Nutritional Education (Human Nutrition 11-28-2012)

Despite the many advances of our modern societies, there is still a great deal of ignorance as to what constitutes a nutritious diet. Many people in this day and age still lack the knowledge to make food choices for themselves and their offspring. That is why it is more important than ever to spread this necessary information in the hope of educating people in order that they may increase and prolong the quality of their health through nutritional education. It is only through nutritional education that people can make informed decisions as to what comprises healthy eating for healthy functioning throughout the life cycle.

            According to Sizer (2011), “significant numbers of U.S. children in families of low food security consume enough calories each day, but from a steady diet of inexpensive, low-nutrient foods, such as white bread, fats, sugary punches, and crackers, with few of the fruits, vegetables, milk products, and other nutritious foods children need to be healthy” (575). This problem is due to a lack of understanding as to what constitutes healthy eating and the effect that these foods have on not only one’s growth and development, but long-term health as well. This lack of knowledge can lead to malnourishment, which can have as much of an effect on growth and development, as well as overall health to adults as well as being undernourished. People may be foolishly led to believe that just because they have adequate amounts to eat that this is sufficient to their health until problems such as diabetes, and hypertension begin to occur. A lack of knowledge about healthy food choices may not become a concern until after their overall health becomes effected and necessitates medical interventions.

            In the U.S. food stamp programs provide benefits to lower-income and poverty-stricken families and individuals to assist in their being able to obtain enough food to feed themselves. The problem with the food stamp program is that “nutrition education is not a mandatory component” of these programs (Cason 4). People are allowed to use these funds to choose nutritionally inadequate foods which may actually have a detrimental  effect to ones health over the long-term. According to Cason (1999), “individuals receiving food stamps” actually have “less than adequate diets than those low-income individuals who do not receive food stamps” (4). The lack of encouraging those receiving benefits to receive nutritional education may actually be a detriment when food choices are not made with informed decisions as to what is necessary nutrition and effects overall long-term health.

            Lack of nutritional education in mothers adversely effects the health of children. According to Brundtland (2000), “malnutrition and infection in children is the outcome of poverty, ignorance, and, among other factors, high-risk pregnancies (14). “One of the most important factors in reducing child deaths and the vicious cycle between nutrition, infection, and poverty is female education and literacy” (14). Pregnant women are especially in need of nutritional education in order to prevent health problems and deaths of their defenseless children.

            The lack of nutritional education can have many adverse effects. Individuals without the information to make healthy food choices can become malnourished, as well as undernourished, causing lifelong health problems. Parents who are uninformed about how to make healthy food decisions not only adversely affect their own health, but also put their children at risk as well for health problems. Nutritional education is a very important matter and should be more heavily promoted to allow individuals to make better decisions towards their diet and ensure a longer, healthier life.

Works Cited:

Brundtland, G.H. (2000). “Nutrition and Infection: Malnutrition and Mortality in Public Health”. Nutrition Reviews. pp. S1-S4.  

Cason, K.L. (1999) “Hunger and Food Insecurity”. Journal of Family and Consumer Sciences. 91.1. 49-55.

Klein, B.W. (1998). “Could There Be Hunger in America?” Nutrition Insights. Insight 8,

Sizer, F. & Whitney, E. (2011). Nutrition Concepts and Controversies. 12^th ed. Cengage Learning.

Food Poverty (Human Nutrition 11-25-2012)

  Food poverty is a problem that exists in every country around the globe. In the U.S. alone it is said that there are “11.9 million households” or “12 percent” of households that consistently experience hunger in their daily lives (Klein 1). In America, “people go without nourishing meals not because there is no food nearby to purchase, but because they lack sufficient money to pay for both the food they need and other necessities, such as clothing, housing, medicines, and utilities” (Sizer 575). According to Cason (1999), “living below the poverty line puts tremendous strains on a household budget, adversely affecting the ability to purchase a nutritionally adequate diet” (3). Food poverty is one of the major problems facing our global society and eradicating it is a major concern for the future of our planet.

            In the U.S. during the 1960’s, according to Cason, “food security became a high-priority issue at all levels of government” (4). In the past few decades many programs were instituted to combat the growing epidemic of hunger in our society, examples of which are the “Food Stamp Program” and the “Special Supplemental Program for Women, Infants, and Children” or WIC (4). Despite the institution of these programs though, often times the receivers of supplemental benefits may use these funds to “pay utility bills or other necessities” (Klein 2). Another problem concerning the Federal program coverage, according to Klein, is that not all “communities sponsor the range of Federal Food assistance” and these programs are only “available in a limited number of places” (12). In our recent economic climate, “state and local governments and private charities, enlisted to make up for federal cutbacks and budget restraints, are increasingly unable to shoulder the burden”, and have had to make “severe cuts” in their programs (Cason 6). The only solution to this problem is to learn how to better allocate already limited funds and resources and minimize their waste.

            Food poverty has another detrimental effect upon our society. A lack of an adequate nutritious diet during the formative years of the individual can lead to “stunting and wasting”, which limits the “mental development” of the individual, and “decisively handicapping the affected millions that do not die” (Brundtland 12). According to Brundtland (2000), these survivors of malnutrition have “special difficulties in terms of their cognitive and physical development” resulting in a more limited adulthood where the individual is “less productive”, and “earn less” (12). This situation can result in a “drain on human resources” in terms of medical costs that burden the state, and result in less productive citizens (12). This situation can be detrimental to an individual’s community as well as to the overall society when an inadequate diet results in diminished functioning, behavior problems, and physical handicaps that cause the individual to become a drain on society, rather than a healthy person who can enjoy full participation in their society. The only means to eradicate this problem is to ensure that all of our citizens have an equal access to the nutrient-dense foods that allow for healthy growth and functioning throughout the life cycle of the individual.

            Food poverty can have several detrimental effects, not only to the individual but also to the individual’s society. When people do not receive an adequate, nutrient-dense diet in their growing years, development becomes retarded and one’s potential is not the same as if the individual had received the proper nutrition during the formative years. Children who are unable to receive an adequate diet may not be able to concentrate in school, and may develop behavioral problems. Individuals who are unable to gain access to a nutrient-dense diet may develop health problems throughout their life cycle for which they may need medical assistance provided by the state, further draining available resources. When individuals are unable to get their dietary needs met, their functioning in their society is reduced, and instead of being able to have a healthy and full function and participation in their society, they instead make the social environment weaker. It is only addressing the problem of food poverty that we can be more healthy as a society as a whole, as the health of the individual also effects the health of our society as well.

Works Cited:

Brundtland, G.H. (2000). “Nutrition and Infection: Malnutrition and Mortality in Public Health”. Nutrition Reviews. pp. S1-S4.  

Cason, K.L. (1999) “Hunger and Food Insecurity”. Journal of Family and Consumer Sciences. 91.1. 49-55.

Klein, B.W. (1998). “Could There Be Hunger in America?” Nutrition Insights. Insight 8,

Sizer, F. & Whitney, E. (2011). Nutrition Concepts and Controversies. 12^th ed. Cengage Learning.

Alienation and Assimilation Discussion Post (U.S. Women's Multicultural Life Writings 10-21-12)

Discussion 1 - Alienation and Assimilation

 

Melanson, Joseph

9/23/2012

In “War Doll Hotel” by Kiana Davenport, we are given the glimpse into what it was like for her growing up, and her later running away from her home in Hawaii, and the denial of her mixed race, to go to New York City in the hopes of finding a sense of belonging on the mainland. She finds a group of women hoping to do the same, some moving on to success like her, and others who are destroyed by the big city.

Davenport has a special ability to fit in with whites, giving her a unique perspective to see them when they are amongst themselves, comfortable with their own kind.

For instance, she relates her experience sharing an apartment with the “racquet-swinging blondes from Massachusetts” who thought she was from a rich family who could afford to live in Hawaii year round, and the writer she dated whose family made racist remarks and jokes in front of their African-American help. They did not now that she was of mixed race and probably would not have reacted the same way towards her as they did.

Her journey through this life in the ability to hide her darker and less socially acceptable self taught her many things. For instance, “I learned that recognizing who you are isn’t the subtext of a life. It’s the main point” (14).

Her stay at the YMCA taught her that “such profoundly dislocated, homesick young women could buoy each other up, assemble, and take aim; well, that was the important thing. New York, the target, was insignificant. Targets change” (15). I liked this statement for its profound truth. We go through many stages in life and are forced into situations with people. In all of them we have to find friends and companions to accompany on our journey, leaving some people behind, as others leave us behind. As we move through life the things and places that we place importance upon change, and whoever we are is not static, but continually changes. 

In “All My Relations” by Joyce Zonana we have the story of a woman who earns her Ph.D. and cannot find a job except in Oklahoma, forcing her to leave familiar territory in which she was already comfortable and accustomed to, to find employment in her chosen profession of teaching.

She, like all of us in different parts of our lives, lets others intimidate her. Sitting next to the state trooper at her road test, she is unable to control the car, to master the rules of the road before this state trooper who seems like a metaphor for the people who we let do this to us, those who are barely even there, who come and go out of our lives for mere minutes, yet we give them this power over us, letting them decide where to go, how we succeed and fail.

In both of the stories we find the problem of alienation in a world that forces us to find how we can assimilate. Both of the women are not able to appreciate the culture and ethnicity to which they were born until they are much older, and have left their familiar worlds. Once they are separated from which they came from, they later learn to appreciate what they were born into, and Zonana even goes so far to begin to pursue a degree in order to learn more about her people’s history and culture from which she came.

I myself am of a mixed race, Caucasian-mixed (French, Irish from my maternal grandfather, Ukrainian from my father), and Mexican-American, and possibly Native American from my maternal grandmother, she does not know if her father was Indian or not she thinks he might have been. I was always a dull shade of brown, yet I could become dark brown in the summer depending upon how much time I spent in the sun. I never felt connected to anything, no culture or people to be proud of, yet now as I am older it doesn’t mean anything to me, it is more of a matter of how proud of yourself that you are, of being proud of the person that you have created. I heard a song on the radio today that summarizes it for me. “It doesn’t matter where you came from, it only matters where you’re going”.

Davenport Discussion Post (U.S. Women's Multicultural Writings 09-30-12).

I.

Summary

Davenport relates her essay “War Doll Hotel” as a series of snapshots over various portions of her lifetime, focusing on her stay at the YMCA in NYC during the 1970’s as its central focus. Davenport, in her essay, reconciles her divided self of her youth in NYC that had not yet embraced multiculturalism as openly as it does today, by looking back through the lens of her present state, one of a more profound appreciation for not only her own uniqueness, but realizing that we all come from a place of searching for what we are, and having to go through our own journeys to find ourselves as well.  

Analysis

Born to a Hawaiian mother, and a Caucasian father, neither of which imprinted their culture upon her during her youth, she flees her native Hawaii for NYC in the hope of escaping the place of her birth and youth in the hopes of becoming successful in assimilating to the larger, corporate America.

“You see the trouble I was in; I still didn’t know who I was. I would lose a whole decade, all of my twenties, before I learned that recognizing who you are isn’t the subtext of a life. It’s the main point” (14).

She arrives at NYC in her early twenties, hoping to find success in corporate America, a form of America that was mostly Caucasian, believing that the assimilation into this culture is the definition of happiness. She finds herself at the YMCA, amongst other refugees from other places and cultures, that had caused these women to be labeled outcasts by others, or causing the women to see themselves as outcasts from a circumstance that they were running away from. Some women are more readily able to assimilate themselves into the culture, Davenport herself appeared white and thus had an advantage. Other women had a more difficult time in assimilating, using other methods such as finding husband’s which they believed would give them a way into being accepted by the larger community. The women at the YMCA became their own tight-knit family, in order to support each other, and help each other make sense of this new society that they had to somehow navigate. Other women could not so readily fit in and develop this ability (the suicide and the woman who appeared to have gone insane), and I noticed Davenport did not mention these women by name, as they were probably incapable, possibly through their own negative self-beliefs, to join and participate within this group of women. The women who did succeed were able to reconcile themselves within the needs and requirements of the larger society as a whole. Some retained their personal uniqueness, while other women may have had to shed their past identities completely to adopt one that they felt would compel society to accept them.

“I think the fact that we could do that, that such profoundly dislocated, homesick young women could buoy each other up, assemble, and take aim; well that was the important thing. New York, the target, was insignificant. Targets change” (15).

Synthesis

One is not the sum of one’s potential lineage although the traditions and rituals handed down to people through their heritages gives them their sense of identity as a means to participate in the world before the person find’s their own traditions and rituals with which to adhere. One is how well one can read one’s environment and meet its needs and help participate toward its goals. As society becomes further fractured there is very little holding it together. In the past there were more clear and precise demarcations for the roles of women and men, and for black and white. Society used to be much less difficult to read and participate within as most of us looked like each other, causing us to mostly copy one another in behavior and thinking. Now that society is becoming more increasingly used to seeing various races and cultures, the lines of what is acceptable as to what group to belong to, and thus what behaviors and ideals to adopt and emulate as our own are more confused. We are now subject to the value judgments of many kinds of different people, each one right according to their own culture and place. It is now up to the individual to have to successfully mitigate many different kinds of what is right and wrong in many different kinds of circumstances. To the uninformed individual, our society may appear as just a random set of happenings, causing the individual much confusion and distress in one’s participation of the world. The individual, in this day and age, is compelled to not only try to make sense of the world in order to better fit in it and prosper in a myriad of forms, but to make sense of the world to define ourselves, and what is proper for us as the individual as to how much of society has a personal worth, and what of its values are worth devoting our energies to, and which have no worth to the individual whatsoever. Essentially our lives are a series of photographs, it is only through our environments, and an informed study of it, which gives us the meanings that we assign these moments of time in our personal history.

“When we’re young, we record things very fast. Life develops the film. Ritual for sleepless nights: shuffle mental snapshots, fan them out like playing cards. Choose one” (13).

II.

• Bloom’s Taxonomy is actually unfinished, having only completed the first two domains. Others have attempted to create and define the third domain but it has not yet been officially recognized. The taxonomy that we have been exposed to in the course only touches upon the Cognitive Domain, and not the Affective Domain, or the Psycho-Motor Domain. If the other two domains were taken into account, the taxonomy may become even more of a useful and powerful tool in its application.

• Taxonomy should be made available to school children, as well as teachers. It would perhaps better inform the students as to the process of teaching, understanding the fact that there is a tool being used in how they are taught by the teacher. Students would be perhaps more interested in learning if they could engage with the subject of learning by anticipating the possible approaches the teacher may use in their teaching, recognizing at what level the subject is being taught and tested upon by being informed of the various keywords with which are being used. It would also be helpful for the student to be aware that there is a higher process of thinking than only one, and that everyone is capable of these higher processes in some form if only they are given the means, and one devotes oneself to using them for their personal gain.

• One’s thinking occurs on several different levels, active engagement with a subject is the only means to which one can achieve the higher orders of thinking concerning any subject. Ones ideas can go from the general to the sophisticated and the taxonomy is a useful tool to examine any subject from multiple points of view in order to not only retain the basic fundamentals of the subject, but to achieve more than a superficial understanding of the subject as well through being able to see and use the subjects through a variety of means.

• I watched some videos on YouTube and looked at the various images of “Bloom’s Taxonomy” through Google. Seeing it in its many forms helped to more deeply appreciate it and make it all come together. I think seeing it from various perspectives better informs one’s sense of what Bloom Taxonomy is, and better gives a broad awareness of what the taxonomy is. It is after one finds a broad view, or overview of the subject, the learner can then narrow down further into the respective categories of what the taxonomy is. When one finds a multitude of ways of how others have presented the subject, it makes it more readily able to choose which one fits us the best, yet understanding that other people may understand the subject in a completely different way from ours.

• The difference between Declarative Knowledge, and Procedural Knowledge was something that I needed to define.

 Declarative knowledge is knowing that something as an indisputable fact – “that J is the tenth letter of the alphabet, that Paris is the capital of France. Declarative knowledge is conscious; it can be verbalized” (para. 1).

Procedural Knowledge, on the other hand, “ involves knowing HOW to do something – ride a bike for example. We may not be able to explain how we do it. Procedural knowledge involves implicit learning, which a learner may not be aware of, and may involve being able to use a particular form to understand or produce language without necessarily being able to explain it” (para. 2).

• Definition of terms used in Bloom’s taxonomy were also necessary for me. Most people assume the given meanings of everyday terms, and to help myself I had to define various terms in order to know that my understanding of the terms used were not based falsely on assumptions, thus leading to a misunderstanding.  

Works Cited:

Davenport, Kiana. "War Doll Hotel." Daily Fare: Essays from the Multicultural Experience. Ed. Kathleen Aguero. Athens: The University of Georgia Press, 1993. 65-77. (in Selected Readings booklet). Print.

http://unt.unice.fr/uoh/learn_teach_FL/affiche_theorie.php?id_concept=90&lang=eng&id_theorie=1&id_categorie=3. “Declarative Knowledge vs. Procedural Knowledge”. Accessed 09-27-2012.

Icebreaker Post (U.S. Women's Multicultural Writings 09-21-12).

My multicultural experience occurs every time I go to the gym, the Aspen Athletic in Driver’s Village at Cicero, N.Y. In the gym, there are several different types of people. There are the stay-at-home mothers who come religiously every morning, bringing along their multiple children to the facility’s day care, who scream and run through the gym every time they come. There are the hardcore weightlifters that look like they could rip you apart with their bare hands, who throw heavy weight around, and watch your pathetic workout from the corner of their eyes. There are the kids out of school who come to do one rep, then occupy the machine/equipment for a half an hour, sitting there resting and staring into space or pretending not to be self-conscious, while playing on their cell phones, or gather together and converse. There are the guys who have the expensive exercise clothes, and brings a gallon of drinking water every time along with their pads and papers to keep track of what exercises they did, how often, and how much. There are the guys who show up and exercise in jeans and designer t-shirts, yet work out as intensely, or more so than the average gym-goer. Then there are the starlets of the gym who come and do an intense workout in the midst of several men, each one surreptitiously studying her while she pretends to ignore all of them. Lastly there are the local celebrities. I’ve worked out next to Tom Hauf, one of the local Syracuse weathermen, and another one who I think is an anchor for one of the news stations. I have seen many people come and go, some people coming religiously for awhile and then mysteriously disappearing, perhaps from some change of job, or like me occupying themselves while they are unemployed, then either giving up the gym, or coming again at a different time. Then there are the types like me, who wish they were married to someone who could support them while all I had to do was watch the children, and my figure, more of the day belonging to myself and my children, rather than trapped in some place of employment. There are the types like me who wish they were massively muscular, and get respect wherever they go, who never have to suffer the slights of the occasional emotional or inconsiderate person. There are the types like me who wish they could go back to being a teenager, living in this day and age of more tolerance and acceptance, rather than the oppressiveness of cliques that prized the jocks over everyone else. There are the types like me who should probably put a more scientific effort into their workouts, rather than showing up and winging it every time as I do, just trying to get a quick but intense session in to keep oneself in general good health and shape. There are the types like me who wish they had an audience to ignore, who had a body that keeps other people captivated. There are the types like me who wish they had some kind of employment that made them local celebrities, all they have to do is read off of the teleprompter, looking good while they do it. 

Final Reflections (Shakespeare 09-14-12).

Joseph Melanson

Shakespeare

Prof. Tryon

30 August 2012

 Shakespeare Final Reflections

            I selected James Holmes for this essay, the apparently bright and gifted graduate student who walked into a theater on July 20^th of this year, in Aurora, Colorado, and killed 12 people, while injuring another 58. He had entered into the crowded theater dressed combat gear in, and opened fire on people who had come to see the newest Batman movie, “A Dark Knight Rises”. When he was apprehended he had underneath his

combat gear, the appearance of the character the “Joker” from the Batman series of comic books and movies, the nemesis and antagonist of the Batman.

            James Holmes did not seem like the typical person who would throw away his life, as well as carelessly destroying others as well. He is described as a bright and gifted, yet socially awkward graduate student who was attempting to pursue his doctorate and applied to multiple universities. He writes in an application letter about a youth that seemed strict, yet agreeable. Holmes writes about his ability to gain the trust and love of children as a camp counselor, as well as children with mental illnesses. Holmes had pursued his desire to study neuroscience, in the hopes of helping to unlock the mysteries of the mind.

            Holmes was denied admittance into his school of choice, the University of Iowa, after earning his degree at the University of California at Riverside, and turned down an offer of acceptance at the University of Illinois. Holmes presented himself as an unsuitable candidate at the University of Iowa, despite the many awards and accomplishments that he had made. Dan Tranel, a “neurology professor and director of psychology” strongly recommended against his admittance into the school’s neuroscience program (Hill, para. 2). Holmes would have probably never heard the reasons for the denial of his admission, but he would probably wonder forever what the reasons behind it were. Perhaps it was the final thing that needed to happen to set off Holmes’ madness into violence.

            All of us are the stars of our own shows in our heads, having the leading role in a story that is always evolving, gaining and losing characters, some bringing with them tragedies, while others bring us comedies. In all, they are both the histories that we share, only to later be forgotten in the passages of time, but like all history it repeats itself, and we can all find much of ourselves in others lives.

            One has to wonder if Holmes, like a character of Shakespeare was compelled by ghosts that only he could see like Hamlet, felt himself betrayed and manipulated by his personal circle like Othello, persecuted and prejudiced against without recourse like Shylock, surrounded by enemies and seemingly unreliable allies like King Henry, or consumed to fulfill his own dark prophecies?

            Was James Holmes a weak character, suffering from either a mental illness, a personality disorder, felt shunned by his society, his madness finally erupting into violence like a burst pipe to people like this who have no means to unburden themselves of life’s inevitable pressures, trapping within themselves their emotions, which inevitably spill over into our shared world, after becoming compacted and mutually destructive to all?

            Did James Holmes possess a character flaw which became a madness that could not properly interpret this world, limiting his participation within it, and thus driving him into murdering innocent people who he probably had never met?

            Does our culture play a part in how people like James Holmes seem to end up at their inevitable homicidal rampages? What kind of home life, what kind of parents and friends did he have that he thought it was a good idea to massacre strangers? It seemed he presented warning signs, yet did anyone think to approach him and try to show him how to live and be, or does our culture still encourage us to shy away from, and shun people like him? Influenced by a culture that glorifies violence, prizes audacity and vulgarity, a society that offers weapons of mass destruction for sale, perhaps a rampage against the Dark Knight is in effect an attempt to attack a culture that abandons people thus betraying them, leaving people like Holmes with only their dark obsessions, and the voices of ghosts that will forever haunt them?   

Hmmm... definitely a terrible story from the recent news.  Really unreal.  But did you realize that you only made reference to Shakespeare in one sentence out of the whole paper:  “One has to wonder if Holmes, like a character of Shakespeare was compelled by ghosts that only he could see like Hamlet, felt himself betrayed and manipulated by his personal circle like Othello, persecuted and prejudiced against without recourse like Shylock, surrounded by enemies and seemingly unreliable allies like King Henry, or consumed to fulfill his own dark prophecies?”  I think this is a really interesting comparison, but I’d love to hear more specific reasons that you think this is an apt comparison.  What lines from Hamlet, for example, call James Holmes to mind for you?  What lines from Othello?  Because the point of this paper is to help you take away from this class a sense of the relevance of Shakespeare in modern society, I would challenge you to really think on some of those amazing passages that have stood the test of time—that we hear ringing in our brains when news stories like this come up.  At some place in your brain, those stay with you forever… 86%.

Works Cited:

Hill, Cole Garner. “Read Dark Knight Shooter James Holmes’ Rejected Grad School Letter”. Books and Review.  August 30, 2012.

An Attempted Portrait Essay of My Grandmother (Creative Nonfiction II 09-12-12)

Joseph Melanson
Creative Nonfiction II
Prof. Cahan
21 August 2012

My Grandmother - A Portrait

My grandmother is eighty-two years old, one of the last of the two surviving members of our two person family, and one of the last two of her own large brood. Born in Del Rio, Texas she grew up in stories she told me, of Catholic school which seemed uneventful, as well as being one of two girls in a family of six brothers.

She tells me she thinks her father may have been Native American, as well as old Mexican, now new American, as many became after we won the Spanish-American War in the early 1900's, winning from our mostly Hispanic neighbor the great state of Texas, as well as other bits and pieces of our now southern states.

She speaks Spanish and English, inspiring me to learn more about these two languages, hoping that some day I could master both.

            She cooks the best food that I have ever eaten, causing me to carry extra weight, and being heavy for the majority of my life. Recently I was told I have high cholesterol and am pre-diabetic. I don’t stay away from her food, I only choose to exercise more so I can keep enjoying it.

In 1988 grandfather died, my father died several months later, her mother, my great-grandmother died when I was in high school in the early nineties, and her only child, my mother Dolores died in 2009. Together my grandmother and I have watched death come and go all of our lives it seems.

            My grandmother met my grandfather and they married, my grandfather staying in the Air Force, finally retiring in the seventies, and they ended up staying in Syracuse, N.Y. because my grandfather’s last station was Hancock Air Force Base, which is now nothing more than an industrial park for a few small businesses, and dilapidated apartments that are now homes for animals and insects, occasionally being trespassed by neighborhood vandals, and the occasional person who wanders through imagining what life was like for the people who lived here so many years ago. Before my grandfather retired they crossed the world, being stationed in San Antonio, Germany, Japan, my mother being born in San Antonio.

I have watched her go from a strong, tough able-bodied woman, to an aged, elderly state, as I floated through the past few decades in my own smoldering cemetery.

She gets several checks a month that enables our lifestyle. I have been living with her for the past several years, unable to find any kind of tolerable job that would allow me to depend upon for a steady paycheck to find a place of my own. I am unconcerned, as I have a girlfriend who loves me, and a grandmother who enjoys my company. We are not the same people that we were when we were young, we have gone through too much together for me to be so ready to abandon the nest.

I think she used weight loss pills in the late eighties as she used to have these extreme mood swings or inappropriately intense reactions to inconsequential things, or go maudlin telling me “Oh God, I wish I was dead”, alternated occasionally with “I wish I could crawl into a hold and die”. I gave up trying to please her, or have any contact with her, as her low level of mental functioning or lack of the desire to increase her mental capacity, caused me to understand any real attempt at being understood and appreciated as I needed to be at the time, only left me with the burning sense of frustration as conversations with her took bizarre tangents, unjustified reasoning, and strange lines of thinking, concepts. When I had the clarity to see through the fog of her befuddlement, knowing that she made no sense at all, she would remark that talking to me was like “talking to a brick wall”. I realized at a young age that I was essentially home alone.

            She lost her wedding ring having put it in a wadded up Kleenex, then one day having taken it out and forgetting that anything was in it, or just cleaning up around the house one day, she thinks that she threw her diamond ring in the trash.
            She drove a 1997 Chevrolet Celebrity, long after it had been completely replaced piece by piece, after mechanical breakdown after mechanical breakdown, long after it had been completely devalued for any kind of trade-in value, long after my mother and I had given up trying to get her to replace it. When she finally sold it to some unfortunate kid who either was too broke to afford anything else, or had no sense about cars, he bought it off of her for a measly five hundred dollars. To this day she thinks the kid got a good deal. If the kid was smart he would have driven the worthless piece of crap to the scrap yard and made more money off of the metal.
            My grandmother does the jumble in the paper every day, generally completing it that day, her mind figuring out its words. I tried to tell her a few times how to more easily solve it by collecting the letters of the words that she had already solved, and use them to plug into the final answer at the bottom, thus giving her a means to solve the other remaining words. She sticks to her own method, as it has always worked for her before.      
            She enjoys gardening, and has always had a colorful yard and maintained a garden. The past few years though, she has slowed down, a garden is a lot of work, and these new summers with their consistent days of ninety degree weather, against the rigors of aging has made the act an ordeal. Now instead of tomatoes, cucumbers, and the occasional watermelon, she limits herself to flowers which are a a lot less of a chore, and less likely to be afflicted by the bugs and the squirrels.
           
Joseph, this is a fine capstone for your course writing portfolio this term! I enjoyed reading your essay and how you lock in reader interest from the outset with your engaging narrative voice. From there, you do quite well blending factual with emotional truth and vivid specific descriptions, personal impressions, facts, examples, reasons and explanations to support your impressions of your grandmother. (Were you to revise I’d suggest adding even more dialogue to help create a sense of scene and characterization unfolding before the readers’ eyes, rather than mainly telling about what happened.) Your flowing and rhythmic writing style controls the conventions of the writing system, while the important themes you explore command reader interest with their universal implications of aging and surviving/overcoming challenges of life – excellent. Grade for Essay 4 is A-. 90% - Prof. Cahan.