Wednesday, February 23, 2011
TAL "Reality Check" Blog
After watching an episode of "This American Life", in which four different people hatch plans that inevitably snap them back into the real world, you should be able to empathize with one of them. Please share an experience that checked you back into the realm of reality. Entries should be at least 10 sentences, and please write them descriptively and with sound grammar. Due by the beginning of class on Thursday, 2/24. Thank you!
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Throughout my youth, I participated in a summer camp for teens called Sail Caribbean. I can honestly say that it was one of the most meaningful and enjoyable experiences of my life thus far. The program offered an array of things to do such as scuba dive, snorkel, sail, meet new people, work with local children, and an array of different water sports. The first year I attended Sail Caribbean I participated in the program more focused on sailing. The next summer I chose to participate in the program that focused entirely on scuba diving. I absolutely fell in love with scuba diving. When I am scuba diving, reality fades and I enter an intriguing and unknown world. The bright colors of the fish and coral all around me distance me even further from the “real” world. I observe all the creatures swaying with the current unfazed by my presence. I cannot help but wonder what it is like to live underwater. I have concluded that it would be amazing. Once the dive is over, and my air is running low, I am forced to return to the surface, return to reality.
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Past the power plants, beer breweries, and oilrigs lie thousands of acres of land in Liberty, TX, covered with lakes, cows, and horses. These are acres that my grandfather has slowly collected over the last fifty years. Only forty-five minutes east of Houston, my grandfather has created an escape from the city, a place I have lived during many summers and weekends, for as long as I can remember. This place has served as my escape as well. I can see only pastures for miles and the city lights faded in the distance. My ranch provides another side to the world that I do not live in everyday. It is like escaping from the world of technology and retreating to the outdoors. I can view the clear sky and see all the stars. I can hear the sounds of animals and bugs chirping with a seemingly still silence of the night. Although, when I hit the highway to head back to Houston, it is like checking back into the reality of city life.
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Every summer for a number of years, my family and I would accompany my cousins and my grandparents to a fishing lodge in Canada. Caverhill lodge was nestled in the mountains among forests of trees. The lush forest surrounded the lodge, so that it was closed off completely from the outside world. The freshwater lakes surrounded the lodge, which required a boat to reach. It seemed to be a private island, closed off from the chaos of civilization and the world. My cousin and I would climb on top of a rough rock along the water’s edge, and we could hear the faintest of noises around us. We could hear the loons crying out to one another from one end of the lake to the other and the gentle splash of bugs landing gently on the surface of the water. Chipmunks rushing through the brush, jumping from branch to branch making the pine needles shake. The lodge was a peaceful break from our fast-paced society. However, as soon as we boarded the boat to take us back to the road that led us down the mountain, we were brought back to reality. The journey down the dirt road in the cars was the reentering back into reality.
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This past summer I decided to go on a mission trip to Managua, Nicaragua. Nicaragua is unlike any place I have ever been, and honestly not a place I would ever choose to go. But once I arrived in this poverty stricken country I fell in love with the people and culture. For a week I lived in a house without air conditioning, no hot water, and a toilet that could barely flush. And during the day I spent my time digging six foot holes in the heat of the summer. Before this week, I had never had to do manual labor to this extent, but it made me realize that this is what people in Nicaragua do everyday. They don't have jobs their like we do in the states, and if they do, they sure don't get up-to-date equipment. Everything Nicaraguans do work wise is done with their hands. The last few days we stayed at Craters Edge, a lake formed by a volcano. Here we still didn't have air conditioning, hot water or toilets that worked well, but during the day we explored the different towns surrounding Craters Edge. At night, my favorite time, the six of us would go down to the lake and we would literally stand in the lake talking until 3 or 4 in the morning. In Nicaragua, it felt as if all of our worries had disappeared. For a week I didn't have contact with anyone from home and during this time I didn't think about anyone or anything back in Houston. All I thought about was how many children would benefit from the school we were building. As soon as I arrived at the airport in Nicaragua and pulled out my phone it went insane. All of the missed calls, voicemails, and text messages came in at once and all my stress came back, reality was now back in check.
ReplyDeleteEveryday around 330 i walk to the baseball field. during that walk i begin to get into a mindset that snaps me away from the superficiality of daily life and back to a childhood game. its not the actual game that brings reality to me but the pureness that a child's game brings people to their best forms. i know that i should pick something more meaningful as my place but this is the only time in this crazy life that i truly feel worry-less. My realizations on the field help me understand what is important and what worth caring about. without this time i feel as if i would give in to the miniscule issues life brings rather than the fact that life is good and pure.
ReplyDeletethe last one was mine zs
ReplyDeleteOn Wednesday nights for the past few years I have helped teach underprivileged kids in Houston Bible study at my church. We go pick the kids up in their neighborhood and take them by bus to my church where we feed them. Doing this every other week has helped me really get some perspective on the way the world really is. Some of these kids live in houses no bigger than my garage and the meal that we feed them will sometimes be their only meal of the day. By helping these kids, I have realized how lucky I am to live the way I do. I have a roof over my head, three meals a day, and a great education. These things are something I take for granted that most of these kids pray for every day. By helping those children on Wednesday nights, I'm able to always remember just how lucky I am. Without doing things like community service, I would probably get caught up in my own life and ignore the needs of the community around me. Most of the time those kids end up teaching me, when I'm supposed to be teaching them.
ReplyDeleteThis summer my family and I went on a vacation to an island in the Caribbean called Turks and Caicos. It was the most relaxing place I have ever been to. I spent the day lying on the beach care-free. The sand was soft beneath my feet and a shade of light tan. The water was nothing like I had ever seen. It was a crystal clear blue and looked like it went on for ever. In the afternoons we would go snorkeling and i would see all the different kinds of colorful fish i had never seen before. The best part of this trip was the fact that the island was not crowded. It was a nice feeling to know that there were not hoards of people laying on the beach all around me. When it was time to go I was not ready to leave this paradise. I got off the plane in Houston and was welcomed back to reality with a whiff of sweltering humidity.
ReplyDeleteI went to a soccer tournament in Oklahoma with my new soccer team with high expectations. I had hopes of cementing a starting position over the weekend, as well as building confidence within my coaches. the two teams we were playing were highly ranked in Oklahoma while we were a brand new team put together still trying to figure everything out. the first game started off and i did not play as well as i usually do. i felt as if i were a step behind everyone. we ended up loosing the game in unfashionable manor. the second game i again had high expectations of redeeming myself after my poor showing in the first. again, i did not play up to par. during half time, my coaches let me have it and told me that i should not have been on the team and that i made them look bad. this shot any desire for me to keep playing for my team. after a long drive home from Oklahoma and things settled out, i decided to keep playing, but i will never forget that half time.
ReplyDeleteI go to camp in the colorado rockies, at a camp called Cheeley. Here, i am away from reality and immersed with my friends into a different world. its not like your average texas camp, we sign up for our activites and hike, backpack, mountainbike, rockclimb, horse back ride, or camp for a month strait. theres nothing that has ever hidden me reality more. when i return to the city, i never can quite feel the same way as i do when i am about to peak a mountain after hiking fast paced eight miles uphill with out breaks. hiking is calming, especially when your mooving fast. When you moove slow, every one talks. when you moove fast no one has enough energy to, plus when your mooving fast you dont need to stop and smell the roses. your thoughts are running at a thousand miles an hour and you can notice just as much. returning to the city is always a shocker, unfortunatly i wont be able to go back next year, and ill have to live in the real world next summer.
ReplyDeleteThe hour drive is peaceful, calming, and relaxing. I play my favorite album of Dave Matthews, Some Devil, which doesn't end until the drive is over. I spend the time driving towards the sunset, replaying the earlier hours of the day through my head, thinking about the people I was with, the places I went, the things that I said, and even the things I could have said. As I wind down the highway, over the bridge and onto the island, I start to feel free. I feel free of stress, I feel like I can do what I want, be as lazy as I want, without anyone knowing or caring. I can meet up with friends to fish on the dock, wearing a t-shirt and shorts, because that is how Galveston is. I don't worry about Houston, or school, or what is going on that night, because the people I am with are the only people I care about, the only people I need at that moment to temporarily keep me happy. Galveston is a place where I can turn off my cell phone, and not have a care in the world. Driving home is never fun, because reality comes back into play.
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The game of football has made me into the person I am today. Each and everyday of my high school career, I have done something to do with football, whether it be throwing, lifting or running. I have it a serious reality check that odds are, I will not be playing football next year. It is a big struggle for me because it has shaped my physically as well as mentally. There is no better feeling than getting better each day at something you love, and to me, that was football. I have that passion for the game and I feel like it is something I will never lose. Life is not always fair and sometimes I have to give up things I do not want to give up. This will be the toughest. There have been more than a few tears, surgeries, trips all around the country, and families involved and I hope they had just as much as I did. I was in a fantasy playing football and I did not even realize it. I hit a reality check, when I now do not have the liberty of playing in front of all my family and friends. If I could choose one thing to keep going my whole life, it would be involved with football in some way, shape or form.
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Every summer since I was seven years old, I have been attending a three-week camp in Marble Falls, Texas, known as Camp Champions. Camp Champions used to be just a summer camp to me; but as I got older, camp became a place I could spend three-weeks without my phone, my home friends, and the drama. During my last year at camp, the “senior campers,” the oldest campers, were taken off camp property to a campsite in central Texas. While we were there, we were forced to write about who we wanted to be later on in life and how we wanted people to remember us. I remember sitting at the top of the mountain, watching the sun slowly creep its way behind the hills, and struggling to write my speech with the little sunlight left from the escaping sun. As I sat at the top of the mountain scrambling to write something down, I completely stop and just soak in the moment. What I enjoy most about camp are the quiet moments alone that force me to think, not about anything specific but about anything. Whether I am sitting on top of a mountain or laying in my bunk starring out of a screen window, I am always thinking in the darkness of night. Every night before closing day ceremonies, I dread having to go back to the real world. In the real world I cant sit on a mountain for hours or sleep under the stars at night.
ReplyDeleteMZ