Family Album

I'm not sure on how to do this via the internet.

Family Discourse

A memory that sticks in my mind from my childhood years, would be camping with my family. Every summer and fall my family would get together and go camping at Stonewall Jackson Lake, it always involved fishing and cooking out, just like everyone else does when they go camping. One true memory from a camping trip was when I was probably 5 years old, my parents and I went out on the boat to fish and of course I wouldn't bait my own hook, nasty, wiggly worms? no, so my dad had to bait it for me every time I would catch a fish. By the end of the day we counted up all the fish we each got I ended up with 22 and dad only caught 2. To this day I still tease him about me being a better fisher than him because I caught so many more. When, in reality, he spent all day baiting my hook.

Frederick Douglass

The two excerpts from Frederick Douglass's autobiography and the Zen teaching story, are very similar, but different in that they were most likely written in different times, one written and the other being told by pictures. Although I do not fully understand what I am to compare between the stories.

Decision Scene

I have experienced homesickness many times while growing up. When I was a child in elementary school, I went to stay all night with my friend, it had been raining that day and night, then the next day when it was tiem for me to go home, we woke up and the road was flooded, therefore no one could get in and no one could get out. So I called my parents and told them that we could not get out to take me home, and that was fine. When I was younger I never did stay away from home for very long, one night at the most until this time, I ended up staying two nights at my friend's waiting on the water to go down. I know that doesn't seem like a long time, but to a 9 year old that never leaves home, it is a long time! By the next night I was so homesick I just wanted to hurry up and go to bed and get up to go home. I was so relieved when I saw my mom and dad pulling in the driveway. That is one experience of homesickness, that I will never forget. Oh and did I mention I didn't really like staying with them anyway??

Illumination

One thing that I remember from childhood that I wouldn't have done, if I knew then what I know now is I have always wondered what it would be like if my parents were not together and it was just me and my mom. I always wondered what it would be like because my best friend lived with just her mom and they had a good relationship together, better than the one my mom and I had then. Therefore all the time I was wondering what it would be like, if my mom and I would be closer or what would happen if they were to split up. Once my family and I moved to Wood County, my parents got a divorce, that day I got my answer of what it would be like with just me and mom. As a result of the divorce my dad moved 3 hours away to his hometown and mom and I have remained here in Mineral Wells. I don't get to see my dad very often, but when I do I cherish every moment of it, because I'm his only daughter that he has contact with anymore. My mom and I don't have a good relationship at all, we talk, but not much, we live together, but we are never home at the same time, it is actually worse than it used to be. To this day, I regret ever thinking that about my parents, and I would do anything to go back and change it all. If I knew it would be like it is now, I would have never even thought about it just being me and mom. That is my illumination of childhood.

Haiku

• According to Dictionary.com, Haiku means "A Japanese poem".

• In the Ulmer book Haiku is refered to as "explaining the nature of the photographic image by analogy with a tradition of Japanese poetry" by Barthes.

• I am not quite sure what Haiku really is, therefore I cannot write about it until I fully understand it.

Obtuse Meanings

I don't fully understand Obtuse meanings, but I am going to try to understand it the best I can. Obtuse meanings to me is looking at a picture and thinking of how it relates to your life, something that has happened in your life that is expressed in the picture. Although not everyone can look at a picture and relate it to their life, because some pictures don't have much meaning to them.

Also obtuse meanings can be complicated to do, because you may have no reaction to the picture and you would not be able to express any feelings or memories of your life. That is how I view obtuse meanings.