Jamaica

My mother works in the financial aid department of Lincoln Technical Institute, a vocational school specifically suited for students looking to enter the workforce immediately after graduating (or not graduating)...
Put aside for a moment the hackneyed workplace setting of rich old white guys sitting in an office and drinking coffee; in order to fully comprehend the story I'm about to tell, one must understand the social atmosphere at this school. My mother is the minority out of minorities:

Daisy is in her twenties and latino.
Taiwan, her boss, is just a bit older and black.
Alexandria is in her twenties and black.
Most of the staff and students at this school came from a lower-class backgrounds. Some are still from bad neighborhoods and don't have extra money to burn.
My mother is a middle-aged, middle-class white woman who has never known poverty.

Amazingly, my mother gets along quite nicely with the people with whom she works. There's not a scintilla of doubt in her mind: she's happy working at LTI!

So now, a vignette:

Two days ago, a Jamaican man worked as a temporary employee in the financial aid department. Besides from not being able to understand him some of the times, my mom enjoyed working with him. She said he was nice and efficient. She also said "you have a nice thick accent. I'm having trouble understanding it!"

Anyway, the emigrant started explaining how different it is to live here in America and how all of his family was still in Jamaica. He commented on how obsessed jejune people in America are with money and material possessions. He came up with some quite fascinating thoughts, all of which were true.

Far from feeling blasé about this man, my mother studied him quite carefully. In fact, she found that his éclat was extremely moving. After a full day of working with the surprisingly deft neophyte, the only thing she could say was:

“People in Jamaica are so laid back!”
To which her boss automatically responded with:
“You mean because of all that pot they smoke?”

Regardless of this last conversation, the story my mom told me got me thinking about all of the material possessions I have and how people in different parts of the world live with almost nothing. Would I be happy like that? Or would I miss everything I own here in America and be splenetic for the rest of my life? Sure, Mr. Jamaica might have had more here than he had at home but was he really happy? Do people need material possessions to be happy?

Honestly, I don’t think many people do but I find it sad that the only people who feel like they need material possessions are in the United States or Canada or China or all the extremely advanced countries. I have always wanted to travel outside of the US and see what life around the world was like—especially where people live their life in jeopardy every day; my dream is to help a village in Africa or another underdeveloped part of the world, where all they need is water, food and shelter to survive. I think we would all be able to focus a little more on ourselves if we weren’t distracted by material possessions and technology. We would be a little happier, in the long run.

But for now, I’ll keep my MacBook and my blogspot.com…

only two more minutes...

Although school elections seem like harmless democratic processes, do not be fooled by the political paraphernalia telling you to “vote for Jack and ignore Mac” or to “vote for the Jew, it’s the right thing to do!”
Because it is hard to eschew from the campaigns of school elections, they can become pernicious, splitting the once homogeneous social scene into two or more groups (depending on if the independent decides to run…although in the case of school elections I guess this is irrelevant…) and resurrecting schisms between close friends. During election time, honest people become bitter candidates with ostensible slogans displayed on their campaign posters and fastidious students become careless when rushing to get out the vote! They resort to petty quarrels and vulgar gestures and—
Hold up. This seems a little drastic, no? Sure, the presence of a campaign is ubiquitous in any school but they seem quite harmless! Luckily, in our school they are.
In fact, at PV this year, three candidates who ran did so unopposed! However humane this campaign may be, I’m still nervous for the announcement about to be made in two minutes…

OTHELLO!

Now for Othello. Initially, I didn’t think Othello was quite wise but as the tortuous plot thickened, he certainly became...well no, I guess he really didn’t change. Specifically, after he’s bereft at the end of the play, he finds out the truth about the whole debacle and ends up killing himself! (Whoops, did I give anything away?)
On another note, although Othello would not have earned impunity at the end of the play (obviously not, he became a murderer) I do not think it was a smart move for Shakespeare to kill off Othello at the end of the play. After all, in the Scarlet Letter, Nathaniel Hawthorne’s whole plot revolves around the Herculean strength it takes Hester to overcome the public embarrassment. Shouldn’t it be the same for Othello? Isn’t facing the public world and suffering through worldly embarrassment far worse than being put to eternal rest? Or was Shakespeare implying that the most expedient punishment is to burn eternally in hell?
And another thing: At the very end of the play, during the famous cortège-like scene, or the “loading the bed scene” I found it very significant that Cassio did load that same bed. Although debilitated, Cassio remained very much alive. As if to rub it in Othello’s face (even after he’s dead), Shakespeare keeps Cassio alive and makes him the new general of the Venician army. Although the best revenge on Iago occurs when the Venicians pay homage to Cassio. This all happens without any symposium even though in Shakespeare’s milieu, this was quite rare. It’s almost as if Cassio’s livelihood carries on the memory of this tragedy because he is the only surviving main male character of this story.
The tale of Othello is completely based on nepotism, lies, misconceptions and miscommunication. Brilliant as it may be, the fact is that Shakespeare was just embellishing the true a bit: the main themes are timeless. We can relate to Shakespeare’s messages because they are still valid today.

IAGO!

Iago. Although some people--cough cough Isabel--think he has a "sexy" name (these are exact quotes, I swear), most people read Othello and hate the character Iago. Most people would say he is a scheming, conniving, evil man who enervates the ingenuous Roderigo and is just one step above a political dissident all because he wants to be general of the Venician army.
Even though these things may be completely true, in my opinion, Iago is quite august. In fact, Iago is quite erudite, knowing so much about the people around him that he can mold them like warm clay in his hands. As evil as he may be, Iago ostracizes Cassio (eventually convincing Roderigo to attempt to murder him) and convinces Roderigo to believe that he will marry Desdemona and that Desdemona will love him back. The false camaraderie between the two characters disillusions Roderigo to such an extent that Iago convinces him that Cassio is the only obstacle between Desdemona and Roderigo. And, as we know, Roderigo isn’t too resilient when he’s hurt. (After all, he did become slightly depressed when he heard news of the Desdemona’s marriage).
Iago’s only foible, strangely, is his lack of a love life. There is question throughout the play if he even sleeps with Emilia, his wife. Is the reader supposed to believe that Iago’s exorbitant price for being unbelievably manipulative is love? What bunkum! How is anyone supposed to believe that? The purest form of motivation in literature, especially Shakespeare, is love! (Ever thought of how the phrase “irrevocably in love” applies to almost every Shakespeare character?)
**stay tuned for next post**