Reflection # 8

I don't know that I've ever faced a situation where I have pushed the limits of what I believe or anything  like Kyle did, but I can tell a story of when I reacted out of pure emotion.
It's going to sound silly, but here it goes. I participated in the Alternative Spring Break trip last year in Kentucky. It was a poverty simulation, and immersed the five of us who went into the lives of those who truly live in poverty. Although we were always in a safe environment and never in any real situations that would affect our health, we were going through some of the same emotions one living in those conditions would feel. The fourth day of the trip is when everyone (including myself) had their breaking point and were just so frustrated and angry that we all had separate miniature freakouts. I felt all this anger building up, and I knew it wouldn't do me any good to hit anyone or anything, so I threw my bottle of water in a fit of rage across the room and broke it against a door. ( I told you this would sound silly.) As soon as it broke against the wall and my anger was released, i felt immediately guilty. Of course I didn't feel sorry for the person who had upset me to my breaking point, but it wasn't their facility and I went and cleaned up the mess I had made. It felt good though, to have that breaking point and just let out all of the negative emotions that had built up over the course of that week. I don't know if that makes any sense or not, or even properly answers the question.

I think the most important difference that the two experiences have are how those people are treated. The social exclusion that Beast, Nightcrawler, and other mutants like them face are only because of the way people judge them. Beast and Nightcrawler especially are arguably the nicest and most caring mutants, but because people judge them before getting to know that side of them those that judge will never know the compassion that the two share. I can't really think of how they'd be similar other than the fact that they share a home and the fact that they all have a mutation that makes them different. Now with all of that being said, I can remember when I have been judged or when I have judged others based on their looks or some other characteristic. I think that the comics or any other medium that people interact with the x-men can really show how to accept that being different is okay, and for those that judge others, interacting with these mediums can show how people that we assume are different than us aren't actually that different after all.

I don't have a mutant that I identify with, but I know that if i had a mutation, depending on what it is, I don't think I'd want the cure. If i had a power like Rogue, I would definitely take it though. I don't think I could live with a mutation like that, not being able to touch another person without killing them? No thank you.

Reflection #7

I've never been very good at meditating, so when I read the first part of the assignment for this blog post I thought I was going to be in a little bit of trouble. I'm constantly running around campus and barely have time to myself at the end of the day. Even when I'm home, I'm almost never home. So, I was pretty surprised at how easy it was to sit and meditate since I don't practice it often. In both exercises I found that I was extremely more relaxed when focusing on my breathing, anything else that came to my mind went away with a little effort to make it so. I've now thought a lot more about incorporating meditation into my life, especially during stressful weeks. Rev. Teri Ott does meditation group meetings every friday at 4, and since I'm on the email list for that I think I might join in. That would be really enlightening and might help me stay on track to meditate regularly.

It's really weird thinking about my friendships in the Aristotelian terms. In high school and the younger years i think I'd have to say i had friendships of pleasure. Now I'd say it's probably a mixture of Utility and Pleasure. I never needed much of anything from my friends when I was young, I mostly just wanted to be around kids my own age. Now I look to build networks with anyone and everyone I meet. It seems life is all about who you know now, so the friendship of utility definitely comes into play here.

I don't know if any of my friendships could evolve into a friendship of virtue, the one concept I don't quite understand is how I would determine if my friends and I were equals or not. I'm not saying I'm higher or lower than them, but I just don't know how that would work I guess.

Reflection #6

I'm going to start off by saying this is probably one of my favorite topics to talk about. My friends and I were pretty crazy as little kids and we had no limit to our imaginations.

As kids we spent the majority at one particular friend's house. It was pretty awesome because to us the house was a mansion, as he came from a more affluent family than anyone else in the group. We essentially turned every floor in the house into a different battleground as we created our own superhero identities and our powers, as clever kids as we were we usually made our powers up on the spot to beat out all the others playing with us. After awhile we took our after school adventures to school during our recess. We created the ultimate adventure on the playground, most of the time it was a "save the princess" game where we all attempted to either capture or save the princess who was almost always our love interest at the time. The one time that I was suppose to save the princess, I used a "secret passage way" (really a break in the playground equipment) to sneak in to the "jail" where our friend was being held hostage and sneak right back out. Ultimately, I was probably the coolest kid on the playground that day for using this magic break in the equipment to complete our game. It was the coolest day ever.

I'd like to think that I am still as creative as I was back when I was a little kid. I work at a mexican restaurant when I am back in my hometown, and my creativeness came through in how I managed to do multiple jobs at once. I would serve food, clean tables, and grab refills all in the matter of a few minutes. Sundays were our "hell day" as we had an all day buffet set up. This was probably the busiest day of the week and there was hardly ever a moment for rest. Clearing plates off tables (and doing other customer service related tasks) became somewhat of a strategy game for me. I would plan out my way through the restaurant grabbing plates, filling drinks, and cleaning tables. I would try to do it all before returning back into the kitchen. I would get into the zone, and make it as creative as possible.

The superhero that I'd like to discuss as far as creativeness to solve an issue is Tony Stark in the movie Iron Man 2. Throughout the movie we learn that Tony is being poisoned by the device that keeps him alive. In order to fight off the villain of the movie and keep himself alive he had to essentially build a new element to power his arc reactor and then was ultimately able to beat the bad guy.