Jim Crow Laws

Textbooks: Books shall not be interchangeable between the white and colored schools, but shall be continued to be used by the race first using them.

...WHAT? I mean, all these laws are ridiculous, but after I saw this one I'm pretty sure my eyes actually popped out of their sockets. But wait, according to Mississippi, Georgia, Alabama and Louisiana in the 1960's, I should probably make sure the doctor who fixes my eyes is white, 'cause if he's a different race he'll probably screw it up...PSYCH! There are sooo many extremely successful black people today who absolutely blow away white people. This is because race doesn't matter. There is no gene that automatically comes with your skin color that makes you smarter or dumber.

Back to this whole text book law...what did they feel could possibly happen out of sharing textbooks among white and black students? Did they seriously think there was something bad and/or evil and/or life threatening that would transfer from a black person's fingertips onto the textbook? Did they think if a white person then used that textbook it would transfer to them? I can't even fathom how people possibly thought like this at one point in history. There must have been something in the drinking water.

Food for Thought

I usually have the same routines on Saturday mornings. I wake up, lay in bed for a while, go downstairs for a bowl of cereal, sit at the counter for some time while I ponder random thoughts, and then I finally snap out of it and brush my teeth. This Saturday, however, I walked downstairs into the kitchen to find a piece of paper laying in front of my chair:

Thought for Today & Everyday :) 

Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light not our darkness that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented and fabulous. Actually, Who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small doesn't serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won't feel insecure around you. We are born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It is not just in some of us, it is in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others. Author-Marianne Williamson

Here is the craziest part...NO ONE KNOWS HOW IT GOT THERE! It just randomly appeared!!

I'm totally kidding. This is what actually happened.

"Hey, did you like my thought for today?"

"Yeah dad! It was nice. Did you copy and paste that from a website?"

His head whipped toward me faster than I could say whiplash. Slightly offended, he said,

"No...It's from the book I'm reading. I typed it up myself!"

Now my sister shows up.

"What!? Dad are you serious? You came up with this yourself!?!?!?"

"No, no, no. It's from my book; Rediscovering Catholicism. Trust me, you'll know when I start coming up with my own one liners."

 Even though this passage was an entire paragraph, not one line, I knew he was right. If my dad thought of something this brilliant, he wouldn't just leave it on the kitchen counter!

"I even emailed it to John Michael's account at St. Thomas. Do you think he'll like it?"

The three of us sat in silence for a few seconds. Then we laughed.

Well, I thought I'd just give everyone a snap shot of the things that happen in the Coon household--and maybe some food for thought!! (Or as my dad would say, a thought for today and everyday :) ).

Why I Write: Past, Present & Future

Hmm...why do I write? If you asked me this question in second grade, I would simply say, "Writing is fun!" This is what made my writing so good. It was pure and innocent. There was no pressure. I wasn't writing for the sole purpose of getting the best grade or to impress other people. It was something that came easily to me, I was good at it. So naturally, I enjoyed it. I wrote stories of princesses, mermaids, magical kingdoms, and, of course, there was always the happy ending. This is what drove all of my writing. I was the little girl who fantasized of being a princess and falling in love with Prince Charming. Everything ended perfectly. "And they all lived happily ever after. The end."

In a way, I'm still that same little girl. I like to think of what my happy ending will be, coming straight out of the fairy tale books and movies. Writing gave me the opportunity to play things out the way I wanted to. I wrote to give people their own fairtytales and happy endings.

As I got older, writing became more academic and less creative. It was all essays and research papers. No more happy endings. No more writing in my free time.

Now, I write to keep myself organized. I write lists of things I need and want to do. It makes my to-do list more concrete and real; writing it down brings it to life. That is why I put my needs and wants down on paper. They are no longer just thoughts or things I can only fantasize about. The simple act of putting pen to paper makes it into something I can see and hold. My thoughts are acknowledged and no longer trapped. Now I know what I want and I know they are possible. I write to make things become reality.

But now, I want to bring "for fun" back into my writing life. Reading the stories I wrote when I was younger makes me realize those stories are a time capsule of my young imagination. I want to write what happens to me and the small things that make my day for the next two years of highschool. I want to capture these small details so I can look at them later in life and remember them as if it were yesterday, to know that it was real and it actually happened, just like my stories from elementary school. I want to write for the pure enjoyment of it!

Alexie & my literacy narrative

After reading the Alexie piece, I have thought of two angles I could take for my literacy narrative, both being slightly similar to Alexie's. Alexie was considered an outcast because of his Indian heritage, and was stereotyped as being unintelligent at a very young age. My experience from my youth is not nearly as dramatic as Alexie's, but it still reminded me of a time in kindergarden when a boy at my table told me "You can't read Emily, you can't do anything." Ahh, the things I had to face as an innocent 6 year old. Don't worry, I proved him wrong the next day when I brought in my book and read it to the class. I could also take the more sentimental angle and talk about a book my dad read to my sister and I every night before we went to bed. I remembered this because Alexie shared how he loved reading because his father loved to read, and he looked up to him more than anything. I loved when my dad read me this book and I always looked forward to it!