On Sunday, October
28 I attended Bobrauschenbergamerica presented by the Evergreens of Loyola
University Maryland. The readings this week that related to this play were “A
Father” by Bharati Mukherjee, “Serving up Hope” by Stephanie Shapiro,
“Directions for Resisting the SAT” by Richard Hague and “First Practice” by
Gary Gildner. Each of these readings and the play taught me about different
life situations between cultures and teenagers today.
The
Bobrauschenbergamerica led by the Evergreens was a very interesting and
different kind of play. I have never seen a play that was structured like this
one. This play consisted of 36 scenes where each scene portrayed different life
situations that teenagers have to deal with. Whether it was a girlfriend cheating
on her boyfriend or talking about sex with someone in a bathtub, the evergreens
seemed to cover a lot about love and relationships between one another. They
mostly used comedy and even singing/dancing to portray these themes to lighten
the mood. It wasn’t the most serious play I have been to but it still taught me
a lot of useful things that I can look back on in the future. My favorite scene
was when they used chicken jokes to talk about different stereotypes of today’s
society. It was a good way to talk about them without offending anyone.
In “Directions for
Resisting the SAT” by Richard Hague the speaker says how we should live life to
“Make marks on everything”. The first half of the poem is about how the SAT’s
and how our successes are based on “rotten luck”. I disagree with this
statement because I believe that if you work hard toward something that you
want then you will achieve your goal. On the other hand the second half of the
poem showed how we shouldn’t follow anyone else, and to not hold anything back
on anything. I completely agree with these statements. If you live life by
listening to others and not living it to the fullest then you’re not taking any
risks. Do not be a follower; create your own path in life.
In the “First Practice” by Gary Gildner it describes
high school football. These days there is so much pressure put on athletes,
especially football players, to succeed in games. This poem shows how intense a
high school football practice is. When I think of football I picture the coaches
yelling extremely loud at the players and early or late practices into the
night going over plays. I always portrayed football players as being very tough
and through this poem you would have to be to get through the season with this
kind of coach. Clifford hill was the type of coach that believed “dogs at dogs”
and had once killed for his country. He was a strong believer in winning by
anyway and the players had to follow whatever task he made for them. In the
poem Coach Clifford made them stand facing each other imagining that they were
enemies and he wanted to see how the players took each other down to win. This
shows how there is too much pressure on athletes these days to win. Some people
seem to forget that “it’s just a game” sometimes.
“A Father” by Bharati
Mukherjee showed me how different other cultures can be. I felt lucky to be
apart of the one I am today because this short story has showed me that others
aren’t so lucky. This story is about an Indian family and how there is an
unwanted pregnancy by the parents. The father soon realizes that his daughter
is pregnant but not married. He disapproves of this completely and in the end
gets into a fight with his daughter. To end the pregnancy he hit his daughter’s
stomach with a rolling pin. I couldn’t imagine this happening to me. The Indian
culture is so strict with marriage and pregnancies. When I finished the story I
thought about how the Indian culture is extremely different from American
culture. We even have shows on television now that promote teen pregnancy.
These two cultures are completely opposite. Although I do not agree with shows
like Teen Mom, I do not understand how you could just hit your daughter’s
stomach as hard as you could. “A Father”
really opened my eyes up about other cultures in the world and I realized that
I need to be more aware of the countries around us.
“Serving up Hope”
by Stephanie Shapiro focused on Bridget and Galen Sampson. This couple was
truly inspiring. Bridget ran an outreach program for women who had been
released from jail and she established a literacy program for kids. Her main
goal is to open a community school where families can learn to put their lives
together. Bridget said, “I’m trying to make the world a better place, as corny
as that may sound”. This is a perfect example of someone who puts others before
themselves. She is far from selfish and is just trying to make the world a
better place for everyone. Her husband Galen also contributes to this. He owns
a Dogwood Deli counter in Hampden where he hires people who are coming out from
recovery programs. He takes chances on them when no one else does. His workers
look up to both Bridget and Galen. One of their employees said “not only gave
me a good job, they treat you well and pay you well. I feel very valued here.”
This shows how much Galen cares for his workers and treats them with the up
most respect. He not only runs his deli but also makes sure that his employees
are staying on track with their recovery. Both Bridget and Galen remind me of
Jesuit education. They are both looking out for everyone else and are trying to
better their community. There main focus in life is to help others and that’s
what a Jesuit education is about
Overall each of
these readings and the play I attended showed me different situations that
people go through in life. I learned that I need to be my own person and not
follow others, how tough it can be to be an athlete, and that I need to be more
informed about different cultures in the world.
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