he can’t sing, but He don’t care

                People are starting to gather and I along with many others are being greeted one by one as we enter through the doors. We enter into a hallway with kids running around, people having conversations with each other, and coffee being served. We then enter through one more door leading into the sanctuary. The experience I want to talk about today occurred at church.

                The band gets on the stage and begins leading the congregation in worship. Everything is normal until all of a sudden I hear this loud sound coming from my row. It was the sound of someone singing mixed with random noises of screaming. It was louder than everyone in the congregation and at times louder than the praise band singing on stage. This loud sound was coming from a guy by the name of Jeremy. For those people who know nothing about Jeremy, they probably heard this noise and wondered where that loud noise was coming from. But for those who knew Jeremy like I do, they knew that it was the sweet sound of praise. You see, Jeremy is a 27 year old with Down’s syndrome. No, he may not have the best singing voice, or even the quietest voice, but that noise I heard that day in the church was the most beautiful sound. Jeremy was standing there singing as loudly as he could, without a care in the world to praise our Great God. I thought to myself that day, why can’t we all be like Jeremy: Surrendering ourselves to praising Jesus without a care about what is going on around us or what other people think. The fact of the matter is, extra chromosome or not, we are all part of God’s beautiful creation and our passion should be to continuously praise Him. I know God was pleased with Jeremy’s worship that day, even if it was a little off key.   

It All Ads Up

Physical appearance is what society is all about. You have to look a certain way in order to “fit” in to today’s standards. The skinnier you are, the happier you will become. It is no longer about being comfortable in your own skin; it is about others being comfortable looking at your skin. There are many ads that promote both of these standards. These ads try to manipulate consumers into buying the product, and once they do it has done its job. One ad focuses on gaining weight with supplements and a balanced meal while the other focuses on losing weight with water. “Wate-On” and “Skinny Water” are complete opposites of each other but both contain the overall theme of happiness brought to our lives through outward appearance.

The first ad is a vintage ad promoting the product of “Wate-On.” This is a product that was sold in drug stores that consists of “homogenized liquid emulsions, condensed food tablets, and instant powder tablets.” This ad uses the technique of appealing to the emotions of their target audience through using an attractive, popular actress that girls admire to sell this product. The title of this ad states “If you want to be popular… You can’t afford to be skinny!” The title is followed by the story of actress Linda Peck with a page size image of her. In both the page size image and the head shot next to her paragraph, there is an innocence about her. There is not a sex appeal promoting the product, but it is showing her to be happy in her body as she talks about gaining weight.  She says that her profession as an actress can take a toll on her body causing her to become thin, skinny and underweight and ends her statement by saying “Try Wate-On and who knows… you may become the most popular girl in town!” That is the part that jumps out the most because this ad is saying the exact opposite of our culture today. Today, our actresses are all about being skinny and showing girls that being skinny is the way to become popular, but this ad is telling girls to gain weight.

            This ad is not only promoting gaining weight to be beautiful but it is promoting a healthy lifestyle. The second paragraph underneath Linda Peck’s quote tells all about the nutrients that comes along with trying Wate-On. It says Wate-On is concentrated with calories, vitamins, minerals, iron, and body nutrients for increased weight, temporary strength, and quick energy. This ad is selling the chance to be beautiful by gaining weight because it puts no pressure on girls, unlike today, to lead an unhealthy lifestyle just to be skinny. The main idea that this ad is selling is a healthy and beautiful body image.

            The second ad is very colorful to capture attention. The first thing you notice is the four women at the top looking like they are confidently walking down the street. Each woman is in her own box of a different color which makes them jump off the page and capture the buyer’s attention. Each woman seems fashionable, sophisticated, and confident in who they are. This image goes along perfectly with the underlined title “Strut Your Skinny.” Underneath the women are bottles of Skinny Water lined up representing all the different flavors available. The next thing to notice about the ad are the small words near the bottom of the page. The words read, “0 calories, 0 sugar, 0 sodium, 0 guilt.” Overall, this is ad does a great job of capturing attention with its bright colors and repetition, but what is the ad really trying to get across?

            These ads are related in the fact that both are selling the idea of being beautiful and feeling beautiful in your body. The major difference is that the first ad appeals to the emotions using a real woman and real account of what beauty means, while the second ad is fake with nothing real about it. The first ad uses the actress, Linda Peck, a real person compared to the drawn out, animated figures on the second ad. By Linda Peck telling her story, there is a certain vulnerability that comes along with sharing her life with the consumer. She is a real woman with problems about losing weight during her hectic career and she wants to promote Wate-On for all other girls and promote healthy lifestyle. This is a major contrast to the second ad because it is her realness versus the fakeness. The second ad has four drawn out figures of women who seem to have an ideal and perfect body figure, which is not possible for all girls. The four women have long, beautiful necks with skinny shoulders and arms leading to the tiny waste connected to the thighs which do not touch each other. In our culture today, most women strive for that body, and this ad is saying you can have that body from drinking skinny water with no guilt attached. The only problem is that the advertisers have drawn the perfect, strived after body images. These are not real women promoting this product with that so-called “perfect” body image, these are fake and animated women with a body image that does not exist for the majority of women.    

The second contrasting point of these ads are the products themselves. The first one is for Wate-On in which “each daily supply as directed contains more weight gaining ingredients than many a skinny person’s meal! Most important, Super Wate-On’s benefits are scientifically processed to be immediately available and used by the normal system to put on weight instead of being wasted!” So while the first ad’s product is a balanced meal, the second ad is promoting water. The ad with “Skinny Water” written all over it promotes this somehow “magical” water with zero calories, sugar, sodium and the most important: zero guilt, to help lose weight and “strut your skinny.”  This part of the ad suggests that this Skinny Water is all you need to be skinny and be guilt free while everything else brings along weight and guilt to your life.

Lastly, both ads have a common theme, which is change. Both promote changing ones physical appearance in order to be happy. This point is shown in the first ad by the part that says you cannot be popular if you are skinny. Even though this ad talks about gaining weight to be healthy, the main premise by using the famous actress is to promote happiness by trying to be like her and many others like her. It is not about gaining weight with the only benefit available being a healthy lifestyle, but to gain weight and look like all the movie stars and be popular, then you will be truly happy. This idea of happiness is shown in the second ad because it is a direct link to our culture today with all the fads and new ideas, like Skinny Water, to keep us as skinny as we can be. We reach that point, and it will definitely bring us happiness. This point from both of these ads is a reflection of our culture throughout time. It shows how our views of body image has greatly shifted throughout the years, but at the same time it shows how our culture has stayed the same. Generation to generation, our culture has always been obsessed with body image and how we view ourselves. In this case, the view about body image has certainly changed, but the fact that outward appearance is most important to our culture will never change.

Generally, these ads are advertising complete opposite products. Both ads appeal to the consumer about the importance of weight and both ads make a huge statement about our culture. The Wate-On ad shows the culture to appreciate the realness of women and encourage women to be confident and healthy in their natural bodies. The Skinny Water ad uses fake images and water to be skinny because that is what is most important to our culture today, not being healthy but just to be skinny any way we can. Although these ads use different techniques to sell the two different products, the overarching theme about our culture contained in both of these ads is the importance of outward to appearance to culture at all times.

 

 

The thesis of both of these ads, which is also the common thread, is “buy this product and you will be beautiful.” The idea of both ads is presenting the idea of a beautiful body image and this is where they contradict. The first is promoting a healthy and full body image, while the other ad is promoting being skinny.

Both ads are a response to the culture of the time. The culture of the time from the first ad is not wanting to be underweight and skinny, and not to be fat, but to have a full and healthy body figure. The first ad is a response to the realness of the culture compared to now. The first ad is a real person, an actress that everyone looks up to talking about her own weight publicly of how she wants to gain weight to be healthy and beautiful. Today’s culture is full of all the actresses either avoiding that topic of conversation or talking about all the diets to lose weight, or photo shopping all their photographs to have to perfect body. In this situation for the second ad, there are animations of skinny women and not real people.

Body Image

This ad is a vintage ad and it definitely has a lot to say. The obvious thing to notice first is what the ad is actually trying to sell. This is an ad for “Wate-On” which is a package with a certain liquid, food tables and powder meals. This was advertised and sold at drug counters to help poeple, mainly women to gain weight. 

What this ad is really trying to sell is a picture of a beautiful body image. The title is “If you want to be popular.. You can’t afford to be skinny.”  The ad then follows this title with the story of actress Linda Peck and her story about how it is hard to be an actress and not get skinny. She talks mainly about the fatigue and poor eating habits “that make you thin, skinny and underweight” as a result from this busy job, and she recommends Wate-On for to keep body shape.

To me, that is the main part of this ad that is a big cultural shock. She is an actress stating that she doesn’t want to be underweight, which is the exact opposite of our culture today. The part that relates to today’s culture is the line “Maybe you don’t want to be a movie star but who doesn’t want to look like one.” Because today, this world, just like back then is filled with people constantly looking at movie stars or anyone famous in general for ideas about body image. I would much rather go back to this kind of ad today instead of the ideas running around that “you are only beautiful if your are really skinny.”

 

This next ad is a comparison to the other ad about how culture as changed. We have this first ad that is filled with information about a product to gain weight and filled with ideas of a healthy body image, then we come to this ad which is one of many “lose weight and be skinny” ads today. This ad is selling water, not just any water though, skinny water. This ad implies that if you drink this water you can “strut your skinny” when you consume zero calories, sugar, sodium, and guilt. This ad is a picture of our culture today. Instead of wanting to be healthy and full figured like the other ad, we are always searching for the next big thing to make us lose weight and be skinny, which is not how it should be.

 

 

Pepsi vs. Coke

This advertisement is obviously an advertisement for Pepsi. The first thing that jumps off the page is the straw above the Coke can. The straw has hands and is reaching for the sides of the can because it does not want to go in. The opening between the hands look like a mouth as if it’s screaming at the top of its lungs, “NOOOOO, I don’t want to go in!” The straw kind of reminds me of a little child clinging onto the side of playground because he does not want to go home. With the straw positioned that way in the coke can and the other straw positioned comfortably in the Pepsi, the advertisement is screaming at you to buy Pepsi because it is way better than coke. It is so much better than coke that the straw does not even want to go in. So why should we even want to drink it?

The next thing to notice is the subtle message in the right hand corner, “The Joy of Pepsi.” It doesn’t just have the Pepsi symbol but it mentions it with joy. The message is that Pepsi brings joy, and you need to drink it over coke to have that joy. The words put together that way creates a desire of the product they are trying to sell.

1. The advertisement is trying to sell the joy of Pepsi, and sell the idea that it is better than coke.
2. The ad is part of a series, because there are always Pepsi against coke ads, and they are always coming up with new ones.
3. Other ads just like it are Coke and Pepsi ads whether they are ads for Pepsi or for Coke.
4. The ad is very clever and I like the part about the straw because it creates great imagery, but in my opinion everyone already has their opinion about which one they like better, so it’s not that persuasive for people who have made up their mind about Coke and Pepsi by tasting it.

The Happiest Place of All

All of God’s creation, whether it be the trees in your back yard or something big like the grand canyon, it is all amazing and beautifully made by our great Creator. Even though the entire world is that way, I have observed that the beach is one of the most beautiful creations. With the ocean that goes for miles, and the waves crashing onto the shore, the open sky that reveals millions of stars, and the horizon to watch the sunset, the beach is a peaceful place to realize the beauty of God. The three main parts to observe about my trip to Gulf Shores are the trip there, the experience there, and the trip back home. These three areas of the trip to the beach are stories to recreate the image of the happiest place of all.

            The first part to observe about the beach is the trip there. The week and especially the night before is always hectic. Everyone is running around trying to find clothes and everything they need for the week. Mom is running around trying to gather all the dirty clothes to wash, and she is also packing all the drinks and snacks for the week, because as you know, the snacks are the most important. The week leading up to the day to leave is full of great excitement. It is all anyone on the trip can talk about. Conversations full of everything there is to do at the beach. Laying out, snorkeling, putt-putt, shopping, eating seafood, swimming in the pool, staying up late staring at the stars, watching the sunset, catching sand crabs, running on the beach and much more are all topics discussed.

            All the excitement finally starts to boil over as the day to leave approaches. I remember waking up early in the morning to finish packing, loading the car, and to get on the road. My family and I are all buckled in and before we leave, Dad says a prayer over the week to keep us safe traveling up there and safety while we there. Since it is still early in the morning, my brothers and I went straight back to sleep with legs all over each other, pillows piled up on top of each other, and the radio on.

            For a while, everyone in the car is silent and the only noise to be heard is the tires spinning fast against the road and the radio on with country music. But a couple hours down the road when everyone is awake there is no more silence. Everyone is talking, either about how hungry they are, how bored they are, or how they absolutely cannot wait until we arrive at the beach.

            You know you are almost to the beach when you see marshes on the side of the road as you go over bridges, and different lakes with sailboats in them. The aspect that stands out in my mind of knowing when you get to the beach is when you roll the windows down and smell the strong scent of salt in the air. When you notice that wonderful, distinct smell, you know for sure you are almost to the beach.

            The second part to observe about this beach trip is the entire experience. We arrived at the hotel, and the view from the balcony was the beautiful, a bright blue ocean and white sand. We unloaded the car as fast as we could and went immediately to the beach to go swimming. We walked up some stairs and across the bridge that went over all the mounds of sands and turtles nests then went straight onto the sand. The white sand was very soft and squishy, and the type of sand that is so deep and thick that it is a struggle just to walk through it. Then you reach the hard, wet sand that is easy to walk on right before the warm water reaches your toes. The first day at the beach was nice because it was getting late and all we really did was walk along the beach next to the water.

            It got dark, so we eventually made our way back inside to eat dinner which consisted of peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, a combination of ham, turkey and cheese sandwiches and a variety of chips. We all sat in the living room of our hotel room, ate dinner and watched TV together. Soon after we finished eating dinner, we went back out the beach and stayed out there until midnight or even after midnight to walk on the beach.

It was midnight and pitch black outside. There was a slight breeze and the only lights around were the shining stars accompanied by the dim half-moon in the night sky. It was very cold to the touch but soft as I sat down and squished my toes in the sand. The small yet loud waves were crashing seconds apart from each other and there was not another sound to be heard for what seemed like miles. Apart from the waves, there was a silence. A silence that quiets the soul and brings peace, as I took into consideration the beautiful creation of God that is all around us.

After spending hours on the beach, we went back inside to hang out and eventually go to sleep. We were all excited and ready for the next day to go out to the beach and hang out in the sun all day long.

I remember waking up early in the morning while the brightly shining stars were still out. I walked out to the beach in the cold, brisk air of the morning and sat to wait for the sun to appear over the horizon. The dark sky quickly turned into a sky filled with a mixture of bright red, orange, pink and purple. The sun began to appear over the horizon of the ocean and I could feel the warmth on my face. The sky was so beautiful with all the colors that it began to look like a painting. There were no clouds to be seen, just the beauty of the sun rising higher and higher into the sky.

The sun had finally risen all the way, and it was time to pack our cooler full of drinks and food and head out to the beach. The same sand that was soft and cold that first night at the beach was now blazing hot as it burned our feet as we walked across. We laid out our towels, opened our big beach umbrella, and then went out running to the water. After swimming in the ocean for a while, I went back to where our towels and umbrella were set up and sat in our beach chair to stare out at the ocean.

I noticed just as I always do that the beach is filled with many different types of people. There are the families with their new babies at the beach for the first time, the college students on a beach trip by themselves probably for the first time without their parents, and the teenage boys out skim boarding attempting to impress all the girls at the beach, when in fact they are failing miserably. There are the old retired couples enjoying a day at the beach, families with little kids that like to bury themselves in the sand, and then there are families like us on vacation. No matter what the case, everyone is there because the beach is a magical place.

After a long seven hour day spent at the beach, we began to head in to take showers and go out to eat. For the rest of my family and many other people this is the highlight of the week while on a beach trip. We get ready and we head out to Crab’s Trap seafood restaurant. At this restaurant, there are aquariums filled with brightly colored fish, but then there are display cases filled with lobster, crabs and shrimp. The entire place smells like fish, and as we walked past the table there are huge plates piled high with crab legs, some piled high with shrimp, some with big red lobsters, and many other different kinds of seafood. I personally do not like seafood, but it was a fun experience to see so much food on the other tables, and then that same amount of food brought to our families table.

The next day is like the first, we spent time on the beach but except this time, not as much time. We went early to prepare to take some pictures. We usually do family pictures, but this time it was just pictures of my brothers and I which were taken by my mom. We took many pictures on a beach filled with many pieces of driftwood. We climbed trees, we sat on fallen trees, and some on the sand. We also went to a small abandoned home, took pictures inside the open windows and doorways, and in the grass behind the building.

The next day, we did not go to the beach but we went and explored the town. We went to the little shops in the town near the beach and did some shopping. Then after that, we rented some bikes and rode all over the island.
We rode on all these paths through the wood, rode past a golf course and eventually made our way to the pier. We parked our bikes, and spent about an hour walking on the pier. At the edge of the pier, you could see miles and miles of nothing but ocean. No land, just the bright blue ocean that met the bright blue sky filled with many clouds that shaded the sun. Also on the pier were many men lined among the edge with buckets and buckets of fish and many different kinds of fishing poles trying to catch some more fish and even some sharks.

That same night after the bike ride, we went back out the beach, one last time before we had to leave the next day. My mom and I walked along the beach, while my brothers and my dad sat on some rocks to enjoy a cigar. It was a peaceful moment to enjoy, as I walked listening to the sound of the waves enjoying nice conversations with my mom.

All the fun is finally coming to an end, we have to begin to pack our bags once again to head home. This time there is no hectic running around trying find everything we need, but the exact opposite. No one wants to leave so we were all gathering up all the clothes and chunking them in our bag with no care at all about whether or not they are folded. I remember it being a slow process because everyone is tired from a long week at the beach but also no one wants to actually pack up and leave so we were all taking our time.  There was not much food to pack this time because we had eaten it all, so that was less that we had to load back in the car. We finally got all of our things packed and loaded, we checked out of the hotel and we were on the road home back to reality. Dad was driving while everyone else went straight to sleep and I was left staring at the window as I watched the view of the beach disappear, thinking that I cannot wait to go back already.

            Hours later, we were back home, we all dropped our bags on the floor and laid down on our beds. It was sad to leave the beach and come back home, but there is always the expectation of coming back to your own bed. It is always nice to come back to the comfort of your home after a long vacation.

When I think of the beach, I think of all that. The bright blue ocean with waves constantly crashing to the shore, the soft white sand between your toes, the midnight sky filled with stars, the amazing sunrise in the morning, the many people who go to enjoy the beach, and my family having fun. When I think of the beach I think of God’s wonderful and beautiful creation, I think of the happiest place of all.

Joy Comes in the Morning

                I remember waking up early in the morning while the brightly shining stars were still out. I walked out to the beach in the cold, brisk air of the morning and sat to wait for the sun to appear over the horizon. The dark sky quickly turned into a sky filled with a mixture of bright red, orange, pink and purple. The sun began to appear over the horizon of the ocean and I could feel the warmth on my face. The sky was so beautiful with all the colors that it began to look like a painting. There were no clouds to be seen, just the beauty of the sun rising higher and higher into the sky.

                While I think about this experience, and read this observation the only thing that pops into my mind is a quote by C.S. Lewis. His quote is: “I believe in God as I believe that the sun has risen: not only because I see it, but by it I see everything else.” The sunrise is a perfect example not only of God’s beauty, but an example of how God is in our lives. I feel Him with me compares to the warmth I feel from the sun at all times, I know He is there, and He reveals things to me through His word, just as the sun reveals the world to us.

It was midnight and pitch black outside. There was a slight breeze and the only lights around were the shining stars accompanied by the dim half-moon in the night sky. It was very cold to the touch but soft as I sat down and squished my toes in the sand. The small yet loud waves were crashing seconds apart from each other and there was not another sound to be heard for what seemed like miles. Apart from the waves, there was a silence. A silence that quiets the soul and brings peace, as i took into consideration the beautiful creation of God that is all around us.

Coming Home to Van Nuys

As I started reading this story, I was not really interested at all. I thought it was going to be a story of how she missed the wide open fields of Minnesota compared to the crowded area of L.A. But then she took a turn that caught my attention to make me keep reading.

 

She began to talk about food and the take-out selection that the city of L.A. had to offer. I liked this part because she began to describe all the different foreign food available. I liked it because I can relate because I love any kind of foreign food, whether it be oriental or Mexican or Italian. She began to describe the imagined environment surrounding the food.  “The bustle of wonderful bazaars and open-air markets full of kiosks, and street cars and flapping geese, and bicycle bells.” As she said those words, I began to imagine and think about how fun and exciting it would be to be there and experience that and taste all the food. But sadly, that was just an imagination that she set up as I was reading it.                            

                She continues with the reality of what really happens, and that reality is a shock to the imagination. She explains the reality and ends with a depressing realization about those who seek to make a big business in the food industry and end up with an empty restaurant staring at a neon sign outside the window.

Mirror, Mirror on the Wall…

              One object that I see every day, and definitely more than once a day is a mirror. The mirror I am describing is the one back home. That mirror along with every other mirror in the world is an object that does not change. It gets dusty or dirty along with every stationary object but it does not change and look different throughout the years. This mirror is a rectangle encircled by a rectangle piece of wood with spaces for light bulbs circling all the way around. The back of the wood, which is against the wall, is open and you can see the wires connecting all the way around to each light bulb and leading to an outlet. This mirror is over 50 years old and one of my favorite mirrors that I have ever owned.

                This mirror, as all mirrors do, shows my reflection. When the bright lights are on, almost every imperfection is shown to me, which is not always a fun sight. While the mirror doesn’t change, the reflection, for everyone in the world, most definitely changes. Changes day by day, week by week, and year by year. Mirrors are made to reflect, reflect everything that passes by. They are made to reflect your outward beauty. But is that really the most important thing?