Journal 6 Jeremy Johnson

     I loved reading Ishmael more than that of Cisneros.  Through the reading of Beah, we see how hard life is in different cultures, even when there is no war.  In Africa there is a different way of life through housing, food, family values, and even spiritually.  In Beah's, A Long Way Gone, I took away the passage of survival and how it relates to PTSD.  I myself have PTSD from a motor vehicle accident from 2013 in which I am still dealing with.  Just like Beah losing his family, or after being done fighting in the war; Beah fights with PTSD for some time and even still to day I would imagine.  I marked PTSD all through my active reading, but the one that stood out the most to me was in chapter 16.  "When ever I turned on the tap water, all I could see was blood gushing out.  I would stare at it until it looked like water before drinking or taking a shower.  Boys sometimes ran out of the hall screaming, "The rebels are coming." (Beah 145.)"  Very powerful how the mind can control how we react to certain situations after trauma.  Reading Cisneros, The House on Mango Street, was hard at first, yet it tied together in the last few chapters.  My takeaway from this active reading was that through Esperenza wanting a house of her own, I come to realize that everyone has dreams.  Maybe the dreams are not all of wanting a house of your own like in Cisneros, but like me I have dreams of making my own money without working for the man.  Making money that I control and nobody writes me a check to cash or deposit into a bank.  Money that I can just wake up and see has been growing overnight.  Just maybe one day for me, like Esperenza and her dream of a house of her own.
     The Hobart Shakespereans was a great documentary.  It shed some light on a few things that I see are affective in my coaching that Mr. Rafe uses in his teachings.  How Mr. Rafe's says to never give up because he loves what he does; even though he feels like cutting the cord at times.  "The good ones never do" he says.  They never give up on a child or their own passion.  My anxiety gets the best of me at times, yet I never give up coaching because it is my passion.  I was also impressed at how smart the children are when they are not being sheltered at such a young age.  I feel that the more we shelter kids, the less they are prepared later in life.  These kids travel and get to see what nice things are like to possess.  I believe in doing this to teach them that if they work hard they can achieve nice in the future.  I have nice taste in life and though my parents never had money, and my father was the only worker in the household, we still managed to prosper in life by not being sheltered from the bad and ugly.