Never Forget

From about 5th to 8th grade, or age 10-14, my parents decided to get rid of our television. Well, not television (it still sat at the focal point of the living room, staring me down), but any and every channel available. Because television and visual entertainment are so valued in our culture, especially during pre-teen years, I felt like I was being kept from enjoying what I had the right to. I felt like an outcast (although now I realize that's ridiculous) in the sea of my Disney, MTV, and VH1 crazed peers. This had a huge impact on my experience with the media. For five years of my life I wasn't subjected to the mind games of mass marketing and advertisements. I was seeing much less than 3,000 commercials a day. However, I also missed out on important news coverage I wouldn't be able to experience in the same way through an alternative medium.

The photo above was taken by my father of my mother, older sister, and I enjoying a book. This was the kind of behavior my mother hoped would stem from getting rid of television programming ten years later.

After the recent 10 year anniversary of the 9/11 tragedy, I was of course forced to reflect on where and what I was doing when I first heard of the attack. I was sitting with my fellow 6th graders, learning the alphabet in Japanese class. We'd repeat ways to remember what the hiragana character looked like over and over. “A is for apple. I is for eel. U is for 'uooop'. O is for ostrich...,” until suddenly the vice principal pulled Kobayashi Sensei out of the classroom. We didn't think anything of it and immediately turned to our friends and started giggling about the opposite sex (because that's what you giggle about when you're in 6^th grade). Our teacher returned to the classroom and attempted to explain to us what had happened in his thick accent, but I know none of us could grasp the intensity and seriousness of the terrorist events.

After hearing the news, most adults and students alike, returned home to see the extent of the plane crashes with their own eyes. They sat in front of the TV for hours, watching live broadcasts, visual, and audio recordings of the overwhelming fear in New York City. I however, returned home as usual and talked about it with my family. Web 1.0 wasn't technologically advanced enough to provide streaming video, like Web 2.0 is today. I would have to wait until the newspaper was published the next morning and delivered to my doorstep to read a somewhat significant amount of text and see a few epic photos explaining what had happened. The youtube video above is an example of a television program someone may have seen during the following week.

I remember having one nightmare after September 11^th. But, other than this subconscious experience, I wasn't severely impacted by the attacks. Although the stories were scary, I didn't have the same emotional overload from reading the newspaper articles as one would have from a brain attempting to process 30 frames per second. Although a picture is worth a thousand words, re-runs of the Twin Towers falling are worth much more. Hearing a newly widowed woman sobbing is without a doubt much more powerful than anything you'd be able to get out of a text.

My 9/11 experience was much different than the average American's. I still haven't seen more than a minute or so of footage to this day. I can't decide whether I'm happy that as an 11 year old I wasn't subject to horrifying, sanity altering images, or like I missed a huge part of American History, in a way. Would my view of the 9/11 terrorist attacks be different today if my parents hadn't chosen to end our TV programming? Should I consider whether or not I'll let my children watch television when I become a parent? Is it true that in some cases what people don't know (or in this case see) won't hurt them?

The photo above is an example of one that may have been seen in a newspaper delivered on September 12th, 2011. Retrieved from http://1951club.wordpress.com/2011/09/11/september-9th-2001-september-9th-2011/

Aloha Kakou!

"Hello everyone, welcome!" My name is Julia Simpson and I'm from Hallowell, Maine. This "city" of 2,000 is known for being very liberal and creative, with a high population of musicians, painters, and writers, all of whom I know, because in a city of 2,000 everybody knows something about everybody. Hallowell covers just 5 square miles, with landscapes from waterfronts to farmlands.
While spending my entire life in the Hall-Dale School District, I built close relationships in primary school that lasted until high school graduation in 2008. I could count the number of non-white students I met during my time at Hall-Dale on one hand. This was something that bothered me a lot. I hoped to attend a university with more diversity after experiencing close to zero growing up. Then I ended up at the University of Vermont. Yes, I came to the state that flipflops with Maine as the whitest state in the nation. I knew to survive my four years in Burlington, I'd need an escape.

So, during the spring of my Sophomore year, I applied to a program called A Semester Almost Abroad (ASAA) at the University of Hawai'i at Manoa. This would give me the opportunity to experience much more racial and environmental diversity than anything I had encountered on the East Coast. With a Nature, Culture, and Justice concentration in Environmental Studies, I would be able to learn an amazing amount while studying in Honolulu, on an island with the most jaw-dropping physical features I'd ever seen. The photo to the right is one I took of the view from my dorm room. Diamond Head is a crater created after a volcanic eruption over 300,000 years ago, an example of the island's astonishing geology.

I went from being in the majority to the minority overnight. I was often the only white person on the bus (which I took to get everywhere and anywhere), in my classes, or in a business. It was eye-opening.

During my time at UH, I was able to take classes that would be unavailable to me otherwise, such as The History of the Hawaiian Islands, in which I had to memorize (and be able to pronounce) the entire Hawaiian genealogy, and Geology of the Hawaiian Islands, in which we took field trips around O'ahu to study different volcanic features around the island.

Other things I did during my four month stay included going to the beach, hiking, dancing, and sailing (the picture at the top of the post was taken by my sister on a sailing trip last October), as well as an occasional UH football game. The video above depicts the traditional Haka, performed before Rainbow Warrior's games to intimidate the opposing team. You can see my cylindrical dorm in the background of the clip. I recognize a few players from my classes as well. As you can imagine, the six foot, 280 pound men were pretty intimidating to sit next to during a lecture. I will miss being able to take part in these activities in such a gorgeous location and will never take my traveling for granted. I hope to be able to return to Hawai'i soon!