The Line Between Truth and Fiction

"Supposed to Be" “You’re just a girl” These are four words that I absolutely hate hearing together. So what? What if I am a girl, does that make me any different? Am I not capable of thinking for myself? Am I not supposed to defend myself? Am I supposed to sit and take it all in, and not open my mouth? Sometimes it does feel that way. When I was younger it never occurred to me that boys and girls were “supposed” to like certain things. When I was in kindergarten instead of gossiping about the new American girl doll, or Barbie movie that came out, I would talk about how cool flying dinosaurs were since their bones were hollow unlike our bones. I was immediately labelled as a tomboy. I grew up enjoying things that boys were “supposed” to like. My passion for learning about dinosaurs soon turned into a passion for science and math. In fourth grade, I was searching for a notable person in history that I could pretend to be during our wax museum project. I wanted my pe...

"Emotion" What’s the point of listening to melodies with incorporated lyrics, when you could just read the lyrics in a textbook? The lyrics of songs are poems. Song-writers are poets.   Why does majority of the public find joy in listening to these “poems”, but act indifferent towards actual poems? Music is like a drug. It is addicting, and once you start listening to it, you don’t to want to stop. It helps you forget your pain and stress. “… There seemed to be more to all that music. The reverberation came to mean something, took form and function.” (Alexie, 28). This quote from the passage we read in class really helped me understand why I listen to music. To me it’s more than just a few repeating phrases and beat drops. It’s a way to let go by just enjoying what I’m listening to in the moment. I relate to the lyrics and the feelings of the song-writers as I unconsciously analyze them like poetry.   I connect the emotions to my own life, and by doing so a sense of...

"Good"     What does it take to be a “good” American citizen? Has a set definition ever been made?     I have always believed that it is the smaller actions that matter more than the larger ones. But when the little things don’t mean as much to you anymore, are you less of a citizen?     Everyone morning, two minutes into second hour we all groggily stand up and mutter the pledge of allegiance, some even completely ignoring it to struggle on a quiz . I remember elementary school, where it was a competition to see who could remember the most lines and who could scream those lines the loudest. It was one of the highlights of the day, because we knew everyone in the school was screaming the same word at the same time with us. Even if we didn’t know what the words meant, it made us feel like we were a part of America. What changed in just a couple of years? Are we less of a “good” citizen if we don’t scream the pledge every mornin...