Good Night and Good Luck

Wow.

Another year flies by. It’s hard during the year to think about whether or not it was a good one. For me, it usually takes a while before I can fully appreciate, or not appreciate, a school year or a summer vacation or something like that. But I have good feelings about this one.

For one thing, when I think about my year as a whole, I can’t help but smile, which probably means I’ve had a good one. But its just so weird to think it’s over. My third year.

But I can’t help but say the one thing I feel like I missed this year, while I had a good out of school social life (I always had something to do with my free time) , I can’t help but realize that I have formed very few bonds with the kids in my classes. Maybe it’s because three of my four classes were majority sophomores. Maybe it’s because everyone is so wrapped up in “junior year” that we didn’t really stop and enjoy the people around us.

I know that sophomore year, I made friends with people that, to this day, I still spend all my free time with. I have so many great memories from my classes, meeting people, and laughing so hard in class the teacher yelled at us. But I’m not saying I don’t have good memories from this year!

I especially liked all my teachers this year. I got along well with every single one of them, and that makes me either really lucky, or….. really lucky. I know I’m going to miss my chemistry teacher a lot, and both of my American Studies teachers. I just have to keep telling myself I’ll see them around school.

Overall, I have to say, junior year wasn’t all it was cracked up to be. Sure there’s the college thing, but I am way too excited about college to even have time to be nervous or stressed about it. While this year at times was annoying, disorganized, and confusing, I’m lucky to have kept my sanity. I know kids that have cried every night for like, the last two months! I’m grateful for my sanity.

And so, as I venture into another patch of unknown waters, I look back and remember my good year, and my good luck, and look forward to a crazy summer ahead. As what will probably be my last post of junior year, and my last post for my American (Integrated) Studies course, I hope I made a good impression on the people around me, and that I don’t just become another student that took American studies one of those many years. I could ask for nothing more, for everything else has been given to me already. And so I conclude, Good night, and Good luck.

I can't think of a title for this, but read it anyway...

Last weekend my sister got confirmed into our church. It was a happy event and the whole family was there, but the one thing I really remember from the weekend is that I took way too long getting ready!

Not only am I not a morning person, but I, in a classic girl move, couldn’t for the life of me figure out what to wear! I had a dress and a sweater but it was missing something. As I rummaged through my mom’s draws of her vintage clothing I found it. A beautiful Chanel floral silk scarf, a perfect accessory to the simple white dress I was wearing.

Now that’s all nice and interesting but that’s not what I’m writing this blog post to talk about. I want to talk about fashion and clothing as a symbol for social class.

This scarf had a pretty and simply floral pattern, but in the center was a huge Chanel symbol. It is by far the biggest image on the scarf and draws a lot of attention. I soon realized that this is one of the reasons the scarf is so pretty, and why I was so drawn to it. Yes, it’s shallow and materialistic of me, but I love the fact that I was wearing a vintage Chanel silk scarf. Of course, this symbol represents something to most people, at least to most girls. It’s a great symbol for wealth, sophistication, and social standing, whatever all three of those terms actually mean.

So I thought of all the people that spend thousands of dollars on clothing and accessories. But why? Is it because of the quality of the merchandise? I don’t think so. We pay for labels. It’s a simple as that. We like Chanel and Coach and Louis Vutton because we have this idea in our head that they’re high-class.

I think this something important that needs to be taken into account when looking at American’s views of social class. It is possible to find people, who live on the verge of poverty, but are still going to pay to have the nice clothing, because at least it gives off the idea that they care about their image, and they can afford to keep it up. It’s an interesting glimpse into American society and how much we obsess over our public image. We want to look wealthy and respectable, so we pay for those random labels that to a lot of people don’t actually mean anything at all. And I think it’s a simple as that.

Small and Mighty

The American Flag. What does it symbolize, what does it mean?

I ended up going away for mothers’ day this weekend, up to Kohler, Wisconsin, which was convenient because if there is only one thing I’ll ever remember about Wisconsin-ites it’s that they love big American Flags. Really big American Flags. I’ve made the drive to Kohler about three times a year since I was like five, and we probably pass five huge American flags on the way there. Actually now it’s only four since the insurance company headquarters we pass took theirs down (which is interesting within itself).

However, the picture I took was not of one of those flags. It was of a much smaller flag. Actually, it isn’t a flag at all; it’s a painting of a flag. This painted flag, as you can see, is placed atop a silo. An interesting place for a flag. Or is it? The first thing I wondered was why there? Is there anything particularly American about silos? Well, yes there is. We’re one of the bread baskets of the world. But then I thought about how the farmer who owned said silo had to make the conscious decision to have that flag on top of his silo. Maybe he believes he is doing something particularly patriotic. Making food for Americans and foreigners alike. There is something strangely idyllic about an honest farmer, who lives off modest means and owes everything to the land. This is the way most American’s through history have lived, but actually, it’s kind of dying. American’s are no longer majority farmers. And with the industrialization of farming, both crop and livestock, the lifestyle of the American farmer is drastically different than it once was.

So was does this flag on this silo say? That this is America? These are its roots, its core, and its true citizen? This flag struck me, because it seems to, despite its size, demand attention. Close to the highway and high in the air, in a perpetual state of motion, it titles its farm “American”. But is it American? Is the rural America still the American heart, as this silo, and a surprisingly large amount of Wisconsin silos claim?

Or is farming a dying art, and with it, a dying form of patriotism?