The story of Celestina is really quite universal. It’s a story of unrequited love, lack of control over desire, putting a lover on a pedestal, and infatuation with the fantasy of a person that does not exist. These are all consequences I’m all too familiar with. Celestina is a story that is so relatable because we’ve all experienced these drawbacks during our love endeavors.

It’s really quite a depressing message that Celestina sends. Part of human nature is never being satisfied with what we have in front of us. We’re always requiring more and more and more. It’s like a sickness. Our happiness is fleeting. It’s like humans are obsessed with consumerism whether it be for material goods, fun, partners, love…the general pursuit of what we think will bring us "happiness". Yet it’s never enough. We always desire more. And while this can be a good thing because it can motivate us to strive towards perfection, it an also devour us and make us very unhappy and ungrateful. I can’t help to think of a quote by the Buddha that I feel relates to this message. "The source of all unhappiness comes from not being able to let go"… and it’s true! We pour our energy into things that bring us so much unhappiness and stress when not retained or achieved. Being able to let go would free our minds and spirits and make us free of desires and ultimately happy. However this is not an easy accomplishment and maybe only the Buddha can master it.

This was the only topic of conversation in our class that is about "pain" regarding "love". Two seemingly opposites that can be totally connected. The lecture inspired two questions that I don’t know if anyone can ever answer. One is, if desire can never be fulfilled are we searching for, or have an affinity for, the ones who we know can never fulfill our desire or the image we create of them? The second, why do we create such impossible imagery of love? Love is so painful because it can’t be controlled. That’s all I know.

I’m reluctant to say that I "really enjoyed" the lecture about rape because of how that could sound but I did find it very interesting. The presentation was resolved and unbiased, touching on many angles of the tragedy. I must admit I had no idea what direction this lecture would go in. I know it was based on the topic of rape jokes but I didn’t think there was really such a thing. At least I thought I had never heard any. I can’t believe how mistaken I was. I guess I never considered prison rape an actual rape joke and was thinking more along the lines of "Two blondes were raped….". There is an alarming amount of prison rape humor and it’s so common that alarmingly I never even noticed it or noted it as appalling. Like you said in the lecture, Professor, we make these jokes to separate ourselves from the victim but in this case I felt I was so separated from the subject of prison rape humor that it didn’t even phase me. I was so desentsized from this type of humor that it didn’t even catch my attention. Unfortunately if we keep the cycle of joking about rape and de-sensitizing the topic further we continue to demean it and keep it in light.

It’s a very serious discussion however. One thing I would have liked to bring up in the Q&A was how quickly and rampantly HIV is spread through prison rape. I learned about this last year when I was taking AIDS and epidemics. Even though the government knows that men are raped and HIV is spread in jails they turn a blind eye to this. They won’t endorse condom use in prison because they won’t accept that this is happening. They continue to look the other way while HIV spreads throughout the population. Many of these HIV positive prisoners are one day set free and then perpetuate the spread into society.

I had forgotten this but remembered it during the last few minutes of the presentation. When talking about how one of her roommates dressed during spring fling, I remember my friend saying she was walking around "just asking to get raped". It came to my attention that this is a stupid and ignorant thing to say. No one walks around "asking to get raped" whether they are dressed sleazy or not. The whole catch of rape is that it is inconsentual and how could one literally "ask for it". I wish the stigmata behind rape could be lifted. I think if we stopped using it as the topic of cheap jokes and focused more on discussion of it as a serious offense whether in prison or not, we could prevent a lot of people from becoming victims of it.

Requiem for a Dream is a poignant and painful experience. It’s like a car wreck that is so bad you want to look away but you can’t. What is perhaps the most sad and realistic part about this story, differentiating it from other movies, is that it exploits the selfishness of human nature. While every character in this narrative is intertwined, they all live in their own individual microcosm much more concerned about themselves than the people they love. They naïvely think that they are taking steps, with the involvement of drugs, that will allow them to ‘get ahead’. They foolishly think that they have power over drugs and will gain an advantage.

When they enter the drug trade Harry, Marion, and Tyrone are on top of the world. But after bailing Tyrone out of prison the group faces financial hardship and each character comes to terms with their value. Harry convinces Marion to prostitute herself for drug money. Harry and Tyrone leave Marion to venture to Florida to score drugs. Harry’s arm becomes infected and eventually amputated from his irresponsible heroin addiction. And all Harry’s mother cares about is fitting back into her red dress despite advice from her son.

Had these people not gotten involved in drugs they might not have been so blindsided to the harm they were subjecting themselves and others to. Like the adage goes “The road to hell is paved with good intentions” and while Sara, Harry, Marion, and Tyrone were all just trying to make their dreams come true they shouldn’t have expected to make an honest living out of a dirty habit.

I love the visual style of the movie. The close-ups of the dilated pupils, syringes, and drugs in bloodstream were both simultaneously enticing and repellent. So many details of this film were stomach-turning; Harry’s infected arm, Sara’s teeth grinding, Big Tim’s teeth, Marion’s sexcapades all contributed to making the viewer uneasy about the message and meaning of this film. I love this movie I just wish it didn’t have to be true. It reminds me of the rollercoaster ride we read about in Beautiful Boy.

I liked the Beard story a lot but I found it awfully sad. It was very descriptive and genuine so it was easy for me to imagine every detail. It reminds me of stories I would have to read in my AIDS and Epidemics class written about individuals dying of HIV from their doctor’s point of view. The story was beautiful and the part I liked most was when Jo Ann said “no matter how much you miss them they never come back once they are gone”. Literally, she was talking about the deceased, but figuratively she could have meant her husband or her collie or anyone who wasn’t playing the same role in her life that they used to. And even though her husband came back to console her, his love for her never came back. It could never come back because he didn’t love her anymore. He looked at his wife like he looked at the collie on the damp blankets. And for some reason I can visualize exactly what that must have felt like.
"The Midwest is very brown isn’t it?” says Chris’s mother to Jo Ann on the phone. Brown is the color of dead leaves and shit which makes perfect sense in this story. When you mix all the colors in the spectrum your allegedly get black but anytime I’ve tried I always got brown. This reminded me of a quote from On the Road. “There is something brown and holy about the East; and California is white like washlines and emptyheaded. At least that’s what I thought then…”

The Richards story immediately struck fear into my heart thinking that someday my mother could be like this. I’ve never had any experience with grandparents because they all died before I was born but the idea of my parents becoming senile frightens me. I could see myself becoming annoyed with my mother were she to do this and that frightens me too because I should be mature enough by now to not lose my temper with her. “But we’re not really angry at her, we’re angry at it. Whatever it is.” I hope I am mature enough by the time it happens.

I guess this is a good group of stories to read over Thanksgiving so that I can be thankful for my life and my family’s and how neither of us has reached any of these states yet.

I enjoyed the Sedaris and Strayed stories the most because I could relate to them. Not to their circumstances but perhaps to the authors’ thinking. Whenever I like a quote I write it down. These are the passages I wrote down: “It’s so rare when one knowingly does something for the last time: the last time you take a bath, the last time you have sex or trim your toenails. If you know you’ll never do it again it might be nice to really make a show of it…There must exist some middle ground, a place where one was tortured on a daily basis but still allowed a few moments of pleasure, taken wherever one could find it. That place seemed to be Raleigh, North Carolina, so why the big fuss?...You can’t brace yourself for famine if you’ve never known hunger, it is foolish to even try. The most you can do is eat up while you still can, stuffing yourself, shoveling it in with both hands and licking clean the plates, recalling every course in vivid detail…”

I liked the satirical nature of this reading. I hated the father and the way he tried to dominate and manipulate everyone else but I figure he only did that because he was scared and trying to control his wife so as not to lose her. The story’s mother reminded me somewhat of my mother, unconventional and non-conformist, minus the cigarette smoking. I think if my mother got cancer she wouldn’t tell us either. I remember a few years ago she got into a car accident and the only way I found out was when I noticed she didn’t have a car anymore. She didn’t want to scare me by telling me.

I wrote down a group of passages from the Strayed story as well: “We are allowed to be deeply into basketball, or Buddhism or Star Trek, or jazz, but we are not allowed to be deeply sad. Greif is a thing that we are encouraged to ‘let go of’ to ‘move on from’…. And if they don’t – if they have loved too deeply, if they wake each morning thinking, I cannot continue to live – well, then we pathologize their pain; we call their suffering a disease. We do not help them: we tell them that they need to get help… We act as if all losses are equal. It is un- American to believe otherwise…But it was not to be…We loved each other but love was not enough…I thought about how if you lose a ring in a river, you are never going to get it back, no matter how badly you want it or how long you wait…But this isn’t fiction. Sometimes a story is not about anything except what it is about. Sometimes you wake up and find that you actually have lost your nose…”

I liked this story because the author was young. She just went through a tragic loss and she was confused and messed up and I think that everyone has stages of their life like that. Frankly I don’t believe that all losses are equal. Any losses I’ve suffered have not been as devastating as having to lose a mother however a loss is a loss and quantifying a loss doesn’t create a different reaction to the loss.

All of these stories share a similarity in losing someone you love. But for the most part they all seem unresolved as in the learning to accept this loss has not been achieved yet and may never be.

Push was the most disturbing book I have ever read. I thought A Color Purple was tame compared to this. I’m really glad this book was fiction although it scares me to think that things like this I’m sure have happened in the world. I feel like every harmful and hurtful thing that could possibly ever happen to someone happened to Precious. I think I still am severely disturbed by the idea that she was being molested by her mother. I’ve heard about girls being molested by their fathers and although the thought frightens and troubles me, I’m no longer as phased by it. The part on page 21 where Precious describes the sexual interaction between her mother and her still nauseates me. I first read it when I was in my bed about to fall asleep and then I had to get up and put a Disney movie on to take my mind off of it.

I was equally appalled by the description on page 135 where we hear Mama’s confession and learn that Precious was being molested by her father since she was a newborn. I can’t wrap my mind around this concept. I hated Mama. I knew she was just a character but I still hated her and blame her for the disasters in Precious’s life. Mama was jealous of her own newborn daughter when her father molested her. I can’t even believe the mentality of someone like that. It seems that her entire life Mama held this against Precious and enslaved her as punishment. Even the descriptions Precious uses when describing her Mama’s appearance are vulgar. She is fat, disgusting, dirty, smelly, greasy, eating a whole ham hock. When she opens her legs it reminds Precious of a can of haddock left open on the counter on a hot summer’s day.

The book is very graphic. Nothing is simply implied. And the broken English and Ebonics contribute to the pain of the character. After finishing this book I thanked god that I didn’t have to deal with any of the trauma that Precious did in her life. Ultimately it was a success story but Precious had to go through a lot of rain to find some kind of rainbow.

I think my favorite part of the book was the end when we got to read all of the girls’ stories written in their own language. This helped to further develop their characters and allow the reader to experience what they had.

I think its interesting to mention that when Nicolas Ealy came into the class he talked about how desire was the ultimate cause of all pain. Many of the songs I listened to were written as a response to unfulfilled desire. Sarah McLachlan literally says in her song "Possession", "Would I spend forever here and not be satisfied". This song, like many other songs, is describing a situation of unrequited love, which is really unfulfilled desire and is indeed one of the most painful lessons to learn. Alanis Morisette knows what I’m talking about too. "You oughta know" is a song all about being replaced. One side moves on and the other side is left pining. Taylor Swift’s song "Teardrops" is about unrequited love in the sense that the person she loves will never know or love her back and yet she can’t give up her feelings for him.

I find a lot of pain comes from feeling isolated and lonely. Like in the Travis song he thinks he is the only one persecuted by the world. He asks "Why does it always rain one me? Is it because I lied when I was seventeen?" as if his pain comes as a result of some karmic retribution.

I found the Eamon and Frankee duo very interesting. They sing to each other and like Frankee says "There are two sides to every story". They are both on the defensive about each other and I’m sure Frankee really ripped into Eamon’s ego when she released her song. Its funny because after you put your walls down and get defeated by love its natural to be on the defensive, building back your walls in attempt to not get hurt again.

Top fourty songs don’t really inspire pain in me. I think it’s because I feel like these songs are fabricated and not necessarily written from experience. They have ulterior motives of making money and I don’t trust the singers so I can’t feel their pain. But I had never before heard the song "Soap and Water", or a song so bluntly talking about divorce so it was more poignant than many others. And I clearly know that Kurt Cobain was a very distraught individual so I don’t feel like his songs are faking. When I think of the most painful songs I immediately think of Jeff Buckley. He has some real tearjerkers I’ve cried along to.

The timing of having to read Beautiful Boy could not be more ominous. My best friend’s little brother has always been a mixed up kid. He’s a senior in high school failing all his classes with no motivation to do anything other than smoke pot and hang out with his friends. I had taken Steve’s senior pictures for his yearbook so I dropped them off last Sunday when I was in town. When I saw him he looked about forty pounds lighter than the month before, when I had taken the pictures. He ran in and out of the house, not acknowledging anyone, just running into his room to grab some clothes and money and he was off. His hair was disgusting, he looked like he hadn’t showered in a week, he was gaunt, pale, dark circles under his eyes. Then my best friend broke down and told me the whole story.

Steve hasn’t gone to school in weeks, he’s been suspended and hasn’t bothered to come back. He doesn’t sleep at home, he doesn’t eat at home, he lives with his friend. The last time he came home he stole a credit card and four hundred dollars from his parents. The last time I saw him was when I was taking his senior pictures. None of this had happened yet. This downward spiral snowballed out of control in a month. It’s obvious that he’s doing some type of drugs, how else could you explain his rapid weight loss and stealing money? When my friend told me this I was halfway through reading Beautiful Boy.

I was terrified for Steve. Because I was reading this book I was learning all this information and seeing it through a parent’s point of view. I felt horrible for my friend and her family. I didn’t want them to go through what I was reading about in this book. I told my friend about the book and suggested maybe he should go to rehab before he turns 18, remembering what David Sheff wished he could do to Nic. I couldn’t believe something like this could happen to a sweet boy like Steve. I couldn’t believe that this could happen in Granby, CT, to someone from a small upper-middle class town, someone from a close family and good upbringing.

As of this weekend Steve is in the hospital. He was forced to go after his parents called the police. After this weekend he will move to an outpatient facility for 10 days but from reading this book I don’t think that will be enough time. I fear he will revert back to his old ways and continue to hurt himself and others. Everytime I read I get so depressed. I want to keep reading, hoping to learn more and more, but at the same time I feel twice the pain because I can witness it first hand destroying my best friend’s brother. I just hope that his story ends up like Nic’s, a happy ending.