HW 18 - Health & Illness & Feasting

For this years thanksgiving for me it was a body centered and anti body practices of the American culture. I woke up to the smell of a turkey in the oven and my mother telling me that i need to get up before my grandparents arrive. i made my bed and cleaned up the chinchilla poop that always seems to get on my floor. I took a shower and got dressed and greeted my grandparents. This is a anti body experience because i had to ignore my body in the fact that im tired and just wanted to relax and watch the thanksgiving parade like i would normally do. I relaxed in my room as the food was being cooked and watched dexter and the office until dinner was ready. this was a body centered experience because i did what my body wanted to do and not what my mother or what anyone else wanted me to do.

The food was one of the major events and one of the biggest focuses that happened that day. But not all of it was just focused on food, it was also family. I tried to focus more on family. thanksgiving was a major holiday in out family. before my grandmother from my dads side passed away she would ALWAYS come over and spend thanksgiving before i was even born. i miss her dearly and her dieing made me realize to enjoy the holidays with your family as much as you can before they are gone. Everyone was feeling just fine. although both of my grandparents have parka-sins. But on sunday my dad wasn't feeling well and it seemed like he had a small case of vertigo.

After we feasted my dad and mom cleaned up and we packed up our things and dropped off my grandparents and headed upstate...like usually. Our let overs never lasted more then a day. Keep in mind we got a 25 pound turkey. We all had our own favorite side. Mines was the Sweet  patatos, it tasted like candy. My brothers was the stuffing and my parents loved the green bean casserole. Ever year we argue with how much bread we buy for the stuffing and that we are always going to buy a to big turkey that it wont fit in the oven, but thats all just part of the traditions.

HW 17 - First Thoughts on the Illness & Dying Unit

I had to deal with death for the first time when i was 6 years old. My childhood dog passed away. that was a very very hard time for me. I use to live upstate in Unidilla and she was a beautiful white german shepherd. her name was Cassey. Almost everything i did when i was little involved her.  When we put her down i didn't full understand everything which made it even harder in me. till this day i remember it all. When we moved down to the city and when i was in 6th grade was the second time i had to deal with another major loss in my family that was when my grandmother passed away. i was very very close to her and i  felt robbed of spending more time with her, because at that time we haven't seen her in while, and while me and my  mother walked outside of our old apartment was when i got a call on my cell phone from my grandmothers neighbor josephine saying she had collapsed and paramedics have been trying to revive her for 7 mins already and they finally got a pulse. Once i heard it took 7 mins i knew that there was no turning back for her. i knew she had brain damage regardless if she was breathing on her own or not. Even know just writing it makes me wanna cry she was a very important person in my life and i wish she was still here.

When i was younger my parents always taught me that when we get old we all die, and if we are lucky enough and keep ourselves in good condition we will not get sick to the point were it can kill us.

Homework #12

Thesis: An individual living in our culture must recognize and respond to the nightmarish industrial atrocities at the root of dominant social practices in order to live a morally satisfactory life.