Vanishing Voices, A Bad Thing?

Is it really a bad thing that languages are disappearing, isn't it just a necessary victim of our move towards globalization?


What is globalization?

According to Merriam-Webster's dictionary globalization is the “process by which the experience of everyday life, marked by the diffusion of commodities and ideas, is becoming standardized around the world. Factors that have contributed to globalization include increasingly sophisticated communications and transportation technologies and services, mass migration and the movement of peoples.”  

Quick survey from roommates:

# of people who think it is necessary for globalization?  4
# of people who thinks it isn't necessary? 1

I just thought it was interesting to hear what they thought about it and we were all torn between the idea if globalization is more important than individualism. But we all defiantly agreed that for globalization to occur it was necessary to lose all these other languages. 

It is important that we all get on the same page so that we can communicate together effectively. But while it is important to get to this midpoint between all people, we do need all the knowledge to be translated correctly so that we don't lose and thing important that some people may know such as cures to diseases.   

I believe that for all of this to happen we really do have to condense it all down to one common language because it will make everything easier, but it is really sad how some of the culture goes away with the the "vanishing voices." I wish there was some way to preserve the languages while we work towards globalization but that is really hard to do if people stop speaking them. 

September 11th, 2001 the day i could of lost my mom

September 11^th is always a really hard time for me. It was second grade; I remember it just like it was yesterday. My teacher had it playing on the television and the only thing going through my head was that my mom is in that building right now, she is in the Pentagon. I didn’t know if I should cry, freak out, or run. I was absolutely paranoid. My mom was in that building and I didn’t know if I would ever get to see her again.  We got out of school early that day and my brother was in kindergarten at the time and we would always meet at the flag poll out side of the school and get on the bus together, I remember him walking towards me with the sweetest, most worried and confused face I had ever seen in my life.  I grabbed him and told him everything was going to be okay but that I had no idea what was going on. We turned around and started heading for the bus and to both our surprise our mom was walking towards us and gave us a big hug. My brother, Darren, and I stormed my mom with questions and she told us she would tell us what happened when we got home.

My mom told us how her part of the building was hit, right where she worked, but at the time she was out of her office getting her allergy shot close by. A lady from her office called her and told her about the twin towers and told her go home quick and not come back.  That lady saved my moms life and today she is gone.  She didn’t have enough time to get out. My mom lost a lot of friends that day, and it is always a hard but extremely thankful day for my family. I love my mom so much and I cant imagine living without her.

From The Outside Looking In

Today in class when we were discussing “States” by Said, my professor noted that this picture has a boy “from the outside looking in.” As soon as she said that I instantly thought about the song called “Outside looking in” by Jordan Pruitt. I absolutely LOVE this song and I think that the picture and the lyrics to this song really tie together the entire message of this written work. Below you will find the picture and the lyrics to the song.

SONG: Outside Looking In Song (CLICK HERE)

You don't know my name

you don't know anything about me

I try to play nice

I want to be in your game

The things that you say

You may think I never hear about them

But word travels fast

I'm telling you to your face

I'm standing here behind your back

[Chorus:]

You don't know how it feels

To be outside the crowd

You don't know what it's like

To be left out

And you don't know how it feels

To be your own best friend on the outside looking in

If you could read my mind

You might see more of me than meets the eye

And you've been all wrong

Not who you think I am

You've never given me a chance

[Chorus:]

You don't know how it feels

To be outside the crowd

You don't know what it's like

To be left out

And you don't know how it feels

To be your own best friend on the outside looking in

Well, I'm tired of staying at home

I'm bored and all alone

I'm sick of wasting all my time

[Chorus (x2):]

You don't know how it feels

To be outside the crowd

You don't know what it's like

To be left out

And you don't know how it feels

To be your own best friend on the outside looking in

You don't know how it feels

To be outside the crowd

You don't know what it's like

To be left out

And you don't know how it feels

To be your own best friend on the outside looking in

You don't know my name

you don't know anything about me

I try to play nice

I want to be in your game

The things that you say

You may think I never hear about them

But word travels fast

I'm telling you to your face

I'm standing here behind your back

[Chorus:]

You don't know how it feels

To be outside the crowd

You don't know what it's like

To be left out

And you don't know how it feels

To be your own best friend on the outside looking in

If you could read my mind

You might see more of me than meets the eye

And you've been all wrong

Not who you think I am

You've never given me a chance

[Chorus:]

You don't know how it feels

To be outside the crowd

You don't know what it's like

To be left out

And you don't know how it feels

To be your own best friend on the outside looking in

Well, I'm tired of staying at home

I'm bored and all alone

I'm sick of wasting all my time

[Chorus (x2):]

You don't know how it feels

To be outside the crowd

You don't know what it's like

To be left out

And you don't know how it feels

To be your own best friend on the outside looking in

You don't know how it feels

To be outside the crowd

You don't know what it's like

To be left out

And you don't know how it feels

To be your own best friend on the outside looking in

This song is just so perfect and really could be used to show how the Palestinians feel about their lives. Hope you enjoyed the song! It’s one of my favs!  

Lost Identity

         I didn’t really enjoy reading Edward Said's essay "States."  I felt like it was very repetitive and somewhat annoying. I understood the purpose of it but I felt like it was just over done, relaying the same points over and over again. I always like to look at pictures though since I am a visual learner. Below is my favorite picture from this work.

 

      I really liked this picture because it said that the children wanted to take the picture and I thought it was sort of cute. It was like a happy picture in the essay for once. I also think it is neat how they set up the picture in a line type format. Also, from bottom to the top, the children’s faces get a little more serious each child up the line. A lot of the pictures in this essay I didn’t really feel like they helped prove any point, all I saw were normal looking pictures.

        Compared to “Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children”, it was sort of terrible for me. Maybe it was because it was harder to read because Said kept throwing a bunch of random countries at me and it was sort of confusing and difficult to take in. I felt he didn’t do a very good job at using the photographs to his advantage like the author of “Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children” did.

I MISS MY BROTHER :(

I don’t know about anyone else but I really miss my brother. My brother Darren and I were supper close these past couple years. We are 21 months apart and we didn’t really used to get along but as we got older we realized that each other is all we really have. My brother will be a junior in high school this year and he plays three sports; football, basketball, and soccer. There is nothing I love more then watching my brother play, he truly is talented and I always find myself getting really into the games. Darren’s main sport is soccer and he is currently being looked at by a lot of colleges including JMU! He really wants to come here and I think it would be really cool if he did since we are so close.

I really hope that we don’t grow apart because it got to a point where he was literally my best friend and we would ask each other for advice and stuff. He was kind of like my partner in crime and he would stick up for me if my parents got mad at me, or anything like that.

I think the thing I love most about Darren is that he never fails to make me laugh…. or choke on my food. He always knows how to cheer me up and make me feel better. We had this thing last year where every Friday morning we would get Starbucks just so that we had a nice fresh start for the weekend and just so we could hang out and we would blast music and just have fun. I am really going to miss that this year and I’m sure he will too. I always wonder if anyone else misses his or her siblings or not. Below are a few pictures of me and my brother, we really like to have a good time! 

Peculiar Wonderings

I’m not going to lie, but I am the type of person to over think things and I have a very creative imagination.  I really enjoyed “Miss Peregrine’s Home For Peculiar Children.” The way the author used pictures to tell a story really opened up my imagination to allow myself to almost create my own little movie in my head. When I first flipped through the pages I thought, oh wow this book is going to be kind of freaky and might even give me nightmares! But then as I read the book I found myself not being afraid of these peculiar things that the children could do but thought it might be rather neat to experience the life of Jacob myself.

This book makes me want to know if anything like this really exist and I feel like it would be pretty cool if it did. I mean, imagine meeting children with such amazing talents. If in fact such a thing were real I would hope that the “monsters” didn’t exist so that they may not live in fear.

I am a total picture person and I think it is so interesting to see the pictures in the book as I read. I feel like I was able to better visualize how these people looked. Part of me wishes that there were more pictures; I was extremely entertained by them. I wish that the author had written a continued book about what happens next when they are looking for the next loop and how it all plays out in the end because the end of the book sort of leaves us wondering, almost like the story wasn’t complete. Even though this makes me imagine in my head what could have happened next I want someone to just tell me!

           This is a picture of my friend and I at a lake two summers ago and it really reminds me of this book with very weird and creepy pictures. We didn’t add any effects to it, it just turned out this way and it honestly freaked us out, her mom took the picture and when she went to look at it, it looked like ghosts hovering above our heads looking the other direction. It’s pretty freaky. You can tell it is us, but its almost like it’s our spirits or something because they are looking to the right of the picture instead of straight forward. So when I saw these pictures in the book it made me think of this and I thought I would share it.