Patriotism

The assignment for class asked us to find and post a picture we took of an American flag and analyze it.  Now, as weird as this may sound, the project was not very easy! I looked around many places to find American flags or things that had the same print to take photographs of.  Of course while I was driving with some friends I saw the perfect photo I could have taken, but no one had a camera!  Oh well, back to this photo.  I saw this flag this morning while celebrating mothers day at Arlington Race Track.  It's very hard to see but up close you could see that all of the flags were at the same height and it seemed to me as though the American flag was the most tattered and worn.  At first I didn't know what to think of it, but then I realized that the statement the park was making (not on purpose) was that they care about the other countries and their feelings, more then America's.  It's almost sad to me that our flag is given no respect, in any country, the flag of the country is supposed to be held higher then any other flag around it.  Here in places, Arlington's own flag was flying higher then the countries flag.  Now I may be the only person who seems to be bothered by it, but it really struck me how oblivious people can be about the messages they send.  I assume that the race track did not mean to portray themselves as people who care more about pleasing others then respecting our country, but it was still assumed by myself.

Learning Experience

Today after all of the students in our American Studies class turned in their precious Junior Themes you could almost feel the tension release from all of our peers.  We have been working on these papers for the last month and we feel as though our thesis, our intro, and transitions are all well put together and ready for Bolos & O'Connor to read.  Everyone that I have met who has gone through the difficulty of the junior theme says that it is the hardest and toughest paper they have ever written.  While I agree with all of the statements, I also want to add that this paper has tested my abilities in so many ways, that I almost want to challenge myself with something similar again.  The feelings of understanding and accomplishment I received when I was researching and then when I turned it in were amazing.  I feel as though because we were pushed so hard, and because we had to be so driven to write these papers, we learned something not only about the thesis' we wrote, but about ourselves.  We learned what styles of writing work for us and what styles don't (such as Leslie trying out her sisters style), we learned how to keep ourselves driven and focused on such specific topics, and we also learned how to use our time as wisely as possible.  Of course every other paper we have had to write in the past has demanded these things from us, but the junior theme brought out more of that demand then ever before.  It showed us the potential we have to write something about a topic we have never studied before, and become mini-experts while doing so.  I think that in end, this paper did not only help us learn how to write, and how to portray our points, but it taught us something we could not have learned from smaller works alone.