Interview

“She means the whole world to me,” Katlyn Proctor beams as she speaks about he sister. How many people do you know that can say that about their siblings? Katlyn describes her sister as her ‘rock’ and her ‘go to person.’ This is somewhat surprising because growing up; Katlyn was a bit of a mother figure to her younger sister, Alexe. Generally, you would think Alexe may resent Katlyn but they are as tight as ever, “it’s hard to stress how important she is to me,” said Katlyn.

When Katlyn entered the sixth grade, her parents “sort of checked out of parenthood.” They had Katlyn very young and Alexe shortly after, so now that Katlyn was (to their standards) old enough to take care of herself and her sister, she had to grow up quickly. Katlyn holds a lot of anger towards her young-hearted parents and even admitted, “I’m really bitter towards them.” The day Katlyn was old enough to get a job, she had two and every paycheck she received went straight to her parents. She feels as though she lost some of her youth because she had to stay home and take care of Alexe and had to balance out going to high school and having two jobs, she did not have much time to be a free-spirited teenager.

Now, her parents are in the middle of a divorce, which Katlyn had said that both her and her sister have been expecting for a while, but it is becoming more of a burden on Katlyn and Alexe. The battle started last year while Katlyn was a freshman here at Roger Williams and Alexe was a senior, stuck at home in the middle of all of it. It killed Katlyn to know that Alexe was stuck at home dealing with it on her own, but she admitted that she found Roger Williams to be an escape and a comfort away from her contradicting parents. Both parents were pulling her in different directions and it seemed as though she felt like she abandoned Alexe when she said “[Alexe was] fighting a one-man battle when we were always on the same team.” Luckily Alexe is now a freshman at Keene State University in their home state of New Hampshire, but at least she is away from her battling parents and out of the house hopefully finding comfort and an escape as Katlyn did.

Mad As Hell

It seems as though Joe Wilson and Glenn Beck have something in common, they are not fans of President Barack Obama, or at least that's the image they are giving off. Joe Wilson was extremely out of line and extremely unprofessional when had diarrhea of the mouth and blurted out "LIAR" in the middle of President Obama's speech. Obama seemed taken aback and disrespected, but carried on with his speech. No matter how Joe Wilson feels about the President and his proposals, he was in the wrong and just ended up making himself look like a fool. As for Glenn Beck, he is also entitled to his own opinion but his claims seem a little out of whack as well, which based on the reading did not seem something out of character for him. He seems to exaggerate and make irrational claims. Saying that Obama hates white people would be like saying any other past president hated black people. It seems as though just because Glenn Beck is white and Obama is black, he is trying to stir the pot. As a white woman, I can confidently say that I do not believe President Obama has a “deep seated hatred for white people or white culture.” Though I can’t speak for anyone but myself, I do not think that many other educated Caucasian would agree with his statement either or at least not to that extent.

It just makes me wonder if the road between “black and white” will ever be paved. Not be a pessimistic but it seems that though racism will never completely go away because children generally carry their parent’s values into their families when they grow up, which makes a vicious cycle that seems endless.

Waking Life 9/8/09

Language is something that although may be different depending on the country, is universal. Everyone has means to communicate. Without language, we would be very isolated individuals. The exercise we did in class was the perfect display of this. The first example was the most simple; draw a box, and the student drew a box. But then it got more complicated, like draw a home, it was a box with a roof, a few windows and a sun, exactly what you’d expect to see. The last task was to draw something (not in the English language). Once it was described to him, he executed it well. This exercised demonstrated the importance of language and communication. The student was able to follow the instructions he was given and draw everything on the board until he was given the directions in Spanish. Then he was unable to draw the object. It was the same directions, but in a different language. This made the two students unable to communicate. Language is bigger than just communicating because it is part of our culture and the way we live. In the clip from Waking Life, the woman says that she believes language came out of the frustration of being isolated and the longing for human connection. This is exactly how language budded because if we still had no language today, it would be a lonely and simple place.