"How to Leave Hialeah"

Hooray!  I love second person narrative.  I was hoping we would read a story like this in this class.  So, this story is about a Cuban American girl that goes through the motions of life, from high school to college to the work place.  She moves across the country and really isn't too far out of the norm (as far as ambitious young adults goes).  I just like reading with this POV because YOU get to be the protagonist. 

I found a lot of ways I could relate to this character.  From crying over high school boyfriends to wanting a good education.  She felt marginalized a lot in this story.  Her parents didn't understand her ideas and she was often full of anger.  Sounds like a teenager that never grew up.

This is a good story of how minorities can feel different and lonely, and the POV allows us to step into their shoes.  I didn't like the scene at work, with her employees acting racist.  I also don't like that people called her Mexican when clearly she was not.  But I will be one to be honest on the subject:  I cannot tell!  I don't know the differences and probably couldn't spot them if I did, without practice anyways.  So it is best just to use the term Hispanic for all unless you are 100% sure.

CUBA.  A lot of immigrants from Cuba have amazing stories about making it across the sea and surviving.  That seems so crazy to me, that families would risk their lives, and the lives of their children to come to America.  It really makes me think that they must have it worse than I could image, otherwise I would see the justification. 

I like stories like this because you can better connect with the protagonist.  You know how they feel, and you live with them instead of just observing them.  While they can be a challenge to write, second person POV is fun to read.  I hope we read at least one more before the semester is over.

Until next time,

Keri Jo

Returning to "Passing" Part Three

In class I learned that it wasn't that the author of the critique essay thought she was right, it was just that she was saying that those were possibilities.  There are many points of view that literature can uncover.  If this author thought envelopes were sex symbols and that the characters (Irene and Claire) had the hots for each other, that's her option.

I still think that lit critics take stuff too far.  But that's part of the job.  I thought we were taking things too far in class too, with the cartoon and Taylor Swift picture.  I don't think most people would have looked at that comic strip and seen anything sexist.  But only most.  We can't say how EVERYONE will view things, so people should be cautious in what they print if they don't want to make people angry at them.  As for the Taylor Swift picture, all celebrity photos are sexy, but I don't know one person stupid enough to believe that if they drink milk they can look like Taylor Swift.  So let them run ads like that.  If people are stupid enough to believe that, then they probably cannot read anyway, and are therefore safe.

All of this is about people seeing things that aren't there.  People see what they want to see, because of what is inside them.  If people are going to see what they want to see anyway, then it doesn't matter what is printed.  If someone is a hardcore feminist, they are going to see sexism in EVERYTHING.  The same goes with everything.  But people don't have to walk around on egg shells for everyone else, because this is America and we can say what we want.

I have been thinking about the ending of "Passing" and have come to the conclusion that while he would never admit it, Jack was clearly heartbroken by his wife's death.  I think that the death was oddly an unsaid mutual decision between Claire and Irene.  Irene was angry enough to want her dead, and Claire was depressed enough by Jack finding her out that she wanted to die.  I'm going to say she jumped just as Irene was pushing her.  But maybe I'm critiquing things that aren't there and seeing what I want to see.


Until next time,

Keri Jo

Encounter Activity Response to Abby Schreck's Blog

Like I said earlier, there are many reasons people become marginalized.  Education is a very common one.  While this only relates to the experience I chose to talk about in terms of how it made us feel (angry), I do have experiences with this as well. 

I dropped out of high school in the 11th grade.  I know right? One year to go and I had better things to do.  But this impacted me greatly on getting a job.  Almost everywhere in my town required a GED, so I had to get mine before I could get a job that paid above minimum wage.

It angers me to hear of someone so hard working getting shot down just because of a piece of paper, but that is our world today.  That little piece of paper hold power.  A lot of power.  And without it, a person can't expect to do more than "get by."

This reminds me of my older sister, who is always saying she would be a great nurse if they would just let her be one and she didn't have to go to school.  Because she would fail at school.  No book smarts, and no motivation to obtain them.  But the hands-on experience and passion is there.  She should be a nurse, but without that piece of paper she never will be.

I am glad that Abby became motivated to get a degree, even if anger was the motivator.  It was mine as well.  I remember the day I walked out of the candy factory... My boss was saying as I walked away, "The grass isn't always greener on the other side..."  Well Russ, you were wrong.  You may have needed me to package those glorious little gummy bears, but I needed a college degree.  Now I have one, and I'm going for another.

If I learned anything from this exercise, it's that marginalization makes us all feel the same way: angry.  But it happens.  It's just a part of life.  We will never hold all of the power.


Until next time,

Keri Jo

"Passing" Part Three

"Passing" was looked at deeply by the author of this essay, and there were some points to be made.  The court case was brought up about the woman who had to undress in front of a jury to determine her race.  How humiliating.  What judge would allow this?  It was clear from his statement to the press after their wedding that he knew she was black, and yet this poor woman had to undress to prove it.  

It was also brought up that there was some homosexuality between Claire and Irene.  I did not see this, but looking back, I suppose there could have been.  Irene was always talking about how good Claire looked, and Irene didn't have a sex life with her husband.  Then there is the scene where Claire kisses Irene's shoulder.  I can see how this could be interpreted, but I did not see it that way and still don't.

The author of this essay made it clear that fashion had a lot to do with the women passing.  It was said that their light skin allowed them to pass, but they wouldn't have been able to without the upper class fashion and etiquette.  I know for a fact that not all white people during the 20's were upper classed and had good manners, so I also think this is a load of crap.  Black people could pass for a poor white person just as easy as a rich white person.  All that mattered was their color, or lack of it.

I do think that Larsen made her characters Jack and Claire from the Rhinelander case.  Why not?  It was an interesting part of history that would make for a great story. 


The fact that Alice's own lawyer made her undress makes me sick.  But then again, it wasn't that long ago that slavery was happening, so it is believable.  I would like to think that all this happened a thousand years ago and since then we have been tolerant, but that just isn't so.

Her lawyer, however, must have known what he was doing because they won the case.  But could it have not been won any other way?  Any way at all that would preserve Alice's dignity?

I have to say I disagree with the writer of this essay on the homosexual undertones, and of them needing more than light skin to pass.  Maybe, if they had an accent of sorts, it would need to be covered up.  Maybe the way they talked and acted would have given them up.  But I don't think that money should have had anything to do with it.  But money always does.

I think sometimes critics read too much into works.  Literature can be analyzed and interpreted so much that by the time you are done you don't even have the same piece you started with.  Sometimes authors haven't hidden clues to be found.  Sometimes it is just simple:

*Two women

*They are passing

*One gets reckless, makes the other angry

*They feel connected because of their race, their past, their fear

*One gets paranoid because her marriage is already in shambles, and the other is prettier

*Paranoia turns quickly into hatred

*The hatred boils over and causes one woman to snap

*The end

Perhaps there were hidden messages to be found.  But sometimes it's just better to keep things simple.

Until next time,

Keri Jo

***EnCoUnTeR aCtIvItY tWo

The first time I felt marginalized was in the 3rd grade.  Somewhat like Claire from "Passing" for our small town, my life had become the talk of the town, or at least of the kids at school.  Let me start at the beginning.

Lots of kids' parents got divorced.  In fact, by high school, if your parents were still together, you were the one being marginalized.  My story was different because of the drama involved.

Divorce can cause a lot of bitter feelings, and make people lash out.  Mothers talk to other mothers, and they talk to their kids, and kids talk to other kids, and so on.  So, when I was 7 or 8 years old my parents got divorced.  I don't know what happened to our house, all I remember is having to go from small town Creston, IA, to Des Moines which was about an hour northeast.  We had to stay in a shelter.  Which I don't remember being that bad.  They had a big playground for the kids, and there were two sets of bunk beds in each room.  I got the top bunk, and my mom shared the bottom with my 3 year old sister.  That was the first thing kids started talking about when I got back to school.  You gotta love small town gossip...

The second, and far worse, part of me feeling outcast was when kids started talking about my dad being gay.  Of course he wasn't, but somewhere along the line, the bitterness my mom felt from the divorce had caused her to start a rumor to make herself look better (I'm guessing) and it had gotten around.  Fast.  Other parents were talking, and somehow their kids found out, and they would tease me at school.  I didn't really know what was happening, but I knew it made me feel really bad, and really sad, so I had to start seeing the school counselor.

I don't have a lot of memories about the event in my life, but I do know it was the first and possibly the worst time I felt like I didn't belong, or I wasn't in the norm.  I don't remember a lot of acting out because of it, more like acting in.  I kept to myself a lot after that. 

At the time, I learned that people were basically bad.  That people like to laugh at other people's misfortunes.  There was this one girl, Tarah, that teased me so much that I wanted to fight her.  I remember feeling so much anger, even up till high school, when people started picking on her.  I was happy they were picking on her.  I thought she deserved it.  Karmic justice.

Now I can see that kids are just KIDS.  When there is something going on they don't understand, they talk about it.  Most of the kids were just curious, if anything, but it was just the one girl that was being mean.  And I'm sure she had her own set of problems at home that caused her to be a bully.  Looking back, I feel sorry for her.

I still believe that people are mean when they think something is funny, but really, it is just our nature.  The 8 year old that would have taken me aside and given me a hug would have been so far outta the norm it would have been ridiculous.  Kids are kids.  All they have to go by is what their parents have taught them.  Which if their parents are going to gossip like that in the first place, they don't have a chance anyway.  The moral of this story is that children need to be taught morals at a very young age, so that this kind of stuff doesn't happen.  People need to be better parents.  And better teachers.  Teachers have an obligation, especially these days, to make sure that bullying isn't going on at school.  Lots of things can make a person feel marginalized.  This is just the event in my life that stuck in my head.

Until next time,

Keri Jo

"Passing" Part Two

In the second part of this story we really get to see a softer side of Claire.  It is understood that she decided to pass because she felt accepted, worthy, and loved among whites.  But now we see that she desperately longs for the blacks again.  She wants to hear them laugh and be with them more than ever, and she tells Irene that she couldn't possibly understand her pain.  And she's right.  That was one of the points I brought up in my response paper.  Irene can't possible feel Claire's pain.  She doesn't live her life.  Irene didn't have a bad black upbringing followed by a good white one.  Irene had a good black upbringing, so why be white?  But it is shown here that Claire is passionate about her race and longs to come back, but really can't.  These visits, as Irene says, are very dangerous, and when I am done reading I'm sure I will find that Claire gets caught, because that's the only possible climax I can imagine.

If Claire was raised mostly white, and lived mostly white, why would she long for the blacks?  It must be in her blood.  There are things deep down that our souls desire, that just are.  Although she has an almost perfect belonging with the whites, she knows something is missing.  Something doesn't feel right.  It makes her squirm, cringe.  This is often the case when we are living a lie.  We don't feel whole.  We don't feel right.  Something is leaving a gaping hole in our heart and we try to fill it.

Claire tried to fill the hole in her heart with passing, but it only made it deeper.  This was only a temporary fix, because all truths will be told in the end.  Her living a lie makes her life very difficult.  Irene thinks she is too edgy, too daring, and that she faces danger.  But what she doesn't understand it why Claire doesn't care.  She is empty anyway.  What does she have to lose?  She is giving up her life and her safety for that temporary fix of happiness, when she could get it from her own race.  Claire really needs to come back, she needs to leave her pig bigot of a husband and go back to where she belongs.  To the people who love her for what she truly is, and not what she appears to be.

Until next time,

Keri Jo

Reflecting on Part One of "Passing"

In class today, we discussed the different relationships of the three main characters and how they were different from each other.  This really helped me to understand some things.  Irene was upper classed, married to a doctor, and liked to travel.  She bought her boys the best and made sure they had whatever they wanted.  Maybe that is why she didn't feel the need to "pass", even though she did without trying.  She said she didn't care that her husband and one of her sons couldn't pass, but as we keep reading maybe we will find out different.

Claire was poor.  Her mother died when she was very young, and her 1/2 black father was a drunk who beat her until he died after a bar fight.  She didn't know nice things or nice people.  She was also raised by white women (her aunts), which was probably the first time she felt loved, and wanted to do whatever she could to keep that love, even if it meant leaving her roots behind.  I didn't think about how sad and hurt she must be, and that she is the way she is because the only other option would be a very dark place.  Her husband is the first man to love her, and with her daddy issues, she will do whatever she has to to keep that love, even if it means lying to him.  I think Irene may come to realize this as we read on.

It didn't tell much about Gertrude, but she seems like the happy medium of the story.  She passes like the rest of them, but her husband knows.  She seems happy enough with it, but maybe the afternoon with Jack changed her mind.  It will be interesting to see how each of these characters lives turn out and what decisions they choose to make.  I think this story is really interesting.  I like ballsy writers.  They are the best kind.

Until next time,

Keri Jo

"Passing" Part One

Nella Larsen is an African American writer, with West Indian and Danish ancestry as well.  Having grown up tin the 1920's she got to see what "Passing" was all about.  Blacks would pass over the "color line" and choose to live white, leaving behind their black ways, friends and family.  Then some would desperately long for blacks, and miss their old lives.  Some said that the whites didn't know how to have fun like the blacks did.  But it was told that these African Americans were in a dangerous life of self-hating for not wanting to be black.  We should be happy about who we are, and never try to be something we are not, but at the time this was the way things were done.  Larsen had a personal experience of her dad leaving the family, and her mom remarrying a white man.  "Passing" was originally named "Nig" but she changed it because it was too controversial.  The introduction gave a preview of how race comes into play in "Passing" and how no one can really answer the question, "What is race?"

In class we talked about race as being the physical characteristics.  On job applications it will ask for you to mark your race.  They have white, African American, Hispanic, Native American, Asian, etc.  They are pretty broad groups.  During class discussion, I will need to find out why this color line was being crossed because I don't really understand it, and what the class thinks race is after reading this book.

I didn't understand what passing really was from the introduction.  But after reading the first part of this book, I had a sad realization.  They weren't just living white.  People thought they WERE white.  And they were okay with that! They were okay with being called the 'N' word because they didn't want to blow their cover.  How wrong were these people!  Why make yourself feel so much pain and live in a lie?  Claire didn't care that her husband was a racist.  That just seems wrong to me.  Irene had the right idea.  And I think she was the happiest of all the characters because she was being true to herself.  Who cares about money or fame if you can't be YOU.  That reminds me of a lyric from an Avril Lavigne song:

"LA told me, you'll be a rock star, all you have to change, is everything you are"

It's almost like selling your soul.  You are selling yourself out for things that don't even matter.  I know that because of racism and the way blacks were treated that some of them longed to be white, but this is just wrong.  We are all different, we are all unique, and we need to embrace that, not hide from it.  I have a hard time being myself sometimes because I am different that a lot of students here.  I'm more shy, anxious, and awkward, so I sometimes hide and become anti-social rather than letting people know the real me (which is basically a dorky nervous chick).  But this is wrong.  If someone doesn't love you for exactly who you are, then they aren't worth your time.  We deserve better.  We have to love ourselves as God made us.

Until next time,

Keri Jo

Returing to "Recitatif"

Class discussion helps.  But it also hurts.  Let me explain.

I didn't know what the title meant and honestly was too lazy to Google it.  But... I thought it might have something to do with Roberta's illiteracy because I couldn't read it.  Good title though.  Really creative.  Kudos to Ms. Morrison, she's a damn good writer.  Music.  I know in class we talked about the musical part being the sing-songy happy part... but I still have that dramatic, sort of like opera, singing and booming of drums in my head that goes better with the bad parts.  Then the drama is over and the music and singing stops, and they just go back to talking.  Maybe I'm alone in this, but try to imagine it if you want.

How it hurt...

I did not ONCE think that Roberta might be white and Twyla might be black.  It never crossed my mind.  The hair thing in the beginning, I've heard that before.  And in my head I didn't see a big white woman with a Bible that brought her daughter fried chicken.  That's terrible...but true.  The first time they met, I didn't think a white girl in the 60's would know about Hendrix before a black girl would.  This is all so terrible, I feel really bad because it seems like most the class at least recognised that they could be the other way around.  Stereotypes suck.

Our parents teach us about other races by using stereotypes - like the Disney movies - and before we know it we are using them on a subconscious level.  That's kinda scary.  I don't want to think like this.  Like in my blog before, when I wished we were all colorblind.  I want that again.  I want that big Mr. Clean Eraser so I can take it to my brain and make all my thoughts like that disappear.  It makes me want to disappear.

This is definitely a story I want to do a response paper on.  There is so much more to explore with this, I actually wish we could spend another class period on it, but I'm sure the next piece we read will mess with my mind just as much, it seems to be a reoccurring theme in this class.  ;)

Until next time,

Keri Jo

Textbook Wars

Wow... It's hard to believe things like this are real.  That people are really like that.  That's why people hate Americans.  They think we're all conservative.  Well that's where they're wrong.  And I know one thing for sure... my kids won't be going to school in Texas! 

Haha these a-holes have been fighting for as long as we can remember.  It doesn't matter which you are really, as long as you are a good and ethical person.  But for the most part, Republicans suck.  That's right, I said it.  And I'm a journalist, so get used to it.  But in all seriousness, this is crazy!  They want to erase American history with fairy tales because they tell nicer? ***************************************
 Let's just play Disney movies in history class instead.   Man people like this get my blood boiling.  I guess we will have to be responsible for our own children's education and make sure they know the truth. Or move to Canada ;)

What is happening in Texas shows that history has probably always been skewed by people like this.  Zinn showed us that the history we all learned about in high school wasn't all there.  It was...changed.  It told nicer.  If this keeps happening, before we know it none of us will be able to remember the truth.  That's what they want. Brainwashing.  Okay, maybe that's a little cynical, but really? Our history is already told nicer than it actually happened, they shouldn't make it any worse.  This is just a case of a bunch of red necks with POWER DOMINANCE over people with actual brains.  I don't think all conservatives would agree with what they are doing, but it's acts like this that give them a bad name.  It might be stereotypical but so is everything.  They will never agree with each other.  But one thing we all should agree on is that this is a BAD idea.  I'm not going to lie to my children.  Are you?

Until next time,

Keri Jo

RECITATIF

RECITATIF. Okay, first off, what the heck does the title say?  Irregardless, what an amazing story!  For the first time this year I couldn't put down a book no matter how hard I tried.  I like that feeling.  We get so busy we seldom have time to enjoy literature, but this story gave me no choice. Okay.  So we got a white girl and a black girl in an orphanage.  They are different.  They look different, smell different, eat different foods, and their mothers are different.  But they become friends.  They play, they share. They do each other's hair.  It was a lot easier because they didn't know.  They didn't know why their parents didn't want to be introduced.  They just didn't know. 

As we get older, we start to realize things about differences.  Sometimes there are walls there that we didn't even put up.  They have just been there for so long no one can take them down.  No two people anyways.  These walls are so big it would take all of us.  Well, most of us.  But the girls find this out as they get older.  When they meet in the coffee shop, Roberta acts like she is better than Twyla.  But then like 10 years later, they both have money so that means they are the best of friends?  I think it has to do with the times.  When they were little, nothing mattered.  Because nothing like that does when you're a kid.  As teenagers, I'm guessing in the 50's, they weren't suppose to be friends.  But in the 60's, was there more peace among different races?  We will have to discuss this in class because I am bad with history.  I do know that segregation (or the end of it) had them both fighting.  I think that's why they had to change schools.  Because black kids couldn't go to the same schools (or could go now?).  I forget sometimes that that wasn't that long ago that people acted like that.  I would like to think it was hundreds of years ago.  But Roberta is fighting for the right to say which school her kids can go to.  Twyla is fighting just to be mean to Roberta.  She wants to fight for her side, but doesn't even understand what she's fighting for.  She made it personal.  

At the end, they are trying to figure out their memory about Maggie.  Did it matter if she was black or white?  It sure did while they were fighting.  But it doesn't.  Because NO ONE should get kicked like that.  I'm sure today people would see it as a hate crime. I don't like that.  It's like, two people of different color have nothing to fight about except race.  You get in a fight with someone from a different race, people start talking.  When it could just be a regular fight.  But anyway, Maggie got beat up.  And the girls both seen her as a vision of their mothers and wanted to hurt her too.  They never remembered what happened, and as close as they might have gotten after the story was over, there would have always been those walls.  The walls that keep us from understanding how other races FEEL.  Like, I know racism creates a bad feeling.  You get angry, upset, embarrassed maybe.. but I've never had anyone be like that towards me, and so the walls go up.  I honestly don't know HOW that feels.  It will take years for us to bring down these walls. Decades.  Who knows if they will ever come down.  But all we can do is try.

Until next time,

Keri Jo

Rethinking Class Discussion

Today was an interesting day to say the least.  But something happened.  After class, after dinner, I was typing up my Spanish homework when something on the television caught my ear.  I was just thinking about how frustrated I was because I didn't understand what happened today, and feeling mixed feelings about wanting it to continue.  I don't even watch "The Office," although Steve Carell is hilarious, but I turned around because I heard them talking about teaching racial tolerance.  I'm not sure if this is an old episode or a new one, but the few minutes I watched made me feel better.  Racism is a serious problem, but comedians make light of it all the time.  So if we go to comedians and laugh, why are cartoons offensive?  I realized I was still using the part of my brain I used when I watched those Disney movies fifteen years ago.  I was only looking at the good parts.  When I was a kid, I only saw the good parts because no one taught me about bad things like racism.  But today, I didn't see the bad parts because I was afraid to.  And I was still angry and still confused and still wondering why can't we just pretend there is no color until I heard a voice behind me say how pretending there is no color is just fighting ignorance with ignorance.  Maybe I just needed to hear someone else say it.  But I thought I'd share the clip, because it made me feel like discussing racism, while it will be difficult, might be a good thing after all, if done in a calm setting.  This clip isn't for laughs, it's for educational purposes.  Steve Carell's character, Michael, has done a Chris Rock skit at work, and people complain, causing the office employees to take a racial tolerance class.  Just pay attention to what Mr. Brown is trying to teach.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hb-meG47XWM

The crazy part is, the person (Michael) that needs the most education in this department is the one who doesn't understand it.  I think this happens a lot.  And I think people get mad and let their emotions fly off the handle because they are offended by something that wasn't meant to offend.  But that was one of the questions in class.  Does motive matter?  Does it matter if you are just quoting a comedian or rapping along to your favorite song?  Why is it funny when Chris Rock says a bad word but not when Steve Carell does?  Okay answer that.  You said because Chris is black and Steve is white.  Now tell me why it's okay for Eminem to say it.  Is it okay because he's friends with black people?  No it's because it's music.  Entertainment.  Right?  Which is it?  Because honestly I don't know where the line is anymore.  People spent so many years being racist that now, as we are trying to go the opposite direction of our grandparents, I feel like anything I say or do could be taken in an offensive way.  Cartoons are racist? So what is there going to be an eternity of people walking on egg shells and being too scared to say their opinion or what?  I'm so frustrated at not knowing what is okay anymore that I just shut down earlier and decided I was not going to be a part of this because it is too hard.  But something in me changed when I heard that actor on "The Office" talking about the same thing that had been bothering me all day.  I want to learn, and understand how other people feel, and WHY they feel that way, but I don't want to be attacked or called names for having an opinion.  So let's try this again.  Play nice.

Mending Wall by Robert Frost

Oh Frost, you are so famous for your poetry, yet I often feel frustrated by it.  When a poem flows like a poem ought to (purely my opinion) I find them so much easier to interpret.  I read between the lines and look for a hidden message, and am disappointed when there is nothing to be found between the lines.  I was looking for some sort of romance, two lovers with a wall built between them, but I think he was just talking about his actual neighbor.  I don't like poems that read more like short shorts.  But it has to be that way, because some poets have short stories to write and cannot.  I know I am slightly gifted in poetry writing, if and when the mood strikes me, but my short stories aren't very good.  I am me.  I am not Tom, Barbara, Cindy or any other protagonist.  I write how I feel.  People who write short stories, on the other hand, become Tom, Barbara, or Cindy and write amazing short stories and become other people, but often can't get personal enough in self indulgence to pour out their feelings into poetry.  This was my last literature instructor.  Awesome short stories, but said he had trouble with poetry.  So I think when poets want to to both, they have to write like how Frost wrote this one.

In this poem, the speaker has a neighbor who doesn't want to be friends.  He wants to keep the wall up and keep to his own.  The speaker, I think, wants to be friends and take down the wall.  He doesn't understand why his neighbor thinks this way.  People are just different.  It's just like in college.  We don't get to pick our roommates sometimes, and sometimes they are different.  I can relate to this speaker because of my experience with my roommate.  I didn't want walls put up.  I wanted to be friends.  She preferred walls.  So it didn't work out.  She couldn't build a wall high enough and moved.  At least that's my interpretation.  But in life we will always have that person in the next cubicle, next house, next bed, that has a say in how high the wall will become.  Everyone is different.  Everyone is unique. And in life we will all be challenged by walls.  Sometimes it is just best to quit trying to climb over them and just walk past to the next one that isn't so high.

Walls don't have to mean no relationship though.  Sometimes they just mean a limited one.  I did have a few questions about this poem though.  What the heck was he talking about cows for?  Was it because walls are only needed to keep in animals, not keep out people?  I'm not sure, so I'll have to remember to ask about it in class.  I enjoy getting other peoples' interpretations on literature.  I wish that's all we did in class was talk about one piece for fifty minutes.  We would get so deep in discussion in my other literature class that our instructor once said, "Wow, we might as well be sitting around here getting stoned because this discussion is getting so deep."  Perhaps I will take my career as a journalist and become a literary critic.  Then I would be doing what I love.

Until next time,

Keri Jo