Tina Palin

She really does peg it. 

I Shot the War

I finished Shooting War on my lunch break tonight. I really loved it. There are many subliminal texts and visuals. It was both a fun read and very interesting. It was different from anything else I've read. I mean, I've read comics before so it wasn't difficult adjusting to the format, but this was different, it quickly puts faces to names in a way a novel can't and was more challenging than a film. All in all, I really enjoyed it. 

I look forward to bringing up a lot of thoughts next class. (i.e: crosses on soldiers helmets, logos, robotic killing machines, etc.) There is a lot of material to play with! 

is YOUR child hiding a Koran?

I started reading Shooting War. Really smart. Excellently disturbing. I love the news crawl, side-cramping funny. "Next: When Your Child is Hiding a Koran". It really conveys the power of media. While reading this, I swear I could see overweight, Middle America screaming from the ass-dented sofa:

"Hank... HANK!" 

"WHAT JO-ANNE, I'm in the bathroom." 

"Go-on and check the boy's room for that koo-RAN book they have been talkin' 'bout on the t.v, I'm worried they are praying to that ooh-llah character..."

The illustrations are great, I like the faint underlying of photographs. And boy do Lappe and Goldman really kill corporate. The chain logos are everywhere. Really smart. I'm only about a quarter of the way through and look forward to discussing it in class. 

McCain vs Obama

Just a quick blurb while I'm on my lunch break:

I went home on my break tonight and watched the Presidential Debate (God Bless TiVo).  I love the debates because they really give you insight into  candidate's character. It was almost comical! McCain didn't look at Obama once, he got frazzled on a number of occasions upon which he scoffed and rolled his eyes, and he fidgeted like an angry teenager. For such an "experienced" candidate, he looked almost as inexperienced as his VP. Kudos to Obama for his ability to hold his composure and act like a President should. 

Can't wait for the VP debates! 

And then it hit me...

When I got home tonight, my fiancee and I ordered in Chinese, opened a bottle of wine and chatted about our day. I told him about classes, he told me about work (my fiancee is a Internist at a hospital). He told me about a patient he lost last night at work and how disturbed he was about the case because he had really gotten to know this patient. And then it hit me: We are constantly surrounded by sickness and death. I am a Radiologic Technologist at Beth Israel Medical Center. I work in the Emergency Room, in the ICUs and in the O.R. In order to survive mentally, you MUST detach yourself from your patients. It is one of the first things they teach you going into the field. 

A few months ago, my younger sister met me for dinner on my break. Outside of the emergency room, I was introducing my sister to a co-worker when an ambulance pulled up. The driver jumped out and tore the doors of the bus open and to my sister's horror, pulled out the stretcher. There was an infant straddled by a medic performing CPR being rushed into the ER. To me, this was nothing special, just a patient, a chest x-ray to be done... work. My sister was horrified that I simply turned around, looked at the medics and continued the conversation as if nothing had happened. She couldn't understand how I seemed so emotionless. The coping mechanism for military personnel and medical personnel are quite similar. The dead, dying and sick must become work and nothing more. 

The problem is, you can never really detach completely, at least I can't anyway. What happens is that when you least expect it, you remember things; memories that creep up on you over your General Tao and pinot, like the look in a family members eyes when they've just lost their mother, or the Winnie the Pooh print on the baby's diaper and the sound of the mother sobbing from inside the ambulance. 

Discussion thoughts...

I’ve resisted this blog since Prof. Lennon gave us the assignment. I’m a creature of habit, I like the good ole’ pen and paper. To my surprise, while pushing through my resistance, I’m finding easier to post.

I’ve had a really cruddy week. I’m taking too many classes, working too much and trying to balance a twisted personal life on the remaining available fingertip. (I know, insert world’s smallest violin here.) I still have a sour taste in my mouth from ingesting Jarhead but am learning to both respect it as a work of art and relate to it as a memoir.

The last class discussion was fantastic. Everyone had pretty interesting thoughts about different parts of the memoir that I hadn’t originally thought of:

The Language as a means of stripping the men of their identities and a way to sever the ties between them and ordinary civilization was interesting but when Terrence further broke down the language I was blown away: “The words are dumbed-down, feminized and demeaning (i.e: hats become ‘covers’, shoes become ‘go fasters’). Brilliant call Terrence!

I’m finding a theme within the memoir that is seemingly parallel to my life, but that’s something I’ll leave for a later blog.

Until...

Cracking Jarhead

Haven't posted in a few days. Completely drowning in life. I sat down a few nights ago to start reading Swofford's Jarhead and found myself struggling to get past the first few pages. I put the book down and chalked my uninterested attitude up to stress. The following night I picked up the book with a bit more enthusiasm to no avail. I am forcing myself to read through this novel and I can't quite figure out why. Perhaps war novels aren't exactly my cup of tea. Perhaps it's the machismo characters. Whatever the reason, I hope soon I can find my flow within this book because reading this way is just torturous.

Gibson v.s Palin

dear blog,

in the midst of my back pain angst, there happens to be something that makes me feel better about myself...check this out... Jeepers... is this what the republican party has come to? "change" just for changes sake? At least Obama had something worth changing: America, the republicans: the intelligence level for running candidates. Check out Palin in her interview with Charlie Gibson, tell me if I'm wrong. Palin interview. Don't get me wrong, I think she is smart enough for the job, but extraordinarily unprepared. I mean, just imagine Obama in that seat, would we still be getting the same answers over and over again? Would he be squirming in his seat unknowing what to say?
Is this the best choice for the republican party? Or is it simply solidification of a choice made purely out of strategic planning for a seat in the Oval office with no thought of the American People? You tell me.

Best,

Hopeful yet doubtful
xoxo

Blogging for Dummies

So it's day three of lying in bed which in theory sounds like my dream come true, but as it turns out, is horribly boring and pretty painful. All of this bed "rest" has got me obsessing over these blog assignments. I should be somewhat computer savvy having grown up with a computer in my hands, however, these assignments have made me realize I am actually technologically inept.

Embarrassingly enough, I have read through Blogging for Dummies about 12 times and still can't figure this whole thing out. Despite my shamed ego, I had to cave and call Jaime to figure out how to insert links into my page. Through his endless laughing I managed to figure it out and am even more embarrassed, now knowing how simple it was.

Anyone who pities a poor 21st century simpleton, feel free to take me by the hand and guide me through this new world of online journals. Any takers?

it feels as if my world is crashing down around me

In a whirlwind of emergency room patients, this weekend I managed to injure myself to the point of three days bed rest and never ending physical therapy sessions. "A slipped disk at L5-S1" is what they called it. It is truly a different experience becoming a patient in the hospital you work. Not nearly the experience I'd imagined. 

So now that I have countless hours to literally lie in bed and do nothing, I thought I'd give the Mercy Seat another go. Upon second completion of the play, I decided that the story wasn't about 9/11 ... rather, it was about the self and the errors during human interaction that leads to great destruction. [enter images of the towers falling here].

 

While the story is centered around a traumatic event, the event eventually turns into a symbolic backdrop, never really taking the stage as a key player. However, this backdrop is able to convey the end of the character's relationship, the mess it will create, and the feeling as if their entire world is crashing down around them. literally.

The Mercy Seat

So, I spent Friday afternoon reading Labute's The Mercy Seat on the Promenade. It was fantastically depressing while overlooking the city skyline. I found myself looking across the river toward the Trade Center every so often; I suppose this was an unconscious slap back into reality. What this did was surface a memory that had been repressed for so long, I forgot it even existed.

I can't quite grasp Abby's character. Who is she? What is she doing there? How does she feel? The power struggle between the sexes is quite apparent throughout, but coupled with the destruction of life/relationships...?? Does the blase skyline relate to the intimate relationship between Ben and Abby? Does it represent the lack of intimacy? Everything throughout is seemingly connected yet disconnected at the same time. Is that the point?