Hannah Hecht's Blog

1. Last week, we talked about The Collected Stories of Maria Cristina Mena, and I thought that we had a really riveting discussion. One of our main focuses was on the stories as literary tourism. We came to the conclusion that Mena was a lot more successful at producing a realistic and in-depth analysis of Mexican culture than some our previous authors of literary tourism. We especially found it more culturally accurate than Madame Butterfly and The Japanese Nightingale, which we hated with a passion.

One point that I thought was pretty interesting was the idea that in the age of the Harlem Renaissance, art took on a political agenda that it may have previously lacked. I guess that I had always thought of the Harlem Renaissance as something that solely involved black artists in New York, but it actually was more of a state of mind in which minority and women artists across the United States began to create art that could actually make a difference in society. Through art (whether music, writing, painting, or whatever) women and minorities had a safe outlet to push the envelope and to advertise their struggle.

2. Our primary reading for today was “A Jury of Her Peers” by Susan Glaspell. This was my second time reading this story, having read it in Women and Literature, but the first time I must have been in a bad mood or something because I absolutely hated it, and it went completely over my head. My opinion of the story has done a complete 360 since my second (and third) reading. The story kind of has a Hemingway “iceberg” quality, in that it doesn’t completely explain everything that is happening, and it leaves a lot of gaps for the reader to fill in.

I especially enjoyed perusing both versions of the story (the original published in Every Week magazine and the one that is most heavily anthologized). Honestly, I think that I liked the original better. The original ends with Mrs. Hale’s low reply of “Knot it” and that he wasn’t able to see her eyes. The anthologized version ends with “We call it—knot it, Mr. Henderson.” To me, his not being able to see her eyes implies that there was something there. Tears of sympathy for Minnie? Malice? The second ending is more resigned to Minnie’s fate; it seems to imply more that Mrs. Hale understands that men run the world. It does not seem in either one as if Mrs. Hale or Mrs. Peters are going to give them the bird as evidence, which is good, since it be the solid piece of evidence that would have given Minnie a motive to kill her husband.

This story was probably the most overtly feminist out of all the stories that we have read by female authors this semester. Even the title, “A Jury of Her Peers,” drips with sarcasm which continues throughout the publication. The male characters treat the female ones as if they are good for nothing but keeping house, but the female characters ultimately find the source of motive that the detectives are searching for. The story also speaks to the relationships that women have with each other in a subtle way. Both Mrs. Hale and Mrs. Peters understand that Minnie lived in an abusive household, and they hide the biggest piece of evidence in the murder case (in Mrs. Peters’s case from her own husband).

3. The secondary texts for this week concerned the publication in which this week’s story was originally published, Every Week magazine. It was really interesting to read about the publication during the high point of the magazine and of serialized fiction. It sounds as if the magazine would have been an incredible place to work at the time. In addition, I think that I probably would have been much more of a magazine reader had I lived in the early 20th century because short stories appeared right alongside feature stories, human interest stories, and serialized novels.

The profile that I read was an Atlantic story by Adam Cathcart that focused on Kim Jong Un. It was kind of an interesting example of a profile, because, unlike, say, the Kim Dotcom profile we read earlier this year, the journalist obviously was not able to have any open access with its subject. Instead, the article was a “guide to what we know—and don’t know—about the North Korean leader’s disappearance.”

Since his rise to power in 2011, Kim Jong Un has maintained a heavy schedule of public appearances. However, in a shift of policy or maybe something more secretive, he has not been seen since early September of this year. Some people think that there may have been a coup. Others think that he may have suffered a stroke. Kim Jong Un has been the face of the North Korean government for four years, and the author argues that his prominence in the public limelight has obscured other North Korean officials. With Kim Jong Un out of the public eye, we now don’t know who to look to as the leader pulling the strings in North Korea. His shadow was so large that we don’t realize how many or the exact identities of the other North Korean leaders who were once in his shadow.

The author frames Kim Jong Un as a calculative figure who does his ridiculous things (like fraternizing with Dennis Rodman) in order to keep the news focused on unimportant things. The author also makes it seem as if Kim Jong Un was largely successful at obscuring his underlings who also pull the strings in his country. The whole article was a very unique feature, since it was written by someone who has never met Kim Jong Un nor (most likely) been to North Korea. However, I think that it is effective in telling the reader some of the things that are known about him. The photo at the top really helps to emphasize the idea that all other North Korea leaders are obscured by Kim Jong Un’s shadow.

The four of us stand in a group of athletic college women in warm-up sweats and jackets pulled over their racing swimsuits. A blue curtain separates us from the rest of the pool, creating a makeshift “ready room” in which we can stretch, strategize, and mentally prepare for the race ahead.

“Okay guys, we just need a solid race to start off the night,” says our relay freestyler, Emma, fidgeting with the strap on her goggles. “If we do a good job, the rest of the races will follow.”

“Yeah, we definitely can’t screw it up,” says our butterflier, Jaimie, pushing her long strawberry-blonde hair into a black Mustang insignia swim cap. “Our goal here is to set the tone.”

In a chair to my right sits a Luther swimmer who has already established herself as the best swimmer at the meet. Even when relaxed, I can see the careful definition of her biceps. She will go on to be the NCAA Division III National Champion in the 200 backstroke, but right now, she is getting ready to swim the same leg of the relay as I am, just two lanes away.

I take a deep breath.

I feel a hand on my shoulder. Jaimie looks at me and smiles.

“It’s time.”

I can feel the rough concrete on my feet as I walk in a line with all the other swimmers along the side of the eight lane indoor pool. Sound bounces endlessly off the walls, a mixture of cheering and an upbeat pump-up song, Kanye West’s “All of the Lights.”

The tension is palpable. The pool itself is silent and pristinely clear, a sheet of pure glass just waiting to be broken. It’s time for the first final of the second night of the 2014 Liberal Arts Swimming Championships: the women’s 200 yard medley relay.

My goggles press into my eye sockets atop a black, latex Mustang logo swim cap, scrupulously tightened to the point that no water can possibly leak in. My brand new Speedo LZR Racer II technical swim suit puts an extra spring in my step, the tightly-fitting fabric coming all the way to the tops of my knees and making my legs spring together with every stride. Earlier, it took 15 minutes and some help from one of my relay team members to help pull the drag-reducing, muscle compressing suit all the way on. I try and walk with an expression of pure concentration to hide my nervousness.

I can feel my teammates close on my heels. We walk in the order of the relay: as the backstroker, I’m first; then comes our breaststroker, a freshman standout; then the butterflier, my roommate and best friend; and our superstar freestyler, last year’s champion in the 100 distance. Each of us is prepared to swim an all-out sprint 50 yards of our stroke. All we have is one start, one turn, and one finish to make or break our leg of the race.

We make our way to our assigned lane number three. The team with the fastest time from prelims that morning swims in four, the second fastest in five, the third in three, and so on until the slowest teams are on the outside lanes. While we know that we will have the chance to swim this race again at Nationals, our “conference” race is what really counts. Since we are the only swim team in our NAIA GPAC conference, we are at Liberal Arts Championships to prove to the group of NCAA Division II and III teams that we have what it takes.

I know that to pull my weight on our team, I’m going to have to break 30 seconds for the first time in my twelve year swimming career. My teammates are all much better at the 50 yard distance than I am, and I feel pressured to prove myself.

The four of us strip off our jackets and sweats and throw them into a pile behind lane three. Jaimie catches my eye and breaks into a nervous smile. Here goes. I smile back, take a deep breath, and walk to the edge of the pool.

In the background, I can hear the receding staccato notes of our team’s cheer from the opposite end.

“MUSTANG RELAY!” clap clap clap-clap-clap.

To my left and right are two girls much taller and more muscular than I. They both have the signature broad shoulders and narrow waists, the marks of a swimmer. They jump and shake their limbs to get the blood rushing.

I put on my noseplug, a piece of equipment that the younger me would have foregone. However, Missy Franklin’s 2012 Olympic performance motivated me to emulate her backstroke choices right down to smallest details.

A long whistle blast follows two short ones: the signal to be ready.

I extend my arms, lock my elbows, and clap above my head. Our breakstroker, Mikki, does the same, followed by our butterflier and freestyler. It’s our relay team’s version of “the wave.”

I turn around for a second and see Mikki beaming, having invented our clap wave herself. I smile and regain my composure.

“This is the A final of the 200 Yard Medley Relay.”

One long whistle blast. I step into the pool, letting myself submerge a couple of feet under. When I break the surface, I turn around to face my teammates behind the lane, place my feet on the wall, and grab the backstroke starting bar with both hands.

This is the moment. The room goes silent for the start of the race.

“Take your mark.”

I flex my arms to bring my body up into the starting position. Every muscle in my body is tense, a spring itching to decompress.

A tone rings out from across the pool like a single-note metronome.

I throw my arms above my head, arch my back, and push off the wall with my feet into a back-dive. My palms are face up, one on top of the other. The sides of my biceps compress the sides of my head, and my elbows are locked into a streamline position. I am deep under, and I can see four feet of water above my head, ending at a smooth glassy surface.

This is my favorite part of the race. Underwater and lying on my back, I can’t see my competitors in the adjacent lanes. I have more momentum than I ever will have in the race, and for a brief fraction of a second, I hold my muscles tight and let my earlier exertion propel me forward. It’s meditative and peaceful.

But the moment doesn’t last, and I feel myself start to slow down. I break into a fast rhythmic dolphin kick, a sine wave originating with a flex of the abdominals and ending with a powerful simultaneous upstroke of my feet. I can see the surface quickly approaching, and after six kicks, I pull one arm down out of the streamline position, in preparation to break the surface.

The first thing to break is my hands. Soon after, the rest of my body follows, but I haven’t missed a beat. My legs have transitioned to an alternating flutter kick and my arms begin the windmill-like backstroke motion. With every armstroke, my body turns almost completely onto its side, a rotating motion with my stationary head as the axis. I take a deep breath.

Six strokes and I see the backstroke flags overhead, warning me that the wall is quickly approaching. I take one normal stroke and use the next one to turn over onto my stomach. The timing here is key. Hit the wall too close, and I’ll waste time trying to untangle and decompress my legs at the push-off. Hit the wall from too far away, and I’ll lose the vital momentum boost that comes from the turn.

Lying on my stomach now, I let my final stroke lead me into a high-speed summersault. As I flip over, I catch a glance of my competitor, the Luther standout in lane four; I see the tips of her feet as she pushes off the wall. She’s ahead.

Repositioned on my back, I extend my arms into streamline position above my head, and concentrate all of the energy in my body into the push off. I jump off the wall and look up again to feet of water above my face.

Streamline. Dolphin kick. Break the surface. Breathe.

This is the final stretch. Fifteen yards to go. Out of the corner of my eye, I sense that the lane two competitor and I are neck-and-neck. I increase my kickrate and stroke my arms until they feel like they’re flailing. I know that my main strength is in my kick, so I alternate my legs up and down until my quadriceps burn.

The end set of backstroke flags pass over my head. Here, I need to have the perfect finish. If I slow down or take a half-stroke into the wall, I’ll cause my teammate to false start, disqualifying our team from the race.

On the fourth stroke from the flags, I dive back and my hand hits the wall. Looking up from underwater, I can see a human-shaped blur fly over my head as Mikki, our freshman standout breaststroker, relay starts off the block.

I turn to grab the wall, and my legs seize up. I can hardly get enough oxygen. I scramble to climb out of the pool quickly, so as not to obstruct my teammate’s finish.

I’m out of the pool, hot, dripping, and nearly doubled over trying to catch my breath. I look up at the scoreboard for my split.

29. 95. Personal best time. I broke 30.

My face breaks out into a smile. I feel our freestyler pat me on the back.

“Nice.”

Still smiling, I finally catch my breath and throw it all into a cheer for my breaststroking teammate.

“C’MON MIKKI! YOU’VE GOT IT!”

I fall into my favorite breaststroke cheer, a quick “HUP” every time she breaks the surface. And before I’ve been cheering for long, she hits the wall, and my butterflying best friend windmills her arms into a relay start.

31.97. Personal best time.

As soon as she climbs out of the water, I clap our breaststroker on the back, and soon we’re both jumping up and down cheering.

“GO JAIMIE GO!”

She finishes to the wall. 28.27. Personal best time.

We’ve fallen back. It’s looking like a solid fifth place.

However, we all know that our freestyler is our secret weapon. Emma is the type of swimmer who looks like she isn’t even trying. Actually, a lot of the best swimmers look like that. Each stroke is layered with such a huge amount of power that she seems to glide through the water without a second thought.

She closes in on the fourth place team. McMurry in lane six. She seems to glide right ahead of the McMurry swimmer, who thrashes in the water expending everything she has.

Mikki is leaning by the edge, her knuckles and face turning white as she yells. Jaimie and I are jumping and yelling. Across the pool, I can see my coach and teammates clenching their fists and swinging their arms screaming at the tops of their lungs.

Her hand touches the wall. 1:54.69. Our personal best time. One-tenth of a second away from the school record. Fourth place. The perfect start to the night of finals.

I can feel the rough concrete on my feet as I walk, part of a long line of college girls in warm-up sweats and jackets over their racing swimsuits, along the side of an eight lane indoor pool. Sound bounces endlessly off the walls, a mixture of cheering and an upbeat pump-up song, Kanye West’s “All of the Lights.” The tension is palpable. The pool itself is silent and pristinely clear, a sheet of pure glass just waiting to be broken. It’s time for the first final of the second night of the 2014 Liberal Arts Swimming Championships: the women’s 200 yard medley relay.

My Speedo vanquishers press into my eye sockets atop a black, latex Mustang logo swim cap, scrupulously tightened to the point that no water can possibly leak in. My brand new Speedo LZR Racer II technical swim suit puts an extra spring in my step, the tightly-fitting fabric coming all the way to the tops of my knees and making my legs spring together with every stride. Earlier, it had taken 15 minutes and some help from one of my relay team members to help pull the drag-reducing, muscle compressing suit all the way on. I try and walk with an expression of pure concentration.

I can feel my teammates close on my heels. We walk in the order of the relay: as the backstroker, I’m first; then comes our breaststroker, a freshman standout; then the butterflier, my roommate and best friend; and our superstar freestyler, last year’s champion in the 100 distance. Each of us is prepared to swim an all-out sprint 50 yards of our stroke. All we have is one start, one turn, and one finish to make or break our leg of the race.

We make our way to our assigned lane number three. The team with the fastest time from prelims that morning swims in four, the second fastest in five, the third in three, and so on until the slowest teams are on the outside lanes. While we know that we will have the chance to swim this race again at Nationals, our “conference” race is what really counts. Since we are the only swim team in our NAIA GPAC conference, we are at Liberal Arts Championships to prove to a group of NCAA Division II and III teams that we have what it takes.

I know that I’m going to have to break 30 seconds for the first time to pull my weight on our team. My teammates are all much better at the 50 yard distance than I am, and I feel pressured to prove myself.

The four of us strip off our jackets and sweats and throw them into a pile behind lane three. My best friend the butterflier catches my eye and breaks into a nervous smile. Here goes. I smile back, take a deep breath, and walk to the edge of the pool.

In the background, I can hear the receding staccato notes of the rest of our team’s cheer from the opposite end.

“MUSTANG RELAY!” clap clap clap-clap-clap.

To my left and right are two girls much taller and more muscular than I. They both have the signature upside-down triangle body shape, the mark of a swimmer. They jump and shake their limbs to get the blood rushing.

I put on my noseplug. When I was younger, I would have foregone it, but after seeing Missy Franklin in the 2012 Olympics, I decided that it was a piece of equipment that would help me become much more efficient off my backstroke flipturns.

Two short whistle blasts followed by a long one: the signal to be ready.

“This is the A final of the 200 Yard Medley Relay.”

One long whistle blast. I step into the pool, letting myself submerge a couple of feet under. When I break the surface, I turn around to face my teammates behind the lane, place my feet on the wall, and grab the backstroke starting bar with both hands. This is the moment. The room goes silent for the start of the race.

“Take your mark.”

I flex my arms to bring my body up into the starting position. Every muscle in my body is tense, a spring itching to decompress.

“Beep.”

At the tone, I throw my arms above my head, arch my back, and push off the wall with my feet into a back-dive. My palms are face up, one on top of the other. The sides of my biceps compress the sides of my head, and my elbows are locked into a streamline position. I am underwater, and I can see four feet of water above my head, ending at a smooth glassy surface.

This is my favorite part of the race. Deep underwater and lying on my back, I can’t see my competitors in the adjacent lanes. I have more momentum than I ever will have in the race, and for a brief fraction of a second, I just hold my muscles tight and let my earlier exertion propel me forward position. It’s oddly peaceful.

But the moment doesn’t last, and I feel myself start to slow down. I break into a rhythmic, strong dolphin kick, a sine wave originating with a flex of the abdominals and ending with a powerful simultaneous upstroke of both feet. I can see the surface quickly approaching, and six dolphin kicks, I pull one arm down, out of the streamline position, in preparation to break the water.

The first thing to break is my hands. Soon after, the rest of my body follows, but I haven’t missed a beat. My legs have transitioned to an alternating flutter kick and my arms begin the windmill-like backstroke motion. With every armstroke, my body turns almost completely onto its side, a rotating motion with my stationary head as the axis. I take a deep breath.

Six strokes and I see the backstroke flags overhead, warning me that the wall is quickly approaching. I take one normal stroke and use the next one to turn over onto my stomach. The timing here is key. Hit the wall too close, and I’ll waste time trying to untangle and decompress my legs at the push-off. Hit the wall from too far away, and I’ll lose the vital momentum boost that comes from the flipturn.

Lying on my stomach now, I let my final stroke lead me into a high-speed summersault. As I flip over, I catch a glance of my competitor in lane four; I see the tips of her feet as she pushes off the wall. She’s ahead.

Repositioned on my back, I extend my arms into streamline position above my head, and concentrate all of the energy in my body into the push off. I jump off the wall and look up again to feet of water above my face.

Streamline. Dolphin kick. Break the surface. Breathe.

This is the final stretch. Fifteen yards to go. Out of the corner of my eye, I sense that the competitor on my right and I are neck-and-neck. I increase my kickrate and stroke my arms until they feel like they’re flailing. I know that my main strength is in my kick, so I alternate my legs up and down until my quadriceps burn.

The end set of backstroke flags pass over my head. Here, I need to have the perfect finish. If I slow down or if I take a half-stroke into the wall, I’ll cause my teammate to false start by pushing off the starting block before my hand hits.

On the fourth stroke from the flags, I dive back and my hand hits the wall. Looking up from underwater, I can see a human-shaped blur fly over my head as the freshman standout does a relay start off the block.

I turn to grab the wall, and my legs seize up. I can hardly get enough oxygen. I scramble to climb out of the pool quickly, so as not to obstruct my teammate’s finish.

I’m out of the pool, hot, dripping, and nearly doubled over trying to catch my breath. I look up at the scoreboard for my split.

29. 95. Personal best time. I broke 30.

My face breaks out into a smile. I feel our freestyler pat me on the back.

“Nice.”

Still smiling, I finally catch my breath and throw it all into a cheer for my breaststroking teammate.

“C’MON MIKKI! YOU’VE GOT IT!”

I fall into my favorite breaststroke cheer, a quick “HUP” every time she breaks the surface. And before I’ve been cheering for long, she hits the wall, and my butterflying best friend windmills her arms back into a relay start.

31.97. Personal best time.

As soon as she climbs out of the water, I clap our breastroker on the back, and soon we’re both jumping up and down cheering.

“GO JAIMIE GO!”

She finishes to the wall. 28.27. Personal best time.

We’ve fallen back. It’s looking like a solid fifth place.

However, we all know that our freestyler is our secret weapon. Emma is the type of swimmer who looks like she isn’t even trying. Actually, a lot of the best swimmers look like that. Each stroke is just layered with such a huge amount of power that she seems to glide through the water without a second thought.

She closes in on the fourth place team. McMurry in lane six. She seems to glide right ahead of the McMurry swimmer, who thrashes in the water expending everything she has.

Mikki, our breaststroker, is leaning by the edge, her knuckles and face turning white as she yells. Jaimie and I are jumping and yelling. Across the pool, I can see my coach and teammates clenching their fists and swinging their arms screaming at the tops of their lungs.

Her hand touches the wall. 1:54.69. Our personal best time. One-tenth of a second away from the school record. Fourth place. Not too shabby.

Almost every student in the Morningside cafeteria goes through the exact same steps three times a day. Walk through the doors. Dig your student ID out of your ID holder, usually attached to your room keys: a Vera Bradley paisley holder for girls and the standard issue Morningside insignia one that comes in your freshman folder for guys. Hand it to the ID taker. Give the cafeteria lady a generic thank you, unless it’s dinner, in which case you call him by name: “Thanks, Les.” Then, go to a table and set your keys and smartphone on it, to mark it as your own. Don’t even give it a second thought; nothing gets stolen at Morningside.  Then, survey the options. After you’ve seen everything that the five lines have to offer, jump in a line. Don’t make causal conversation with the other people in the line unless they are your friends. Get your food, then drink (always in that order), then go back to your table to enjoy your meal.

The process that students go through in the caf is almost robotic since they do it so many times throughout the year. Some people (cough, the track team) even sit at the same table for every meal of every day.

The people who are most interesting to watch in the caf are usually the ones who end up sitting alone. Whenever I see someone sitting alone at the caf, I usually just assume that his or her friends are busy. But, the person sitting alone obviously feels judged. They usually pull out their phone or computer and keep hunched over it. Sometimes they will self-consciously scan the caf, making sure that none of their friends are sitting across the room. They also tend to eat fast, to minimize the time that they have to spend alone in a crowded room.

While Indie Rock isn’t the type of music that I would normally pick out, the Arctic Monkeys’ newest album “AM” struck a chord with me. I found myself tapping my foot and rocking along to the contagious instrumental beats, which range from smooth and relaxing to pulse-pounding rock. The lyrics are poetic and meaningful, a far cry from the “pop, lock, and drop it” one-dimensional lyrics of some music out today.

“AM,” released September 9, 2013, is a twelve-track album, the fifth for the British Indie Rock band. It debuted in Britain at number one on the charts, selling over 157,000 copies in the first week. “AM” received a shower of critical acclaim, including a nomination for the Mercury prize and a Brit award for Best British Album. Band members include: Alex Turner (lead vocals, rhythm guitar), Jamie Cook (lead guitar, backing vocals), Nick O’Malley (bass, backing vocals), and Matt Helders (drums, backing vocals).

My favorite song on the album was probably “Snap Out of It.” The song is very upbeat and you can’t help but move along with the rhythm. This was the song that made me want to listen to the album a second time, and then a third.

After I’d listened to most of the songs a few times through, I looked up the lyrics and they led me to love the music even more. The lyrics set up a scene, not unlike well-written poetry or prose. No. 1 Party Anthem, for example, automatically introduces you to a place and a character: “So you’re on the prowl wondering/whether she left already or not/Leather jacket collar popped like antenna/never knowing when to stop/ Sunglasses indoors par for the course/ lights in the floors/ and sweat on the walls/ Cages and poles.” The song seems to lament the lack of love that comes with casual hookups.

On the first listen-through, I thought that the songs all sounded similar and that none of them really stood out. However, as I spent more time with the tracks, I realized that the instrumentals are very diverse, while the lead vocals are very similar among the tracks. The lead vocals throughout each song have a narrow range presented in the soft crooning voice of Alex Turner. Turner’s vocals have a purposefully unpolished tinny quality, as if he were singing into a metal toilet paper roll in an echoing basement.

The one track where the vocals really stand out from the rest of the songs is “Knee Socks.” The vocals start out sounding very similar to every other song, but then, around the 2:40 mark, one of the background singers bursts into a quick falsetto repetition of the same lyrics “You and me could have been a team/Each had a half of a king and queen seat/Like the beginning of Mean Streets/You could be my baby.” I really enjoyed this section of the song in its departure from the rest of the album, and it reminded me of a couple of different Justin Timberlake songs.

Despite the unpolished vocals, as an inexperienced listener, I would recommend this album as a great introduction to Indie Rock. 3 out of 4 stars.

1. During the last class, we discussed Zitkala-Sa’s book of stories. I enjoyed her book the most out of anything that we have read so far this semester, and it really gave me a window to a different world. One of the things that we emphasized during our class discussion was Zitkala-Sa’s audience and the format in which her stories were published. She was really smart in realizing that the newly-enfranchised middle to upper class “club women,” especially the former suffragettes, were hungry for a new cause to fight for; “the Indian problem” fit the bill. Her careful planning and marketing (in order to recruit women to fight for her cause) kind of reminded me of the diligent marketing that Edith Wharton did to sell her books. The other thing that I found very interesting was the Christian symbolism set alongside the discussion of the Sioux religion and culture. Until Jacob mentioned it in class, I completely missed the symbolism of the apple. I wish that we had gone a little further with that, just because I think that the Biblical parallels bring a lot to the autobiographical stories. For example, that story portrays the young Zitkala-Sa as Eve, tricked into going to the land of red apples by the snake-like “palefaces.” Obviously, in the Bible story, the act of taking the forbidden fruit results in original sin, which is pretty much the worst thing ever, but did Zitkala-Sa really think that her decision to go be educated was such a terrible thing? In the end, she ended up becoming the voice of her people, and she seemed pretty proud of that accomplishment, although she often expressed small regrets. I’m not sure where I’m going with this, other than that it would be really interesting to further explore the biblical symbolism.

2. This week, we read both Madame Butterfly by John Luther Long and A Japanese Nightingale by Onoto Wantanna (Winnifred Eaton). I absolutely hated Madame Butterfly and enjoyed A Japanese Nightingale. For me, Madame Butterfly was relentlessly racist and exasperatingly one-dimensional in its portrayal of Cho-Cho-San. The middle and end of the book are written from her perspective (or at least, we are limited to only seeing and knowing things that she sees and knows) and yet, the reader still sees her only through Luther’s scathing caricature of a Japanese woman. It would make a little bit more sense for her to talk in that awful pidgin-English dialect (which was not only untactful, but also really badly constructed) if we were seeing her through an English-speaker’s eyes. As it is, the book paints her as being objectively annoying, stupid, and unintelligible, which is completely unfair since it is from her perspective, and she obviously understands what she is saying, even if she knows her English isn’t the best. Honestly, I have no idea why this book is still being read today. The story, while maybe original at the time, really isn’t all that interesting, and the poorly constructed dialect that dominates the narrative is nails-on-chalkboard grating.

I thought that A Japanese Nightingale was overall a much better story. The Japanese (or half-Japanese, as we find out) female protagonist still speaks in dialect, but it is much easier to read. Overall, the relationship between Bigelow and Yuki is much more multi-dimensional than the obsessive love that we see in Madame Butterfly. Both characters are dynamic, and their relationship is complex. I also thought that the plot was a lot more dynamic and full of suspense.

3. The secondary text for this week was the introduction to the book. The intro set the historical background in which both of these texts were written. The turn of the century marked a widespread fascination with Japanese culture among Americans. Each of these texts fulfilled the demand for more information on Eastern culture, and presented it through the safe and comfortable lens of an American traveler (Pinkerton and Bigelow). The text also gave some background information on each of the authors. John Luther Long was an American who “had never heard a Japanese speak English.” (At this point, I would say that he should have either done some extra background research or decided to write something with which he was more familiar.) Eaton, on the other hand, was actually half-Chinese. However, since Americans were generally anti-China at that time, she decided to pick a Japanese penname and write about Japan. Honestly, from having read each novella and the introduction, I think that each of these books were probably terrible sources of information on Japanese culture.

1. Last week, we had an abbreviated class session. We finished watching Age of Innocence and spent a little bit of time discussing Alexander’s Bridge in order to come up with some discussion questions. One of the things that I found most interesting about Alexander’s Bridge was Willa Cather’s intense dislike of her own novel, a feeling we read about in the secondary text. According to the stuff we’ve learned in class, Cather was more of a prairie novelist, although she would later dislike that label. She would rather characterize herself as an American writer than a regionalist writer. She simply thought that the essence of the American experience was best exemplified through prairie writing. Alexander’s Bridge, however, is a piece of writing worthy of an expatriate. The secondary text said that Cather felt that Alexander’s Bridge was both juvenile and a bit of a betrayal to her Midwestern roots. Here are the review questions that I came up with:

• Do each of the women in the story stand for a different set of ideals?
• Compare/contrast Hilda and Winifred. What do the differences say about the two different countries? Or are they even meant to be symbols?
• Why was the first chapter from the perspective of the professor? What ever happened to him?

2. This week, we read American Indian Stories by Zitkala-Sa. The book consisted of nine short stories and one essay, all concerning the lives of Native Americans in the United States. The first four were autobiographical and showed vignettes of important points in the author’s life. “Impressions of an Indian Childhood” explained what it was like for the author to grow up as a member of the Yankton Sioux, “School Days of an Indian Girl” told the story of her transition to an Indian school run by whites in Indiana, “An Indian Teacher Among Indians” describes her first job, and “The Great Spirit” recounts an episode where a converted Native American Christian preacher comes to try and persuade the author to convert to Christianity. The following stories are all legends that the author grew up hearing or short stories that she wrote to help English-speaking Americans sympathize with the Native Americans. The final installment, “America’s Indian Problem,” is an essay directed at non-natives of the time that speaks in favor of Native American rights.

One of my favorite stories from the group was “A Warrior’s Daughter.” The story reads like a Native American fairy tale with a strong female protagonist at its center. When the main character’s suitor gets captured by enemies, she sneaks into the enemy camp disguised as an old woman and rescues him, killing any enemies who try and stop her. At the end, she hoists her lover onto her back and runs triumphantly home. It is understood that though there are many warriors in the story (her father, the lover, and the warriors who go fight the enemy), the main character, Tusee, is the bravest warrior of all.

I also really enjoyed the nonfiction pieces at the beginning of the book describing Zitkala-Sa’s early life. They gave a window into the life of a Native American in the late 19^th century. For me, the real turning point in those stories is when her mother decides to send her off with the white men to get a white education. The mother knows that her daughter will have to endure unbearable hardship, but education ends up being the thing that allows Zitkala-Sa to become vastly successful.

3. “Zitkala-Sa: The Representative Indian” by Susan Rose Dominguez helps to bring a lot of different themes from American Indian Stories to light. It also is a resource of biographical information which helps readers to put the short stories in context. It especially helped me to understand the meaning of “America’s Indian Problem.” The secondary text explains that “America’s Indian Problem” was published in a women’s magazine in 1921. Zitkala-Sa intended for the newly enfranchised middle-class women to reach out and help the American Indian. She outlined specific points that would allow American Indians to find success as Americans. Her essay was successful, and the General Federation of Women’s Clubs formed the National Indian Welfare Committee.

The essay also filled in some of the blanks about Zitkala-Sa’s life that the short stories didn’t directly address. For example, it explained that her uncle and sister were killed by General Custer and his Seventh Calvary. It also explained that she attended Josiah White’s Institute in Wabash, Indiana. The article also includes information about her musical talent, her husband, and her life after her stint as a teacher, information that is not included at all in the stories. The secondary text for this week provided more background information than criticism, but I found the background information to be very useful and informative.

If there’s one thing that the previous generations will never be able to understand about ours, it’s video games. Actually, let me make that more specific. Maybe they can see the appeal in dressing up like a Rambo-esque soldier and taking out a bunch of un-American bad guys in Call of Duty. Maybe they can understand edging toward that next level in Candy Crush or farming out that final square of corn to pay for your new barn in Farmville. Maybe they even can get why you would pretend to be Eli Manning taking on his older brother Peyton in Madden.

We all know that this is what real adults play. Image credit.

However, our parents’ generation may never understand why grown men and women spend their time hunched over a purple Nintendo 3DS playing games from the Pokemon series. In fact, and this might surprise you, the majority of people who play Pokemon games are aged from 19 to 24.

Here at Morningside, the Pokemon tradition is alive and flourishing. A Facebook group dubbed the “Morningside Pokemon Fan Club” has 74 members and is still growing. Last year, a campus Pokemon group met up a few times to talk about the newly-released Pokemon X and Y and organize wireless Pokemon battles. Members still post on the Facebook page from time to time to discuss the upcoming Pokemon AlphaSapphire and OmegaRuby (release date: November 21, 2014) or to talk about ways to obtain rare Pokemon.

And I get why some adults don’t understand the phenomenon. On the surface, Pokemon is pretty much about screaming at your giant, mutant, fire-breathing lizard to make it attack and kill a 10-year-old’s one-foot tall electric mouse.

Looks like a fair fight to me. Image credit.

And, on a deeper level, it’s… Actually, it’s still about forcing your gargantuan mutant dragon to fry a kid’s sparky rodent to the core. But isn’t that a dream come true?

For Morningside College senior Michael Andrlik, Pokemon definitely a game worth playing as a 20-something.

“I would be the first to admit that I was addicted to [the newest Pokemon game] when it first came out,” he said. “In the first three weeks after I got it, I put about 240 hours into the game.”

Andrlik has been playing Pokemon since he was in elementary school.

“By now, pretty much, people our age grew up playing Pokemon, and it’s something they’ve just never put down.”

Are you still confused by the Poke-mania? The storyline is pretty similar across all 22 games, so let’s try it this way. You wake up one morning and go down for breakfast. You trip on the stairs and realize that you have grown a couple of feet shorter and have lost the effects of puberty. Congrats! You’re ten. Darn it. Your mom is making breakfast. She tells you that you’re running late for a meeting with a local biologist.

Oh no! You run to the pixelated, brick research lab, conveniently located right next door, and the man inside introduces himself as Professor [Insert Tree Name Here], the region’s foremost Pokemon researcher. He then offers you a choice of three adorable monsters: a fire lizard, a water turtle, or a grass dinosaur. How adorable. Or, depending on the game title, maybe a grass gecko, a flaming chicken, or a water salamander? How about water otter, a fire pig, or a grass snake? Or maybe a fire fox, an Internet Explorer, or a Google Chrome? (Just kidding, browser joke.)

Nope, I think I’m gonna turn you down, Professor, and play Old Maid with my grandma instead. Image credit.

Anyway, you pick your adorable little demon and go back home. Your mom is very impressed and proud of you. In fact, she decides that you are responsible enough to leave the house, take your little Buttlicker (you can’t help but exploit the name customizer), and go on a backpacking expedition across the entire country. By yourself. With no supervision.

Okay, so I may not yet have inspired anyone to go buy a $200 Nintendo 3DS console and a copy of Pokemon Y (although, if you’re interested, I would recommend the $100 2DS console and Pokemon X), but Pokemon games are very popular among college students. And Nintendo knows their market. The most recent Pokemon games, the aforementioned X and Y, cater to older players in a host of different ways. The games offer an ever-increasingly complex battling system that dives deep beneath the surface rock-paper-scissors interface (water beats fire, fire beats grass, grass beats water). 718 Pokemon of 18 different types can learn 617 moves and hold 60 different items, resulting in an almost-infinite number of battle strategies. The newest games even allow for internet connectivity, so you can trade, battle, and chat with friends and players all over the world. There are even professional competitive Pokemon players who compete in international tournaments.

Blow up the giant Pikachu, Rio, I think it’s high time we added Pokemon to the Olympics. Image credit.

Josh Karel, another Pokemon-playing Morningside senior, thinks that the game developers know that older players are the perfect market.

“Once they see that the people who were kids when it first came out are playing it, they’ll do whatever they need to do to keep them playing,” said Karel. “The ability to connect to the internet and do whatever you want with the game with people all over the world is a huge draw.”

While on your Pokemon journey, you will amass an army of lovable monsters and train your favorites until they evolve into more powerful and badass versions of themselves. Your primary goal is to defeat the gym leader in each town to become the Pokemon Champion. However, along the way, you will develop a strategy that will make you completely unstoppable, defend the weak with your might, take down a nationwide terrorist organization, and uncover the mystery of a legendary Pokemon with the ability to bend space and time. Along the way, you’ll scale the mountaintops, dive to the depths of the sea, explore the forests, and probably descend into the an active volcano. And maybe, just maybe, you’ll fall in love. Just kidding again. I mean really, you’re only ten.

He may look a little scrawny, but this kid is the savior of the civilized world. Image credit.

For both Karel and Andrlik, the storyline is the biggest reason to play Pokemon as an adult. In addition, they both think that Pokemon is a good way for college students to make friends, whether it’s through the on-campus club, or just in their daily lives.

“Another big part of Pokemon is the social aspect,” said Karel, “You know, if you find a group of people who are interested in playing the same game, you can establish a friendship group that way.”

While both students love the newest Pokemon games, nostalgia is a huge part of their enjoyment of the series. Each one picked an original Pokemon as his favorite.

“I’d probably say Lapras,” said Karel, picking the Loch Ness Monster-esque water and ice Pokemon from the original games.

“Definitely Charizard,” said Andrlik, “I’ve always liked Charizard. I just feel like he is the most badass Pokemon out there.

Lapras: King of the Seas. Image credit.

Charizard: Ruler of the Skies. Image credit.

At first, I took our “Listen” assignment as an excuse to eavesdrop on my teammates during our Sunday study hall in a quiet HPER classroom. Unfortunately, on the ceiling directly above me was a rushing air vent, which obstructed a lot of my hearing. The air conditioner made the kind of sound that you could ignore until you noticed it, but after that first burst of insight, it would become deafening. It sounded like it was working really hard to produce that loud rushing sound, but it didn’t produce much else. Throughout our hour study hall, the room stayed uncomfortably muggy. The vent seemed like it just wanted us to think it was doing its job, like when your mom sends you up to clean your room, so you make a lot of noise to prove how hard you are working, but the room doesn’t get any cleaner.

But, anyway, here are some of the lines of conversation that I was able to discern. Most of them came from the sophomore sitting two chairs away with a heavy Chicago accent.

“Oh my god, I forgot my calculator”

“I should get my friend from Germany to come here.”

“It’s like, freaking obnoxious calling.”

“My friends are like in love with him.”

“Do you, like, always have your social security card on you? He wouldn’t let me leave for college unless I memorized the whole thing.”

“This is so confusing.”

“Why are you suspended from Twitter?”

“She just pretty much called me an idiot because I explained what I did to my leg to her.”

“She was like, ‘Are you 18?” I was like, ‘Yeah.’ She was like ‘Prove it.’”

“He was like I’m happy for you.”

“He was like “Who’s this Maddie girl?”

The last two quotes were a couple of my favorites, because they really helped showcase her accent. Her long ‘A’s were always much longer than they are for anyone else that I know on campus. ‘Happy’ became “Heeyappy,” while “Maddie” became “Meyaaddy.” I also really enjoyed this one, although I’m not really sure what they were trying to spell:

“Okay, here’s how you spell it: K-E-I-S-G-S”

Unfortunately, the air vent kept me from following the thread of any real conversation.

Throughout my eavesdropping spell, another voice, a quiet, female one, heavy on the sibilance, barely registered in my ears, a bit of hissing with periodic emphasis: “ssss SSsss sss SSSSsss.”

To my left, I could discern the gentle, rhythmic tap of fingers on a keyboard with brief, barely audible pauses for the typist to think of what to say, like a contemplative mouse chewing its food. (I read this post earlier today, and it has me thinking in bad metaphor.)

Across the room, a man let out sporadic croupy coughs, ones that sounded like day four of a cold. Every now and then, the same guy would clear his throat in a way that sounded like desert ground cracking.

Every now and then, a ear-piercing squeak would issue across the room, followed by the shuffle of tennis shoes on close-cut, industrial carpet, as a student would push their desktop up on its hinge and walk to talk to another student, or leave the room to use the bathroom.

As study hall wears on, the rushing air vent still obstructs most of the hushed conversation, but after we’ve been in the room for about 55 minutes, the mood and sounds change. Papers shuffle and crinkle as students return them to their folders. I hear the girl next to me sit up a little straighter, ready to be dismissed. Computers close with a soft thud. Tension builds as the students wait to be released.