La Poeme

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Transcending the Genre - Legally Blonde

Remembering facts from movies has never been a strength for me so thinking about a movie that transcends its’ genre is not particularly easy for me. However, there is one movie that first came to my mind when I thought about this prompt. Legally blonde while being known for its fun and spunky characters speaks to more than just its’ titled Romance/Comedy. 

Elle Woods is the symbol of perfection, she has everything she wants including boys, friends, and clothes. She could easily settle down and not work a day of her life and just be happy and fine without doing much. But she chose adventure she chose to strive for more and make herself the best possible version of herself and that’s what’s transcending. It may have romance and it may make you laugh but ultimately it portrays the heart of one who’s longing. She is an adventurer at heart and that’s what the movie is all about. When Elle becomes a successful lawyer all of a sudden it wasn’t about the love or the laughs it was about her journey and the courage that journey took. 

[feeelingalright]

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Hey guys I know a bunch of you are probably on tumblr rn doing last minute things for AP Lang... So here are some cute succulents :) goodnight 

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Secondary Source 6 (family)

“Children who grow up in an intact, two-parent family with both biological parents present do better on a wide range of outcomes than children who grow up in a single-parent family.” This may either be a very agreeable statement with most people, or an offensive one However it really only makes sense to me, that the stronger the parents are the more emotionally stable the child is, giving them a more accessible reach to success. I can also be a witness to the biological aspect of it all, my adopted sister, is naturally set back in her brain development because of having to transfer all of her knowledge from chinese to english, and also the emotional strain she dealt with growing up BEFORE we got her. I can say that because me and my two other biological siblings can relate more to my parents and my adopted sister cannot, we have a stronger emotional relationship. Granted she is 10, but when I was 10 for example, my relationship was much stronger with my parents than hers is now. 

So when we look at divorce and how heartbreaking that can be to the children and the family as a whole, we can see a pattern that low income families are more likely to experience a divorce, because “Low-income populations confront a wide range of stressors that middle-class families do not.” This again only makes sense and in the previous article I talked about, it said the same thing about stress being more common in low income families, and how that takes a big toll on the family. 

Throughout a lot of my sources we can see many comparisons and supporting evidence to back each other up. SICK.

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Secondary Source 5 (family)

http://www.linguisticsociety.org/resource/faq-raising-bilingual-children

In class this year we read an essay called Aria: a memoir of a bilingual childhood and the idea of a forcing a child to use english more. I was really interested on how that would impact a family’s relationship, so I looked up an article, and this is what I found. To give you a perspective on time, “Fifty years ago educators throughout North America used to tell immigrant parents that it was better for their children's schooling if they spoke English at home.” If they followed this advice you see a drop in intimacy because the home base culture has to be eliminated, but what if the family doesn’t follow that advice... How are the family dynamics. Well in this article I found it very interesting that the number of kids plays a big role in the overall family relationship.

“The arrival of a second child can upset the language balance in a bilingual home, and it's common for a second child to be less fully bilingual than the first. Usually the first child speaks to the second in the "more important" language, increasing the exposure the second child gets to that language and decreasing the sense of need for the "less important" one.” Naturally the first born kid will have a stronger relationship with his or her parents because he knows more about their culture and how to speak to them in their “love Language. I used to have these albanian neighbors and the eldest was my best friend, she spoke fluent albanian and talked with her parents in it constantly... but the siblings after her in line knew less and less of the language... I can vouch that my best friend had the closest relationship with their parents out of all of them, and this article made me realize that.

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Secondary Source 4

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=so2F_KK4E7g

In this theory it states that “Families are living organisms with identifiable patterns of behavior. In the family organism patterns of dysfunctional behavior tend to become repeated, and over time are stabilized and can undermine family relationships. Individuals within the family system are pulled between being apart of the group or being separate, ideally this should be balanced.”

This video I assume was created by some teacher who wanted her visual kids to be able to understand the concept, and it really helped me. If we think about the information we can start to create examples. If the mom was a big shopper, her kids will see that and assume that that is the way of life, so as they start to make money and grow up they are more likely to be big spenders like their mom. I think that also there is a role model based system here, I look up to my mom, and I believe from a young age many of us are taught that our mom is like God, in the way that she controls our lives essentially, and nurtures you when you are hurt or sad. 

Later on this video talks about a Nuclear Based Family theory, this is talking about the relationships within the family and how they affect child development. In the past it was MOM that drove the development, because traditionally she was always home, and she has a natural bond from birth because she is the one who GAVE BIRTH to you. But as time moves on, that relationship is not so lonely. NOW the child depends on both parents for their development, and its less of listening like it was in the past, and more of interactions between the three of them. 

There are some insanely interesting things in this video and in Bowen’s theories that I could easily use to further display my ideas of family relationships.

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Secondary Source 3 (family)

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3208322/ 

This article brings up the hard question about whether or not income affects child development. The many authors found and put together a series different tests and experiments to figure it out. In one study they found that, “A $3,000 increment to annual family income was associated with a one-fifth standard deviation increase in test scores. Interestingly, this study also found that higher income was associated with a drop in maternal depression, which suggests a possible pathway for the observed income effects.” In this case it may not be the money itself, but what the money can or cannot do. I know that Jeanette grew up in poverty.. but was it even stressful? Could I say that she was depressed? I would actually say the opposite. Because she didn’t have so much clutter, there was nothing cluttering her life. She was in a way free, she could roam and adventure all day long, because her parents weren’t strict. She was never stuck in one place, but rather encouraged to move. She learned not from school but from the world. Now of course there was no consistency and not having money did create issues. Jeanette even said “I lived in a world that at any moment could erupt into fire. It was the sort of knowledge that kept you on your toes.” But would you even consider that stress or depression like the article states? Neither of her parents were stressed out because neither of them cared that they were poor. While a higher income may produce higher test scores, is it really that much better for a child?

Later in the article it says that “ If money were truly randomly assigned, then some of that money might be spent on higher quality child care, reductions in work to spend more time with children, better health care, or a host of other ways.” Better child care is nice… but isn’t that replacing the job of the parents? I understand how having more money might give you the ability to take more time off of work, but in the Walls scenario they didn’t really work so they spent a whole lot of time with their children.

I know there are so many factors that go into a family’s relationship, and I see that is proven that a higher income increases the child’s success rate…. BUT a good question to ask is; Is a child’s success rate as important as their relationship with their dad?

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Secondary Source 2 (family)

In the movie Home, the alien character Oh doesn’t fit in his family, they don’t have families but rather a colony, but the same idea is applied. He doesn’t fit in his family because he is not “the perfect alien” that his colony wishes him to be. He doesn’t think that he’s capable of achieving anything great because that is all he’s ever been told. He was not expected to achieve anything yet, he saved his “family” or colony in the end. This can be related to Jeanette and how she didn’t feel capable of doing anything magnificent, even her mom told her “’No one expected you to amount to much,’ she told me. ‘Lori was the smart one, Maureen the pretty one, and Brian the brave one. You never had much going for you except that you always worked hard.’” Not even her mom believed that she could accomplish anything great, yet she left home and created a new life for herself and for her siblings, she wasn’t ok with how she had lived, she wanted more. She became successful and surpassed any of the expectations set on her, she found true love that didn’t change when a bottle of vodka was downed. She accomplished the impossible, and in that way, Oh and Jeanette were very very similar. No matter what relationships they did or didn’t have in their “family” they taught us that it doesn’t matter what you came from, you could be as successful as you wanted. 

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Secondary Source 1 (family)

When interviewing a teacher of mine who grew up with alcoholic parents, I asked her what she would do differently in her future family, she said that she didn’t know completely but she was sure of one thing,

“I knew I never wanted my kids to feel the way I did, I don’t want them to be scared of me” (Katie Osborn). 

This statement although was not stated by Jeanette or her siblings, is something I would expect them to say. Mrs. O also mentioned that 

“At 6:00pm you go to your room, because you didn’t want to make them angry.” 

This is similar to Jeanette and her experience and how at night when her dad came home you don’t want to mess with him, because it could get violent. While there were of course great memories with both Jeanette and Mrs. O’s parents, there were also times of fear, when both of Mrs. O’s parents or Jeanette’s dad were drunk they were different people. 

It’s interesting to see that not only Jeanette grew up in a hard living situation, even in two different eras of time. 

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Family Relationships 6

The last thing I really wanted to look in depth in my book The Glass Castle is in fact The Glass Castle. When the glass castle is first introduced to us as readers on page 25, it is described as this majestic creation that the family was all looking forward to create together. But when you think about a glass castle you think about princesses and magic and fantasy, not a dirty old family whose dad is just a drunk and might have some smart wits about him. But I think he instilled this image in his kids minds so that they would stay with him, because every where they moved it was so they could get money for this castle, it gave them purpose and a drive, it held the family together in one bundle of hope. Fast forward a while to the next time they really start talking about the castle again, in Welch Brian and Jeanette start digging a hole for the base of the house. Their Dad had taped the dimensions and so every day they worked on digging a nice big and deep hole. Well pretty soon they had a nice pile of trash and needed to put it somewhere, so the dad starts dumping it in the hole Brian and Jeanette had been working so diligently. Pretty soon the hole disappeared and once again their dad had destroyed another dream. The next time the Dad brings up the glass castle is when Jeanette is planning on leaving home for New York, and Mr. Walls tries to lure her back in by showing her new plans, but at this point she had been let down so many times that she was not going for any bait. The last time the glass castle was ever brought up again was at the end of Mr. Walls time on page 279 this conversation occurs, “ ‘Never built that Glass Castle.’ ‘No. But we had fun planning it.’” This just proves that it was never about having the castle, only the process, only the planning, and only the hope. The thing about glass, is that it’s fragile and can break very easily and the glass castle broke a long time before she would have ever admitted it. Because although it was strange, unrealistic, and impossible, it held the Walls family together, and there is no doubt about that. 

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Family Relationships 5

So all throughout the book Jeanette (the narrator and author) is trying to make things better for her family, and I would argue for herself. She starts off by trying to sell rocks that she had collected at Battle Mountain, she later tries to paint their ugly run down house in Welch with yellow paint, she saves up money to buy braces, and she saves up money to help Lori move to New York after graduation. All of these cases failed. Her rocks were to expensive and there was no one around to buy them, she only ended up painting part of the front section of her house and because of that making it much worse looking, she never saved enough money for herself to buy braces, and the money she has saved up for Lori ended up being stolen by her dad. There was only one thing that she ever did to improve her quality of life that worked... And that was to move away after junior year. However after living there for a couple of years (I would say the BEST years of her life) her parents came to New York and ruined all of that. They once again were the helpless parents that she always had to take care of, and I realized how the only way she was ever going to be free and have the best possible quality of life, is once her parents died. Never have I ever thought that death would be as relieving as I think it would be for her. Of course there’s mourning when her Dad dies, but she also finds more of who she is, and that is what she had needed from the beginning of her life. 

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Family Relationships 4

The glass castle is all about a poor family right? SO a good question to ask might be... How does poverty affect a family? and the relationships in that family? Well all throughout the book it describes all of the hardships they have encountered in their lives. They were constantly moving (running away from bills and debts), and never really had close friends because no one was quite like them AND they didn’t have enough time to build a strong relationship with really anyone. In regards to moving around they never felt like any place was their home, but they also had an amazing sense of the country, a lot of kids only stay in one state and don’t know what their own country looks like. They got to know different lifestyles and the different necessities of our nation and learn the beauty in adventure. They may have never had friends and while that is super sad, it also only encouraged closer relationships within the family. The only people Jeanette and her brother and sisters had to trust was themselves. When the Walls were living in Welch it was a very bad neighborhood filled with tons of violence, now sure there was risk that the kids could get hurt, but at the same time they learned how to be strong and stand up for themselves, they may not have been as tender and soft as the rich kids they never could be, but they were rough and tough, and because of that there was never any obstacle they were afraid of and there was never a conflict they couldn’t handle. 

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Family Relationships 3

In The Glass Castle the mom has this little monologue that I found extremely interesting, she said, “ ‘ No child is born a delinquent. They only became that way, if nobody loved them when they were kids. Unloved children grow up to become serial murderers or alcoholics. Try to be nicer to Billy, he doesn’t have all of the advantages you do.” Two things, the first is that she said unloved kids become alcoholics... Her husband, Jeanette’s dad was in fact an alcoholic, so we now know that her dad was unloved growing up, and this must explain why he is so loving to his kids... or is he? This brings up my other thought on this piece, depending on your definition of love, are these kids loved? Many might argue that because they barely have their basic needs met and their dad can’t hold a job to save his life, how could their parents possibly love them? and so in that case, they are going to grow up and become nasty. On the other hand, love may be in fact the ONLY thing this family has at all, whether it’s good love or not. When they don’t have food or a shelter to live under, they have each other, and they really cherish each other’s presences always (except for when Mr. Walls is drunk). So I guess in this case it depends on what definition of love you believe in, but I would argue that because of the dad’s past with being unloved he has made it a priority to always make sure his kids feel loved (this may be why he makes up stories to cover the hard things in their lives), and so in that case, the kids will grow up to be just fine. Again we will have to read and see how they all turn out to truly know the answer. 

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Family Relationships 2

In The Glass Castle Jeanette Walls also brings up a controversial topic of the kids parenting the parents instead of the other way around. Growing up Jeanette was put into numerous situations where she was needed to step it up and be more parent like than her parents. For example, her dad got fired from his jobs quite frequently so in this case when he got fired all the kids got together to brainstorm what they could do to scrap up some money for their family as they had in the past, in addition to finding metal and bottles and things like that Jeanette and her older sister Lori had this conversation, “ ‘I guess we could eat less,’ I said. ‘We have before,’ Lori said.” in this case the very young kids actually had to have a conversation about making money for their family and sacrificing eating to do so. In another instance the parents had been in a bad fight and once Jeanette’s older brother Brian came to the rescue the parents were yelling whose fault it was to Brian, just like how kids do when their mom snarls at them for fighting. All of the kids also had to take responsibility for their mom and getting her ready for school (because she was a teacher), this is incredibly ironic, because as a kid your mom generally gets you up and ready for school. There are so many places in these kids’ lives where they had to take on the roll of the parent even if they were under 10 years old. The real question becomes... Is that bad? Is it wrong that kids had to be more mature at an earlier age? It seems so terrible to me at first because that’s just not what we’re used to, but in the long run couldn’t you argue that it actually helps mature the kid at an earlier age and prepare them for life early on? I don’t know I guess I’ll have to wait and find out how she turned out.  

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Family Relationships 1

In my book the Glass Castle Jeanette Walls tells about her crazy experiences growing up in a very different kind of family. I’ve noticed a lot of themes and repetition in this book, so the first thing I noticed a couple of times was the way her family defined “basic needs”. To me and all of my closest friends, our basic needs are much much different than the Walls. For instance Jeanette writes, “Instead of beds, we kids slept in a big cardboard box, like the ones refrigerators get delivered in... We liked our boxes. They made going to bed seem like an adventure.” When I first heard this I was stunned because I could not imagine sleeping in a cardboard box, and being ok with it. She later states that, “Once mom started teaching I thought maybe we’d be able to buy new clothes, eat cafeteria lunches, and even spring for nifty extras like the class pictures the school took every year.” Again these are all things that me and all of my friends all get without a second thought. And even later she writes, “That was the thing about the hospital. You never have to worry about running out of things like food or ice cream or even chewing gum. I would have been happy staying in that hospital forever.” This statement blows my socks off because never have I ever worried about running out of food. Now of course there are people in my community who do, this is a problem that sweeps the world, but it’s interesting to see different people’s attitudes on different subjects. She wasn’t mad that she couldn’t sleep in a bed, while I would completely flip. She wasn’t complaining about not being able to have the class picture, yet myself would have felt privileged to have it. It’s crazy to notice the things that I take for granted and “couldn’t live without” and then see people that actually do live without it, and the fact that they are just fine. It sort of sets you in your place. Especially because while it may affect her FAMILY, it doesn’t affect her FAMILY RELATIONSHIPS.

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Mona: Now that’s what I call art

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High Art Golf Course

The design of a golf course is intricate, it is mapped out specifically to the game that is made to be played. Every hill, every groove, and every bunker is made to affect your game and your view. Some hills are made to block your view, some are made to make your shot harder or easier, and some are for decoration. Every blade of grass is taken care of with the most extreme amount of watch allowed. There are special mowers made for certain lengths of grass, there are special chemicals made for specific grasses, and there are special tools made for certain circumstances. The greens are taken care of as if they are children, and the bunkers are raked over and over until the sand is as soft as fur. The point is that a golf course is truly a form of art, it not only is designed beautifully and used practically, but it also is taken care of in the most beautiful way possible. 

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Thinking. High Art.

http://dailyshakespeare.tumblr.com/post/148460711621/if-thou-rememberst-not-the-slightest-folly-that 

Now this is one of many many manyyyyy lines from Shakespeare that inevitably shakes the reader. Shakespeare was an amazing thinker, he was one of the first authors to through away the coloring page and start with a clean slate. He gave words new meanings, he gave meanings new meanings, he invented new words, he took use of singular, plural, formal, and informal, and played with emotions. Everything he wrote was meant to satisfy all crowds all personalities and all emotions. He didn’t just think for himself he thought for everyone, in the most impossible individual way.