Serious Drinking...Heritage or Choice?

Serious drinking definitely has an effect on cultural heritage in families, positive and negative. I think that with kids growing up around family members who drink greatly, they are surely impacted. There are some heritages that are known to seriously drink on occasions and at dinner times. For families that engage in this type of drinking it is quite possible for someone to turn to serious drinking. But on the other hand it is possible that a person may not turn to serious drinking, it depends on the mentality they have when it comes to drinking. Some people are stronger in the way the think when it comes to making decisions about drinking alcohol. An example of a person like this would be my grandmother who is Irish yet she stands away from the stereotype that most Irish families are heavy drinkers. She hardly ever takes a drink, maybe one for her wedding anniversary or her birthday but she keeps her distance from alcohol. My grandfather on the other hand isn’t of the Irish decent and at one time in his life became a serious drinker. Honestly, I’m not too sure about his parents and alcohol as he was growing up whether it was in the household. Since then he has leaned away and been sober for some years. He was able to overcome the power of alcohol and not be dependent on it. So it goes to show that heritage can play a part in becoming a serious drinker and can turn people away from wanting to drink. It all depends on how the person chooses to deal with alcohol when in their presence. Serious drinking is a apart of heritage, I don’t deny that but I think it’s up to the individual.

"The Man in the Well" Free Write

   This story in particular stuck out to me because sadly, in ways it reminds me of society now a days. We are not so keen to help someone so easily when we first spot them but after some time we come around and do little things to help them out. We deal with morality issues when it comes to helping others that appear to need our help. 

   I can't help but to think that the kids in this story are like many of us in ways. By this I mean that sometimes when we see people in danger there is something in us that makes us a bit selfish. Instead of getting that person the help they truly need, we selfishly do nothing to actually help and kind of get amusement from it. I use the word amusement because in the story it would say how one kid "never went very close to the lip of the well, or I only came up on my hands and knees, so that he couldn't see me; and just as we wouldn't allow him to see us, I know that none of us ever saw the man in the well- the well was too dark for that, too deep, even when the sun was high up, angling light down the stone sides like golden hair." (lines 9-13) This quote from the story goes to show that they didn't want the man to see their faces but at the same time they had questions for him. At the man's expense they tired to get some information from him without fully reaching into the well so that by chance he could see them.

   Another thing about this story that struck me to be odd and somewhat familiar is the fact that despite not going to get the help the man needed such as that ladder or some type of other adult, they brought him food and water. I found this to be strange because to me I would have personally found it to be easier to get help from another person and not just food and water. Food and water can last some time but in the end the man would still be sitting in the well. In society today there are people like this, they try to help without really helping. By that I mean that they would rather not get in trouble (in my opinion) with others because it might be frowned upon. For instance, maybe the well was a place the parents did not want the kids to hang out at. The fear of them getting caught to them was much greater and they figured by giving him necessary essentials he would somehow be okay.

   This story made me realize that if you don't have the will power inside you to help then it's going to waste. I personally think this because the kids if they really wanted to could have managed to find an adult who would have been more than willing to help the man out of the well. I feel like the kids feel obligated by the influence of their friends and especially, Aaron, the oldest of them all to ignore getting the help. The kids were too worried about how they would look in their friends eyes. That was noticeable after the girl, Wendy, spoke out and gave up Aaron's name. The next day after that happened the man in the well used that against by stating, " Wendy. Are they coming now? Is Aaron's dad coming now?" Wendy had been nervous previously because she knew that in her friend's eyes she had messed up and didn't want to fess up to it. In a way her morals were affected due to the simple fact that even after mentioning the dad she still did nothing to help. It could also tie into karma coming back for her. 

 All in All this story opened my eyes and showed me that cruelty like this does not just exist in books, it happens in real-life too! I was very shocked at the kids for their lack of respect for him. Hopefully next time we encounter a problem like this we won't be so quick to ignore that someone truly needs help and that we actually get them proper help without our friends and their influence on us get in the way.

-Desiree' 

First Official Assignment ; "A Visit of Charity" by: Eudora Welty

       "A Visit of Charity" Eudora Welty

Welty's story "A Visit of Charity," deals with a young girl named Marian who is trying to gain her merit for visiting the elderly in the nursing homes. Marian is a closed off young girl as you can tell in the beginning of the story from the line where she introduced herself as a "Campfire Girl" who was just there "to pay a visit to some old lady." She ended up leaving with hopefully a new perspective of others.

1.     We should all behave more charitably toward one another.

2.     We can tell how charitable we are by the way we treat people we find strange or irritable.

3.     Although we are tempted to repress our awareness of mortality, we should maintain that awareness.

4.     Whenever we become strongly aware of mortality, we tend to repress that awareness, thus robbing ourselves of any benefit we may gain from it.

5.     Young people are capable of showing interest in others, if only for a moment, but better or worse they’re basically self-centered.

6.     Everyone has to give up dreams of innocence and paradise, just as Adam and Eve did.

7.     None of us can escape the passage of time.

8.     Be nice to old people, for many of them have it tough.

9.     Searching for merit points is incompatible with a true spirit of charity.

10. Old-age homes need to be made more pleasant, both for the residents and for their visitors.

 I believe that the theme of this short story was that "We should all behave more charitably toward one another. I think that this statement in particular seems to fit the theme accurately, because as a reader it is easy to see how one of the elderly women Marian visited appreciated having someone new in her presence. We should all definitely be more charitable towards others because it leaves you with a sense of pride that you were able to help someone else without really trying. With being charitable, Marian learned that not everyone has it easy, even if it looks like that from an outsider’s point of view. You get more an insight as to how others think and feel about certain things.

My second place statement that I found to be accurate was “We can tell how charitable we are by the way we treat people we find strange or irritable.” I found this to the second most important statement because it ways it is true. We never really get to know those that we think to be “weird” or to be “irritable,” instead we just ignore them. If we actually took the time to be charitable to them and give them a chance we can see that they are actually nice people looking for a chance. Those people we consider to be weird or irritable just want someone to listen & talk to them and when we actually take the chance to do just that we see the change in their eyes. By being charitable to this types of people that managed to make it to stereotypes we see that it pays off.

            My third place statement I found to be accurate was “Although we are tempted to repress our awareness of mortality, we should maintain that awareness.” I think this helped with the theme because the young girl didn’t seem to that they weren’t just “some old ladies.” At first Marian wanted to get the visit over with to get her merit but she actually got to see a different side to the two women. After spending time and being aware of mortality she saw they have stories to tell just by the way they talked.

            “Whenever we become strongly aware of mortality, we tend to repress that awareness, thus robbing ourselves of any benefit we may gain from it.” This statement pertains to the theme because the second elderly women that Marian saw on her visit came off as a cold individual. I think that she had such a strong awareness of her mortality and saw that the little girl just wanted to be of assistance. The woman came off as someone who was “robbing themselves” from the simple enjoy of having someone that you don’t see every day come and spend time with you. She even complained about having to see the same roommate every day, hearing the same voices.

            “Young people are capable of showing interest in others, if only for a moment, but better or worse they’re basically self-centered.” This is accurate to the theme because at first the little girl as young as she was seemed to show some interest in the elder women but not as much as someone older than her. Marian wasn’t too worried about going into deep, life changing conversations with them. It seems like whatever basic conversation she could get was fine with her but anything that required a well-defined answer she wasn’t interested in.

            “Everyone has to give up dreams of innocence and paradise, just as Adam and Eve did.” A statement that goes with the theme because I feel that the first older lady was trying to keep her days of innocence while in talks with the younger girl. At one point she began to talk of her days as a little girl and going to school before her roommate cut her off with her negativity. I feel as though the first women was going back to those younger years where she felt were her safe and innocent zones.

                “None of us can escape the passage of time.” This seems fitting to the theme because from the whole story you can see that the little girl is just beginning her life, the first elderly women is wanting to relive those days and the second woman has just begun to give up and not care anymore.  You can see that time goes on whether we want it to or not, it’s unchangeable. We gain insight as to how time from the beginning and in the end can change people and as much as we would like to skip ahead into time or regress to the past we just can’t accomplish that goal.

“Be nice to old people, for many of them have it tough.” This statement doesn’t really fit as a good theme to me because you should be nice to everyone in general because there is no definite way of knowing their life stories. Old people are not the only who have struggles in their lives; there are in fact children and adults who “have it tough.” This didn’t seem fitting at all because of the mere fact that in my opinion it’s kind of bias.

“Searching for merit points is incompatible with a true spirit of charity.” This statement has some importance to it but I font believe it was accurate with the main theme in question. Yes, I agree that just going to achieve something for the sake of ownership is nothing compared to truly volunteering and giving to charity. A title of merit at the end of the day may not be there for you because it gets easy to misplace things but with charity you always have somewhere to turn for help.

“Old-age homes need to be made more pleasant, both for the residents and for their visitors.” This statement is not the anything I consider to be important enough to make an impact on the theme. This just merely states an opinion that someone has for “old-age homes.”  The opinion given doesn’t give any information that I feel can lead a reader to establish a theme based on it. For that reason I made it the very that statement in regards to accurate themes.

Heres to the next four years....

This semester I want to strive to get A's and possibly B's with all my courses and get better with this blog! I'm not much of a blogger but I think it'll become easier...hopefully. With this semester at hand I want to get to know more people around campus & build friendships. But all in all grades come first for me because "Hard work pays off ." :)