Thanksgiving

Almost everybody says that they are most thankful for their family, and I agree, they are the most important thing in my life. However I feel like they became especially important to me this Thanksgiving. I have never realized the comfort and joy they add to my Thanksgiving every year.


This year was the first Thanksgiving I have ever spent away from home. I flew down to Georgia for a week over break to spend the holiday with my boyfriend and his family. I bought my plane ticket, packed, and flew down there oblivious as to how I would feel Thanksgiving Day.


My boyfriend’s family did not celebrate Thanksgiving on Thursday, but Friday. However, my family back home got together and ate turkey as planned on Thursday. On facebook that evening, I looked through their smiling pictures over and over again. As I flipped through the album time after time the feeling in the pit of my stomach grew more and more intense. I missed them badly. It was hard to believe that they had had such a perfectly normal and traditional family Thanksgiving without me.


The next day, Friday, was not as I had expected. The meal was wonderful, the people were all nice, but it didn’t feel like Thanksgiving as I thought it would. I thought that Thanksgiving was Thanksgiving no matter who you spent it with.


It was then that I realized that Thanksgiving isn’t about the good food and talking around the table. It’s about being with those you love and who love you. It’s about valuing your family, what you are most thankful for.

College?

Linda Lee’s essay “The Case Against College” describes her experience with her son going to college. She found that the experience of college did nothing to help her son find a productive direction for his life. So, she pulled him out of college and he got a job. Through working various jobs, she saw her son grow up, mature, and find ambition in his life where he hadn’t before.


She claims that college isn’t for everybody. I agree. Americans stress a college education and while it may be good for some, it will not benefit others. Everybody is different. Some find success in getting a college degree and using that to obtain a stable career. Others have no need of a degree. As she mentioned, Bill Gates dropped out of college, and he is one of the most successful men in America.


I have known many other people in my own personal experience that even dropped out of high school and still managed to work towards success. However, I believe that this approach is not for everybody. It seems that going to college and getting a degree is taking the safe road. Those who choose to go out on a limb and not go to college risk failure. But if we all take the well worn, beaten path, then nobody would ever rise above the crowd to risk greatness now would they?

Fallacies

I often use fallacies when in an argument. Often we don’t even notice we are. However, fallacies often sway our audience to believe what we are saying, whether it be a sound argument or not. When put in a situation where we feel like we are backed up into a corner, such as an argument, we often resort to illogical conclusions to get ourselves out of a certain situation. On the other hand, even when we don’t feel threatened, but simply want to convince, we still use fallacies.

I believe that my most commonly used fallacy is basing my argument off of something somebody might have said, assuming it is true. How often do we all do that?

So many times, since I was young, I have argued using the word of my siblings as a tool to prove my point. “Well Susanna said that Mom said that I could have the candy!” often clears one’s slate. Susanna could have been lying, but that doesn’t seem to matter when the attention is shifted solely on you. The person who is listening doesn’t think about whether you were lied to, they are thinking only that you were granted permission. Using this fallacy has often won me arguments, especially as a child and I think that many other’s can say the same.

Reading

Reading has always been a favorite hobby of mine. I love snuggling up in my pajamas, sipping hot tea and letting the text manipulate my imagination, taking me to places I’ve never been, seeing things I’ve never seen. I love the art contained in literature. I love the words that fit together perfectly to create such vivid color, such thriving emotion in the reader.


I love reading books by authors who create intense descriptions in their writings. I love when an author takes a whole page to describe a meal, making me hungry just reading about it, or an author who describes a river so intricately that I feel like I’m standing right there, my legs wet and cold from the rushing water, my feet aching from the jagged rocks underfoot. I love to feel as though I’m right there in the action, lost in the plot, feeling, seeing, and hearing everything that is being written.


I tend to stay away from romance novels and mysteries. I never buy into the fairy-tale romance and mysteries are way too suspenseful for my taste. I love books that make you think deeply about life. I love books that take me to places I have never even thought about experiencing. I love books that when I am finished reading the last page, I feel changed.

The Origins of Anorexia

In Joan Jacobs Brumberg’s essay, “The Origins of Anorexia Nervosa”, the reader is educated concerning how anorexia was first discovered and the reasons it appeared. Young girls first refused to eat simply because of the marital pressures placed on them at an early age or simply to gain attention. Anorexia was a polite way to be defiant to ones parents. Food was so associated with love and caring in the Victorian era that a refusal to eat was seen as a refusal to accept love. Love was then poured on the young woman to somehow reverse how she obviously felt.


In our modern era, I think that the association between love and food has diminished to almost no connection at all. We see the showing of love with the giving of food in older generations but the younger generations show no trace of such affection associated with food. We see food as an indulgence, not as something that brings us together and shows our affection for one another.


Young girls now associate food with being overweight, not with affection. The reasons for Anorexia have shifted. Young girls refuse to eat now because food is seen as a bad thing that will make you fat. It is seen as a bad thing, not a good thing. However, the same rings true through the history of Anorexia. Young women manipulate their food intake to get what they want. In the Victorian era, young women wanted to be lavished with attention and they refused to eat to obtain that. Now, young women want to be known as having a “perfect” body, to be as slim as possible. They achieve this by refusing to eat.

Antiques

My mother used to collect antiques. Our house used to be filled with them. Everything from portraits of the President Washington and his wife, Martha, to old mirrors added a sense of history to our home. I loved it. Eventually she came to the conclusion that there is hardly any importance to material things, that something that was here a hundred years ago was no more important than something ten years old. She has slowly gotten rid of several cherished pieces of furniture.


However, I have hoarded several things that now make up the furniture in my bedroom. I love the history contained in antiques. I love that the mirror that hangs on my wall not only reflects my face today, but also reflected the faces of people long gone. That same mirror hung on the wall of someone else’s home, reflected the history of their family. I love to think of the secrets each thing holds. My dresser not only holds my clothes, but also held other’s clothes dating back heavens know how many years into the past.


I feel as though everything that I use, from my nightstand to my bed has a history, and has a past. By my using it I am only adding to that memoir, only adding years to its life. People may think I am ridiculous. Maybe I just love history too much, but I love the feeling that my life is somehow tied to the lives of those who lived so long before my birth was even thought of.

Functional Families

What really makes a family “functional” or “dysfunctional”? I believe that there is a fine line between the art of “functioning” and NOT “functioning” as a family. I believe that every family has aspects of both a functional living situation and a dysfunctional living situation.

Each family is completely unique. We all have separate values and aspirations, different motives and priorities. Every family has a different type of glue that holds them together. However, I believe that every family shares a common bond of love.

It is how we nurture our love for our family members that determines how “functional” a family is. Let’s face it. Although we love our family, we do make mistakes. We forget how important they really are to us. We lose sight of the importance of keeping their best interests in mind. I believe that if we cherish the love we have for our family, that we will be able to function as a family unit. However, when that love becomes second place to our own selfish wants and needs, we lose the ability to smoothly operate as a family.