Class Debate: Rwandan Genocide

Yesterday in class we debated the topic of the genocide in Rwanda. My group represented Paul Kagame, and even though I think we had a pretty good idea of our part in the genocide, I’m still not exactly sure of everyone else. I feel like we do not know enough about the other groups, and the questions I have to ask and the questions of others are not entirely answered, they seem a bit opened ended. And I’m not exactly sure who to blame. But, for the rivalry of the Hutu and Tutsi, I definitely blame Belgium. First they favored the Tutsis, and then before they pulled out of Rwanda they switched the power over to the Hutu because they said that they had made a mistake favoring one over the other but how does switching the power to the other group make anything better? One would think that in order to restore peace between the groups, they would split the power evenly between the Hutu and Tutsi groups. I do not blame the U.S. or the U.N. because the United States had just come out of a war and placing myself in the shoes of the U.N. I ask myself, “What side do you take?” As for France, they decided to help the official military of Rwanda, which seems like the most logic thing to do.
This debate has become something that I don’t see myself too good at because I am able to see the situation from everyone’s view and you would think this helps, but I often find myself wondering why NOBODY sees their wrongs in this, because they ALL have done something they should not have done and I just want to ask everyone why they can’t forget their differences, realize they’ve made mistakes, stop what they are doing and restart, making sure that neither group has more power than the other to ensure peace for the future. I just don’t understand. They probably know they’ve done wrong, but they have too much pride to admit it was wrong and come up with reasons for their doings. I think that if the opposing groups were to work together to find out what started their dispute, they might come to find out whose fault it really is. From the debate on Thursday, it seemed like all the outrage began when the Belgians came in and favored one over the other because before the Belgians came, they were separated and yes, one had a higher status than the other but they were not favored in the way the Belgium did and I believe that this could be the origin of the chaos.

The American Scholar

Emerson’s argument that a person’s job has begun to define them in “The American Scholar” does not hold true today.
In the United States a person’s job does not have to define them. For example, if someone is a police officer, they can be much more than that as well. They can be a father, a cook, a handy man, a basketball player (probably not pro, or anything like that, but they can still enjoy playing the game); they could even go back to school to become a doctor if they wanted! It is their life and they can choose if whether or not they want their job to rule out all else. We can be “Man Thinking” if we choose to be so. In “The American Scholar” Emerson wrote, “The state of society is one in which the members have suffered amputation from the trunk, and strut about so many walking monsters - a good finger, a neck, a stomach, an elbow, but never a man.” This means we are never whole, never using all our parts, never using all our minds; only portions of them working at a time. Most people today use more than one portion, do more than just one job; in fact, many people have several jobs because they need the extra money.
When a police officer comes home after a busy day at the station and goes to the grocery store in need of food to make dinner, he does not watch for a speeder or for someone to run a red light; he may notice it, as any of us would but he would not memorize the plate number to report to the presently working officers. They keep work life separate from home life. Same goes for the majority of people. A teacher does not come home to her family and begin teaching her children geometry. A builder does not come home to start adding on to his house. If someone has two jobs, they keep them separate from one another, one often being much different from the other; in which case they would need several different skills. My best friend’s father is a college professor as well as a vice-president of a sporting goods store. Although these jobs keep him busy, he always finds time for family. He and many others surely don’t allow their jobs to define who they are.

Energized by Candy

This past weekend was Halloween and even though all I thought of for most of October was Homecoming, I was really excited for Halloween as well. My friends and I didn’t really make plans until the week of and we literally decided on a costume two days before Halloween; we were sailors. And even if we did make plans a little late, it was definitely the best Halloween yet!
For Halloween, I went trick-or-treating with Taylor Cieslak, Gabe Baugher, Brooke Kucha, Kelly Glynn, Sam Spokaeski, Bridget Fitzgerald, Rachel Zuckerman, and Ally Koltunchik. We went to Sam’s house for pizza and stuff before trick-or-treating. I didn’t realize how cold it was until we were out walking around, and I was freezing because I had a thin shirt one, cropped pants and ballet flats. But we all froze together, except for Ally who had the brilliant idea to be and Eskimo for Halloween! We went around in Sam’s neighborhood for a while, stopped at her house where we several of us borrowed sweatshirts from Sam and we went into a couple other neighborhoods as well. When we were done trick-or-treating, we had heard of this haunted house/yard that someone had set up on a street off of Newburgh. We decided to go. When we pulled up there was a man, dressed in a black cape and wearing a scary mask that crept toward our car until he was up against the window. All of a sudden, he banged the widow and made a terrible noise! Even though we were all ready for him to do something like this, we all screamed, and I felt bad for the mom who was driving us. He kept near our car, hitting the windows and looking in them, us screaming the entire time. And at one point, when he had left the car, Taylor, Sam, Rachel and I decided to get out of the car! At first it was only Tay and I who had gotten out of the car, because as soon as we stopped and got out, the man ran towards the car! And when Taylor and I were the only ones who got out, he began to chase us! But being the cross country runners that we are, he couldn’t touch us! Although, I will admit we ran straight for the car and piled in. When we finally returned to Sam’s house, we all stayed over late, sorted our candy and watched a movie.
After that, Tay, Brooke, Gabe and I spent the night at Brooke’s house. Gabe fell asleep as we began to watch Silence of the Lambs and after the movie was over, Tay, Brooke and I stayed up to about four, energized by our newly acquired candy stash.