Since I just sorta finished high school, I feel like I should write a post about what this means to my coming of age--and how I think of coming of age now. At the beginning of the course I defined coming of age to be knowing what you want to do (with your life etc.) and doing it. While my understanding of coming of age has altered over the course of this course (of course), that original definition is still at the heart of it. I have gained many nuances to this conceptualization, but not in a way that I can express them--that understanding has simply become part of me now. Anyway, that was just to say that I still define coming of age to be knowing what you want to do and doing it.
In light of this, I do not feel all that much more come of age now than I did three hours ago, before I finished my last day of high school. Nothing about my idea of what I want to do has changed--I have had a quite solid idea of that since the beginning of this year. However, I have matured some in the sense that I have gotten closer to that goal of what I want to do--yeah, it wasn't school, crazy (not that I don't like school, I do really enjoy much of it, but I have bigger/more important to me plans). Anyhoo, wanting to graduate was a big part of what was standing in the way of what I want(ed) to do--take a gap year in MS etc.--and now that I have finished school, I feel much closer to this. Well, I guess after I finish this post I will actually be done with school, but even now I don't feel much different. This last day of school has brought me no closer to my goal chronologically, but it has brought me closer in some way--I have crossed some large, and perhaps not completely arbitrary boundary, and now I am that much closer to next year. It seems funny to me that the end of school can feel like so much and so little at the same time, and it still hasn't really hit me yet that I am never going back to high school. This post is super ramble-y, sorry about that. I am a little in shock still.
I suppose I will wrap this up now by saying that this course has helped me come of age by gaining understanding of the world--and therefore of how I want to interact with it--and that there are lots of nuances in coming of age, and some things can be huge and minuscule at the same time. Coming of age is not something that you will necessarily feel, but I think that you will know when you have found what you want to do, and when you are doing it. This may not always happen in everyone's lives, but I think that everyone has the ability to get close to it if they pay attention to themselves, and work to understand everything behind everything--all of the "why"s behind every other "why". Wisdom, yo. hear me now believe me later, I guess. Or not.
Good luck everybody, and I love you all.
Friday, May 15, 2015
Monday, May 11, 2015
Brotherhood in Sag Harbor
I think the relationship that Benji has with Reggie is very cool in Sag Harbor, in that it seems quite accurate to me--not idealized too much, but also not overly dramatized. Ben simply states the directions in which their interactions are going, and while Benji may seem upset, Ben doesn't. I think it is cool that they are beginning to make different friends and do things separately according to their interests rather than their genes. At the same time, I think that Reggie seems like he is ready to grow apart a little sooner than Benji--or at least has found friends to grow apart with sooner than Benji. Of course, we are only getting one side of the story, and maybe Reggie is imagining that Jonni Waffle crew all having fun listening to mixtapes, nudging breasts, and talking about Martine in their own exclusive group.
That being said, I also really enjoy the fact that neither of them are totally willing to give up their tight relationship of before. They still stick up for each other, look out for each other, and try to minimize the arguments between them. I think it's cool that they have this extensive law of even Steven to keep order and fairness, and when something confuses it (like their Mother's dirty pot), they don't blame each other or try to force the other to do it, but rather try to figure out the logical solution to the problem. I was very pleased when Reggie backed up Benji after he got shot in the eye, and tried to help him out a lot. This was mentioned in class, but I sorta feel like it was worth it for Benji to know that Reggie still cares about him a lot--which he obviously does. It made me really happy that Reggie was worrying about Benji, and eager to help him out, in part I think because I feel like me and my brother have a similar relationship to Benji and Reggie in some ways. While we don't have as close-knit a background, we have definitely grown apart a bit the last couple years (with him going to college and all) but also closer in many ways. We see a lot less of each other, but I know that both of us are there to help out the other should he need anything, and that we both care about each other a lot. Even though we aren't going to always be on the same team (and usually only play one-on-one anyway) I still consider him one of my best friends, and I think it is awesome to see a similar relationship reflected in Sag Harbor.
Also shoutout to Ez for being a great brother and--as Jackson and apparently many others will readily point out--a great person.
That being said, I also really enjoy the fact that neither of them are totally willing to give up their tight relationship of before. They still stick up for each other, look out for each other, and try to minimize the arguments between them. I think it's cool that they have this extensive law of even Steven to keep order and fairness, and when something confuses it (like their Mother's dirty pot), they don't blame each other or try to force the other to do it, but rather try to figure out the logical solution to the problem. I was very pleased when Reggie backed up Benji after he got shot in the eye, and tried to help him out a lot. This was mentioned in class, but I sorta feel like it was worth it for Benji to know that Reggie still cares about him a lot--which he obviously does. It made me really happy that Reggie was worrying about Benji, and eager to help him out, in part I think because I feel like me and my brother have a similar relationship to Benji and Reggie in some ways. While we don't have as close-knit a background, we have definitely grown apart a bit the last couple years (with him going to college and all) but also closer in many ways. We see a lot less of each other, but I know that both of us are there to help out the other should he need anything, and that we both care about each other a lot. Even though we aren't going to always be on the same team (and usually only play one-on-one anyway) I still consider him one of my best friends, and I think it is awesome to see a similar relationship reflected in Sag Harbor.
Also shoutout to Ez for being a great brother and--as Jackson and apparently many others will readily point out--a great person.
Thursday, May 7, 2015
Communication in Black Swan Green
So I want to make this post to sorta lay out some ideas that I am planning on expanding further in a critical response paper. Basically my thesis will be something like "A large part of Jason's coming of age is manifest or caused by his realization of the importance of good communication." That is a very tentative thesis mind you--don't hate.
In essence, Jason seems to mature proportionally to how much he is willing to communicate and open up to other people. In the beginning of the novel, before he has hardly come of age at all, we see Jason talking very little, and feigning knowledge instead of trying to alleviate his ignorance when he doesn't understand something.Before talking with other people, Jason thinks that the forest is huge, that gypsies are mooches (or at least that they are incomprehensible and want the land), that Julia prefers her room, and that he wants to be a part of the "hairy barbarian" group, to name a few.
It is only through talking with Eva that he learns a lot more about poetry, and about his values. Through conversations with her he is able to discover more about himself, and learn how to be truthful. Through talking with the gypsies, he learns their side of the story, and better understands the nuances in that whole situation. By talking with the carpenter dude he learns that the forest is really quite small, and not so scary after all (he also learns more about the mysterious woman and the house in the woods). When he opens up to Julia, he connects more with her and learns that she knew about his poetry, which makes him feel much better than before, when he was worried she would find out. He also learns that they should have traded rooms a long time ago--an act that would have been so easy to pull off had they only been aware of each others' feelings. It was through communication with Dean and Holly that Jason got through the Maggot chapter, and when Jason finally seems to be comfortable with himself it is when he communicates far more than socially normal by grassing on Neal Brose.
While some of these examples may not seem like much, I think that they add up to show how important communication is, and I think that Jason comes of age as he recognizes this importance.
In essence, Jason seems to mature proportionally to how much he is willing to communicate and open up to other people. In the beginning of the novel, before he has hardly come of age at all, we see Jason talking very little, and feigning knowledge instead of trying to alleviate his ignorance when he doesn't understand something.Before talking with other people, Jason thinks that the forest is huge, that gypsies are mooches (or at least that they are incomprehensible and want the land), that Julia prefers her room, and that he wants to be a part of the "hairy barbarian" group, to name a few.
It is only through talking with Eva that he learns a lot more about poetry, and about his values. Through conversations with her he is able to discover more about himself, and learn how to be truthful. Through talking with the gypsies, he learns their side of the story, and better understands the nuances in that whole situation. By talking with the carpenter dude he learns that the forest is really quite small, and not so scary after all (he also learns more about the mysterious woman and the house in the woods). When he opens up to Julia, he connects more with her and learns that she knew about his poetry, which makes him feel much better than before, when he was worried she would find out. He also learns that they should have traded rooms a long time ago--an act that would have been so easy to pull off had they only been aware of each others' feelings. It was through communication with Dean and Holly that Jason got through the Maggot chapter, and when Jason finally seems to be comfortable with himself it is when he communicates far more than socially normal by grassing on Neal Brose.
While some of these examples may not seem like much, I think that they add up to show how important communication is, and I think that Jason comes of age as he recognizes this importance.
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