement 

finally stopped in their tracks 

having met their match in me 

In Cold Blood

I have started the book "In cold blood" by Truman Capote. I am only a few chapters in so I am just getting my barrings on the book, but its eerie nature is already shining through. The book takes place in Holcomb, a small Kansas town and follows the murder mystery of Mr. Clutter who owns his own farm. I am slightly confused with beginning, but Truman Capote's description of the book create such vivid images that it puts shivers down my spine even though nothing bad has happened yet. You know something is about to happen, just not sure what yet.

Indecision

It looms above my head like a hungry vulture

Never relenting in this overactive brain

A game you can’t win until you decide to give up

But still persisting even when the win has come

My breathing constricts and arms go numb

Until I push it down so far that reality disappears

As it resurfaces, it hits me with a blow

Its still there, in the same place I left it

I create it to avoid the problem

But it alone has become my problem

There is a rock and a hard place

And I am plainly stuck between them

The taste of it alone shows sour all over my face

But eventually this sour become my drug

The struggle becomes my life

My life becomes the struggle

2nd Semester Check-in

How has this Semester been going?

My Project has changed shape a few times since the last time I checked in. I have shied away from song writing, although, I am not ready to leave it behind quite yet. It is not easy for me to write lyrics and with the senioritis that I have other topics have come easier. This past semester I have been reading a lot and I’m really enjoying it. I find that the more I read the better I write, so I feel that this is a positive step in the right direction. It is refreshing to take a step back from your own head and reflect on others’ writing styles. One thing that I would enjoy to finish out the semester is embracing my creative writing in the form of possibly poem or short excerpts of stories. I feel that I with these short pieces, I can go as far as I wish. With each idea I can expand it as much as feels natural then move on to the next without getting stuck. This may also inspire other work that could come.

The Other Wes Moore Follow Up

As I finished my most recent book (see summary below), it posed the question of what made the difference in the two men's lives that changed their fate so drastically? While one of the two ended up becoming a successful politician and writer, the other resides in a state pententury. The differences between the two men are not clear cut, but I will try to point them out. Wes 1 (as I will refer to him as) lived with his mother after his father passed away and eventually moved in with his grandparents. His mother and father were stable but struggled with financial problems. Wes 2 also lived with his mother after his father left as his brother slowly became a big time drug dealer and gangster. Wes 1 had positive role models in his life while Wes 2 did not and this made a big difference in their lives. Wes 1 had others expecting to do better but Wes 2 did not. As a teenager, Wes 1 was sent to military camp where he had to change his attitude whereas Wes 2 never had to change his ways. The Biggest difference was that Wes 1 had a support system who loved him. When he would do the wrong thing, he wasn't just letting down himself, but everyone else. Wes 2 did not have that support system that he could count on and counted on him.

"The Help" Summary:

In the mist of the civil rights movement, a town called Jackson Mississippi was an epicenter of the war between races. "The Help" follows two maids working for white families and a white woman struggling with the expectations of society.

 Miss Skeeter returns to Jackson after attending college and cannot find her place in this familiar world. She yearns to move to New York and become a journalist but cannot catch a break. After getting in contact with a big time publisher, she found the inspiration she needed.

Aibileen Clark was a maid all of her life. She raised 15 white children whose parents were too wrapped up in their own lives and one of her own. Treelore was Aibileen's only biological child and the day he died, so did a part of her. Aibileen is left to pick up the pieces and continue work for a woman who cares little about her.

Minny Jackson is known around town as a maid with a mouth on her. Not only is she a notorious "sasser" but she is falsely accused of stealing from the woman she works for. She is left jobless and no hope for finding a new one after the word travels around town. Dealing with an abusive husband and a houseful of kids, she finally gets a break. When a new couple arrives in town, Minny lands a job with this woman, uneducated about the social roles around her. With her new relationship Minny is left rethinking the social norms she has tried to fit herself her entire life.

These three woman cross paths when a book idea, conceived by Treelore, Aibileen's late son, becomes Miss Skeeter's new brain child. She seeks out "the Help" in Jackson County to tell their stories of what it's like to be a maid. At first there are very few willing to talk, but as situations escalate, more and more sign on. With so many women in Jackson Mississippi leading double lives, it is just a matter of time until things come crashing down.

The Other Wes Moore

I started reading a book called, "The Other Wes Moore" that looks at two men with oddly similar lives. They are both black males living in the same Baltimore neighborhood, growing up in the same time period. Both had similar family and financial situations but 20 years later, they are in gravely different places. One resides at a state penitentiary where he will be until the day he dies and the other, an alumnus at John's Hopkins University, is married and a successful published author. As of the first few chapters, the book has described the early lives of these two young boys. Both of their fathers were gone before their eighth birthday. One Father left due to a drug addiction and a lifeless demeanor, the other died because of a misdiagnosis at a local hospital. "The chilling truth is that his story could have been mine. The tragedy is that my story could have been his."