Tuesday, November 26, 2013

Family and Food at Thanksgiving Time

By Christina Jinsky, senior English major at Silver Lake College

When we hear the word “Thanksgiving” a lot things come to mind. For some, I bet they think of Black Friday and the amazing deals they are going to get. For others, they may think of the time they will get off of work and the time they will get to spend with their family. But the one thing that comes to mind for me is the Thanksgiving food.

A Thanksgiving Poem:
May your stuffing be tasty.
May your turkey be plump.
May your potatoes and gravy have a nary lump.
May your yams be delicious
And your pies take the prize.
And May your Thanksgiving Dinner
Stay off your thighs!
(Author Unknown)

Food is a big part of Thanksgiving. We all look forward to the turkey and stuffing and mashed potatoes and gravy. We can’t forget about the cranberry sauce and deviled eggs and of course the dinner rolls with butter. In my family, what we most look forward to is the dessert. The second crucial part of Thanksgiving is family and what we give thanks for. I’m lucky enough in my family that both of the parts fit so well together.
My dad is the ultimate baker – well at least that’s how he's known to those who have ever had the chance to indulge in some of his delicious treats. Each year he tries to think of something new or different to bake and bring to the family dinner. Even if no one explicitly says “Dad (Larry), can you bring a dessert to pass?” he knows that he is in charge of a dessert or two to bring… I think it’s just a given in our family.
This year for Thanksgiving my dad is deciding between three desserts that he would like to make: Cranberry Cheesecake Tartlets, Cranberry Nut Pie, and Cranberry Apple Crisp Pie. My dad tries to find a new, different dessert to make every year unless someone makes a ‘request’ for a certain one they really like. He came about deciding upon these three this year with my help.
I live in the dorms at Silver Lake College and I usually have a nightly conversation with my dad on the phone, as he and I are two peas in a pod. A couple weeks ago one particular conversation lasted a little over an hour because he had me looking up recipes online and trying to decide which ones might sound good to make for Thanksgiving. First I started on Pinterest thinking that they might have some really good ideas for desserts – that didn’t go very far because nothing I read to my dad sounded that appealing. Then my dad said “why don’t you try the Ocean Spray website, I hear they have a lot of good recipes on there." Well, that was our hot ticket – that website holds a lot of recipes – desserts, main dishes, basically a recipe for an entire 5 course meal. I read probably about 10 different recipes to my dad offof  that website before he finally narrowed it down to the three he wanted me to bring home.
(My dad is not the most tech savvy person and so therefore we don’t have internet at home. Only during the summer months when I’m home.)
My dad always teases that he is going to throw out all of his recipes and hang up his baking hat. Good thing he is only teasing, because my dad’s desserts aren’t just good to eat but they seem to make people happy when they eat them. Maybe that’s why they are the best ending to every family holiday.  A perfect cherry on top of everyone's food comas.
So I hope your family has as wonderful of a time as my family does this Thanksgiving. I hope you fill your bellies until there is no room left to fill and then enjoy a good dessert.



Christina is a senior at Silver Lake College.  She is a dual major in Psychology and English with a Writing emphasis.  She enjoys spending time with her loved ones.
 

Wednesday, November 20, 2013

Why Literature and the Language Arts Still Matter

By Elizabeth Fritsch, senior English major at Silver Lake College

                         
  What do you do with a B.A. in English,
What is my life going to be?
Four years of college and plenty of knowledge,
Have earned me this useless degree.

I can't pay the bills yet,
'Cause I have no skills yet,
The world is a big scary place.

But somehow I can't shake,
The feeling I might make,
A difference,
To the human race.
(From Avenue Q)


The question is the same for all students who tell their family and friends that they plan to major in English: What are you going to do with an English degree?  And the question, as you may know, is never a question of polite curiosity.  As an English education major, the question is a little less brutal for me, since most people believe that the only profession one can realistically obtain with an English major is teaching.  The insinuation still exists, though, that I’d be far better off teaching in the field of mathematics, science, or technology.  After all, why do students need English?

All English teachers have heard the chorus of questions from their students (Why are we required to read Macbeth?  Why do we need to write persuasive essays?  Why do we need to understand archaic literary concepts?  Why do we need to know how to correctly use semicolons?) that effectively serve to undermine the respect given to English discipline and consequently devalue any profession in the discipline.  After all, the students have a point.  Nobody has asked me to evaluate the ending of Macbeth.  Nobody besides my teachers, professors, and a few peer editors has read any of my persuasive essays.  I can’t even remember that last time I used the words synecdoche or dactyl (and to be honest, half of the time I can’t remember what they mean), and the semicolon is extinct to almost all born in the digital age, save Matthew Inman, the creator of The Oatmeal.

(From: The Oatmeal)


If the purpose of literature and the language arts is not to instill students with a fervent appreciation of Tolstoy, a keen eye for comma splices, and the ability to tell the difference between an iamb and a trochee, what then is the purpose?  Some may argue that English serves the noble purpose of expanding students’ horizons, allowing them to think critically, creatively, and beyond their conception of self.  They may argue that the study of English and all it encompasses is essentially the study of humanity – of who we are at the core of our being.  While I think the discipline of English definitely attempts to do these things, when we take a critical look at our beloved discipline, an inconsistency occurs in what the study of English attempts and what students learn.  After all, if English really teaches what it means to be human and how to think and live critically and creatively, why aren’t college students scrambling to register for literature classes and why aren’t middle and high school students actually reading To Kill a Mockingbird instead of skimming the Sparknotes?

We need to reinvigorate the discipline with meaning.  To many students, English is a list of books to read and a stack of essays to write.  Those who have fallen in love with the discipline understand that it is so much more – that English is not just a discipline, but THE discipline which allows all other disciplines to flourish and have meaning.  All disciplines depend on English as their bedrock.  English allows for students to excel in Chemistry, Politics, Psychology, and even Math.  English is first and foremost the discipline that teaches the reception, discussion, and contribution of ideas.  The books and essays (as much as it may pain me to say it) are just the tools.  It is upon these skills that not only students’ grades and degrees hang, but also their ability to become lifelong learners and succeed in the professional world and beyond.  We need to teach students that the heart of English is the importance of ideas, not just the ideas of people who have died centuries ago, but also their own ideas, along with the ideas of their teachers and peers.


Yes, Beowulf might go away.  The semicolon may disappear.  Sonnets might become extinct.  But the importance of the reception, discussion, and contribution of ideas will remain eternal, and consequently, so will the need for people to study English.   

Elizabeth Fritsch is a senior at
Silver Lake College.  She is majoring
in English (teaching emphasis) and minoring
in History and Theology.


Sunday, November 10, 2013

Remembering Veteran's Day

By Libby Spencer, junior English major at Silver Lake College

Often when thinking of Veteran’s Day we are brought back to an important time in our country’s history- the Vietnam War.  At the time of the Vietnam War, the U.S. government viewed American involvement as a way to prevent a communist takeover of South Vietnam.  Beginning in 1950, American military advisors arrived in what was then French Indochina, but U.S. involvement really escalated in the early 1960s, with troop levels tripling in 1961 and again in 1962. Regular U.S. combat units were deployed beginning in 1965. Later in 1968, the war peaked when operations crossed international borders and from that Laos and Cambodia were heavily bombed by the U.S. American involvement.  After this, U.S. ground forces were gradually withdrawn as part of a policy known as Vietnamization, which aimed to end American involvement in the war. Despite the Paris Peace Accords, which was signed by all parties in January 1973, the fighting continued.  Direct U.S. military involvement ended on August 15, 1973 as a result of the Case–Church Amendment passed by the U.S. Congress.  In total, 58,220 U.S. service members died in the conflict.

In memory of the soldiers lost in the Vietnam War, the Vietnam Veterans Memorial was dedicated in November of 1982 Washington, D.C.  It honors U.S. service members of the U.S. armed forces who fought in the Vietnam War, service members who died in service in Vietnam/South East Asia, and those service members who were unaccounted for during the War.  In March of 1982, Maya Lin, who was a senior undergraduate architecture student at Yale at the time, submitted the design for the Wall in a competition.  Her design beat out 4,120 other designs and in her entry for the competition she envisions seeing her wall for the first time:
. . . the memorial appears as a rift in the earth—a long, polished black stone wall, emerging from and receding into the earth. . . . Walking into the grassy site contained by the walls . . . we can barely make out the carved names upon the memorial’s walls . . . seemingly infinite in number. . . .
When designing this monument Lin could not have imagined the response from visitors, especially of those who were veterans themselves.  Today we find ourselves coping with war and tragedy through reading and writing.  That is exactly what the poet Yusef Komunyakaa does when he describes his experience of visiting the Vietnam Veterans Memorial for the first time.  According to "Yusef Komuyakaa: Facing It" by Robin Ekiss, Komunyakaa served in Vietnam as a correspondent and managing editor for the military newspaper Southern Cross from 1969-1970.  In 1982, Komunyakaa began to reflect on his experiences.  In his poem, Facing It, Komunyakaa’s response to his war experience is deeply shaped by his visit to Lin’s memorial.  Inspired by the monument, he confronts his conflicted feelings about Vietnam, its legacy, and, even the part race plays in America.

Facing It
My black face fades,
hiding inside the black granite.
I said I wouldn't,
dammit: No tears.
I'm stone. I'm flesh.
My clouded reflection eyes me
like a bird of prey, the profile of night
slanted against morning. I turn
this way--the stone lets me go.
I turn that way--I'm inside
the Vietnam Veterans Memorial
again, depending on the light
to make a difference.
I go down the 58,022 names,
half-expecting to find
my own in letters like smoke.
I touch the name Andrew Johnson;
I see the booby trap's white flash.
Names shimmer on a woman's blouse
but when she walks away
the names stay on the wall.
Brushstrokes flash, a red bird's
wings cutting across my stare.
The sky. A plane in the sky.
A white vet's image floats
closer to me, then his pale eyes
look through mine. I'm a window.
He's lost his right arm
inside the stone. In the black mirror
a woman's trying to erase names:
No, she's brushing a boy's hair.
Through reading and writing we are able to find closure, understanding, and hope.  Reading Komunyakaa’s, Facing It, gives insight to the struggle not only he faces, but also the many veterans who have experienced the hardships of war and now live in the aftermath.  Veterans risked their lives for us and our country.  This Veteran’s Day make sure to thank the veterans you know for their hard work and dedication to this country.




 

Libby Spencer is a junior at Silver Lake College.  She is majoring in English (with an emphasis in Writing) and minoring in Spanish.  She enjoys spending time with her family, coaching and participating in sports, and of course, writing.