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New Voices New Voices New Voices New Voices New Voices New
Voices New Voices New Voices New Voices New Voices New Voices
New Voices New Voices New Voices New Voices New Voices
New Voices New Voices New Voices New Voices New
Voices New Voices New Voices New Voices New Voices New Voices
New Voices New Voices New Voices New Voices New Voices New
2013
Student Journal of Nonfiction
Voices New Voices New Voices New Voices New Voices New Voices New Voices
New Voices New Voices New Voices New Voices New Voices New
Voices New Voices New Voices New Voices New Voices New Voices
Lander University Greenwood, South Carolina
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New Voices
is a publication of the
College of Arts and Humanities
Lander University
320 Stanley Avenue
Greenwood, SC 29649
Student Editorial Board:
Mary DeLong
Amy Strickland
Jana Wilson
Publicity and Cover Drawing:
Brittany Faulkner
Design:
Dr. Misty Jameson
Faculty Advisors:
Dr. Amy England
Dr. Andy Jameson
Dr. Misty Jameson
New Voices congratulates Haley Wilson,
Winner of the 2013 Dessie Dean Pitts Award
[email protected]
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Table of Contents
“What Is Bipolar Disorder?”
by Haley Wilson . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
“Linguistics of Swearing”
by Lauren Shiflet . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
“Klingon as a Language”
by Andrew Dosher . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
“Be a Man”
by Cody Johnson . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18
“Montessori Education: A Better Way of Learning”
by Jessica Prince . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20
“In Case of Emergency, Save Cats First”
by Lauren Shiflet . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26
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What Is Bipolar Disorder?
Haley Wilson
October 8:
I thought of doing this while I was driving, thinking, planning, and singing
along to “Girl Anachronism,” the perfect song to match the pace of my
thoughts.
Ideas rushed through my head as I mentally stamped OK or NO on them to
the rhythm of the song.
Then I thought of this.
If I'm to present a truth creatively without any fictional means to a realistic
end, I'll write about my experiences and thoughts, but in different states of
myself.
I have bipolar disorder. This is a fact more valid and sound than the color of
my hair. It's black now; it was red. I was born a blonde.
Right now, I'm experiencing a manic state. I feel like I can handle whatever
workload comes my way in a single hour.
I am grilling steaks for my fiancé and myself tonight; currently I'm debating
spices: a little pepper, a little salt, a little creole seasoning, a lot of
perfection.
I’m trying to remember how many condoms we have left at the house, too,
because I know exactly what I want after the steaks.
I may spring for a box of Fire and Ice, just because. It’ll be a nice surprise,
just like how I surprised him with a $100 set of gaming headphones the last
time I was manic.
I also have mid-semester assignments to work on, but I’ll find time easily.
I am also debating on where I want to live with the man I will be with for the
rest of my life. I am thinking about our wedding. It is less than a month
away.
I am thinking about how many times this computer has autocorrected my
typing due to speed and inaccuracy.
Dessie Dean
Pitts Award
Winner
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Tonight, I might also work on some poetry; it's been such a long time since
I've worked on any writing, really. It's a shame when that happens.
A story is pulsing through my brain as well; I hope to finish it. It sounds
amazing in my head.
I may not sleep tonight, so I'm trying to accept that. It's a fact of my mania.
It deprives me of sleep but allows me to expend energy more effectively,
creating new things, exploring new thoughts and old ones, to be perfectly
honest. My brain always seems to cycle back to the same ideas of living
abroad and changing the world when I’m manic.
However, now I’m trying to fit my fiancé into these ideas. I’ve talked to him
about going with me if I were to get a Fulbright scholarship to teach English
as a Second Language abroad, possibly in Latvia. He embraced the idea as
much as I did; however, it could be his mania acting on his behalf as well.
We are both diagnosed with bipolar disorder, and sometimes our manic
states are concurrent. This increases the dangers involved since neither of
us is able to be the anchor.
If we were to have a child, it would be conceived during such a time.
How do I know I'm manic right now?
Well, I've felt it rising somewhere in me for a day or so. Not an explosion,
just a slow but sure pressure, like a tea kettle working its way to a boil, and
right now my brain is whistling.
I slept terribly last night, yet somehow my energy kept building layer by
layer, pushing onwards and upwards to where I am now. In past manic
episodes, I have made a dress in approximately three hours, organized an
entire house in an evening, written a twelve page essay in two or three
hours, driven to Rock Hill and back to take someone to church with me (and
repeated the journey that same night to take them back), and other Wonder
Woman-esque marvels that seem to break the space-time continuum.
I've written this in a total of 10 minutes. This is a sample of my manic state.
I'll probably write more later.
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October 9:
Dinner was fantastic last night. I've spent today doing laundry. Jesse calls it
"nesting" when I get like this. It's really just my mania. I've done about five
loads today and finally got caught up on the laundry. It's been piling up for
weeks.
I've also done a bit more wedding planning—not the best idea when I have
grandiose ideas, to be honest. Creative, but grandiose at times. I have
entertained the idea of handwriting place cards in calligraphy, but then I
thought about my handwriting and regrettably decided against it.
I also thought about dressing up our cats as part of the wedding party, but
his grandmother told me no.
My emotions are running on high about the wedding, but not in a stressful
way. When I simply think of the love he and I have, I want to cry. I
remember watching him play with a baby, my nephew, the other day. It
melted me even more into mush. I'm still mushy. While I’m manic, all these
great, mushy emotions just stick around and leave me feeling like a cloud:
light, dreamy, and phantasmagorically shifting above all the evils in the
world.
I don't have much to write about right now. Maybe later.
October 10:
Today was it. The irritation of mania turning into depression found me,
cornered me, and pulled me into the sewers of the thoughts I had been
floating over on my cloud of mania. After a day of having a short fuse and
being tempted to hunt for the nearest pistol and fit it neatly into my temple,
I am forced to break even further. I snapped at my fiancé, I snapped at his
grandmother, and I snapped off my seatbelt and opened the door of the car
while he was driving us home when I found out she may not come to the
wedding simply because I asked her to leave the house so we could eat. I
was in a rush, I was enraged already, and this sent me over. I tried jumping
out of the car, but he grabbed me before I could.
I feel like a terrible person. But, after he grabbed me, he pulled over and
held me. I apologized for being such a horrible person, for not being perfect
all the time and for making everyone mad at me when I slip. He said the
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words that no one else has said before. Normally people say, "Oh, it's fine. I
forgive you." Or worse, they don't. But he said, "That's what I love about
you; you are humble."
I broke into tears and gave him the biggest hug I've ever given in my life. I
know for a fact he is the man I am supposed to marry, and I am so glad I
am marrying him soon.
He saved me in more ways than just grabbing me before I jumped, and he
doesn't even realize it.
My self-loathing would have been enough to kill me. Watching dishes pile up
in the sink just added another stab postmortem. Another trash can full,
another stab. Another thought about how much my family doesn’t want to
even come to the wedding, another fifty stabs. Another thought about how
I’m not good enough for my own family to want me and never have been,
another hundred stabs. Another thought about how I don’t deserve what
happiness I felt during my mania, another 200, allowing everything to return
to my self-loathing, to zombify me and kill me again. By the end of the day,
all I am normally able to do is cry myself to sleep and hope I won’t get up.
I came home to a clean house, something I haven't seen in weeks, and
couldn't help but smile.
If I had faced all of that alone, I wouldn't be here right now. I wouldn't be
writing this. I wouldn't be breathing.
October 13:
I woke up from two terrible nightmares last night. I don't remember what I
dream often, but when I do, rest assured that what I remember is never
good. Heck, I still remember nightmares I had when I was five just as vividly
as I did then.
It's awful to not be able to avoid emotional trauma even in my sleep. But,
what can be done?
I've been cleaning all morning, though it seems like nothing has been done.
It's mostly because everything is out of order. Clean, but out of order. A lot
of things lose their order in these downward shifts; I don't feel like
organizing right now, so the papers will remain scattered across the couch
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and the shoes across the floor. They aren't hurting anything right where
they are.
I've also been reflecting on words that someone said yesterday. I can't say
names. I can't give situations. But, I can give words.
When the subject of bipolar disorder is brought up in a public area, it is not
wise to joke about it. You are chancing someone around you having bipolar
disorder and losing respect for you, just as I lost respect for an entire room.
You don't say of a photograph of a famous author, someone with a greater
reputation for intelligence than your own, to a roomful of people absorbing
your every word as truth, "Yeah, he looks bipolar," upon finding out he had a
diagnosis of bipolar disorder.
You cannot possibly diagnose bipolar disorder by looks. What tipped you off,
his nose? Or maybe the curvature of his spine? The pure ignorance of that
statement undoes any ounce of intelligence with which I had ever credited
you for its regression to such an antiquated belief as physiognomy.
Furthermore, you do not comment on the fact that the photograph was
taken on a balcony by saying, "I suppose he always hung out on balconies in
case he wanted to just tip over and end it all." Even more so, you don’t
laugh when someone says something like that.
This is wrong and made me uncomfortable being in the same room as all of
you. I don’t spend my time on balconies “in case of emergency”; I also look
no different from anyone else due to my bipolar disorder alone. I live as
normal a life I can, and that’s how none of you were able to say of me,
“yeah, she looks bipolar.” That’s why when people find out I have bipolar
disorder, they instead say, “I would have never known; you don’t act
bipolar.”
Ignorant people disappoint me. Of all the things the human mind is capable
of, they are doing nothing with theirs.
October 24:
I've reread my entries, and I myself am amazed at the rapid cycling. Within
a week, I jumped from a manic high to a depressive low to a more stable
middle ground.
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I've contemplated getting help again, but I'm afraid.
I'm afraid of finding a psychiatrist. I'm afraid of taking medication again.
I'm afraid of losing who I am.
Yes. I have bipolar disorder. It gets hard, but I manage. I live each day with
whatever state my mind is in. I enjoy my mania; I do so much work in so
little time.
The depression is rough. But, it makes me feel whole. I live, not on a middle
ground, but on every point on the spectrum of human emotion. This
increases my empathy with others. I can imagine their pain because it is
likely I have felt it before for far less a cause. Yes, that makes me sensitive.
I cry a lot, often for no reason.
But you know what?
I'm human. No more than you, the reader, are human, but also no less.
So, before brainlessly shouting about how the weather is bipolar or how your
girlfriend's PMS makes her “so bipolar,” think about what you are saying.
Bipolar disorder is a mental disorder, not a phase; I've had it for as long as I
could possibly know, leading me to assume from birth.
It's not some arbitrary shift or mood swing. It's just not.
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Linguistics of Swearing
Lauren Shiflet
My aim in this speech is to show the difference between swearing and
other mediums of language and how this unique aspect of any language can
shape the way people think. In revealing these differences, the effects of
linguistics within a language can be observed. Fuck, along with a variety of
its counterpart structures deemed taboo by mainstream society, is the
source of much rebuttal and debate. Swearing is powerful; this medium of
language has its own history and syntax that is as baffling as its semantics
and the neurological effect on its audience. The uses of swear words range
far and wide and are difficult to trace. My focus is to show just how different
swearing is, and in doing so, to highlight grammatical complexities of our
usual, everyday language. I also want to explain why these words matter to
our society.
So why, then, is swearing taboo, and how is it used in support of
linguistic relativity? The first question is one Steven Pinker, a renowned
linguist and author, asks in his article “What the F***? On Why We Curse.”
In this article he explains a well-remembered use of an expletive from the
2003 Golden Globe Awards, when Bono from U2 was not censored in the
broadcast, saying, “This is really really fucking brilliant.” Of course, this
exemption from censors enraged certain viewers, causing a bill to be sent
before Congress in attempts to “clean the airwaves.” This act called for
complete censorship over the words “’shit,’ ‘piss,’ ‘fuck,’ ‘cunt,’ ‘asshole,’
and the phrases ‘cocksucker,’ ‘motherfucker,’ and ‘asshole’ including all
other compound and/or hyphenated uses of these words and the various
grammatical forms of the words or phrases (including verb, adjective,
gerund, participle, and infinitive forms)” (Pinker 20). Unfortunately for this
act, it misspelled multiple words, incorrectly labeled these words as
“phrases,” and also completely missed Bono’s use of fucking, which was
actually an adverb and not included in the list (Pinker 20). This broad listing
of the usage of expletives is just one small reminder to us of just how vast
the magnitude is when one considers manners in which to swear. This also
shows people’s immensely aggravated response to swearing. Even now,
some of you are still a bit bothered by the words listed. But why do we react
this way?
English
Academic
Showcase
Winner
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Uses of Swearing
Swearing is an important way of coming to a deeper understanding of
what is considered normal language and grammar because its uses and
syntax are such a strong exception to what is usual in English. Swearing
seems to be as creative as the speaker allows. Rules we follow within
everyday speech seem to be ignored within swearing. No one use of
swearing is right or wrong, unlike most other mediums of our language. For
example, one could easily use the adverbial form of the swear word in
“You’re too fucking cool” but could not use another adverb such as very:
“You’re too very cool.” That construction seems awkward, and the very
seems unnecessary, even redundant. Another common saying is “I don’t
give a shit” or “I only had about two shits to give.” Their meanings are
something close to that of care, yet even that word does not fit properly in
this structure. When someone tells you to “shut the fucking door,” that
person does not literally mean to shut the door that is fucking. Fucking here
cannot be considered a regular adjective like red or squeaking because,
instead of using this word to describe the door itself, it is being used for the
purpose of exclamation or emotional charge (Pinker 21).
Swear words can also be inserted into the middle of many words,
called tmesis, such as “un-fucking-believable” or “ri-goddamn-diculous.”
Tmesis is seen very rarely in our language and is almost always used with a
swear word or euphemism of one of these words. Unlike practically every
other word medium within the English language, expletives possess a use
and syntax all their own. These obvious differences in swearing as a medium
in language are a clear indication that these words may be much different
than other words, not only in their usage, but also in their effect on the
mind. They give us a glimpse into the oddities of language as a whole.
Neurological Aspect of Swearing
To understand this effect, one must first understand how swearing is
neurologically processed. Within the right hemisphere is a section of the
brain named the basal ganglia. This sector perceives and monitors threats
presented, such as when someone begins yelling or a dog snarls. Another
section of the brain is the amygdala, a prohibitory sector that controls the
behavior output of the brain. These two systems work together to connect
perceived threats with undesired behavior in respects of that perception. An
example used by Pinker is a monkey whose amygdale has been removed.
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Although he may be able to learn a new shape such as a triangle, he is
unable to connect that shape to its intended warning, such as an electric
shock, even after experience has shown that the shape is a forewarning of
the shock. Both of these sections, connected to threats and behavioral
prohibitions, are stimulated by swearing as well, which explains the
generalization that taboo words are linked to negative emotion. This
accounts for the surprise and danger one feels of hearing a taboo word and
for the inclination to prohibit such language, especially around elders or
young children (Pinker 21).
Taboo
Now that we understand how swearing affects the brain, in centers
that also interpret negative emotions, we start to wonder why they affect us
in that way. What makes these words, which seem only to be a series of
letters strung together like any other word, make us feel emotions and think
thoughts considered taboo? The reason is that swear words cannot merely
be seen as a scribble on a page or a random noise from someone’s mouth
because of the meaning they carry. While preparing this paper, I decided
there were words I simply did not feel comfortable referencing, like the “n-
word,” because there is a history to this word, an attitude and mindset that I
do not want to be associated with. Despite my using that word in a purely
academic context, the word still holds baggage too heavy for me to carry.
This shows us just how personable language becomes to use. Language can
bear cultural and social meanings, some that bring us together and others
that segregate us in terrible ways.
Conclusion
In current day arguments, non-linguistic canons are arguing over the
issue of political correctness, stating that “whoever controls words controls
the world” and that political correctness “is a sinister conspiracy to wash out
not just mouths but brains as well,” which seems to hint that thought can be
affected by the words we use (Cameron 154). These examples can show,
outside of the realm of linguistic studies, how people perceive language as a
way to control one’s thoughts or mindset. Taboo words are taboo for a
reason; they convey the thoughts and actions which mostly disgust society
or are held in high sacredness or regard. Therefore, these words, with
meanings sometimes vile to the listener, cannot be taken at face value, but
must instead be associated always with their darker meanings (Pinker 23).
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Works Cited
Cameron, Deborah. “Linguistic Relativity: Benjamin Lee Whorf and the
Return of the Repressed.” Critical Quarterly 41.2 (1999): 153.
Academic Search Complete. Web. 10 Dec 2012.
Pinker, Steven. “What the F***? On Why We Curse.” The Harvard Brain
2008: 20-24+. PDF. 10 Dec 2012.
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Klingon as a Language
Andrew Dosher
The scientific community has to date come to no consensus about the
way in which language was born or the point in human evolution when its
birth occurred, nor even the defining point at which a series of complex
vocalizations possessed by a developing group of humans or pre-humans
could be concretely defined as language. It is understood, however, that
language is an ever-evolving phenomenon that grows and develops much in
the same way as a living organism, which accounts for the inconsistency in
languages and the variance patterns in the rules that govern them.
In the past century, the possibilities of linguistic genesis have been
fairly explored through the unlikely medium of fiction, particularly in the
realms of science-fiction and fantasy, where artificial languages have thrived
as a popular way to legitimize fictional cultures and societies by augmenting
them with a corresponding language. Some of these are exceedingly
complex. The Klingon language of the Star Trek franchise, developed by
linguist Marc Okrand, is a good example of this. Thought to be the largest
fictional language in existence, Klingon does have a small population of
fluent speakers and is advocated by The Klingon Language Institute. But
despite all the nuances of this, one of the most complex fictional languages
in the world, there are certain ways in which Klingon differs from a real,
naturally developed language, despite being deliberately designed with a
certain level of authenticity. Also, although it is exceedingly similar to
natural languages in some ways, there are certain intrinsic characteristics of
natural languages that artificial ones cannot, or at least have not,
duplicated, but that does not mean that they can’t, and indeed Klingon,
despite its shortcomings, has the potential to grow beyond or obscure those
shortcomings that betray its true nature.
As Daniel Harvey points out in his essay “Nine Ideas about Language,”
“All languages have three major components: a sound system, a vocabulary,
and a system of grammar” (6). To understand the intricacies of fictional
languages—which is necessary in order to measure them against their real-
world counterparts—it is important to note first the constituent
characteristics of natural languages. For example, all languages are bound
by a set of rules that govern their usage. These provide the consistency
necessary for new and complex utterances to be devised, allowing languages
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to continually grow and evolve (Harvey 5). Such evolution is also caused by
other more extraneous factors, such as new pronunciations becoming
common, particular words and patterns of speech moving in and out of
popular speech, or populations becoming isolated, and as a result,
developing divergent patterns of speech.
In order to create a fictional language that is convincing and as similar
as possible to a real one, one must take into account all the aforementioned
properties of language. As the largest fictional language in the world,
Klingon has done this, and with its base of fluent speakers, it has been
growing and evolving as a result both of being spoken by a small but
articulate group of people and its advocacy by The Klingon Language
Institute (Shoulson). Klingon differs from human languages in a number of
respects due to its nature as an “alien language.” This is because of
Okrand’s approach and goals for creating Klingon, which involved making it
realistic from an actual and an in-universe perspective.
Having previously worked on the film Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan,
Okrand was asked back to create an official language for the following movie
in which Klingons were featured prominently. Starting with the brief bits of
dialogue devised by actor James Doohan for the first Star Trek movie,
Okrand took a phonetic approach by beginning to construct the language
grounded in the base phones, or fundamental spoken elements of
utterances, of the words Doohan had invented but added more in order to
have a enough sounds to have a convincing, natural-sounding language
(Okrand).
Several factors went into Okrand’s choice of new phonemes: “One
was, that according to the script for Star Trek III, Klingon is a guttural
language” (Okrand). This is logical, and an important factor for the
language, since language is informed by physiology and culture, and
Klingons of the Star Trek universe are a fierce and imposing warrior race.
Later Okrand further added various cultural affectations and idiosyncrasies
that reflect the culture of Klingons according to Star Trek cannon. For
example, in keeping with the aggressive, terse nature of Klingons,
there are no words for greetings…such words and phrases simply
do not exist in Klingon…[and] when two Klingons meet each
other,…if anything of an introductory nature is said, it is an
expression that can best be translated as What do you want?
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Unlike most speakers of English, who begin conversations with
greetings, inquiries about the state of health of the conversants,
and remarks about the weather, Klingons tend to begin
conversations by simply stating the main points. (Okrand 10)
The guttural sounds of Klingon also reflect their vulgar, animalistic aesthetic.
In the consonant descriptions section of the The Klingon Dictionary, Okrand
points out that the letter “p” is “always articulated with a strong puff or pop,
never laxly. Speakers of English may want to exercise care to avoid
discharging saliva while articulating this sound. It should be noted, however,
that Klingons do not worry about this” (Okrand 15). In briefly discussing the
dialects of Klingon, Okrand says that “the word for forehead, for example, is
different in almost every dialect,” which is understandable, if humorous,
considering that Klingons’ elaborate, bony foreheads, the most prominent
feature that distinguishes them from humans, are different on each
individual (11).
It is interesting to note that there are some aspects of Klingon that
make it “natural,” by virtue of their dissimilarity with real, human languages.
In creating Klingon, Okrand noted that “human languages are very
patterned,…[but] since Klingon is not a human language, it didn’t have to
follow those human language rules” (Okrand). In keeping with this idea, the
collection of phonemes Okrand formulated for Klingon was deliberately
combined in ways inconsistent with most human languages, and it is in this
way that Klingon is “natural”: it adheres to the notion that it belongs to an
alien physiology and culture rather than deliberately imitating particular
existing languages. This adds, in some sense, a further level of realism,
since it reflects the fact that all human languages were formed by arbitrary
variables of physiology and culture, often affected by subtle environmental
factors.
For example, Klingon, like many human languages, features a voiced
labiodental fricative, or “v” sound; however, it does not feature a voiceless
labiodental fricative, or “f” (the same sound as a “v,” but without voicing,
that is, vibrating the vocal chords). This is exceedingly unusual, as virtually
all human languages have both sounds or neither, rather than just the one
(Okrand). The sentence structure and word order are also contrary to what
is typical among human languages. Okrand chose to order his sentences
with the object first, then verb, then subject (as opposed to English, which is
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ordered subject, verb, object) simply because it is the least common word
order found in human languages. It is worth noting that Klingon’s “alien”
qualities that make it “natural” or “realistic” still do not impose upon its
fundamental nature as a language, and though Klingon may be linguistically
eccentric, it still has those basic properties shared by all languages as we
know them, and indeed it would have to in order to feel and sound genuine.
And so as a functioning language, Klingon has undoubtedly developed far
beyond anyone’s initial intentions or expectations.
Although the origins of human language are still unclear, it can be said
with reasonable certainty that language was not invented by a single
individual, a fact that separates Klingon from natural languages, but not
damningly. Ultimately, Klingon’s mimicry of natural languages is so complete
that it would seem to make its origins a moot point. There is only one issue
that, pending Klingon’s continued growth and existence, separates it from
natural languages. A child’s acquisition of a language is one of the main
processes that continues and revitalizes a language. Unless fluent speakers
of Klingon teach the language to their children, the logical step towards
developing a population of speakers, there will be no truly native speakers of
Klingon, and a language without any native speakers cannot truly said to be
natural, which is a problem that will ever betray Klingon’s artificial origins.
However, teaching Klingon as a native language has been attempted
at least once. Fluent Klingon speaker d'Armond Speers tried to raise his son
as bilingual in both English and Klingon. Speers’s son quickly became
seamlessly fluent in Klingon alongside English, and “‘his pronunciation was
excellent and he never confused English words with Klingon words.’” This
success belies the “alien” nature of Klingon, since Speers’s son acquired the
language as a child would any other language. Nevertheless, Speers’s son
became frustrated with the small vocabulary of only about 2,000 words that
his father had taught him. For example, for lack of an existing alternative,
Speers was forced to refer to a table as “‘thing which is flat,”’ and eventually
Speers gave up the effort when his son “‘stopped listening to [him] when
[he] spoke in Klingon” (Edwards).
In defense of Klingon, this failure, it would seem, was due primarily to
the impractically small vocabulary of Klingon at the time. The vocabulary of
Klingon has since expanded considerably, and now contains many more
practical, mundane words (such as table), but in order for Klingon to become
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a truly natural language, it would still have to be learned and spoken by
children, which would quickly and exponentially make it evolve beyond its
current state (Okrent).
In terms of the definition of language according to Daniel Harvey,
Klingon definitely is a language, containing a sound system, a vocabulary,
and a system of grammar, but it is more than these elements alone that
make a language. It is their interaction, their synthesis, and their existence
as a state of flux, all of which Klingon is only just beginning to apprehend.
Nevertheless, if Klingon can continue to grow and someday make the leap
from being administered by an organization to a full-fledged language that
has a large base of speakers and changes fluidly through its being spoken,
then that will be a singular accomplishment, and the Klingon language truly
will have gone where no fictional language has gone before.
Works Cited
Daniels, Harvey A. “Nine Ideas About Language.” Language Introductory
Readings. 7th ed. Boston: Bedford/St. Martin's, 2008. Print.
Edwards, Gavin. "Babble On Revisited." WIRED, 1999. Web. 9 Dec. 2012.
Okrand, Marc, perf. Marc Okrand on Klingon. Youtube.com. Web. 1 Nov
2012.
Okrand, Marc. The Klingon Dictionary. Pocket Books, 1992. Print.
Okrent, Arika. "There's No Klingon Word for Hello." Slate, 7 May 2009. Web.
9 Dec. 2012.
Shoulson, Mark. "Learn Klingon." The Klingon Language Institute. The
Klingon Language Institute. Web. 9 Dec 2012.
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Be a Man
Cody Johnson
Why is it that whenever a boy cannot do something he hears that he
“needs to be a man”? That does nothing but shame him into believing that
he needs to suck it up and get the job done no matter what the cost is. That
command will do nothing for him in trying to figure out how to complete the
task. But that influence will only make him want to use brute strength and
his “manliness” to get the job done. I was raised with that exact same
mindset, and it has not worked out for me. Where I am from, being a man is
to be rough, stout, insensitive, uncaring, and emotionless—basically a robot.
None of these terms should ever be associated with being a man.
I was raised to believe that men should always be participating in
some kind of sport. Football, baseball, soccer, rugby, lacrosse, hockey,
anything that required sweat and hard work was good enough. Sports build
character and teach young boys how to work as a team to complete a task.
No, they do not. I have played football and baseball since I was five years
old, and doing so has taught me very little of teamwork and certainly has
not built my character. It has taught me to strap on a helmet and some
pads, walk out onto the field, and knock the ever living heck out of anybody
that was not on my team. It taught me to have no remorse for my actions. I
think my favorite saying from football is that, if you do not hear a bone
crack when you tackle someone, then you are not hitting hard enough. Once
while playing in a rivalry game, my teammates and I hit someone so hard
that it not only broke his leg and tore his ACL, but it also ended his career
entirely. As I came off the field, I had a sense of accomplishment for my
actions that was aided by the cheers from my coaches, but I couldn’t shake
the fact that I had just taken a joy away from somebody that would never
be returned to him.
My experiences from sports did teach me, though, some other ways to
be a man. Football taught me that, if I am hurt, then I should ignore the
pain and go back out onto the field. It has also taught me that, if I am too
hurt to play, then I am weak and not meant to participate in manly sports
such as football or baseball. That is what I have always lived my life by
because that idea was implanted into my brain at a young age. When I was
twelve years old my biological father once made me hold a wasp nest in my
hand while the wasps continuously stung me over and over until they finally
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left. My hand was swollen to nearly twice its original size, and I was sitting in
a puddle of tears. This was his way of shaping me into a man. He thought
that the less I was afraid of then the more manly I would become. My
stepfather, who adopted me and I consider my true father, is far from that
type of man. He knows the true meaning of what it means to be a man.
Because of my experiences, I am for the most part emotionless; you
will hardly ever see me cry. When something tragic in my life occurs, I just
shrug it off and try not to think about it. A man crying is weakness in my
eyes. It is not right, but that is what has been implanted into my mind since
the day I was born. Pain is nothing but weakness escaping from your body.
This is a quote that I have heard all my life and is what I live by. You are
allowed to feel pain and accept it. You simply must not show that you are in
pain. My biological father, my baseball coaches, and my football coaches
gave me this idea over the years. They have shaped me into who I am
today. Am I a man? That just depends on your definition.
The fact that I have been through adversity many times and somehow
found a way to get through it is part of what makes me a man. The fact that
I am there for my family and would drop whatever I am doing to help them
makes me a man. The fact that I am able to stand up for what I believe in
without being pushed around makes me a man.
I can build a fire or cook on a grill, but that certainly does not make
me a man. I can change a tire or rotate my tires if needed. I can change the
oil in my truck and change a head gasket if it is blown. I love hunting deer. I
will wake up at four-thirty in the morning just so I can get out and be in the
stand before the sun comes up. I can kill a deer, drag it out of the woods,
and field dress it myself. I have a truck, a pair of boots, and maybe a
camouflage hat or two. Do any of these things make me a man? They
certainly should not, but many people believe that these are some of the
criteria that fit being a man.
A man should have an equal balance in his life. He should be strong
and brave, but he should also be nurturing and caring to the people he
loves. He should have emotions and be able to show them if he feels that it
is necessary. My perception of a man has changed over the years, but the
basic characteristics are the same. Hopefully one day men can step out of
the shadows of how we used to be and change the image that we have given
ourselves.
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Montessori Education: A Better Way of Learning
Jessica Prince
Once children reach a certain age, the one question all parents ask
themselves is, “where should my child attend school?” There are many
effective methods of schooling, each with its own unique approaches to
learning. Montessori education is a fairly new method to the United States
that has stirred up much controversy. However, despite its differences, the
Montessori Method is flourishing in America. Studies have been done over
the years in an attempt to discover which system of education is better,
Montessori or traditional. There are benefits to each side, but research has
shown that Montessori education could be more beneficial than traditional.
There are more facets to education than just academic learning; they include
self-discipline and motivation, independence, good social health, and getting
along with others. Acquiring traits like these can be just as beneficial later in
life as receiving quality academic training. Overall, Montessori education is
more beneficial than traditional-style education because the Montessori
Method instills intrinsic motivation, is individualized, includes peer tutoring,
and fosters better prepared, socially healthy, and academically successful
students.
Maria Montessori, the first female physician in Italy, founded the first
Montessori school in Rome in 1907 (Jacobson). Through fifty years of testing
new ideas and materials and noting children’s reactions, she developed an
entirely different system of education. Her system fully engages children’s
natural learning potentials; they learn about themselves, develop self-
confidence, and in turn become life-long-learners (Epstein and Seldin).
Today, Montessori schools incorporate Maria Montessori’s findings as well as
new discoveries of how learning and development occur. According to
Angeline Lillard, Associate Professor of Psychology at the University of
Virginia, “Modern research in psychology suggests the Montessori system is
much more suited to how children learn and develop than the traditional
system is.” The Montessori Method is found in more than 5,000 schools in
the United States and in approximately 22,000 schools world-wide in 110
countries (MacDonald). In some schools, these programs range from infant
care all the way through high school. It is a fairly new way of learning for
our country that is becoming increasingly popular; many parents are now
discovering the benefits of giving their child a Montessori education.
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The first reason that a Montessori education is more beneficial than
traditional education is that Montessori instills intrinsic motivation in a child.
This means that the child receives pleasure and satisfaction from completing
a task or learning something new. According to Lillard, “Montessori is a
model of the child as a motivated doer who learns through self-instigated
actions on the environment.” Motivation comes from inside rather than from
receiving any external awards. External awards such as candy or stickers
might motivate children to learn while they are young, but this eventually
fades with age. Tying extrinsic rewards to an activity negatively impacts
motivation when the reward is withdrawn (Lillard). Therefore, it is important
to instill self-motivation in a child while he or she is young so that, as the
child ages, she will continue to learn due to an inward drive for new
knowledge. The third principle of Montessori education is that people learn
better when they are interested in what they are learning (Lillard). Children
need to develop a love of learning, and they should be allowed to pursue
their own interests (Jacobson). The job of a Montessori teacher is not to
bombard children with facts but to create a learning environment that
engages and interests the child. This will make a child a life-long learner
(Lillard).
Furthermore, Montessori education offers an individualized form of
learning for each student. According to Lillard, “Traditional schools are
modeled on factories and the children as blank slates.” In other words, they
view every child as virtually the same. Montessori education recognizes that
every child is different and individualizes its program. Children are allowed
to work at their own pace. Paul Epstein and Tim Seldin, authors of The
Montessori Way, suggest that “Gifted children are allowed to do schoolwork
of higher grade levels without having to skip a grade or feel emotionally out
of place” (235). Also, some children require more time to grasp a subject
than their peers. Montessori gives these students that extra time they need.
A third advantage of Montessori education is peer tutoring. A
Montessori classroom is mixed-age with a two-to-three year age span.
Children benefit by learning from each other. In a classroom with three
different ages, if a child doesn’t understand a concept, most likely another
child in the classroom will. According to Epstein and Seldin, “Younger
students have the stimulation of older students who benefit from serving as
role models” (230). Also, working in the same classroom for two or three
years builds a stronger sense of community within the classroom.
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Moreover, Montessori education fosters children who are better
prepared for higher-level learning. In a study conducted at Craig Montessori
Elementary School, in Milwaukee, the scores on a series of tests were
compared to those of similar children at other schools. Linda Jacobson,
author of “Taming Montessori,” states, “On several measures of school
readiness, such as letter and word recognition, word-decoding ability, and
ability to solve math problems, five-year-olds in the Montessori school
scored higher than those who attended other schools.” In the same study,
the children were given a “false belief” test, which determines how well
children recognize subjective and objective statements. Developing this skill
is a “landmark achievement in social cognition.” Eighty percent of the
Montessori students passed compared with only fifty percent of the control
group (Jacobson). The same children also tested better on “executive
function,” the ability to adapt to more complex problems, an indicator of
future school and life success (Lillard). Also, in a study in Karnes, Illinois,
fewer Montessori children were retained a grade or dropped out of school
(Lillard). The Montessori Method is very effective in young learners and
equips them with the necessary concepts and values to make them
successful throughout their whole learning career and later on in life.
Montessori education also fosters socially healthier children.
Montessori students are generally better behaved than traditional students.
In the study conducted at Craig Montessori Elementary School, among the
twelve-year olds, in behavioral and social measures, the students were more
likely to choose “positive assertive responses” dealing with unpleasant
situations (Lillard). They also demonstrated a greater sense of fairness and
justice. They were more likely to be involved in “shared peer play,” be
involved in less rough play, and displayed a greater sense of community
(Jacobson). In a study done by researchers Kevin Rathunde and Mihaly
Csikszentmihalyi, Montessori students reported more positive perceptions of
their teachers and school environment and more often perceived their
classmates as friends. Children benefit from the Montessori Method by
becoming more socially healthy and mature than children from traditional
schools.
Additionally, Montessori education fosters academically successful
students. In the study at Craig Montessori Elementary School, among the
twelve-year-olds, Montessori children produced more creative and
sophistically structured essays (Lillard). In a study at Goddard Montessori
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School in Maryland, in 2006, fifty-three percent of eighth graders in the
district scored at the proficient level or above in reading, compared with
seventy-one percent at Goddard (Jacobson). In math, thirty-five percent of
the district’s eighth grades scored proficient or higher, compared with eight-
six percent at Goddard (Jacobson). Children who participated in the study at
Milwaukee Montessori schools from preschool to fifth grade scored
significantly higher on standardized tests such as the ACT in science and
math than did matched controls (Lillard). Montessori education does not
always produce more academically successful students than traditional
education, but research shows it is a very effective method of learning.
Despite this perceived effectiveness, a number of educational
specialists oppose the practices of the Montessori program. There have been
problems in some of the variables in the studies that have been conducted
so far that might make one refute the findings. For example, the sample of
students chosen was relatively small and few classrooms were involved.
Also, the samples are self-selected, which means parental influence could be
a factor in the outcomes of these studies (Lillard). Research is mainly short-
term, and it is difficult to tell if the effects are long-lasting (Lillard). One
could argue that more studies need to be done in order to prove that one
education system is superior to the other. Some Montessori schools do not
stick to the true Montessori curriculum (Lillard). Any school can call itself
“Montessori,” but some schools are not actually accredited, and some
teachers are not properly certified (MacDonald). However, it is the parents’
responsibility to research and make sure that the school they are sending
their child to is of good quality and meets Montessori standards prior to the
child’s enrollment. Montessori does not follow a predictable time table
because children learn at their own pace; this conflicts with governmental
laws stating children must be tested and show progress annually. Many
Montessori programs have had difficulties adjusting their curriculums to
these laws, but progress is being made (MacDonald). It may take a
Montessori child longer than the expected time to read or write because he
learns at his own pace, but once a child grasps the concept on his own, it is
of much greater value to him (Lillard). Thus far research has not shown
which method results in higher academic test scores, but it has proven
Montessori fosters academic skills that are equal or superior to those
fostered by traditional schooling (Lillard). Despite opposing views, the
studies done thus far have produced only positive outcomes for Montessori
education.
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Montessori education is a very beneficial form of schooling that not
only produces academically successful, but also self-motivated, socially
healthy, and better-prepared students. Children do not go to school just to
grow mentally; they also go to make friends, learn how to get along with
others, and learn about themselves and grow spiritually. Montessori
education creates a learning environment that promotes this growth and
development. Some will argue that this does not make Montessori a better
way of learning than traditional schooling because society today emphasizes
academic growth in education. The educational system is focused on testing,
feeding children facts, and expecting them to retain them until test time.
Montessori understands that this is not an effective way of teaching a child
and expecting him to learn. Montessori individualizes its method for each
and every student; it sees all students as unique and different and as
requiring a different method of learning. The Montessori Method takes a
child and makes him more independent, instills a love of learning, and
promotes ideas and values that make him better prepared for his future.
Further research is required to prove which education system is
actually superior, Montessori or traditional, and debate on the subject
continues throughout many school districts today. Our nation has used the
traditional-style method of teaching ever since our country’s birth, and it has
proven very effective. However, this does not mean that it is the only
effective method. We need to embrace this new, increasingly popular style
of learning. It has been used for a century throughout many countries in the
Western Hemisphere and has proven to be very effective. As the movement
enters its second century, experts see its ideas and insight on education and
how a child learns as possibly influencing school reform in K-through-twelve
schools in America (MacDonald). The Montessori program shows that it is
not only academics that are important in school but also social and spiritual
learning and growth. Many parents are growing to realize that, in the long
run, their children will benefit more from receiving a Montessori education
because they know that it help a child become a more compassionate, self-
motivated, and productive member of society, as well as a life-long learner.
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Works Cited
Epstein, Paul, and Tim Seldin. The Montessori Way. Terra Ceia: The
Montessori Foundation, 2006. Print.
Jacobson, Linda. “Taming Montessori.” Education Week 26.27 (2007): 30-
32. Academic Search Complete. Web. 13 Sept. 2012.
Lillard, Angeline. "Montessori Education Provides Better Outcomes than
Traditional Methods, Study Indicates." Eurekalert. AAAS, 28 Sep 2006.
Web. 14 Sep 2012.
Lillard, Angeline S. Montessori: The Science behind the Genius. New York:
Oxford UP, 2005. Print.
MacDonald, G. Jeffrey. “Montessori Looks Back—and Ahead.” USA Today
n.d.: Academic Search Complete. Web. 14 Sept. 2012.
Rathunde, Kevin, and Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi. "The Social Context of Middle
School: Teachers, Friends, and Activities in Montessori and Traditional
School Environments." Elementary School Journal 106.1 (2005): 59-
79. Academic Search Complete. Web. 28 Sept. 2012.
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In Case of Emergency, Save Cats First
Lauren Shiflet
Driving, like any other day down the long winding roads towards my home.
Driving down the long dark strip covered in the bright green canopy of the
overgrown oak trees. The muddy brown pond appears to my right, and the
houses begin to come into view on my left. I turn the steering wheel and
ride up the hill, as I have done for the last seventeen years.
But something is different. Fleets of trucks. Armies of dumpsters. Trash
trucks lining the street and blocking my small brown house. The pink
flamingos that fluttered in the yard to my right were no longer visible. The
chickens my neighbor to the left secretly owned were silent. The children
who are always in the front yard of the Krugers’ house were nowhere to be
seen. I could hear my dogs barking nervously. People of the neighborhood
were perched on the porches and squinting out of windows to watch the
commotion. The source of the hubbub seemed to flow from the house across
from mine, or at least that is where the concentration of trucks and
movement was greatest.
It was the feline house, as we liked to call it. In its prime, this had been the
home of dozens of cats, maybe more, lurking on the premise, but now their
numbers had diminished. They climbed on the roof; they lurked under the
dilapidated holes forming in the side of the house; they hid under the cars in
the neighborhood, swatting at legs as people walked by. In the mornings,
we always found cat tracks lining the windows and hoods of our cars, and at
night we heard the lot of them fighting. On the house, the window of the
kitchen had a sticker that said, “In case of emergency, save cats first.”
Cats had ruled the lot since I was a young child, but this swarm was new to
me. I pulled into the driveway and slowly removed myself from the car with
as much apathy as I could muster. As a nosey neighbor, the last thing I
wanted to appear as was nosey. As I walked to my door, I spied the
multitude of people between the gaps of the trucks carrying cameras and
wearing contamination masks. I increased my pace. Once inside, I googled
everything I could think of. Nothing resulted. My mind raced with the
possibilities.
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As a small child, I had assumed they were crazy—three plump ladies who all
looked the same. I could only tell them apart from their haircuts. They were
like their cats, forming into one entity, one universal being, one similar
person; there were cats, and there were Ms. Felines, and that was all we
knew. Like their cats, you were never sure which one of the ladies you were
looking at, but you knew they came from the same place.
They used to yell at the kids for playing in the creek behind their house.
They would always have a recycling bin filled to the brim with soda cans and
empty 12-pack boxes every Thursday for pick up. At least they recycled.
Honeysuckles grew up the side of the home that was visible to the road, and
the cats scaled these vines on particularly boring days. The ladies owned one
minivan that was driven by all three of them. On the window it said, “Zero to
bitch in .5 secs!”
It had only been a few months ago when some changes had occurred. The
old walls facing the road were painted a lighter, whiter color, setting a stark
contrast to the dark brown the house had been before. The weeds that grew
high around the cement picnic table and bird baths had been chopped down
but left in the yard to die away slowly. The garage that was once filled with
the mew of cats hiding under old lawnmowers and golf clubs grew quieter.
As a busy student, I had failed to notice the slow decrease in the feline
population. I had noticed the changes in the house’s appearance, but took
no interest in it. I no longer saw the three cat madames, and I no longer
noticed their car leaving or coming. I did not care to take the time to
interpret the behavior. This all began to collect in my mind as I watched
from my window.
I stepped outside of the house and pretended to check on a small cluster of
garden that had just sprung forward. A few daffodils told me spring was
close. I glanced over at the trucks to see some workers outside the
perimeter. The men were taking a smoking break. One of them, tall and
slender with black medium-length hair, stood leaning against the back of the
truck casually. He reminded me of a man who would sometimes come over
to the feline house. He drove a beat up blue car that sputtered when he
cranked it. He would usually stand outside chatting with one of the cat
madames, smoking a cigarette that smelled funny to us kids whose parents
“never smoked those ones that smelled like skunks.” One day there was
more yelling than usual, and the man drove away, his car wheezing in
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distress. I never saw him visit after that, but I did notice the cat madame
whom he had often visited standing in the same spot where he would park
his car, smoking alone. I walked toward the workers slowly, trying not to
bring too much attention to myself.
I tripped.
The men’s heads snapped up and glared at me with judgmental looks. I was
still 20 yards away. I stood back up and continued my approach, suffering
the awkward moments.
I walked over to the two men, not sure where to start. I gave a nervous
laugh.
"Hi," I mumbled.
"Hello," replied the dark haired one, taking a long drag.
“So, what is going on over here? I've never seen this many vehicles on my
road." I hoped they would spill into a long explanation, for I was truly
curious.
"Well, we're cleaning this house," he said with a nod towards my neighbors’
home. I stood waiting for more.
I glanced over at the house, with its new renovations. So many good things
had happened on the outside. Its rough exterior had been painted over,
covering the patches of chipped wood and sun-fading, but at a closer look,
the surface of the house was still damaged, just covered up. The cats had
disappeared from the outside, but I still spied buckets of cat food on the
porch.
"And the cameras?"
"Oh, well, this is a show." I half expected Ashton Kutcher to jump out. A
show? A show? I quickly scanned over every show I could think of in my
head. I was still clueless.
"What show?" I asked as he puffed a large cloud of smoke my way.
"Hoarders" he replied. I was still baffled, especially since I first took him to
say, “Whores.”
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"What?" I repeated. This time, the men looked at each other warily and back
at me. My ignorance towards their jobs was obviously insulting.
"The A&E show Hoarders. It comes on Monday nights at 10," he answered
before returning his cigarette to his mouth. "Oh right, right," I added, trying
to cover my unfortunate mistake. “Hoarders,” I repeated.
"I've heard of it. Sure." I continued rambling. The men nodded and looked
towards the ground with that. And so did I. What was there left to say? A
few moments passed in this same silence.
I did not even say bye; I just walked back quickly to my house.
Weeks later when the show finally premiered, every family on the block and
in the small gossiping town was sure to tune in. The cluttered, filthy state of
their abode was unnerving. Boxes and bags were piled feet high on all sides,
leaving only a narrow walking path to the rooms. Most rooms were
inaccessible. The toes of the women were bruised and knotted from being
broken so many times on random things obstructing their path. The cats
that were no longer seen were kept inside, a total of ten. Although most had
been removed, ten still remained. Cat feces covered the floors and air vents.
The cats scaled the walls and jumped from one tower of boxes to the next.
The cat madames also had an extreme obsession with stuffed animals, which
they each collected in the hundreds. They numbered the stuffed animals into
the thousands collectively. Stuffed animals took over the main living areas
and the beds and tables and the shelves. Between each stuffed animal was
more stuff crammed in between.
That was the most unsettling part. The stuff. The sheer, unequalable and
insurmountable amount of stuff that filled every inch, every nook, every
corner. They bought stuff every day, and they kept stuff every day.
Innumerous amounts of it went in, but barely more than a box full of
recyclables came out. If something went missing, they just bought another
one so that there were duplicates and triplicates and quadruplicates and no
end in sight.
Of course, by the time this episode aired, people had been talking, swapping
one nugget of information for another. Every new person you spoke to had a
different side, a new piece to add to the puzzle. One of the three women had
grown ill and required an ambulance, as the other two were unable to carry
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her out. When EMTs arrived, they could not reach her and immediately
called the Department of Social Services to report such an inhabitable
situation. If the feline house was not cleaned up, it would be condemned,
and they would be separated. This was the reason for all the recent
remodeling. This is why they attempted to paint over the cracks in the walls
outside and chop down the weeds that covered the trash littering their lawn.
I watched the screen as the array of stuffed animals, big and small, were
being carted into dump trucks. The cat madames clung to the animals,
begging to keep just one. One in particular begged the men to go back into
the trucks to find special stuffed animals or toys that she could keep.
I had never realized what that house was. I lived in what I had thought was
a normal neighborhood. But now society was telling me that there was an
outcast within it that had broken some sacred unwritten rule. How had
culture so completely controlled this woman? Society had advertised to her
and sucked her into all these objects of envy, these mainstream consumer
treasures. They enticed her to these “necessities”; they made her a normal
part of society by buying these items. But once she had bought too many,
she now became a burden. She had become ostracized and labeled with a
mental disorder, and society took everything away. She had owned her cats,
and she had bought her stuffed animals, but now they were both gone. A
tear trickled down her cheek as the organizational expert on the show slowly
coaxed the stuffed bear out of her grasp.
The ladies cried about the condition of their home and whether the cats
would be okay with this drastic change. They had taken so long to get used
to the hordes of items that the ladies were afraid this new change would be
too much.
They cried about the mess, and then they cried about the clean. Each one
cried over her items being discarded and then carelessly threw away the
others’ belongings. We watched as they ran in circles and moved the boxes
of stuff to new locations, barely making any difference. Their tears fell, and
their stuff moved, and I realized that that was all there was for them: an
endless cycle of buying and moving and hoarding. The house was not fully
cleaned. After two days, the crew packed up, moved on, and left the feline
house. They also left the question hanging over the entire community
whether all the work was wasted.
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A year or two later, no one had really seen much of the Ms. Felines. Their
car would come and go, but no one heard any news. We had hoped their
house had improved over the time since the incident or that maybe the
cleanup, which was never finished on the show, could have been
accomplished afterwards. No one had seen them, and no one had asked, so
it was hard to say what had happened. Hoarding is a psychological disorder,
according to modern day psychologists. We all understood it was not an
easily overcome disorder, but like typical nosey neighbors, we hoped for the
best in public and speculated the worst in private.
My father came home one day from the store, shaking his head, twitching
his lips in solemn pity. He seemed disappointed, but not surprised. I asked
him what he had seen.
He described seeing the elder Ms. Feline, struggling with her bags as she
loaded the buggy-full into the van. He, being a typical southern gentleman,
walked over to help his neighbor. All he saw in the cart were bags full of
stuffed animals and diet sodas.
I imagine the house isn’t much different than before. They made some
progress on the show, but what did it really matter if they were just going to
buy more stuff? Why hadn’t they taught them how to control it? Why had
they just cleaned and left them alone? Every day that I drive by, I can
imagine the pillars of boxes, swaying with every bump, the clamor of cats
scurrying through obstacles, and the lonely women, sitting among their
stuff.
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New Voices
is published with the financial support of the
Lander University
College of Arts and Humanities
and
the Department of English and Foreign Languages.
The editors would especially like to thank
Dean Renée Love
and
Dr. Jeffrey Baggett
for their encouragement and assistance.
The rest of the editorial staff would also like to thank
Amy Strickland
for her years of dedicated service and
to congratulate her on completion of her degree.
Page 34
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New Voices
Student Journal of Nonfiction
is a publication of the
College of Arts and Humanities
Lander University
320 Stanley Avenue
Greenwood, SC 29649
[email protected]
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