The Last American Chapter

In my opinion, Eustace is NOT the last American man, you dig? Yeah, there are always going to be plenty of his kind in the future. Yes, he knows a lot about nature, and yes he like the circle of life, and yes he does weird things like smear deer artery all over himself, but in reality, all humans are like that. The other 299,999,000 Americans just don't express themselves like Eustace does. For example, normal businessmen have very similar traits to that of Eustace. Businessmen understand that there is a circle of life, and a food chain i.e. some are on top, others on the bottom, and that's how it goes. The ones on the top have the power, and feed off of the ones on the bottom, and when the ones on top die out, the ones on the bottom are sometimes rewarded with a promotion or raise of some kind. The ones on top will do whatever it takes to stay on the top, and will try and make sure that the struggling bottom feeders will stay where they belong. Businessmen also desire land, territory, wealth and power, just like Eustace does. Only instead of bonds, stuffy air conditioning, corporate branches, salesmen and customer service workers, and skyscrapers, Eustace has tall trees and mountains, valleys, birds, animals, and open air.
Eustace is not the last American man, and this idea is a bad one. There are many types of "men" in our society, and Eustace is just a version of a man who became a stereotype in the 19th century, and in the 20th century with cheesy John Wayne movies and politically incorrect Disney movies. Gilbert's idea of the "Last American Man," is terrible, and in my opinion is just portraying that American men should be white, bearded, control freaks who like deer blood and love to use people for his own benefit, and do nothing for anyone else.

Jedi's Apprentice

Eustace is a selfish little guy who really, doesn't care about anyone else. He uses the people around him for his own benefit. He makes his apprentices do chores that he does not want to and he does not teach him how he lives. He also makes them work extremely hard, sometimes up to 15 hours. Many apprentices get fed up with this guy, and eventually leave. Many of these people also literally get their dreams crushed by Eustace's harsh treatment towards them. Eustace always exposes anything that is wrong, and will make them feel terribly for it. Some people give up their jobs and families for Eustace, and are crushed by him. I would not work for Eustace. I have this problem where, if I am yelled at and treated poorly, i am unmotivated, to work, and therefore will quit or do my job terribly. Yes, I know, this is not good. But it's how I am...But basically, I could not work for Eustace. I would get to annoyed by his selfishness, and his lack of compassion towards other people. I would want to take breaks, and he wouldn't let me take breaks. I would want to do stuff related to nature, like learning to hunt, fish, and make fires, he would just make me do useless chores around his property. All of this stuff would make me extremely mad, and I honestly would get up and leave. I would not be able to work in a situation and environment like that.

Montar el caballo (to ride a horse)

One of the main reasons Eustace goes on this trip is to, like many of his adventures and experiences, is to get out there, and to live. He wants to do something exciting and new, and a horse ride seemed like just the thing to do. Eustace also did not feel like he and his brother had a strong enough bond. He wanted to get to know him better, so he invited him a long for the ride. Eustace wanted to see how hard and how fast his brother and himself, as well as the horses could go before they reached a point of sheer exaustion, and he wanted to do it by Easter, which too many people was an unthinkable idea. I thought an important part of the story was when Eustace took a different path than Judson and Susan. Eustace was much safer by traveling a long the interstate, even though it was a longer route. The canyon where Judson and Susan traveled was much shorter, but was also much more dangerous. In the end though Eustace proved to be right because the horses hooves got injured. From then on Eustace was always right, and would win any argument. Eustace broke the pact that they had made. They had promised never to separate themselves from each other on the trip.

Under Pressure

Eustace is pressured, from all around to set up and run Turtle Island. He has lots of pressure from himself because he makes a dream and goal to buy the farmer's land. If he doesn't get the land, and it's developed, than he will quit cold turkey and will move somewhere else. He puts a lot of pressure on himself. He also is pressured because he has to act a certain way while being a businessman. It is very tiresome to act this way, his perfect side, and it breaks him down. He is sick of acting the same way for the same people over and over again. He worked very hard, and made people think that he was a kind, friendly, rugged pioneer man. Sure he was kind, friendly, and rugged, but he was not always these things, and it was hard for him to always portray this image to people.
He also put pressure on himself by getting money from his dad, whom he hadn't talked to in a while. He worked very hard to pay back his dad just to show that he was able to work, and was independent, and was intelligent enough to succeed on his own. He was also working very hard, quite opposite of the life that he preached, and quite opposite of the life that he wanted. He was working hard for a life where he wouldn't have to work hard, and he didn't really see the light at the end of the tunnel.

El ultimo hombre Americano

Eustace, really was in trouble with starting Turtle Island because he had ZERO dollars to start something like this. He asked his father, whom he hadn't talked very much with and didn't have a very good relationship with, for some money, which was quite an embarrassing and pride hurting thing for Eustace to do. When his father gives him the money, he works, works, and works some more to pay it off. Basically, he worked his nature butt off to pay off the loan quickly. He wanted to get it out of the way, and prove to people that money was not important in life, that nature could make people ultimately happy, not money. Too him, Nature was where it was out, and he wanted to prove that too people, and he wanted to share this idea, to everyone. I also thought it was interesting that he really did enjoy presenting his ideas to everyone minus the fact he had to be in society's "squares," and not his environment's "circles." He was sick of the squares, and that seemed like that was the main problem for him. He wanted to return to his life, and get away from it all. And in my opinion, I actually think he would be happiest going Chris McCandless on everyone and just, literally, disappearing, but I think he was smarter than Chris, and realized he couldn't do something like that for a long period of time. He wasn't out to prove anything.

CHARITAY

For my paper, I'm writing about a homeless shelter in inner city Indianapolis called the Dayspring Center. I am directly linked to this shelter because for about 5 years, my mom worked there, and I spent a lot of time volunteering there, as well as simply playing with the other kids my age that lived there. I spent a lot of time there growing up, so it's a place that I find to be special and very helpful to many families who have been put into bad situations. I've seen homelessness and how most of the time, it's actually not the persons own fault. Homelessness for many people is a thing that cannot be avoided. It makes people mentally and physically damaged and effects millions and millions of people. The Dayspring Center works extremely hard for its residents trying to put them back into employment, permanent housing, and school.
For this essay, I want to write how Dayspring helps out the people who live there, and how Dayspring sets people up for when they leave after 90 days. I think that what they do is invaluable to the society, and can save thousands of people from hunger, poverty, and even sickness. Keeping people off the street reduces death rates, crime, and trash, and that's what Dayspring does. Dayspring doesn't just do it for the present, they also work hard to try and reduce homelessness for the future, and to keep it that way.

Things that make me mad, today.

In my opinion, silent racism is still a big factor in today's modern world. Sure, African-Americans can sit in first class, make a lot of money, vote and all that what not. They are technically just as "equal." But in reality, the white race seems to oppress them. We make it hard for them to receive an education by hardly funding schools in a black neighborhood, making it hard for one to go to college and then without college, it's hard to get a job. And the cycle just continues. On, and on, and on, after 100 and 143 years since the end of slavery and around 50 years since the end of segregation in the south. Even today, people will not absolutely positively vote for Barack Obama, solely based on the color of his skin. His politics and ethics have nothing to do with it. He is black, so some people will not vote for him, and will not think twice about it.
Another group that has been somewhat oppressed by society is Arabs and Muslims. This is a group of people who's religion is completely based on peace, and happiness. Okay, sure, some Muslims have ruined it for everybody, but for the most part, they are a great people. They have their problems in their culture, but so does everybody. We're all human. Muslims are called degrading names like Towelheads. They are extremely disliked by many Americans and many people honestly feel like their safety is extremely threatened when a Muslim or Arab is in their proximity. They feel as if this person is out to get them and that they should report them immediately.
Latin Americans these days are especially picked on these days, just like all foreigners are during an influx of immigrants. The Mexicans, Cubans, Haitians, Guatemalans, and almost any other Latino people are taking our jobs, and costing us valuable tax dollars. But what does not make sense to me is the fact that the rich upper class white people in the suburbs never see this people except for when they come up from the inner city to mow their lawn or do excruciatingly hard work for meager to almost inhumane pay, and then they complain about how they're taking their jobs. This doesn't make sense to me. These Latinos work extremely hard in terrible, awful, conditions, and do things that almost nobody else will seem to do these days, and then get complained about by the people who won't do them. This sort of stuff just bugs me so, so, much.

Linda's mixed up emotions.

Linda, at the news of of Dr. Flint's passing, has mixed emotions. Her first thought is, yes, the guy who wanted to have sex with and dominate me is finally dead, but then she realized that little girl who owned her, is no little girl any more. She is a young, married, southern broad who wants her slave back to help out around the house. Linda is scared, rightfully so, and goes into hiding in New York. But then stunningly enough, Mrs. Bruce offers to buy Linda from Mr. and Mrs. Dodge. Thinking that they will never be able to find Linda, the Dodge's want to make a little profit from their missing slave and call it a done deal. Mrs. Bruce then immediately frees her. (Just as a side note and question, I did not realize that this sort of transaction could be done. Did stuff like this happen often in the North, or was this sort of a one time thing? I think it's weird that Mrs. Bruce was able to purchase Linda so easily.) Linda then became the nurse to Mrs. Bruce's child. It was also quite shocking and joyous when Linda's daughter, Ellen, is offered scholorship money to attend school. Although Linda was reluctant to send her child to school, she realized that in order to be successful in life, one needed an education. She also saw it fit for her daughter to receive an education because it was a step away from being a slave. Having an education was something that most slaves of the time did not do.
Although Linda absolutely positively utterly was disgusted, infuriated, and sickened by the institution of slavery, Linda still missed the time that she had spent with her grandmother, and was sad that she could not be with her at her death. Linda was inspired, and motivated to reach freedom, and success by her grandmother's independent nature, and had much in common with her. She missed being able to relate with someone like her grandmother. This was the only thing that Linda missed about her days' as a slave. She had done terrible and awful things to reach her way to freedom, and to get to the North, and in my opinion, it was all justified. She had the right to do whatever it took to climb out of the slimy mud pit that is called slavery.