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(10/06/10 11:41pm)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>I wasn’t always an English major.As fall approaches, I am reminded of this time last year when I attended DePaul University. I studied in the theater school, which held its incoming freshmen to an intensive first quarter comprised entirely of theater classes. I was also required to work backstage in the theater’s productions and committed to it rigorously. I lived and breathed theater for several months with little wiggle room for outside interests.Needless to say, I grew slightly tired of it, craving an education outside of the dramatic world, missing classes where I wrote essays and read books. I yearned for metaphors and foreshadowing instead of “stage right” and “fly system.”After one tiring test in theatrical history, I decided to wander around the Wicker Park area where I came across an establishment curiously named The Boring Store, which had an orange awning with an assortment of suspicious messages on it.“No longer supplying anything of utility.”“Purveyors of characterless, dreary, banal, mundane, tiresome and tedious merchandise after two years of absolutely no business.”I was intrigued to say the least. Entering reluctantly, I found what appeared to be a shop for undercover spies, with walls of novelty disguises, X-Ray glasses, message decoders and other accessories of espionage. Going further inside the store, I discovered another kind of merchandise: shelves upon shelves of books by authors like Dave Eggers, Nick Hornby, Jonathan Safran Foer and other names I had long-admired. Ogling over titles by McSweeney’s and in awe by the countless budding post-modern writers, the man at the register startled me with his greeting.“Hello, Secret Agent.”He explained that The Boring Store worked with an organization called CHI826, which is a non-profit writing and tutoring center for kids in the Lincoln Park area. Several compilations of pupils’ prose and poetry were on display with the other books. I peered into a room that read “Top Agents Only,” to see groups of kids sitting at tables, getting writing help with volunteer tutors.At that moment, I realized exactly what I was missing with theater. This was the point at which I decided to switch gears in my education so I could be an English teacher. The other day, I was talking to a friend of mine who aspires to the same profession. I asked him why, exactly, had he chosen this as his future career. He answered quite simply.“An English teacher can really make a difference in a kid, you know? It’s important.”I completely understood, as he reminded me of one of my favorite English teachers from high school, who ironically was named Mrs. Reid. Mrs. Reid was someone who practically saved my freshman year. She was always there to help me keep up with my work, extending deadlines, encouraging me to explore further and praising work I did to keep my self-esteem going. Three years later, I was on my way to graduating, and I asked Mrs. Reid if I could stop by her classroom to catch up.Within minutes, I was telling her everything that was going on in my life, from friends and family to relationships and college. She sat and listened with genuine understanding. After hearing my worries about choosing the right major, she gave me the most honest and comforting advice a person could ever receive.“Do what you love, and I promise everything will work out all right.” I want to fill that role in a student’s life. I want to help kids find their voice and foster a person’s ability to think for himself or herself. I want to be someone students go to when they are lost and need an adult opinion. I am not saying only English teachers can do this, nor am I trying to create a fabrication in which I become Robin William’s character in “Dead Poets Society.”But with five student suicides in the past month, and countless more that we don’t hear about, this epidemic is awakening the nation. We are constantly reminded of the importance of a person’s support system.Suicide, the No. 3 cause of death for teenagers, should bring our attention to the source. High school can be a rather unforgiving place, as we all know. So if an English teacher can be that difference in a student’s life, then sign me up. I want to be there for students just as much as I want to teach them Shakespeare.E-mail: ftirado@indiana.edu
(10/05/10 12:00am)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>There is no specific cure for bullying.There is no prescription for bigotry, and there is no pill for intolerance. There is no all-encompassing first aid kit to console those who suffer quietly. However, something that we can offer, in short, is our voice. In response to the recent suicides of teenagers who were harassed and bullied in their schools due to sexual orientation, outpourings from people have risen to the occasion to make sure that the devastation of these deaths are not unheard. A billboard was put up to create awareness in Greensburg, Ind. The parents of Seth Walsh are working for an anti-bullying campaign in Tehachapi, Calif. Dan Savage has initiated a YouTube channel in which hundreds are uploading videos just to offer comfort to those who struggle, boldly saying, “it gets better.”It is fair to say that in response to a crisis, only a small portion of people will have the mentality to take such public action. To ask everyone to make a poster or start an organization would simply be irrational, but there is a tendency for people to tell themselves that someone else will fix it. But the time for excuses has long passed. We can make a difference by simply caring. Remarkably, this is more difficult for people to do than it should be. Caring, to some extent, has become unpopular. Open-mindedness is more cumbersome a task than it has ever been, and acceptance is undervalued. It is easier for us to shake off someone’s right to be in a relationship with whomever they want. Rather than reaching a hand out, we shrug away sexual fluidity or even mock it. Whether this is preaching to the choir or right-on-target, we ask: In a world of so much hatred and conflict, fighting and loss, what sense is there in rejecting something that is, when it comes down to it, simply love?What we ask is that you exercise your basic human emotions. To care about others is to care about yourself, and going out of your way to be more sensitive will give aid in ways you probably won’t even see. Tyler Clementi jumped off a bridge just a day after he was humiliated on the internet. If he had someone to share his pain with, or if someone could have talked to him for just five minutes, he may have changed his mind.It is our job, as humans, to fulfill that role for another person. Being there for someone who is in pain can have a greater effect than any poster or support group. The ability to hold someone when they feel sad or alone is an ability we are blessed with. We cannot decline this ability because of pride or nonchalance. By being aware of everyone’s right to be as open with themselves as they can be, a silver lining can come out of these tragedies. Through courage and voice in protecting those who might be undergoing hardship, a movement can be made for future generations to be less afraid. Harvey Milk, politician and firm believer in standing for truth, once said something to that effect. “Hope will never be silent.” E-mail: ftirado@indiana.edu
(09/22/10 10:56pm)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>Wednesday was the autumnal equinox. With this, I can now comfortably accept the crunchy pile of leaves that collects around the bike racks near the Henry Radford Hope School of Fine Arts. I can tape my string of kitschy synthetic leaves above my writing desk.I can even re-unite with my warm accessory and long-missed companion, the pumpkin spice latté. Some people cannot observe the coming of fall unless it is October, but I will celebrate the season as soon as I am allowed. Autumn conjures a jumble of emotions as contrasting as the colors it brings in trees. To some, fall is a time of harvest and new beginnings. John Keats called it the “season of mists and mellow fruitfulness, close bosom-friend of the maturing sun.” Emily Dickinson wrote a description I particularly enjoy: “The maple wears a gayer scarf, the field a scarlet gown.” Autumn can be a time to start fresh and put the work from the past year behind you. It is a time to embrace the cold but still enjoy the benefits of the sun before it disappears in December. And of course, there is the simple delight as golden hues blend into leaves and décor alike.On the flip side, William Shakespeare had a different label for fall: “Death’s second self, that seals up all in rest. In me thou see’st the glowing of such fire, that on the ashes of his youth doth lie.” The Bard’s verses are dismal — morbid, even — associating the season with its loss. Charles Dickens saw through a similar window when he said, “Autumn leaves, autumn leaves, how sad, how cold, how drear! ...How like those hopes in their decay — How faded are they now!” They both saw a period of decomposition, things coming to an end, the fading of an era we once knew. Autumn is a time of change, introducing something to which we are foreign, as our trees catch fire and let descend their “ashes.”Dorky though it might be to batter you with poetry, I find myself agreeing with both illustrations of this autumnal dichotomy. I have a tendency to give in to fall’s general glum just as much as I submit to the coziness of a scarf in crisper weather. It is with some guilt that I say I engaged in seasonal activities early this year. I went home and visited with my family in Chicago and in doing so, pursued as many fall shenanigans as I could manage. Anything sufficed from baking pumpkin goods to traipsing in the few leaf clusters I could find. There is no denying the child-like giddiness with which I indulged in it. But as Dickens so accurately points out, falling leaves induce somewhat of a sorrowful emotion. The drifting quality of autumn leads to sluggishness, which leads to brooding and reminiscence. Autumn is a heavily nostalgic experience for me, bringing back memories of starting college for the first time and all the anxiety that came with it. I have emotional recollections triggered by fall’s sensory characteristics, such as its distinctive chill or the smell of pumpkin pie. This creates a more vivid image as other interlaced memories and senses form a vibrant flashback. My youth coming to an end was so memorably nerve-wracking that I could physically feel butterflies in my stomach when I felt fall weather for the first time this year. I was chatting with a former teacher and close friend (while drinking a hot pumpkin spice latté, of course) about this aversion we have to autumn. She agreed that the transitional seasons could inspire creative emotions as well as depressive ones. With the lethargy of the cold and the mulling over of autumn’s past, this drawl led us to listen to doleful bands, such as The National and Noah and the Whale when trees start to change. In dealing with this season-driven melancholy, my companion developed a simple, yet sincere consolation. Autumn is a means of coping with who you used to be and coming to terms with who you are now.Coming back to Indiana from Chicago, I packed a bag of all my sweaters and a Tupperware container full of pumpkin cookies. As the trees are just barely coming full circle, it is easy to find beauty in this colorful death. So as the air begins to cool and the campus is speckled with tints of yellow and red, I encourage you to pour a mug of cider and reminisce fondly. Autumn has just barely peeked through her orange fingers.E-mail: ftirado@indiana.edu
(09/09/10 12:07am)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>Why read? An essay by Katha Pollitt, associate editor and columnist for The Nation, addresses this vague and strikingly ambiguous question. And furthermore, what books should be considered for the widely debated literary canon, in which reading minds can submerge themselves? The term “literary canon” (as I have learned) refers to the process of determining what books are “classics” by our standards, making them worthy of literary critics and learning students. While scanning lists of books I had read, as well as other books placed on the shelf of literary greatness, I quickly dove into favorites of mine as well as my colleagues’. Going over titles, a slow pattern seemed to form as a good majority of those most favorable to student readers were those that might have been of a more morbid and dystopian nature, conveying characters or society as rather unpleasant entities with their faults and hardships. Lord of the Flies, Crime and Punishment and Macbeth are all examples that fall into this category. This frequented theme of a twisted, depressing nature was in many of the works, leaving the readers with a scarring image.The other day, a friend of mine was looking through pictures on Facebook from an album titled “Great Gatsby Party,” where guests were dressed in snappy Jazz Age costumes while dancing and drinking wine in quintessential ‘20s fashion. “I never really understand Great Gatsby parties,” she said. “I always feel like someone is going to die in a pool.” Chuckling at this, I realized how easy it is to be sucked into the glamor and elegance within the era of The Great Gatsby without so much as a wink to the rather somber tone of the work as a whole. The grandiose setting of the novel subdues the more catastrophic events that occur, so much so that its legendary, violent ending seems glamorous. Perhaps we are enamored with this dismal dénouement. Novels with ghastly endings tend to have a sort of resonance. It is the failure of our protagonists that we look up to. Their faults are characteristic, memorable and human, prodding readers to be all those things, too. (Warning! Literary spoilers await!)The dying heroes and suffering archetypes hold a sense of greatness, as their downfall is a landmark in written works and an echo in young minds. Would A Tale of Two Cities have been remembered if Carton had not gone to the gallows? Ethan Frome, if he had not taken the sled ride? Romeo, had he received the post from the Friar Lawrence?There’s this watching-a-train-wreck tendency that ties together the literary canon as readers are made to anticipate that promised failure. I believe a certain aberrant catharsis arises when witnessing the troubled protagonists as victims to their series of unfortunate events. Whether it is relationship troubles with the Brontë sisters, or an existential crisis with our dear friend Hamlet, one could answer Pollitt’s question like so: We read to relate. We strive to touch that character and think maybe we could undergo that, too. Perhaps we can achieve the greatness or self-realization that they did through their despair. These heroes make suffering look valiant, poetic, stylish. Even the names of these books hold a sought-after radiance. These days, classic literature is trendy, a social tick mark on how cultured you are. The Catcher in the Rye is carried like a distressed pair of jeans or a vintage scarf. Urban Outfitters is stocking up on Lolita and The Bell Jar. A copy of Jack Kerouac’s On the Road is in the knit knapsack of every other hipster.A 2009 study from The National Endowment for the Arts found that for the first time in 25 years, reading rates are rising among young adults between the ages of 18 and 24 (a whopping 9 percent). This pandemic leaves the adolescent nation split into two almost equal groups: readers and non-readers. Whether this comes from Harry Potter, Jodi Picoult novels or — dare I say it — Twilight, I embrace this new-found percentage of bookworms. As author C.S. Lewis once said, “We read to know we are not alone.” Engage in making friends in between book covers. If one can find any shred of comfort or understanding in flipping the pages to see what hardships their companion encounters next, then by all means, read on. E-mail: ftirado@indiana.edu