When you ask a person who has not yet started to grow physically or emotionally what their thoughts on aging are, it is probable that you are going to get a negative response, or even a reaction from them like they think that it is never going to happen to them. I think that there is a stigma attached with the aging process. The media, personal peer groups, and other everyday encounters seem to influence the opinions people have on growing older.
I interviewed my father on his thoughts about the aging process, and to me it seems as if he enjoys the effects of aging and the quality of his life now that he has reached his early fifties. He told me that the only negative noticeable physical change that he is going through is losing his hair, nothing else really seems to upset him entirely too much.
My dad has had some pretty serious recent health concerns, and he is convinced that getting older has made him more susceptible to specific risks, such as diabetes. He recently has been diagnosed with diabetes and is still working to figure out how to control it through diet and exercise. Some other health related concerns that my father has become more susceptible to since he has aged are diverticulitis, which affects the intestines, and gall stones, both of which he has recently been diagnosed with. In early December, my father went in for surgery to have part of his intestines removed, and because of his age, he felt like the healing time took a little longer than it would have just a few years earlier.
The main causes of my father’s stress are financial reasons, and he said he can for retirement, which should be here within the next five years. My dad also told me that he hasn’t gone through a mid-life crisis and has never reviewed his life to see if he would do anything differently, he is happy with where he is in his life at the moment, especially with his marriage. My dad said that now that he and my mother are older, they do more things together, and they are closer than they were before. His relationship with his children is excellent, even though they all live further away from him than they did before, he claims that absence makes the heart grow fonder and they value the time spent together even more since they aren’t around each other every day. My dad also said that he felt the empty nest syndrome with each one of his four children when they left the house, but contributes their absence to the ability of him and his wife to spend more quality time together, and do more activities together as well.
He kept clinging to the idea that absence makes the heart grow fonder when I asked him about his relationships with his siblings and with her personal friendships as well. He is referring to moving to southern Iowa, and how it just seems to make the time spent with his family and friends more meaningful. He is still in regular contact with all of his living siblings, even though since there are ten of them, it can get a bit tough to keep up with everything and not actually be around. My dad said that even though he still keeps in contact with his friends since he moved, it isn’t as often as he would like, and he has made an entire new set of friends where he is living. The difference is now, the friends that he has since he is older, have more interest in the same hobbies as he and my mom do, such as fishing, and camping.
Being a grandfather is one of my father’s favorite things, and he explains it to me as “Wonderful! We get to spoil them rotten, and then send them home!” And when I asked him about how he felt about his aging parents, he replied “It’s life, you have to expect it. I don’t like it, but I accept it”.
The last thing I asked my father for the interview, were his thoughts on death. He has been a police officer for over twenty-five years, and worked with the United Nations on dangerous missions to Kosovo and Bosnia, so on more than one occasion he has had to think about the possibilities of something happening to him. When I asked him about his thoughts on death, he was kind of short with his reply, and just told me “Another one of those things that you have to learn to accept.”
Wednesday, April 23, 2008
Thursday, April 10, 2008
Insert Something Clever Here
Everyone sets goals in their lives; some are left unachieved, and others are obtained with minor effort. Some people even set similar goals time after time, and they fail time after time, only to pick themselves back up, dust themselves off, and try just as hard for another goal comparable to the one that they failed to meet. I envy this tenacious attitude that is possessed by seemingly few people, and as I sit here on the sidelines I wonder if I’ll be able to quit being so easily discouraged by a minor bump in the road, and just be passionate enough about something to keep bouncing back.
Since he began his painting career after the pressure to paint from a religious basis was no longer prevalent, and since the church had previously been an important element of artistic creation, artists were now free to explore new avenues and express themselves without feeling compelled to use the symmetrical values that were associated with the religious art, and were free to creatively seek out their own methods of self expression. Monet was able to incorporate new ways of expressing himself and represent reality through the content and structure of his work.
Many artists of the same time period spent endless hours working in their studios to produce their paintings, but Monet wasn’t fond of being trapped inside. Instead, he preferred the natural lighting and shadows that were cast onto objects and surfaces, and he thought that being outside was perhaps the best way to go about getting that.
Monet painted in the style considered impressionism, and in my opinion this is proven mostly through his “Water Lily” series, which do a great job at showing the painter’s affinity for using nature as his muse. An artist’s ability to capture the quality of light and atmosphere out of doors is considered plein-air, and such quality is usually captured through painting. What impresses me the most about Monet is that he was steady at being an impressionist, since most painters of the time generally only stuck with a certain style of painting for a short period of time throughout their career, but Monet remained an impressionist throughout his career as a painter. I was particularly surprised to learn that the title impressionism gained its name from Monet’s painting entitled Impression, Sunrise, and they proceeded to go on and have multiple impressionist exhibitions. Impressionism didn’t even catch on at first, but through their relentless perseverance, its influence eventually spread throughout Europe in the late 1880s.
I really admire the fact that Monet painted everyday subjects, it really shows that he was able to see that beauty does exist in everything. I enjoy how his subject is usually some sort of a landscape, and how he paints it over and over again at different times of the day, to capture the different effects of the changing light from the sun. Monet has done many series paintings which to me express the painter’s fascination with the changing beauty of nature, that within just hours something can look completely different simply because the lighting has changed. My favorite of his series paintings would have to be the haystacks. Not too many people are able to see the beauty in a quaint haystack sitting in a field, but Monet manages to capture the beauty of them by painting them under different lighting conditions at different times of the day. He would wake up very early in the morning before dawn and paint on his first canvas for a half and hour, and in that time, the light is changed, so he would switch to the second canvas, and keep repeating this process every day. The way that the light shines on the haystack is different every time he goes to paint them, thus ensuring that each haystack painting differs from another.
Throughout my studying Monet, I have come to be more and more fascinated with him and his painting style. Although there are certain aspects that have been publicized about his personal life that I don’t necessarily deem appropriate, my interest in Monet and impressionism has peaked to a new level, and I intend on continuing my studies and researching more artists in the times to come.
Since he began his painting career after the pressure to paint from a religious basis was no longer prevalent, and since the church had previously been an important element of artistic creation, artists were now free to explore new avenues and express themselves without feeling compelled to use the symmetrical values that were associated with the religious art, and were free to creatively seek out their own methods of self expression. Monet was able to incorporate new ways of expressing himself and represent reality through the content and structure of his work.
Many artists of the same time period spent endless hours working in their studios to produce their paintings, but Monet wasn’t fond of being trapped inside. Instead, he preferred the natural lighting and shadows that were cast onto objects and surfaces, and he thought that being outside was perhaps the best way to go about getting that.
Monet painted in the style considered impressionism, and in my opinion this is proven mostly through his “Water Lily” series, which do a great job at showing the painter’s affinity for using nature as his muse. An artist’s ability to capture the quality of light and atmosphere out of doors is considered plein-air, and such quality is usually captured through painting. What impresses me the most about Monet is that he was steady at being an impressionist, since most painters of the time generally only stuck with a certain style of painting for a short period of time throughout their career, but Monet remained an impressionist throughout his career as a painter. I was particularly surprised to learn that the title impressionism gained its name from Monet’s painting entitled Impression, Sunrise, and they proceeded to go on and have multiple impressionist exhibitions. Impressionism didn’t even catch on at first, but through their relentless perseverance, its influence eventually spread throughout Europe in the late 1880s.
I really admire the fact that Monet painted everyday subjects, it really shows that he was able to see that beauty does exist in everything. I enjoy how his subject is usually some sort of a landscape, and how he paints it over and over again at different times of the day, to capture the different effects of the changing light from the sun. Monet has done many series paintings which to me express the painter’s fascination with the changing beauty of nature, that within just hours something can look completely different simply because the lighting has changed. My favorite of his series paintings would have to be the haystacks. Not too many people are able to see the beauty in a quaint haystack sitting in a field, but Monet manages to capture the beauty of them by painting them under different lighting conditions at different times of the day. He would wake up very early in the morning before dawn and paint on his first canvas for a half and hour, and in that time, the light is changed, so he would switch to the second canvas, and keep repeating this process every day. The way that the light shines on the haystack is different every time he goes to paint them, thus ensuring that each haystack painting differs from another.
Throughout my studying Monet, I have come to be more and more fascinated with him and his painting style. Although there are certain aspects that have been publicized about his personal life that I don’t necessarily deem appropriate, my interest in Monet and impressionism has peaked to a new level, and I intend on continuing my studies and researching more artists in the times to come.
Wednesday, April 2, 2008
Middle Childhood
Spending time with young children is something that I have always particularly enjoyed, and now that I live with my brother and his two daughters I am able to spend all the time in the world with them. I chose to interview and observe my oldest niece, Alyssa for my paper on middle childhood.
Deciding to start with questions pertaining to her physical development, I asked Alyssa, who is seven years old, if she has gotten any taller or any heavier since she was six, and she told me that she doesn’t think so because she still fits into all over her clothes from first grade still. When I asked her mother about this, she verified that she hasn’t changed much at all, and her growth spurt happened right before first grade. I also asked Alyssa if she has ever tried to diet or lose weight, and she said “Yes I have, I ate lose-weight waffles for a couple of weeks, but it was really because they were there and they didn’t taste like lose-weight waffles with lots of syrup.” I think that she was under the impression that just because she ate low-fat food, she was trying to lose weight.
Alyssa used her fingers to feel around in her mouth the teeth that felt “bigger” and came to the conclusion that she has lost nine teeth so far. When she gets home from school, Alyssa goes to her babysitter’s house, where she has snacks and draws until someone picks her and her sister up.
Soccer is one of Alyssa’s physical activities, and she has been on the soccer team for two years now, and is planning to join for a third year this summer. When I asked her how many hours of television she watched she told me twenty-four at first, then confessed that she really didn’t know. Her favorite shows are The Suite Life of Zach and Cody and Hannah Montana. Alyssa’s mother later told me that she sometimes doesn’t watch any television in a day, but other days she will sit there and watch anywhere from one to three hours worth.
Next, I moved on to the questions concerning her cognitive development, and started out by asking Alyssa how long it took her to get to school. She told me it takes twenty minutes, which is just a little bit off. Her trek to school usually takes about ten to fifteen minutes depending on how cooperative both kids are to get out of the house.
When I asked her how many outfits she could make, she first asked me if there were any belts, then she said she could make three whole outfits out of three pants, three shirts and 3 pairs of shoes. She knows you can have other outfits, but “since the clothes might actually belong to a different outfit, the other outfits aren’t real outfits.”
Alyssa told me that she absolutely likes nothing about school, and she dislikes reading, math, and music class very much. Her favorite joke to tell is “Spell ICUP!” And when I did the liquid conservation experiment on her, she told me that the tall glass had more because it was taller.
Moving on to the psychosocial section of the observation/interview I asked Alyssa what she thought about herself, she replied “I think I’m gorgeous and I think I’m different.” and singing “drawling”, designing bedrooms and designing clothes were the things that she considers herself good at, although she wishes she could be better at basketball, skateboarding, and skiing.
Shopping, make-up, purses, jewelry, and fashion are the things that Alyssa is interested in, which fits well with what she wants to be when she grows up, which is a fashion designer.
The definition of a good friend, according to seven year old Alyssa is “Being truthful, not letting you down, not saying you are going to do something and don’t, and not lying.” And she said that she experiences peer pressure at school when “Lindsay pressures everyone to play cheerleading on the playground.”
I asked Alyssa who’s sweater she would choose between her mom’s and her best friend’s, and she didn’t skip a beat before telling me that she would pick her best friend’s, because “Hers is a lot cuter! Morgan’s sweaters are more in style, now, this century.” And when I asked her if her parents let her do anything different now that she was seven that they wouldn’t let her do when she was six, she told me no, because “they won’t let me pretty much do anything until I’m like ten.”
Alyssa is from a blended family, that is more traditional than blended, and she informed me that she doesn’t get along with her sister very much because she feels like her sister gets more attention than her.
I wish I could trade all of my stress for my niece’s stress, which is merely stressing over a girl at school who is bossy and rude.
Deciding to start with questions pertaining to her physical development, I asked Alyssa, who is seven years old, if she has gotten any taller or any heavier since she was six, and she told me that she doesn’t think so because she still fits into all over her clothes from first grade still. When I asked her mother about this, she verified that she hasn’t changed much at all, and her growth spurt happened right before first grade. I also asked Alyssa if she has ever tried to diet or lose weight, and she said “Yes I have, I ate lose-weight waffles for a couple of weeks, but it was really because they were there and they didn’t taste like lose-weight waffles with lots of syrup.” I think that she was under the impression that just because she ate low-fat food, she was trying to lose weight.
Alyssa used her fingers to feel around in her mouth the teeth that felt “bigger” and came to the conclusion that she has lost nine teeth so far. When she gets home from school, Alyssa goes to her babysitter’s house, where she has snacks and draws until someone picks her and her sister up.
Soccer is one of Alyssa’s physical activities, and she has been on the soccer team for two years now, and is planning to join for a third year this summer. When I asked her how many hours of television she watched she told me twenty-four at first, then confessed that she really didn’t know. Her favorite shows are The Suite Life of Zach and Cody and Hannah Montana. Alyssa’s mother later told me that she sometimes doesn’t watch any television in a day, but other days she will sit there and watch anywhere from one to three hours worth.
Next, I moved on to the questions concerning her cognitive development, and started out by asking Alyssa how long it took her to get to school. She told me it takes twenty minutes, which is just a little bit off. Her trek to school usually takes about ten to fifteen minutes depending on how cooperative both kids are to get out of the house.
When I asked her how many outfits she could make, she first asked me if there were any belts, then she said she could make three whole outfits out of three pants, three shirts and 3 pairs of shoes. She knows you can have other outfits, but “since the clothes might actually belong to a different outfit, the other outfits aren’t real outfits.”
Alyssa told me that she absolutely likes nothing about school, and she dislikes reading, math, and music class very much. Her favorite joke to tell is “Spell ICUP!” And when I did the liquid conservation experiment on her, she told me that the tall glass had more because it was taller.
Moving on to the psychosocial section of the observation/interview I asked Alyssa what she thought about herself, she replied “I think I’m gorgeous and I think I’m different.” and singing “drawling”, designing bedrooms and designing clothes were the things that she considers herself good at, although she wishes she could be better at basketball, skateboarding, and skiing.
Shopping, make-up, purses, jewelry, and fashion are the things that Alyssa is interested in, which fits well with what she wants to be when she grows up, which is a fashion designer.
The definition of a good friend, according to seven year old Alyssa is “Being truthful, not letting you down, not saying you are going to do something and don’t, and not lying.” And she said that she experiences peer pressure at school when “Lindsay pressures everyone to play cheerleading on the playground.”
I asked Alyssa who’s sweater she would choose between her mom’s and her best friend’s, and she didn’t skip a beat before telling me that she would pick her best friend’s, because “Hers is a lot cuter! Morgan’s sweaters are more in style, now, this century.” And when I asked her if her parents let her do anything different now that she was seven that they wouldn’t let her do when she was six, she told me no, because “they won’t let me pretty much do anything until I’m like ten.”
Alyssa is from a blended family, that is more traditional than blended, and she informed me that she doesn’t get along with her sister very much because she feels like her sister gets more attention than her.
I wish I could trade all of my stress for my niece’s stress, which is merely stressing over a girl at school who is bossy and rude.
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