Comparing Coming of Age ceremonies

One of the main commonalities among all Coming of Age ceremonies that we did in class is that females have a much more elaborate Coming of Age ceremony than men. Males, in most cultures, do not even have a ceremony, choosing to become a man when they feel like it. I think women have much more prominent Coming of Age ceremonies because they are more important to the tribe because they can have children, swelling the tribe in terms of numbers.

Katie's New Life

im sry im having trouble w/ the post, plz check the comments for the actual work.

Kira-Kira chaps. 12-13

2nd prompt

While Katie gave iron pills to Lynn in the novel Kira-Kira, she noted that she had to "steel my heart to her [Lynn's] crying." I think that this is referring to how she had to act strong and not back down when she was faced with the task of forcing Lynn to take her pill, which make her feel sick and nauseous. Giving Lynn pills required such a level of will and courage because of her reaction to the medicine. She would often bawl and act like her life was coming to an end just taking the pills. When have I had to "steel my heart"? That was when my grandma died and I had to say something at the, um, stand where you talk and say a speech or something like that. As I spoke I had to steel my heart against crying in front of all those people. I can , in a way, sympathize with Katie because I know what it feels like to have to steel your heart.

Interesting Yanomamis fact

The Yanomamis, an indigenous tribe living in southern venezuela and northern brazil, eat very interesting and unusual things to survive. They eat fish (thats normal), birds, deer and tapirs. Tapirs are like black and white pigs with elongated snouts. They only eat these creatures because of the climate in the area. Because it is hot, humid and sweaty, different kinds of creatures live there. These animals are the only ones that the Yanomamis tribe can eat that aren't dangerous.

Adolescent Int. Response

According to the various interviews we have shown in class, adolescence  forty-something years ago was very different from now. For starters, the technology of then was very different from now. Now it is possible to do half an hour's research in ten minutes through the Internet. Everything, in a way, does near everything for us and adolescents today are musch lazier than then, what with TV's, XBOXes and the like. School is also much more demanding today as well.

FRIM Trip

For me the FRIM Trip was, at best, a 3/5. One of the reasons that I scored it so low was the size of our group. I am not a very social person and prefer small gatherings of people rather than one large group because 1. it makes rationing of "resources" (showers, clean toilets, snacks) very hard so people start to fight over them, 2. everyone forms their own little "friend groups" and they start to exclude most people rather than work together and 3. tents have to be shared and that makes it near impossible to sleep. All of these combined can lead to a very volatile community of people that gets angry easily and doesn't work together.

Response to Kira-Kira

  Prompt: Compare Katie’s mother to her father.  Choose which of her parents she is closest to and give reasons for your choice.

Katie's mother and father are near opposites. Katie's mother (let's call her mom) is very, very delicate, even so that you might think she had some sort of problem.  She managed to break her leg walking down one stair and nearly faints when insulted. Katie's father (let's call him dad), on the other hand, is tough and protective, especially around mom, Lynn and Katie. I think Katie prefers her dad because, in the book she talks about how her mom can "read your mind" and how you HAVE to be good when she's around. On the other hand, Katie spends much more time with her dad and hasn't said anything bad about him.

Response 2 Quote

Response to Quote:

I found the quote in my site description very interesting because, in an indirect way, it shows Nelson Mandela's perseverance. After spending 25 long years in prison on Robben Island, Nelson Mandela was still able to make a joke about his country. This shows that he has a massive amount of willpower.

The Day

Well, well. Today is the day that Teens: The Blog starts. To think all this is made by a kid in his Humanities class...