Belief vs. Explanation and Understanding

My religion/belief system is the core of my life. Without it, I think i would truly be lost in this big,crazy world. My personal experiences with religion and everything surrounding it are SO amazing that I can't even begin to explain. Growing up, my parents never really forced Christianity on me, they just told me the things they knew and things that worked for them. With the belief that my parents are some of the best human beings in the world, I figured I wanted to find out more about Christianity and all that it had to offer. However, (although this may sound cheesy) what really got me was the bible stories! I LOVE to read and the stories in the bible were so engaging that I wanted more. When I got a bit older i realized just how important God was to me. When I started being involved in church(not just sitting around watching) I really got submerged into everything God is all about. I felt things that I had never felt before and I wanted more. I, like all of the adults, would cry tears of joy and sorrow. I realized that I didn't have to be alive and that someone my age died yesterday. I would wonder why that person wasn't me but I have come to believe that its because someone was watching me and protecting me and didn't want me gone yet. Of course this may be the easy way out, just to answer all of life's questions with " Because God wanted it that way," but what if its true?

Because of my experiences and interactions with God, I grew as a Christian. However, my belief in Christianity wasn't completely solidified until my grandma passed last November. To see a woman who had been through it all STILL have such a strong belief in God, convinced me that God was real. Its really hard for me to explain how my personal experiences with religion have molded me and shaped me into the person that I am today. The point of explanation is so that others can understand. But, in my opinion, some things just cant be explained or understood.

The entangled, long, string-like grass sways as the wind blows through it. The calm waters below the grass are slightly disturbed as the seven horsemen leisurely glide through them. Shadows begin to appear and the land surrounding the horsemen is still as it awaits the rising of the distant sun.

Erin Brockovich

It was funny because when she first came up to speak I was expecting something like a Julia Roberts look-a-like, but i was so wrong. She came out ready to bare all in front of an audience of over 100 people. I could probably never do that,but I'd imagine that shes said that too. She reassured me, as crazy as it sounds, that the world can actually be a good place. She spoke on how morality always prevails as long as you stick to " your determination, your beliefs, and your convictions." In the type of world that we live in, it's hard to imagine that these statements still hold to be true. However, Erin Brockovich is the proof that, as she states, "morality is invincible." She also made me realize a different view of success. There i was in the audience, thinking about my English paper, redefining my meaning of success. I never realized that success can be making a difference and changing people's lives. Success in life can mean not even attaining wealth at all and to me, that was a shocking thought. Erin Brockovich didn't do what she did because she wanted to profit from it, she did it because it was the right thing to do. She prevailed because she didn't give up and she stuck to her convictions. That to me, is success. I've realized that success is almost completely separated from wealth. Success means taking risks, having motivation, and never letting anyone or anything stray you away from your convictions or dreams. People decide what success means to them not the media or anyone else.

Lakeisha Houston

Micah Robbins

English 1310.64

1 September 2007

Word count: 769

Classical Music: The Beauty of Change and Creativity

Music is one of the ways we, as humans, express who we are or what we feel. Because music plays an integral part in the lives of many people from a variety of different cultures, it has become a universal language. Whether you listen to it, play it, or create it, music provides a relief from the hardships of daily life. Although the musical genres each have their own unique style, classical music stands apart to me because of its undeniable beauty and its presence in my life.
Classical music is a style of writing and performing that stretches from the medieval time period to the 20th century. Because classical music was present during this long period of time, it was split up according to the social status, style, and technique of its leading composers. These categories of classical music consist of the Baroque, Classical, Romantic, and 20th century periods. Of those, Impressionism is the period that I find to be the most beautiful because it redefined the definition of beauty in music and did so by focusing on suggestion and the blending of tones rather than playing for religious purposes or playing with the purpose of telling a story.
Unlike earlier composers, impressionists broke all of the musical norms by integrating unusual chord tones and uncommon scales in music in order to give their listeners an impression. A clear representation of impressionism is found in Claude Debussy’s La Cathédrale Engloutie (The Engulfed Cathedral). Claude Debussy was inspired to write this piece because of a legend that was told by the French people. The legend was that the ocean engulfed the cathedral because of its wickedness, but the cathedral was allowed to rise to warn about the wages of sin. This is one of my favorite pieces because of the variation of mood and texture found throughout the musical phrases. The beginning of the piece is characterized by its light, soft texture, yet its deep resonate tone gives one the impression of rippling water that is hiding something underneath. As the cathedral begins to rise, the music becomes more dramatic and more dissonant with loud delayed chords as if something is slowly rising from the calm waters. When the cathedral sinks back into the water the fluidity and soft texture from the beginning of the piece returns and the cathedral is slowly welcomed back into the gloomy waters. The beauty of this music comes from the composer’s ability to pull you into a moment and capture your sense of reality. Although the rising of the engulfed cathedral is fictional, the composer, through dynamics and changing meters, is able to accurately depict the atmosphere surrounding the cathedral. Impressionism also represents how beautiful change can be. Without the defiance and ambition of Debussy and other composers like him, many of the great musicians that followed him would not exist.
Although classical music is not the only genre of music exclusively linked to expression, being a performer, it gives me the opportunity to express my interpretation of the piece and shuffle through the mind of the person who wrote the piece. Many times in classical music, the composer tells you exactly what to do and when to do it. It may seem as if this restricts the creative process of the performer, but it actually invites the performer to make the piece their own. A set of guidelines is given to the performer by the composer, but that doesn’t mean that they can’t “stretch” those instructions or make the instructions fit their own personal style. In Claude Debussy’s music, he includes the title at the end of the piece and offers dynamics and instructions as only mere suggestions because he wants the performer to play the music as they interpret or imagine it. The beautiful thing that I love about performing and interpreting classical music is that I can collaborate with a non-living person by using their instructions and my own creative impulses to make something extraordinary. The music that the composer has written is almost like a blank canvas waiting for me to make it into a masterpiece.
Classical music, especially Impressionism, helped me to have a greater appreciation for music and all that is has to offer. Classical music is the most beautiful genre of music because there is no language barrier that inhibits interpretation. No matter what language you speak or what culture you come from, everyone has the ability to connect to it.

Rockwell's painting The Problem We All Live With takes place while a little African American girl is being escorted to school by U.S Marshals and it commemorates the integration of the school systems. I think Rockwell decided to title this piece The Problem We All Live With because inequality is a constant problem that people in society struggle with. This title could also mean that whether you have a problem with the integration of the school systems or whether you have a problem with the way this little girl is being treated, either way its a problem that we all have to live with. If integration was a problem for someone they were going to have to live with it because it was happening whether they liked it or not. If the problem was the way the young girl is being treated for trying to get an education, then it was going to have to be tolerated because the actions of others can't be controlled. Inequality and hatred are problems we all have to live with simply because they exist.

Question Unanswered.

First, lets talk about teachers.It's shocking to me how much society doesnt appreciate the role of teachers. If it wasn't for the teacher in "Stand and Deliver", the students in the movie would have never realized their full potential. It seems as if society, the school officials, and the teachers placed them in a bubble of inadequacy and never expected them to burst out of it. Fortunately, there was someone who believed in them and in their potential. He wouldn't let them quit or give up when the work got too hard. These types of wonderful people that the media try to blatantly bash are what we call teachers. Your parents in collaboration with your teachers shape who you are from an early age. But in the end, our parents can only teach us so much; the rest is left up to teachers.
Now, lets talk about school conditions.With the unqualified teachers and the tattered books in "Stand and Deliver", they provided them with the bare minimum as far as education is concerned. How can you succeed in school when the books are outdated and torn apart? How can you focus on learning when you see rats in your classroom or you see the ceiling about to collapse on top of you because its full of some unknown liquid? I just dont understand how this country focuses so much on education yet there are schools that function under these conditions. If education is SO important, why are schools operating in improper learning conditions? Is it because of the neighborhoods or cities these schools are located in? Is it because of the predominate race of the students that attend these schools? Is it because no one cares if they succeed or if they fail? Is it because society doesn't expect kids who come from THIS family or THAT background to ever amount to anything? The question puzzles me because I can't seem to come up with the answer. It's hard to imagine that any one of those explanations could be true. As much as we want to believe that discrimination and segregation are issues of the past, they are still present in the most subtle ways. Thats what scares me.

...:)

During my highschool career, I was required to take a Piano Master Class. This class basically consisted of listening to music, analyzing it, and learning the basic history of a piece or its composer. However when a concert or performance was approaching, this class took on a very different format. We, the students, were required to perform in front of our peers and sit there as they pointed out our every mistake. Imagine that. At first, I thought of this class as just some kind of tool to humiliate all of us and I thought of criticism as people just trying to embarass you to give themsleves some sense of superiority. But, while im sitting there listening to people who are worst pianists than me tell me how to improve MY piece, I realize that some good does come out of this. I'm reminded that when the concert actually comes, mock performances and criticisms make you a better performer. However, this concept does not only apply to piano, it applys to life. Criticism, most of the time, is primarily used to help you. I'm not talking about someone criticizing the way you talk or the way you dress, but someone giving you a critical review of something that you want to succeed at. Most of the time, we don't care about people's suggestions on how we should dress but when it comes to suggestions for making our writing better or suggestions on how to better finance our money, we care because it benefits us. I learned from this class that criticism, although it has a negative connotation, is not always a bad thing. Of course, like anything else, it has its pros and cons but in the end if anyone wants anything to be done correctly, criticism is absolutely necessary.