So long, farewell.....

Aw...this is sooo sad! This is the end of the summer semester! *tear* I really enjoyed this English 102 class....it mad me feel like i could write (sorta! lol) Mr. Davidson, I liked your style of teaching...it was really original and fun...when you're all finished up, you're going to be REALLY AWESOME!! To my fellow classmates....to all of you, it was REAL.....I had a lot of fun with you guys, and I hope we have more classes together! Our english 102 was OFF THE CHAIN!! lol....Aw, I feel like it's really the end....knowing that we are starting school ALL over again in another 3 weeks!! AGH!!! Well, tootles....

It's like almost 2 a.m. and I'm......

At Hattiesburg American with my boyfriend's mother.....okay, you may ask what the hell am I doin here? I'm asking myself the same question while I'm nodding off at this computer....some really creepy guy just came and knocked on the window and scared the "you know what" outta me, and I'm really just ready to go and crawl up in the bed....the good news is that I'm supposed to be going to this "so luxurious" waterpark in Collins, Ms tomorrow, so I hope it's as fun as everybody is making it out to be.....I still have not came anywhere close to starting or finishing this paper, so people, pleaseeeeee pray for me~!

Happy Fourth of July!!

Looks like it's gonna be another year of shooting fireworks and drinking beer all night long.....well, not for me becus I'm retired!! LOL.......The most significant part of this year is that someone very special is not here to celebrate the festivities.......that's my cousin-in-law, Marquita. She passed away earlier this year, and as sad as the occasion is, I know she's in a better place! Miss you Quita!........I just hope that the night goes by smoothly, and that everyone has fun!

Charm School Finale Post-poned

And also.....for any Charm School fans, VH1 is a crock because they LIED about the finale being last night!!! Let's get it over with already!!!!!

Sorry this blog is so late, but I just got finished writing all FIVE of my pages!!:)

“Life is not a crystal stair”
"You are appreciated". These are the opening lyrics of Tupac Shakur's song "Dear Mama". This song is closely connected with Langston Hughes’ poem “Mother to Son”. The main connections exhibited in both the song and poem was how to survive the trials and tribulations of life, the human interactions between mother and son, the different qualities of a mother, and the different roles a mother can play.
In Langston Hughes' Mother to Son, he writes about a mother telling her son about experiences in life. The message is clear, and tells how life is not easy. It reminds me of the song Tupac Shakur made in his "Me Against the World" album in 1995. This song is like a letter from a son to his mother, telling about how hard life was for him when he was a young boy. He talks about how his mother kicked him out of the house and how he had to live on his own because he was trying to be a "thug" and was breaking all of her rules and stayed in and out of jail. However, he also talks about how he knows its not easy being a single mother having to raise a man and realizes that she was always committed to raising him and his sister the best way she could. He talks about how she was on welfare and he didn't understand how she did it. Tupac's mother was also on drugs, but he talks about how throughout the failings, she took care of her children.
In Hughes' poem, he writes about the mother talking to her son that "life ain't been no crystal stair". She means that her life has not been free of worries. Her advice here to her son is to keep on working towards whatever goal he’s trying to pursue. She said "but the whole time she went up that bare crystal stair with tacks and splinters, and boards all torn up, she still kept climbing. Here, thinking about a stair with splinters, and tacks, and boards sticking up, one would see it as being very painful and full of disappointments to travel up a flight of stairs with so many afflictions.

“Mother to Son” was written solely from a mother’s point of view. One way that this poem and Tupac’s song could be collaborated is by taking a look at the mother-son relationship. Apparently, in the poem, the son asked his mother a question or may have complained about some things that may have been going wrong in his life at that present moment in time. The “crystal stair” is mentioned twice in the poem. When his mother talks about the “crystal stair, she could also be saying that even though they may not have much, and the world may seem like it is about to come tumbling down, she’s telling him he has to keep going and keep his head up. It could also represent faded dreams that the mother may have once had, but they have diminished because she became a mother and had to take care of her children. Tupac’s “Dear Mama” is like an anthem to any single mother who had to struggle to raise kids. The song could be looked at as if Tupac was the son in the poem, talking to his mother, telling her how hard life has been, telling her how he does not really understand how she made it through those trials and tribulations, how she put food on the table when there was not anything but scraps in the house, how she was a “crack fiend, but was a black queen”. Although Tupac’s mother had these struggles in her life, and still had to raise two children, she was still a strong woman for being able to do it. Again, this is in comparison with the poem “Mother to Son”, when the mother tells her son “I’se still climbin”, she’s encouraging him to be strong like she has, and keep on going just as she has. She tells her son that life has handed her many problems. “So boy, don't your turn back. Don't you set down on the steps cause you finds it's kinder hard. Don't you fall now”. Langston Hughes chose in his writing for a mother to be talking to her son because the mother symbolizes an original model. Many people who have a mother and a father in their lives look to their mother for advice, or for help when going through some type of struggle or pain in their lives. A mother is a creature of endurance. Langston Hughes chose a mother to give advice to her son because mothers tend to give their sons advice, when most of the time fathers expect their sons to know already. It relates back to “Dear Mama” because in a verse, Tupac talks about how his father was not there for him, his sister, or his mother (“Now ain't nobody tell us it was fair, no love from my daddy cause the coward wasn't there”) and even though he felt like it was not fair, he still had to go on with his life, with or without his father. And when his father died, (He passed away and I didn't cry, cause my anger wouldn't let me feel for a stranger. They say I'm wrong and I'm heartless, but all along I was lookin’ for a father he was gone”) he felt no remorse and blocked it away in the song and started back talking about his other life struggles.

Between “Dear Mama” and “Mother to Son”, there are some qualities identified between the two corresponding mothers. There is the “traditional mother”, who is usually described as being caring, wise, strong, motivating, ect. The mother in “Mother to Son” seemed to display these general qualities. She was talking to her son giving him some great advice about life, as “traditional mothers” seem to do. Although the mother seems weary and tired while talking to her son, she proceeds to tell him the difficulties that she has encountered in her own life. As a “traditional mother”, the mother in “Mother to Son” takes her son’s own frustrations and makes them her own, causing her son to maybe think twice about what he may be going through, and he may start to think that his problems may not be so bad as he thought they were. However, in “Dear Mama”, there is a twist to the “traditional mother”, and listeners are faced to see a “not-so-traditional” mother’s point of view. Instead of Tupac hearing that great advice from his mother about life’s trials and tribulations, she taught him in one of the hardest ways of all, and that was by kicking him out of the house. His mother had her own struggles going on, just as the mother in “Mother to Son”. She was strung out on drugs, living on welfare, barely able to make ends meet. However, these two different aspects connect “Dear Mama” and “Mother to Son” by showing two different roles a mother can play. Whether a mother is playing the “traditional” or “not-so-traditional” role, it does not necessarily make her a “bad mother”. Where Tupac’s mother was going through her own struggles, but still doing what she had to do to raise her children, in Langston Hughes’ poem, the mother also shows her struggles, but says, “I’se still goin’ honey, I’se still climbin’. That shows endurance and willpower.

An aspect that stands out to be different between “Dear Mama” and “Mother to Son”, is that in “Dear Mama”, Tupac says he blamed his mother for many things that went wrong in his life. However, he says that once “having to hug my mama from a jail cell”, he realizes all the stress he really caused on his mother, and even still, she was there for him. The song and poem intertwine with each other so well, because the song could almost be the son from “Mother to Son” talking back to his mother years later, and telling her all the things he went through, all the things he had to go through to become a man, and telling her just how much he appreciated her being there, even though the whole time, she was going through things herself. In the third verse of “Dear Mama”, Tupac talks about how he could always depend on his mother, when things seemed hopeless, how she could say the right words to him to get him back in focus, how when he was sick as a child, there was no limit to what she would do for him to make him smile. He says that he wishes he could take away her past pains and fears, he’s telling her that even though there is a struggle everyday, she has to “roll on” and everything will be okay if she holds on. Although throughout the song, it is a son talking to his mother, and in the poem, it is a mother talking to her son, the song and poem both go hand-in-hand, simply because in each, there is someone going through a struggle, and telling their story to a loved one, telling them, “If I can make it, so can you”.

Last Episode of Flavor of Love Girls' Charm School TONIGHT!! :(

My weekly entertainment ends tonight; Charm School's season finale is tonight!!! I'm kind of sad, but I thought for my blog this week, I would write about who I think may win and why.....I think the winners are between Shay and Sapphyri. They are the two who I think came the furthest from the Flavor of Love show. However, I think Sapphyri should win the money because she needs it. Shay is kind of glamorous and she's a rising model/actress, while Sapphyri came to the show broke, down and out, and I would hate to see her sent back home the same way!!

Bad News!

I have critically bad news.....I needed to post my revised rough draft on my blog tonight by 12 and I totally lost my saved work! Yes, I feel like dying because I am going to have to re-type ALL of it!!! Oh the AGONY!! Somebody pray for me because I'm really feeling sad right about now!!! So much for the fun on this saturday night!