Spring Time at home chp3

Chapter 3CROSSING THE BORDER

It was a very long road trip to the French Spanish border and honestly I was terrified of what might happen to my mother and father while we were away. Tal and Fred were quiet during the whole drive, and when I hastily broke that silence with the ´´im hungry´´ question, both just laughed but ended up again very solemn and told me to wait another hour until we reached the border. ´´Ughh alright´´ I retorted and sat back down with my arms crossed to my chest. Then I remembered my ma´s towel and told myself that it would probably be okay to open even if we weren’t at the border yet, I mean we were kind of close. As I started unwrapping my towel carefully the car stopped, Fredrich got off nervously and I re wrapped my towel and hid it in my pocket. ´´Gal, your name will be Thomas, ok? And im your sister Natalie! We need to say we are French Christians and are going to visit our sick grandpop in Spain…you got it?´´ Asked Tal hurriedly. I just nodded. Two men came back walking with Fred, both were soldiers and I think were speaking German. I remember one of them pointing at me and asking in a very sharp French accent if I was their son, my sister had responded no and told them I was her younger brother and that we both were orphans. He then asked me what my name was and I retorted…´´Thomas´´. The man smiled and gave me a pad in the head (nothing like Tal´s pad, because this one was forceful and cold) and let us pass. Fred sighed at relief and turned to shake my hand, then leaned over to kiss my sister.We had finally arrived at the border and I had almost forgotten about the towel in my pocket.(Sigh) ´´finally we can get a bite to eat´´ said my sister cheerfully. I opened my eyes widely in hope that we had stopped at some diner or tavern or something. ´´Ahh here we go´´ mumbled Fred as he lowered down a picnic basket with a small red table cloth. I sighed with a slight deception, but quickly retorted and sat down just waiting to be fed. As my sister opened the basket I rose up to take a look at our food, ´´ eww Tallie, what is that?!´´ some disturbing looking cheese and hard bread were facing me. ´´hold up… ahh here we go´´ muttered Fred as he took those foods out and uncovered more food at the bottom. There was good cheese, soft bread, fresh wine, some ham (first time I tasted it) and a round plate holding my mother’s famous cheesecake that I loved so much. After a very full stomach, Fredrich closed the basket and folded the red cloth…´´we should go´´ he said.

Spring time at home CHP2

Chapter 2
THE WEDDING
´´… but, its too much of a responsibility, you two cant really be thinking about doing this, are you?´´ I heard my sisters voice peaking. I didn’t want to open my eyes, but decided too, and got up from bed silently to listen to the whole conversation from my bedroom doorway. ´´ Yes Tal, we’re serious, we can’t take care of him anymore, and by you marrying that boy you can decide upon becoming one of them, they’ll even open their arms to a convert: but if your brother were to stay with us, he’d surely die.´´ I squeaked, or rather my voice did, and the conversation ended abruptly. I heard footsteps and ran up to my bed and pretended to be asleep. It was my mom; I knew this even if my eyes were closed, because her lavender perfume was too strong, she used it that way. Two weeks had passed and it was the day before my sister’s marriage to Fred. ´´Gal honey, get dressed, its your sister’s wedding rehearsal for gods sake´´. I didn’t get why I had to dress up when in reality it was just the pre wedding rehearsal. I came down stairs and everything looked so appealing, flowers running through the garden up to a small white archway where my sister and Fredrich were standing with their outfits on. So I asked why they were wearing it today and not tomorrow when their wedding really was happening. ´´Gal, I want you to keep a secret, we are getting married today, if we wait till tomorrow, the Nazis might try to stop it from happening´´ said my sister. ´´Yes it’s true, we need to elope since the Nazi soldiers might already be informed about a Jew Christian marriage.´´ responded Fredrich calmly. After the ceremony both changed quickly and told me to do the same. My mom and pop were crying while hugging Tal and Fred who were getting on Fred’s dads automobile. As I was walking down the stairs I saw my pop lifting up my small leather suitcase and mounting it up on the car. ´´NOOO´´ I yelled, and felt my face getting red. ´´Papa, mama, im not leaving you! ´´ my sister and her new husband were inside the car now and faced down Tal ordered me to say goodbye and get in. ´´Shut up! You are married, im not, I want to stay here!´´ My father hugged me again, even tighter than that one time at the barn, but this time didn’t try to fix it up with a hopeless joke. My mom then kissed my forehead and hugged me hard as well, then lifted my hand up and gave me a wrapped up towel telling me not to open until they had crossed the French border. I got up into the car (almost forced in); it drove off almost immediately as if avoiding me to back down last minute. I started crying, and turned back to see my parents standing at the edge of the rode crying and waving goodbye. ´´I love you pops! Ill miss you mama!´´ I yelled back and sat down again until all I could see of my parents were two small dots in the distance, and my beautiful hut looking very worn down.

Spring time at home

It was late June, our farming deadline was getting closer and mama had to wake up early as usual to milk Betsy (our cow). My sister had to go run a wedding errand, (she was 17 and to be married to our neighbor’s son Fredrich, he was 18, owned 7 cows, 6 chickens and to everyone in town he was the wealthiest most eligible young man any girl could marry. My sister and he had been best friends for the longest time now, but I don’t think she was really ´´in love´´ with him. My family being all Jewish and our neighbors being Christians, hated the idea of these two getting married, but had to accept it; we were broke and my father’s ego just couldn’t handle loosing our farm and our home, we needed this financial help). She came back with two white boxes one carrying her shoes and the other one with her white dress. As she struggled to open the door, and managing her white bowed boxes, she opened the door and with my help she came in… pale as a ghost she gave me to carry all her things and patted my head warmly. I don’t know how but I knew she was upset. She quickly asked me to go up to my mom and dad because she had to tell us something; and so I did, called my mom from the kitchen door, she was carrying two barrels of milk on both her hands, my dad was raking hay in the barn, and came running in as well. My father, (a tall olive skinned man with a very fearful appearance to anyone who meets him for the first time) came in, wiped his hands on a piece of towel lying on the kitchen counter and sat on a small wooden stool. My sister and mother came in, my father ordered them both to let me stay, ´´ Hannah, our son is now 14 and soon will need to know how to handle farm problems and real life situations.´´ My mom sighed and agreed, both looked up at my white faced sister as if trying to look for an answer to this brief family discussion. She started,´´ Mama, papa… they are here, the monsters have arrived to our town, and will be starting the hunt soon, they gave me these 4 yellow stars to wear on our clothes…´´ she paused and a tear came running out of her left eye and into her cheek…´´ They are herding us like cattle!´´ With that my father got up, threw the door open and stormed out into the barn, where I followed, leaving both women crying in the small wooden stools. Papa, don’t cry, im sure nothing will happen (I had heard of these ´´monsters´´ before, called soldiers by the people, but never really knew what they wanted), ´´maybe they’re just passing by´´, I said while sitting next to my pop, and then patted his back gently, (something very unlikely for me to do; me and my father had always had a very sort of distant relationship and any caring action would seem too queer for the both of us). He strutted something and hugged me hard in his arms, chocking me almost… I returned the favor and wrapped myself around him as well. ´´Lets stop, we look like women, people will start talking and saying we are your mom and sister, and them being us.´´ he effortlessly tried to joke around, but his moaned voice was too obvious to pass.

insanity of conformity part 3

Once again quoting Freud´s ideals, it is Nurse Ratched that controls our history, and serves as the fake information and brain wash that the public follows in order to maintain a structured society in place. She turns society into robots who all work the same and include the same mechanic tools in their minds. When a robot dysfunctions by showing individuality, she fixes it, blaming that its his mind that doesn’t work and thus she has to lobotomize him, until it cant cause any more trouble. I agree with Freud’s theory of the ¨It¨ being our civilization and the ¨Self¨ being us; the it controlling the way we grow up, the people we meet, and the way we behave, but I don’t agree that if one is to break from that structured way of acting, that we will instantly be framed as mad. This theory has poisoned the minds of the civilians and so much that they are already so structured that they too use segregation and fear to continue this legacy of conformity.

I used Freud’s book, Civilization and Its Discontents to prove a point: we are products of our past and history, this history binds us into becoming nothing else but clones to the rest of humanity. Then with Ken Kesey’s One Flew Over the Cuckoos Nest I explained how some people like Kesey himself believe that our civilization is trapping us too much into conformity and lack of freedom. I enjoyed how this novel uses characters to symbolize the battle between the sane and insane; showing us that its more probable for civilization as a whole to be insane than for an individual whom although is different is very sane. This book taught me that its fear of acceptance that oppresses us from expressing ourselves with our own behavior and that we have to stand up for those rights (sometimes even sacrificing ourselves to get lobotomized, but for the greater good of humanity). Its senseless to act against individual behaviors, such as lust, pride, homosexuality, kindness, and truth just because society thinks of them as moral flaws, it’s a braver action to accept most of these and know that it might not be a matter of morality but of nature.

insanity of conformity: OFOCN Part2

Another character who displays a thirst for acceptance of sanity is Chief Bromdem (the narrator). This character plays an important part in the novel, because he serves the purpose of the book; he’s the first step for realization of change, he’s the student and perhaps for the audience he can finally serve as the teacher. Bromdem, starts out as a tall, quiet, dumb looking native American, who gets bullied by his fellow peers and instructors; but the reader knows that he’s not crazy, nor dumb because of the inside perspective he gives us, we can tell he is conscious of his situation, thus he cant be crazy. The narrator symbolizes the people or the common public in society, unlike McMurphy, Bromdem fears of what the instructors can do to him and thus he behaves as he is instructed or expected by the institute.

Going back to Freud’s theory of the human mind, our histories define our nature, our culture defines our history. If we don’t follow the way our culture guides us then what sort of history can any man be capable of leading? Furthermore, with such an idea fixed in our heads, how can we ever break free from such idealisms? The fear that society uses to make us feel segregated is their key to having power over us: fear of acceptance caused Bromdem to flee from sanity, into ¨insanity¨, maybe then a mad man; (an individual) will feel more secure. The importance of accepting this character as a symbol for ourselves is the solution to finding a way to break from our conformity: by us realizing that fear only causes us to become society’s slaves then maybe we will find the way to become our own men, free of judgment. Hence the order that Chief Bromdem goes through: a lunatic, a student, the doubtful, the fearing, the fearless and the teacher. Other characters involved in the book, each show a side of our civilization that is characterized as wrong and shown as a flaw. Akin to, self righteousness, homosexuality, sexual appetite or lust, pride, kindness, loyalty; all those are exaggeratedly imposed by our culture as flaws that need to be fixed thus suppressed. Also showing us that civilization is already crippling those flaws and dominating them so much that although it seems that they are fixed and all is perfect, in reality beyond the surfaced image everyone is drowning in pressure and fear. This teaches us that the mental conformity that our society is using on us is actually damaging our society and not fixing it like the assumed it would.

The final character that I think is vital to the connotation of the novel is the prudish Nurse Ratched. As opposed to the rest of the cast, this woman along with her three helpers plays the antagonist in the plot. If the patients symbolize the slain in civilization, then this woman represents the slayer. She serves as an imagery of conformity and structural behavior: she is depicted as cruel, petty, organized, feared, controlling, and in a sense very pretty. Kesey wanted to show her as a representation of the beautiful and perfect modern western empire, who although fools everyone with her superficial kindness and fairness, she is actually a despicable villain who is always thinking of ways to lower everyone else down below her.

insanity of conformity: one flew over the cuckoos nest PART1

Freud’s structural theory of the mind; parallels the formation of our civilization. We live in a society where we are meant to be conformed by rules of behavior. It is how we live our lives and with which culture that we define ourselves, and that we create our history. Our individual background or way we were raised gives civilization permission to oppress us into thinking a certain way and thus behaving ¨properly¨ as to their rules. Our behavior in the real world becomes so structured by our society, that any break from that mental code can define us (by civilization) as insane: Freud points out this theory in his book, Civilization and its Discontents. In the novel One Flew Over the Cuckoos Nest by Ken Kesey, our society is symbolized as a paradox of insane vs. sane; it’s an insane asylum where the patients are conformed into a structured routine which they carry out for as long as they are there, when they finally get ¨cured¨ they are free to leave (but too late for they are already mentally oppressed by the asylums rules of conduct.) Ironically, the asylum is controlled by a nurse who fits society’s code, and although she physically renounces some human flaws, she serves as a symbol for what I can argue as mentally insane rather than sane (she behaves too well, very mechanical, like civilization tends to). In the novel, I can argue about three characters that fight for their sane reputation; Mcmurphy, Chief Bromden, and Nurse Ratchet whom I say is the opposite: mentally ill.

McMurphy, the main character of the novel, is a professional con man, gambler, a sex addict (inaccurate opinion), a boxer, and according to his diagnosed psychological test, he is indeed a psychopath. He was sentenced to prison for a period of six months, but (thinking it be easier) he allowed himself to be sent into a mental institute instead. If you analyze McMurphy as a symbol for a human being, you see that he’s not really insane since none of those characteristics are actually ¨mentally destructive¨. You then realize that Kesey depicts this character exaggeratedly in order to demonstrate the extend of society’s oppression towards our social performance. This character is the novels main character because individually he represents many aspects of human nature, of martyrdom, and of real sanity and consciousness.

According to Freud, the idea of an individual being some what different than that expected by society, the person will immediately be framed as crazy. Of course he doesn’t state that in those words, but he does make an analogy to difference being insane. In McMurphys case, he is being judged by our social order to be crazy, accused by the idea that he doesn’t follow the public’s view of behavior. Kesey shows again (excessively) a suppression by our culture to bare humanity from self freedom; just because a man commits illegal gambling, coning, and likes to perform acts of consumption, that wont define him as crazy! Perhaps by using paradoxes, the author explains the idea of what our civilization really is; a machine that is so involved in working and perfecting all its flaws that it doesn’t really get to know the individuals that conform its mechanics: it forgets about the human essence that separate us from monotony and robots. Furthermore, to demonstrate the dominance of society to our existence, Kesey makes McMurphy a man with free will which he uses to satisfy civilization when he decides to enter the institute, convinced that it’s a safer place for him (symbol for the threat that our civilization carries).

PUNCTUATION

I was told to experiment on a piece of literature of my own and it wont include any type of punctuation until im done writing the piece and i guess that i wont only be writing a carry on sentence but also applying the same idea throught out the freaking sentence (normally i wouldved already put in a period and it kinda frustrates me that i cant yet i feel its a very funny excercise hahaha) anyways what ill be talking about in this blog will be about somethng that i can talk about forever and that includes a lot of details that one can explain thus the writing piece will be longer and ill be able to end my assignment-lets talk about food, cigarretes, girls and umm music i guess- Food is an amazing thing which we all take advantage of and although we actually dont recognize it foods are a constant factor in our everyday bliss i mean who doesnt get excited when you are starving and a fresh plate of food is given to you:(semicolons replace a ?)What types of food would one reject when starving hungry, unless you are allergic or something u know because then you would need to keep starving if that is all the food you find then again i have never really been that hungry or i have but not to the literal starved point so what im trying to get at is the fact that i wouldnt know how it feels and if given a chance to eat even if its slightly poisonous to me and yeah maybe i would eat it just of instinct to survive after all we are humans; boys and girls or men and women we crave similar things and food is very important it can replace many substances like cigarretes because in my case im addicted to them but not to the point of crazy crackhead addiction yet it does play a big part of my life and to give them up has caused a ton of problems in my psyche which keeps on telling me that i need these tabacco sticks to clam my nerves but maybe its just a mental block and hopefully ill be able to get over this constant urge to smoke like just this week ive been getting ready for a leadership retreat that is taking me to a mountain in an alttitude of 4400m thats like really high thus air is less flowy and more dense so smoking will be a lot harder to do and so i was told to quit the habbit atleast one week before the trip and so i have and GOD its been really hard im like so anxyous all the time like even now while writing this blog with the first things that pop up in my head its kinda distracting me from the urge and it helps a bit plus one has to keep in mind that inorder to quit you have to think why smoking is bad you know because like most girls hate you smoking like smokers breath kinda stinks so its not good if you are pickin them up and every guy desserves to be with a girl because they are soo great and important to a mans existance like my own i mean im already in love with all the girls in the world like not in a horny freak sense but in a sensible and rational knowledge since i know for a fact that they are all able to make you feel perfect and at the same time make you feel misserable just like cigarretes grasp your head and nerves the women do that and everything else in your conscious and subconscious as one would say, the earthly addictions are the real bliss.

The Vrykolakas Avange

Long long ago, before the fearless knights battled the legendary dragons, before evil enchantors mettled in the dark arts, before Rome ruled over with Christianity, before Europe and the world were populated by powerful humans; there existed a darker era.

Christianism although very new, it was gaining power very fast... only two powers ruled the world, the christian church and the Mourge Cult. Of course, like in every society, (no matter the age of existance) rebels are present; they create that needed stalemate between the good and the evil. These rebels are called, The Vrykolakas: ancient vampire creatures that suck the blood out of earths sinners, vrykolakas might feed from evil men, but they arent evil themselves.
These creatures are many, and include different races and species, each one with a distinct gift or power, some even have distinct cultures and rituals: only thing that binds them together as the Vrykolakas, is their purpose to be, to clean the world of sinners.
The mourge cult, is an old version of satanism, where both humans and demons join up to serve the first demon, the source of all badness and evil. These dark priests practice dark magics, along with gory human and Vrykolaka rituals.
One night, (as written in ancient scrolls) an immense battle blew up between both sides, the rebels stood tight and hid. It was said that the sky shot flying stars, and angels crashed from the heavens, while deamons blew up from the ground. There were no survivors from the Mourge cult, affirmed the christian church after a 60 day battle.
A couple of centuries passed, the Vrykos had hidden and mixed in with the normal human crowd. Of course as years passed, people became ignorant of the monsters existance, but they were real and still stalking the earth, in search of those who dont desserve to live in it. The Vryko cult, soon reduced to only a couple of hundreds, not enough to keep going for another millenium. They needed to reproduce, and although they were immortal creatures, they couldnt live longer than 1000 years and theyr pure race couldnt be reproduced by themselves: they were dead humanoids, their blood, and reproductive systems didnt work. So they needed a human carrier, or vessel (a pure hearted human) to be bitten and sired into their species.
The 1700´s became the first Vrykolaka baby boom.

A Piece of the Puzzle

I can only think of one experience that ived had, and that I have considered it being the biggest scope in my life. At first, it gave me a sense of incredible and just unimaginable sadness and pain; important feelings that i never knew could hurt or even impact a person that much. This sadness sometimes turned into a hidden anger, that just stalked me wherever i went (mentally and physically). Ironically and very controversially, this anger started to mold my reason behind writing, thinking and painting...i guess it served as an ispirational tool.

Last year for example, I started to write a short story about a young boy who lost both his parents during the holocaust. I started the story thinking about my life back when my whole family was with me, i wrote the setting just as i remembered everything back then; perfect, the details of the house and the peaceful behavior of an everyday life...i was just consumed by memories, i guess. I was not only able to put a piece of myself in the setting, but also in the boy himself. His shoes were easy to fit in for me. Once the character got separated from his parents, every emotion he felt i related it to me.
Eventually the story got up to a place so crude to me, that i just broke into tears while remembering my own grief. When the crying ceased, i had never felt as calm as i did that time.

Death i would say, is my life scoping experience and i believe (unfortunately) that this is the muse behing ny whole existence. Not to be pessimistic, but i believe death will always be a part of my life, a constant factor, a piece of the puzzle...never complete without it.