The Aftermath

The poem I will be writing my paper on is the song Jeremy by Pearl Jam. This song displays a troubled young man who is going to commit suicide. This song has touched me personally because there were two troubled kids from my high school who attempted suicide. One girl was unfortunately successful while the other boy was fortunately lucky enough to have failed and was able to get help. I feel as though today kids aren’t thinking things through before they attempt to take their own lives. Our society today is no help to these students because kids and teenagers are cruel people.

My video project will be based on this song and it will portray a troubled young man who is considering suicide. I don’t have all the details of what the video will entail but once I have an idea of what my thesis will be then I think my video idea will benefit from it. The two will go hand in hand so that I can write my paper while knowing exactly what I want for my video.

Reading Gertude Stein was not an easy task and i did not sit down and try to understand what she was saying. At points it was unbearable to read. When I first read it, I had no idea what was going on. I read it a few times but nothing worked. What was intersting was to hear it out loud the way she actually meant for us to hear it. Even though I found it interesting, I still didn’t enjoy hearing her voice as I was reading it to myself because her voice repeating itself over and over again is something like torture. I did not want to imitate her when I was writing. It was annoying enough that I had to listen to her but it would be pretty unbearable to make up my own writing nonesense where I repeat words over and over again that have no meaning.

I don’t see how anyone could find this type of writing unique or even enjoy reading it. There is no plot, no story, no message. It’s just random words that pour out of her mouth. I don’t see her as anything more than someone who tried something different to get attention. The only reason she’s getting attention from me is cause I am forced to sit and listen to her, then blog about how much I cant stand her. If I would have read her before english class I would have put the book down and thrown it in the trash. I wouldn’t try to decipher what she was saying, I woudn’t applaud her uniqueness. I would set the writing aside and never think about her again.

I strain so hard to see

Which makes my eyes only want more

But this hurt my eyes

It made them tear.

I remember when I wore glasses

All the time

And my eyes would see differently

Grasping things but only just

Of what they were layed upon.

Of course I could see

Anything

That was close

Bringing the image

To the back of my brain.

But now my eyes

Are one with me

Truly seeing what was only a glimpse

Of everything that was once a blur.

I can see

So clearly

But the it hurts to put them in.

I got a haircut today. I never realized until today how relaxing a haircut is. It may sound a little weird, but being in the warm seat and having someone cut my hair is just so serene. My barber doesnt talk that much so literally the whole time it feels like my head is getting a massage. It may not be as relaxing for everyone else but it sure is for me. If i could i would fall asleep during the haircut.

The only bad thing about my barber though is that I always have to be aware of the time. The parking around there is horrible and there’s always meter maids handing out tickets. It always gives me that rushed feeling, like “OMG what time is it?!” I can never truly feel completely relaxed at the barber just because of this. Besides the little bit of anxiety I feel towards getting a ticket, it still cant take away from the fact that being at the barber is sometimes the highlight of my day.

I pay 16 dollars for a haircut. But i feel like I’m ripping off the barber. For about an hour of my time I get a head massage, a chance to clear my head, the feeling of total relaxation, and I come out of the place with a confidence boost because my hair looks good! So for 16 dollars it is well worth it. The shop is in a little alleyway that is kind of suspicious but once you get in there you have these awesome Russian guys asking what’s up and hows life going. When you get in the hot seat, you got the buzzer going around your head while you watch whatever they put on the T.V. Today they had some movie with Chuck Norris in it but i had never seen it. It looked pretty badass though. Chuck Norris was just flinging people around like it was nothing. I just feel so good when I’m at the barbers. After the haircut I say bye to everyone and i head out the door. From that second on i start to get a little depressed cause i know i wont be in there for another month=(…

“We see that children repeat in their play everything that has made a great impression on them in actual life, that they thereby abreact the strength of the impression and so to speak make themselves masters of the situation.” (Sigmund Freud) I was reading all about the pleasure principle and what it means to feel the difference between pleasure and pain. Why something that makes us feel good is referred to as pleasure and feelings that make us sad is referred to pain, can affect us so greatly that we have to find something to keep our minds occupied to be able to cope with the painful experiences in our life. This quote from the reading really stood out to me because anyone who experiences life has to manage life’s curveballs. Freud speaks about pleasure and pain and how it is connected to our mind and how our mind tries to deal with what our bodies are feeling. This quote gives us a clear explanation on how a person should deal with the problems that life hands us.

Whatever it is that gives us pain, we eventually have to deal with. Whether we deal with the problem immediately, or we handle the problem somewhere down the road after suppressing it, the problems come back to haunt us. What I took out of this reading was that we have to be like the child who is dealing with the loss of his or her mother for a period of time. The child deals with it by playing with the toys around him. He plays a disappearing act, much like the mother disappearing for a few hours, then makes the toy reappear just like the mom. Coping with the loss of the child’s mother through a game where the child finds joy from the toy reappearing makes the child feel happy to know that the mother will also reappear.

In a way we all do what the child does, obviously on a more mature level. Take a look at the child. The child is who we are. The toys are whatever helps us feel happy once something bad happens. The toys can represent our friends who are there to help us, our family members, our dog, a video game, or even something so glutinous as food. Whatever the case, hiding our feelings deep down will only make things worse for us because we are not facing the problem at hand. This quote is a perfect way to describe a time of difficulty. Let it be known that you are hurt, just like the child, then express it through any means and face it and work to make yourself feel happy once again.[kml_flashembed movie="http://www.youtube.com/v/A1tL_iT3Rw0" width="425" height="350" wmode="transparent" /]