Comments for Mythology #3

I commented Aaron and Sara F. Both of them were just like me; they had basically no idea of what was going on during Alan Watts podcast. Thought both of them oddly enough only understood the whole west and east thing. I basically agreed with both of them. I really did not understand what was going on during the podcast, and like them I only understood the west and east thing.

Mythology of Hinduism #3

Wow, lol, I had no idea what this guy was talking about at all. Just from hearing this man talk, he must be brilliant because he had such an in depth view at Hinduism, that I could not comprehend what he was saying. Alan used many comparisons to link Hinduism to everyday life. He also talked about how the west and eastern sides differed. The western side believes that the world was constructed by one god long ago. The eastern side believes that god is still creating and will continue to be create things for as long as this world lives. Alan also went on about this "self" thing, which I once again had no idea of what he was talking about. I mean why could he not just talk about the "self" thing without bringing all of this comparison stuff into it. I think that if he would just talk about things normally then maybe it would be easy to understand. Though, the one thing that I disagreed with was the angel thing. Angels fly because they have wings lol, not because they think of themselves lightly. Of course, I understand that I am not going to understand the whole concept of Hinduism in a sixteen minute podcast and that it would take much more time. Overall, I thought the podcast was interesting, though, I believe that I understand stuff better by taking notes in class.

Common Theme

After reading all four short stories, I was able to pick out one theme. This theme, I thought played a big part in all four stories. This common theme was selfishness. In every single short story one of the main characters showed selfishness in one way or another. In the short story The Life You Save May Be Your Own, Mr. Shiftlet finds himself in a very promising predicament where he can gain a car at no cost to him. Mr. Shiftlet ends up hurting an old woman and her deaf daughter because of his own selfishness. In the short story Rules of the Game, the same incident reappears. Though it is a parent that ends up hurting her own child. Waverly's mother ends up using Waverly's talents to try to kick their family up on the social ladder. This upsets Waverly a great deal that her mother would take advantage of her talents like that. The short story Book of the Dead also exhibits the theme of selfishness, and like Rules of the Game a parent hurts their child. In the Book of the Dead Ms. Bienaime's father hurts her because of how he lied to her all of her life, and how he gets rid of her statue out of selfishness. Out of all four short stories I believe that a Teenage Wasteland exhibited the most selfishness. All throughout the story Donny did nothing except for take advantage of his parents who where only trying to help him. That is why I picked selfishness as my common theme.

Teenage Wasteland

Teenage Wasteland is the last of the four short stories that we have had to read, and overall I did not like this book at all. The reason I did not like this book is because of the main character Donny. Donny is one of the most pathetic person I have ever seen. He does not care about his school work, he disrespects his parents, and he drinks. I think that this story was in a way trying to make the reader feel bad for Donny and for me that was not the case. Donny reminds me of Holden Caulfield in Catcher in the Rye. Both characters take advantage of their parents and their love. Holden basically hated his parents even thought they tried to give him a promising future. Donny is no different. He completely disregards/disrespects his parents and he just wants to do whatever he wants to do. His mother and father try to do all of this stuff to help him. They send him this psychiatrist, they get him a tutor, and they even let him stay out later. The only thing that Donny does is take advantage of his parents. I also thought that the tutor did Donny no good. The tutor just keep on telling his parents to give him more space because he is trying to become an adult and they are just holding him back. In the end Donny runs away and I do not feel bad for him at all. At the most, I think that he did not deserve to have such nice parents. The person that I did feel bad for was Daisy (Donny's mother). I felt bad for her because she tried so hard to help him out.

Book of the Dead

Out of the three shorty stories I have read so far, I have still liked Rules of the Game the best. Book of the Dead was a very strange book. Ms. Bienaime makes this statue of what she thought her father looked like while he was in jail. To Ms. Bienaime's surprise, someone becomes interested in buying the statue from her. Since the beginning of this story I have sensed that Ms. Bienaime's father is not who he says he is. Well, anyway, one day Ms. Bienaime wakes up to find her dad and the statue missing. From what it sounds like, her father must of been missing for some great period of time because she went to the police about it. I thought that it was kind of funny when her mother called and yelled at her for not keeping track of her father. I believe that this situation shows how childish her father actually is. Eventually her father returns, and as soon as her father walked through the door she asked where the statue is. He tells her to follow him, and he will show her. He leads her to this bench beside a pond where they sit down and he tells her that the statue is in the water. Throughout Ms. Bienaime's life she believes that her father was tortured in prison, when he was actually was the one doing the torturing. He also then begins to tell her that he was not good enough to have such a good statue of himself. At this point, I am a little bit confused and mad. I am confused because I thought he was the one tortured and why would he throw the statue in the water. I am mad because of how he tortured the prisoners and how he threw the statue in the water. That was none of his business to get rid of that statue. If I was Ms. Bienaime, I would be furious. I just do not understand why he thought he had the right to get of the statue when it was not even his. Her daughter was about to sell her first statue. I also felt bad for the people who where suppose to get the statue because it sounded like the daughter really wanted it for her dad. Even though that is not going to happen now because of Ms. Bienaime's selfish father. It just makes me mad.

Rules of the Game

Rules of the Game is a so much better short story than The Life You Save May Be Your Own in my opinion. In this short story, a young girl named Waverly Place Jong falls in love with the game of chess. First off, I would hate my parents if they named me after a street. Naming your kid after a street is just horrible. The street she was named after was not even a cool street name. Well anyway, back to the story. Waverly first encounters the game when her brothers get a chess set for Christmas. She watches her brothers play and she just falls in love with the game, so she starts to play the game against her brothers. Eventually she gets to good for her brothers and then begins to search for more people to play against. Waverly gets so good that she ends up being like 490 points away from Grand Master status at the age of I believe nine. I enjoyed this story much better than the first one that I read mostly because I like to play chess myself. Chess is a very challenging game because you always have to be predicting what your opponent is going to do next, so you always have to be playing the game at an almost futuristic view. What I mean by that is you have to be playing as thought your defending/attacking against your opponents next/future moves. The only thing that I did not like about this story is when Waverly's mother is always bragging/showing off Waverly to other people because she has a child prodigy on her hands, and eventually Waverly catches on to what her mother is doing and in a way begins to despise her. I can not blame Waverly for despising her mother because of what she did. If my parents used me as a way to show off like that, I would be mad as well.

The Life You Save May Be Your Own

The Life You Save May Be Your Own is the first of four short stories that I have read. This short story really made me mad, and I am a person that does not get mad often or easily but this story somehow did the trick. The thing that made me the most mad is that guy that shows up and takes advantage of that poor old lady and her deaf daughter. From the very beginning of the story when that man first showed up, I knew that he was going to do something to hurt the old woman and her daughter in some way or another. These characters are always so easy to pick out because they always seem to show an exceptional amount of feelings to one thing, and in this story the man had his feelings directed to the broken down car. The whole way through this story the man took complete advantage of the old woman and her deaf daughter. He was even completely sneaky about it all. He always told the old woman what she wanted to hear and did what she wanted him to do. All this man did the whole story was suck up to the old woman and her daughter by building a new roof on the greenhouse, helping out around the house, and actually talking Lucynell (the old woman's deaf daughter) like a real person. Throughout this whole story Lucynell even starts to like the man. At the end the man fixes the car, has it repainted, and then gets money to marry Lucynell and take on a some what honeymoon. The thing that made it the worst was when he leaves Lucynell in a diner and takes off without her. He did not even leave her anywhere near home. So overall, this story really made me mad. I felt really bad for the old woman and Lucynell, but at the same time I hated how they were so gullible and most of all I hated how that man could be that heartless.