After reviewing the quite hilarious clip from from The Daly Show we were asked to write a response to Jon Stewarts position. I believe his take on the Ebola Outbreak was spot on, we as a nation tend to blow everything out of proportion. Our biggest issue is our own fear. This clip shows the difference between our media coverage and the media coverage in Ghana which is only 2 countries away from the outbreak. It is unbelievable to watch our media lose their minds over this and treat this as though it is an imminent threat to the US they imply that we will all be infected with this disease very soon. The coverage in Ghana on the other hand was extremely calm, not alarming at all. The outbreak in Africa is very serious and shouldn't be taken lightly and if handled improperly will result in more illnesses. We as a nation should be focusing on stopping this disease instead they seem to be focusing on spreading fear even in those who may be in a position help, like the doctors and nurses from the US in Africa dealing with sick patients.
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This week I will be attempting to create a found poem using text from my Creative Nonfiction Essay entitled The Wake Up Call.
The Wake Up Call My car comes to a screeching halt. Tears streaming down my face and I’m gasping for air “My husband….. in the car ….. please help.” “Assistance needed at the emergency room entrance, we have an unresponsive male”. I watched as blue scrubs and white jackets ran to my car “I have a pulse, but its weak” “Ma’am you need to stay here we will call you in when he is stable.” ************************************************************************** I am awaken to the loud beeping of the alarm at 6:15am I pull myself out of bed I head into work I quickly realize that it is Friday, bills are due I look at the negative balance on the screen My pulse quickens I feel moisture forming in my palms Why hasn't his check been deposited? How the hell am I gonna pay bills? I need to ask Dan what the hell is going on I text him “There is an issue, I need you to call me ASAP” My phone vibrates. I open the text and read: “Im sorry, your car is parked on the side of your building, your keys are in the glove box, and there is a letter explaining everything, I love you and DJ goodbye.” thoughts are racing none My chest is tight I can hear my heart beat in my ears. My heart sinks, I see just enough of my car to know its mine. I hear the faint tapping of the car settling. I see a legal pad sitting face up on the passenger seat. I grab the pad of paper and begin to read: I just want to start out by saying thank you. Thank you for loving me unconditionally and always having my back but I don't deserve it. I fucked up again and I’m sorry. I lost my job 2 weeks ago I tried so many times to tell you but I couldn't do it. I couldn't bear the thought of disappointing you again. I let you and DJ down AGAIN and I can’t tell you how sorry I am. You always clean up my messes and now it ends. Please tell DJ I love him and I’m sorry I couldn't be stronger for him. He deserves so much better then me and so do you. I don't deserve you. I hope one day you both find peace and understand you guys are better off without me. I love you guys and again I’m sorry. Please don't try and reach me I’m already gone. I’m crying uncontrollably my tires squeal pulling out of the parking space I call him repeatedly getting no response I drive in circles desperately trying to find him Today I'm gonna lose my husband and kill my son Please GOD if you help him it will restore my faith in you Everything was quiet maybe one or two cars on the road I drove up and down the street then a white figure caught my eye. I swerved over 2 lanes pulled up on a curb came to a screeching halt. I was relieved for a split second I had found him I had found my husband I had found Dan laying on the ground extremely pale very sweaty dipping in and out of consciousness Next to him were two empty prescription bottles I shook him hard and tried to pull him up his eyes fluttered open he pushed my hands away slurred for me to leave him I somehow found the strength to get 170lbs of dead weight into my car His breathing was slowing and his eyes wouldn't open any more I raced to the hospital blowing lights swerving around cars begging him to stay with me the whole drive. ************************************************************************** My insides quiver I pace back and forth there is a pit in my stomach, Has there been any update on my husband? Ma’am, as soon as I know something, I will let you know I went back to pacing my eyes never left the floor. You’re husband is stable Mrs. Hutton But he’s not out of the woods yet I let out a breath that I must have been holding for a while I lift my head to finally look at this broken man in front of me My Husband Dan the man that promised to love me protect me until the end of time. His eyes are closed his face pale white his lips dry and chapped wires and tubes attached all around him. wearing the only the conventional blue hospital gown everything else could be a safety risk Dr. Lutz explained my husband would make a FULL RECOVERY On this day my marriage was over He never once considered how taking his life would effect me or most importantly how it would effect OUR SON My car comes to a screeching halt.
I push open my door as quickly and as hard as I can and screamed, “Please someone I need help, please”. An older black male wearing a black security guard uniform comes over to me, “Ma’am are you injured? Whats wrong?” There are tears streaming down my face and I’m gasping for air, in-between breaths I said, “My husband….. in the car ….. please help.” He looked in the window, he quickly jerks a walkie talkie from off his belt and says in a stern voice, “Assistance needed at the emergency room entrance, we have an unresponsive male”. Before I even had time to process my surroundings I saw through the sliding glass doors a group of people running toward us. I watched as many people in different uniforms, some in blue scrubs, and some in blue scrubs and white jackets ran to my car, followed by two more people pushing out a stretcher. An older man with bags under his eyes, puts two fingers on his neck then his wrist and says, “ I have a pulse, but its weak”. Another man with a bulkier build wearing only blue scrubs stepped into the small opening of the car door slipped his arms underneath my husbands armpits and lifted him, in one split second another man had grabbed his legs, laid him on the stretcher. Everyone was actively doing something as they were pushing my husband into the hospital. The glass doors automatically open for them as they walk in along with a second pair of doors, these were large heavy wooden doors, as we were walking through them another younger male turns to me and says “ma’am you need to stay here we will call you in when he is stable.” I wrote this introduction to my Creative Nonfiction Essay after reading 6 Ways to be a Hemingway-Level Productive Badass. After the reading I realized that everyone has different methods to writing. After our very first day of class and reviewing the syllabus I tried to brainstorm ideas that I could write about even though I didn't know the guidelines. Once I knew we had to write about something within the last month I went to good old fashioned paper and pencil and again started brainstorming topics that I could write about. I found a topic that I felt I would have enough action to write about then went to my laptop and just started typing anything I could possibly think about that specific topic. After the explosion of words on my laptop was complete, I reviewed everything that was there and picked out what I liked and didn't like and started to piece together a ruff draft of my essay. Now, I am in the revision stage I am procrastinating a lot at this stage because I'm still unsure of what is right and wrong in my essay. I plan on asking myself questions like ... Is this necessary to have in this essay? Or making sure after reading the essay the reader knows who the story is about, what the story is about, where the story takes place, when the story takes place, and why this is all happening. And I want to make sure the essay appeals to all 5 senses. What are my truths? At this point in my life it seems like my truths seem to be extremely unclear. My family has always believed in God, I’m not saying that I disagree but I began to challenge my beliefs a long time ago. I didn't understand why you had to go to a place of worship like a church to be seen in Gods eyes. I didn't understand how the church could say God loves all his children except those who sin. And I certainly never understood if there was a god, our creator, who sacrificed himself for us how so many innocents could be taken from us daily, from illnesses and accidents but most “sinners” are fine. That to me just never made sense. So I guess my truth is that there is a higher power and is a security blanket for man kind, knowing that “God” or whoever is there in a time of need makes things easier.
Another one of my truths is that the world never stops turning. “The show must go on”, no matter what happens, no matter who it happens to everything always keeps going. I feel like thats a bit heartless to say but after dealing with things personally, like losing my grandmother or best friend, or dealing with things as a nation like 9/11, the world never stopped people around the world still go about their normal routine. This really hit me when my son was in the I.C.U, he had just been diagnosed with toxic shock and a bone infection, and we were told that we could still lose him. My world had been turned upside down it felt like everything came to a screeching halt. I wasn't thinking about the bills or work or anything like that just my son thats it. Then I walked over to the window and watched all the people, some walking, some biking, some driving just going about their normal routine. The last truth that I can think of is that the love and support of families can make anything better. Having a loved one, or many loved ones support makes all the difference in the world when dealing with anything good or bad. In all the good in my life from graduating high school, to the birth of my son, to dealing with the bad with my husband knowing that I have an amazing son and mother make everything worth while. The lens of truth in my essay I would say would be that through all the bad there has to be a silver lining somewhere. And the silver lining in my essay would be finally being able to see a clear picture of my life and seeing how selfish my husband could be and realizing that my son and I deserve better. Having a sick child makes doing any work absolutely impossible. This week consisted of 2 hospital visits and 2 doctors visits and a child that has not left my side for more than 3 minutes. Luckily I completed my essay last week but for some reason no matter what I try I am unable to post it. I'm hoping today I will be able to get things fixed and come back later and revise this post.
This week in class has been pretty enlightening we spoke more in depth about our essay, what I remember most about this week is Sabatino telling us not to defeat ourselves, not to put ourselves down before we even begin to write. This spoke to me because I tend to look at anything English related and automatically assume that I will fail at it. I feel like I have nothing to write about and even if I did I wouldn't know how to put it into text. Our teacher taught us that we all lead interesting lives and if we trust ourselves it will present itself in the intensity of our work. I learned that this Creative Nonfiction Essay is giving me a window to be creative with my truthful information. Sabatino armed us with an arsenal of tools or literary devices to assist us in writing this essay. Each text that we read in class gave us examples of how to use these Literary Devices. For example, in the article Everyone Knew I Was Gay, Except My Brother by Brian Douglas Kennedy, when he wrote "My sister-in-law was wearing clean, white Keds that had yet to be touched by the City's filth." There is both symbolism and juxtaposition used in that one sentence. Her clean, white keds symbolized the perfect, normal, untainted life he believed his brother and sister-in-law led, and the cities filth symbolized his perception that his lifestyle and sexual orientation were dirty or wrong. We also read a chapter from a memoir called My Name Is Margaret by Maya Angelou. I thought she used foreshadowing by mentioning that the help used the back door a couple times so they are not to be seen and at the end Margaret holds open the front door for everyone to see Mrs. Cullinan is hysterics.Also, Mrs. Cullinan's china that Margaret had broken may have symbolized generations of Cullinan family wealth and power.
This week at home was like any other. The rat race is the new normal. I am becoming increasingly worried that I won't be able to handle work, school, and home for to much longer before I break down. Things have been extremely stressful. I work less to make sure I have enough time to study, do my work, go to class, and make sure I spend enough time with my son, I'm just not making ends meet financially. I know that if I take on more hours at work that it will impact my work at school and that will also take time away from my son. I am beginning to resent my husband for everything that has happened. I was angry with him before but this last week has gotten worse I'm finally seeing the big picture that all the smaller mistakes he made led to huge issues for me. Hopefully next week will be better. So I was supposed to review a months worth of my new media texts for example my my phone texts, Facebook, twitter that kind of thing. Now this is extremely difficult for me because I do not have an Instagram or Twitter account and I almost never go on Facebook any more, as far as my text messages I normally delete things that I don't need so this is what I found:
SOMETHING IS IN THE WATER! 9/2/2014 Jen: “Why are you not answering your phone?” Me: “I’m at school babe…whats up??” Jen: “I’m freaking out and need to talk to you ASAP!!” Me: “Breath! What is wrong?” Jen: “The tests are ALL POSITIVE!! Me: “Seriously?!? Sweets everything is gonna be fine…just try and keep calm…I’ll call you as soon as I leave here and we will work it out together” 9/4/2014 AM Cousin: “We need to find a way to put aside our crap, I’m gonna be a MOM that makes you an aunt” Me: “Congrats, I’m happy for you and Tas but we will have to take baby steps to rebuild” Me: “I’ll call you later when I can talk” This one I have to say was the best! 9/4/2014 PM Lauren: “Estoy con nino. Buenas Noches” 9/5/2014 Lauren: “Morning did you get my text?” Me: “WHAT?!?!? My phone died last night and I just woke up…. Are you fucking kidding me?!?!? Lauren: “Yes so don’t tell anyone but I need to know where to go for ultrasounds and shit” Lauren: “I took 4 tests Tina I’m knocked up” Me: “OK are you happy about this? And my lips are sealed…you go to your ob babe” Lauren: “Ok cool and yea I am. I will call you later to talk more” My car comes to a screeching halt.
I push open my door as quickly and as hard as I can and screamed “please someone I need help, please”. An older black male wearing a black security guard uniform comes over to me “ma’am are you injured? Whats wrong?” There are tears streaming down my face and I’m gasping for air, in-between breaths I said “my husband….. in the car ….. please help.” As he looked in the window, he quickly jerks a walkie talkie from off his belt and says in a stern voice “assistance needed at the emergency room entrance, we have an unresponsive male”. Before I even had time to process my surroundings I saw through the sliding glass doors a group of people running toward us. I watched as many people in different uniforms, some in blue scrubs, and some in blue scrubs and white jackets ran to my car, followed by two more people pushing out a stretcher. An older man with bags under his eyes, uses two fingers on his neck then his rest and says, “ I have a pulse, but its weak”. One of the men wearing only blue scrubs stepped into the small opening of the car door slipped his arms underneath my husbands armpits and lifted him, in one split second another man had grabbed his legs, laid him on the stretcher. Everyone was actively doing something as they were pushing my husband into the hospital. The glass doors automatically open for them as they walk in along with a second pair of doors, these were large heavy wooden doors, as we were walking through them another younger male turns to me and says “ma’am you need to stay here we will call you in when he is stable.” My eyes dart from every corner of the cold sanitized room. From the shiny cold floor, to the beeping black screen thats flashing the numbers of his vitals, to the small ancient muted TV, thats hanging on the wall above us. There is a talk show on, a male and female sitting on opposite sides of a stage screaming at each other, seems very fitting. I look at the ceiling and in each corner of the room there are these small black bubbles with a blinking red light on each. I say to myself “we are being watched”. I can’t bring myself to look at him. My breathing is erratic, my head is throbbing and my eyes feel like there is so much pressure that they may pop right out of my skull. I try to calm myself but my legs wont stop trembling. With every passing figure I see through the curtain my body tenses with anticipation. There is no clock so I am constantly looking at my phone for the time, it feels like an eternity but its only been a few minutes. I lift my head to look at this man in front of me. My heart breaks for him but at the same time my teeth grind from frustration and anger. His eyes are closed, his face pale white, his lips dry and chapped and there are still little bits of vomit in the short corse hair of his goatee. There are wires and tubes attached all around him. He is wearing the only the “conventional” blue hospital gown because everything else could be a safety risk and were confiscated upon arrival. |
AuthorHere I will reflect on what is going on in my life. The good the bad and the ugly. Archives
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