Changing Gears

The impulse kicks in. For a second, my mind flashes to a memory. I see my dad, eye level, and in a moment, my father’s hand hits me, fair and square in the eye. Reality comes back. I am waiting. The clock ticks from 12:02 to 12:03. Caitlin, who is probably just getting out of class, is still not in the car. And I don’t like that. Something about being late..it got to my father, and now it gets to me.

I sit in the car, and wait for another 3 minutes, still no sign of Caitlin. Just as I am ready to change gears, and drive away, the handle clicks, and the door opens.

Scrambling in the door, Caitlin starts to ramble on, “Hey, I’m so sorry, Mrs. Johnson wanted to talk to me after class, and I told her I had to go, I really did, but she said –“

“Enough. I’ve heard it all before.”

“Rogerson, I know you’re mad, but I tried. I really did! I got out of this place as fast as I could,” Caitlin pleaded, as she knew what was coming.

“Wasn’t fast enough,” I murmured under my breath.

The drive to lunch was silent, in the most awkward of way. I was upset, and she knew it. I was right, and she knew it, too.

Twenty minutes past, when she finally decided to open her mouth.

“I’m still sorry,” she said, looking at me with those big eyes, pleading for some romance scene. For some reason, this hope, this happiness, this joke in her eye, it got me frustrated. I turned back towards the wheel, now parked in a parking lot. From the corner of my eye, I still could see her. Just as she was about to speak, something came in me. My second nature. I leaned in real close, and punched her. Harder than ever before.

As she sat there crying, I sat there driving. Maybe I should feel bad about what I did, maybe I should feel like such a horrible person, but I don’t. If anything, I think I let her get away easy…this time.

---

Dreamland is a book that shows abuse in a relationship. The whole story is told in the point of view of Caitlin, the girl who is being abused. It is great, we get to see how she feels, how she takes the pain. We get to see the struggles it puts on her life.

Then there’s Rogerson. All we know about him is he hits Caitlin. If the book was told in his point of view, rather than hers, we would see so much more depth to the story. We would see why he hits her, what it does to him. We would see his thoughts in the moment, not just hers.

Having the story be told in the point of view of Caitlin, automatically makes us think that she is the angel, and Rogerson is the devil. If the story was told differently, there would be a whole different vibe, a whole different setup, a whole different story.

Float Away

Author's Note: When looking at the picture that Mrs. Reagles showed us, this is what I came up with. 

When we’re born, we start perfect. We start with no flaws, no mistakes… noting weighing us down. Then we grow a little, and have more experiences. And with more opportunity, comes more failure. Parts of what used to be us, get lost – drift away.

As we continue to get older, we lose more and more of ourselves, our sanity. Soon, more is missing than what’s still here. We’re lost. Our brain and our bodies aren’t connected, we know nothing. We think one thing, do another. Any comfort, reassurance we had, now leaves  -- runs away.

And there comes a day, when we’ve made too many mistakes, when we can’t find ourselves anymore. When all the pieces are spread too far apart, vanished.  All in a moment, everything is gone. Our bodies can’t stay together.  So our bodies get picked up, find their way home – float away. 

In Cass's Shadow

When it comes down to the bottom of every situation, there are two options: let it happen, or don’t. In the book Dreamland Caitlin is in an abusive relationship. Rogerson hits her. If she is late somewhere, he hits her. If she talks to another boy, he hits her. If she does anything that he doesn’t like, he hits her. Why doesn’t Caitlin find the strength to leave him, because he is no good? Why is she staying in this abusive lifestyle, when all she needs to do is leave? Though she could have left, Caitlin stayed because this situation set her apart from her sister, gave her new friendships, and make her feel special, when she was being ignored by the ones she thought were always there. 

Growing up, Caitlin was always compared to her sister. Anything Cass did, Caitlin was expected to do, too. Then Cass ran away from home on Caitlin’s 16^th birthday. There was no one there for Caitlin to be compared to, she could finally be her own person. On page 146, Caitlin says, “All I’d ever wanted to make was my own path, far from Cass’s. And even after what had happened, I wasn’t ready to give that up yet.” Cass would have never dated such a mysterious bad boy. This boy, though he hits her, sets Caitlin apart from Cass, and she likes that.

Caitlin never had many friends. She wasn’t alone in life or anything, but mainly hung around one or two people. However dating Rogerson, Caitlin met someone who would soon be her best friend: Corinna.  Rogerson hung around with Corinna’s boyfriend, and eventually introduced the two girls. She knew that if she had to leave the situation, she would also lose her friend Corinna, and that wasn’t something that Caitlin was willing to do.

When her sister left, Caitlin’s parents interests all focused around finding Cass. Calling Cass. Cass this, Cass that; all Cass. In my opinion, part of Caitlin staying in this relationship was because she wanted a cry for help. I think a small part of her wished that her parents would find out, like they eventually did, so then their attention would be back on her. I think Caitlin was really hurt that even when her sister wasn’t there, that her parents still worried more about Cass more than her. All she wanted was attention that she deserved.

Those two options that you have may seem easy on the outside. Yes or no. Letting things happen, or not letting them happen. However, you have to take the whole situation into account. Yes, if Caitlin left Rogerson she would get out of being hit, but she would also lose her individuality, her best friend, and her parents' attention. Even if she wanted out of the relationship, I don’t think Caitlin would ever have the strength to leave. 

The Fight

There are many different stories of the Revolutionary War.  Many people have written their own version of what happened, with each one having different plots and characters. However, the more you look into it, many stories do in fact have the same general idea. The movie The Patriot  and the book The Fighting Ground are very similar, yet also have their fair share of differences.

Both of the tales told make the authors interpretation of what they think happened in the war come alive. In the book The Fighting Ground, Jonathan would do anything to be able to fight in the war, but being only 13 years old, his parents tell him that it is not safe, and he is not old enough to do so. In the movie The Patriot, Gabriel is completely convinced that he will fight in the war, because his father was a war commander in the past. However, Gabriel’s dreams get crushed when his father tells him that there is no chance that he will fight, because he does not want to loose his son. Both stories have a character who wants to fight, yet is held back by their parents.

Not only do both characters want to fight in the war, both end up going behind their parents back, and sneakily sign up to fight.  Jonathan realizes that if he wants to fight, he will have to run away and sign up for the war himself. Gabriel’s story goes a little differently. He is 17 and can sign up no problem if he wanted to, however he had to make the heartbreaking decision to either follow his heart, or follow his dad. No matter how you look at it, both boys in the end go against their parents’ wishes and decide for themselves that fighting would be the best decision.

After signing up, the only thing left for both boys to do is fight. However, being young can cause problems in war. Inexperienced fighters are more likely to get killed or captured. And for both boys, getting captured was the case. Thinking he was being spied on by the Hessians, Jonathan was taken by the British, and held hostage. Gabriel was captured by the British and being taken with them. Both boys eventually found strength, and got out of this situation, yet the both were captured. The boys both were too young to be in the war, and both of their lives were risked.

I would argue that the book and movie are very similar, or at least these two characters are very similar. Yet, if we look at how the books end, you will see that the boys journeys end differently. Jonathan escapes from the British, and then that’s it. That story is over, however the movie goes on a little more. Gabriel still decides to fight, even after being taken, and in the end Gabriel gets killed. Though both tales seem so similar, they still end differently.

The Revolutionary War was a very hard, yet victorious time for our country. Families went through different troubles and hardships, with no two exactly the same. However I think that The Patriot and The Fighting Ground are two very similar stories that show how families do fight, and kids do rebel against their parents, because if you really want to fight – you will find a way. 

Winter Wonderland?

You slip on ice. You burn your tongue with hot chocolate. You're constantly sick. You can't spend longer than 20 minutes outside without thinking you have hypothermia. You have to spend time with those annoying relatives you avoided for the past 11 months. You have to spend your money buying people gifts, when you may not even have enough money to eat dinner every night. You listen to the same songs you've heard since you were 7, everyday since November. You have snow days, which then cause you to go to school longer in the summer. You anxiously wait for December to come, yet when it's here, you realize its not all is polished up to be. But, yet, somehow Christmas is the "most wonderful time of the year", right? 

Heartbroken

I don’t know why when people get “heartbroken” they call it heartbroken. Our hearts are organs that pump blood, and in no way have any affiliation to our emotional feelings. When you love someone, or have very strong feelings for them, those sparks of interest come from your brain. With that being said, it is physically impossible to say that when someone who means everything to you, leaves you, that you are heartbroken.

Move your fingers around. Now wiggle your toes a bit. If you didn’t have a heart, you wouldn’t be able to do those things. Our hearts pump blood to every part of our bodies, which in return lets them work. They don’t control our emotions. Now sing the ABC’s. Or at least say your name, maybe even get up and take a few steps. These things would be impossible to do without our brains. The brain controls everything in our bodies. It tells us when to do things, and how to do them. It tells us what to say, what to move, even what to think. When we fall in love with somebody, we feel it emotionally and mentally, we feel it in our brains, not our hearts.

Saying you have a broken heart when somebody leaves you would be incorrect. You love people with your brain, so then you would have a broken brain..right? No. When you emotionally lose something, nothing in fact is breaking. You are losing the presence of something in your life, and the emotions that came along with that thing, but nothing is physically breaking. You feel sad when something leaves you that you had strong feelings for, but that is it. Your brain is missing those feelings or actions that were in place when that object was still in your life, but that is all.

Society has established that the heart that runs inside us is the same shape and has the same meaning as the one that people use to symbolize love. When you fall in love with someone, you are falling in love with their personality, which is generated from their brain. Same goes with breakups, or losing a loved one. You are not heartbroken. In fact, those emotions have nothing to do with your heart. Saying that you have a broken heart is not true; in reality, you just have a brain that is missing someone special.

Winning The Lottery

The lottery seems like a good thing to everyone in The United States. If you win the lottery, you get a lot of money. It’s yours, to do whatever with. However, winning the lottery in the short story “The Lottery” isn’t such a lucky thing. One name  is chosen at random and the winner is stoned to death. This has been happening for as long as the citizens can remember, but what will happen in the future? I believe that if the lottery continues to take place, the whole community will revolt, and leave the country destroyed.

If we look into the future of the lottery, I see the stoning stopping, because I assume that everyone will already be dead, that is, everyone besides the leaders.  If citizens don’t like what’s happening to them, it’s their natural instinct to change it. Think about Wisconsin this past year. So many people did not like what Scott Walker was going to do, so they attempted to get rid of him. I expect the families of the people who have been killed by the lottery to get so angry one day, that they go up to the government officials and ask them to stop, and when they say no, they fight. After an intense battle over what will happen, the Government will continue stoning  (that is if any citizens are left alive).

Not many people like to constantly be controlled. No one prays that their freedom will be taken away. So, when the lives of people are in the hands of the someone else, people are obligated to upset about this. The community will rebel because they will eventually realize that the lottery isn’t a good thing at all, and brings nothing positive to anybody.

If you look at Animal Farm, written by George Orwell, you can see that my prediction for the future of The Lottery could very well be true. In Animal Farm, the Pigs control all the other animals, without them having any choice. After a long summer of hard work, the animals decide that they don’t want to work anymore, and rebel against the Pigs. In the end of the book, the Pigs are still in charge, and in all honesty, nothing really changed. Because these books have very similar plot lines, I think that my reasoning is very likely.

The Lottery could have seemed like a tradition that needed  to be done, but soon the people will see the truth. They will notice that the government has been brainwashing them for so long, they will realize that it’s not right, and that they don’t deserve that. But, in the long run, nothing will change. People will still be stoned to death, families will still be heartbroken, and the Government will still control everything.

It was a cold, stormy, Tuesday afternoon when Bill Hutchinson burst through the doors of the City Hall.

“I want to speak with Mr. Summers,” he paused, waiting for an answer, “NOW!”

“Yes..?”Mr. Summers said, approaching Bill from behind a desk.

“The Lottery has gone on way too long. We have lost too many precious lives because of it. And if you think I’m alone on this one? You’re wrong, all these people agree with me,” as speaking, the doors open behind Bill, revealing the whole community standing there.

“Oh, so you all think I’m wrong?” Mr. Summers paused, waiting for an answer, “YOU THINK I’M WRONG? I run this city better than any of you ever could. Ever.”

“I understand you feel that way sir, but nobody else does,” Bill stated.

Right about then, Mr. Summers took out a gun, and shot Bill Hutchinson.  In front of everybody.

“Alright. I killed one. If anybody has anything else to say, I’m sure Mr. Hutchinson would appreciate some company,” he paused, watching to see if anybody moved, “now get along, I’ve got things to do and places to be. “

As the sun set that day, the citizens sat in their houses, and realized, that the lottery would not stop, unless they MADE it stop.