Alaina's Craziness

This blog is called Alaina's Craziness because Mr. McCarthy told me to call it that, just saying.

     The Puritans were a confusing group of people. On the one hand, they were super super strict. They had to do everything right so they wouldn't go to hell; they disapproved of drinking in large quantities (understandable) and even banned the practice of toasting one another; they were the cause of the Salem Witch Trials, which, because of the manner in which people were sometimes accused, seems to me like a good reason for the accuser to go to hell. Celebration in general was banned from 1659 to 1681 in Boston, and they disapproved of Christmas celebrations for a long while, even after celebrations were once again legal. Many people today are under the impression that Puritans were against sexual activity of any kind. On the contrary, it was perhaps one of the most important parts of their society. When a man and woman wanted to get married, they needed to go through a series of steps, including contracts and announcements and celebrations, at the end of which was sexual intercourse. If the husband and wife could not, for one reason or another, perform this act, the marriage could be damaged. Often the contract between him and his bride would dissolve.

     The Puritans had so many strict rules that it is only natural that eventually that religion would die out. But,  regardless of the fact that the Puritan way is largely dissolved today, they have had an enormous influence on society. They essentially started the first public schools, and founded what we know today as one of the very top schools in the country: Harvard. Located in Cambridge, Massachusetts, Harvard has turned out some of the finest professionals in the country. Cambridge is a town located not far from a very famous village, Salem.

     Several Puritans lived in Salem, Massachusetts. Salem is a very old town, the port of several stories, many of which are not easy to hear. The most famous of these is, of course, The Salem Witch Trials. These trials began in the winter of 1692 when a group of girls became sick and blamed certain members of the community for their illness. Hundreds of people were accused, wrongly of course, of witchcraft, and 19 men and women were hanged. One man was also pressed to death. Another famous feature of salem is the House of the Seven Gables.

     The House of the Seven Gables was built by a Salem sea captain and merchant named John Turner in 1668. Whoa. That was a long time ago. After being in the family for three generations, the house was handed over to Captain Samuel Ingersoll, who died at sea and left the property to his daughter, Susanna. Susanna was a cousin of the man who later became a very influential American writer, Nathaniel Hawthorne. Hawthorne visited the house so many times that it inspired the setting and title of his novel in 1851.

     Obviously, the Puritans did not have  lifestyle they were able to maintain. But, because of their amazing advances in schooling, we now have the ability to attend schools. Because of the House of the Seven Gables, Nathaniel Hawthorne was able to write a beautiful piece of literature that has been read by thousands of children in the schools the Puritans were able to create. Ahh, what a wonderful world.

The Moment I Knew I Was An American

     This is a difficult question to answer. I think I've always known I'm an American. Okay, let me rephrase that though. Of course I've always known I'm an American. I was born in Chicago, I've been raised in the same house all my life. It's more than being born in America though. I went to school at the age of five to learn to read and write and do math. I learned Spanish so well I could almost speak fluently. The very fact that I had the chance to learn it that well should have been a sign to me that I'm American, tough I didn't acknowledge it at the time. I learned from an early age history of my country and the presidents. I don't think there was a real moment when I realized that I am an American. I've just always known.
     Of course, there have been times when that fact is more prominent than others. I've traveled from a young age, France and England at the age of nine, then off to Thailand at age twelve, only to visit Scotland and Greece in eighth grade, and Costa Rica a couple years later. I am so lucky to be able to visit these places, and it makes me realize the privileged world in which I grew up. I've had the chance to travel to several places of the globe, but each time it is clear to me that the culture I know is different from any of these countries. Some speak different languages, eat different foods, have different religions and family values. Everyone is different. That's why I think there was never a real moment of realization to me, that I am an American. Because all cultures are different. Especially with the fact that American culture is so diverse, it's hard to identify myself with a single "American culture".

Us vs. Them...Us and Them

     There are so, so many things that can push a person to do the wrong thing. The key to that question though, is society. Things in society cause people to make the wrong choices every day. Peer pressure, for one thing, is the root of many choices. People are pushed into doing things they don't want to do, even though they know in their heart that it is the wrong decision. But it's hard to make the right choice when everyone else is saying differently.
     Another, slightly less noticeable branch of peer pressure is when you're trying to do something for the good of someone else. I myself have fallen into the trap of always trying to please other people, instead of doing what's best for myself. I'm not saying it's bad to do things for other people, and to try to make them happy, but it can get to be too much. Sometimes, while trying to please someone else, one can be blind to what is really the right thing to do, and choose the wrong thing. This kind of thing can happen easily, and is not always spotted until later on. You can feel really good about "doing the right thing" and making someone else happy, and then realize later on that you missed something.
     Things in society cause people to choose the wrong thing all the time. Whether it be peer pressure, the need to please others, advertisement, or just a subtle "social norm", people make the wrong choices. It happens. What can't happen is people beating themselves up over the wrong choices. Once you've made a choice, it's made. If it's not something you can change, don't worry about it. It's not worth it. Treat every mistake like a gift, because it's teaching you a lesson. Society, "them", is always against "us". We need to be strong and individual, or our sense of self will be lost. It's always going to be "Us vs. Them", and the only thing to do is be strong. If you falter, take it in your stride and start again.

John Proctor: Hero or Stooge?

     Mmm, John Proctor. When I hear that name, it makes me think of a real James Dean type guy – strong, handsome, the kind of guy who could fix your roof, and look really good doing it – and he’s got his own opinions and he’s just got the young girls falling at his feet. He sounds like the type of guy all the girls giggle about when he walks past you in the village, glancing over your shoulder after he goes.
     Besides the fact that he just sounds like an attractive guy, you can also tell he’s got a strong head on his shoulders. He knows what he believes in, and he stands up for it. He doesn’t believe in witchcraft, he won’t stand for his wife being accused. He knows what he wants and he sticks to it. He’s very practical, and much more sensible than the rest of the people in the town who have been hoodwinked into believing the stories about witches. I absolutely love it when he says,
     “Why do you never wonder if Parris be innocent, or Abigail? Is the accuser always holy now? Were
     they born this morning as clean as God’s fingers? I’ll tell you what’s walking Salem – vengeance is
     walking Salem.”
I think this is so, so, so so so brilliant. It’s obvious that the people who really need to be accused here are doing all the accusing, and John Proctor seems to be the only one who realizes it.
     He also stands up for the fact that he rarely goes to church, and he has a good reason for it. He says he stays home to worship, which I think is TOTALLY the right way to go. Who wants to go to hours of listening to some preacher talk about how God hates all sinners and everyone’s going to end up in Hell when they could be worshipping God joyously at home? He seems to have a clear idea of who God is, and he sees Him in a much nicer, loving, forgiving way. It is probably part of what makes him so strong.
     Although John Proctor is an amazing, able, strong-willed man most of the time, it seems that he also has his faults. Pretty major faults they are, too. He cheated on his wife with a young woman, Abigail. I don’t know what Elizabeth’s illness is yet, but it seems that this is part of what drove him to Abigail. I don’t know what possessed him to do it, but it’s just wrong. I know what they say, “He’s a guy”, don’t expect anything better from him. But that is no excuse. That’s like a girl going out and spending a million dollars on shoes and then people are saying, “She’s a girl, what did you expect? It’s okay”. No. It’s not okay. The worst part is that, although he’s trying to do the right thing by telling Abigail he doesn’t want her anymore, it seems like he’s doing it because he should, not because he wants to. He’s trying to be perfect, yet nobody’s perfect. I think he needs to figure himself out.

Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God

"The wrath of God is like great waters that are dammed for the present; they increase more and more and rise higher and higher, till an outlet is given...the waters are continually rising and waxing more and more mighty; and there is nothing but the mere pleasure of God that holds the waters back..."

This is a quote from Jonathan Edwards' sermon, Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God. He was a Puritan preacher in America in the 1730s and 40s. The Puritans believed that it was pre-destined that they should go to Heaven. This being the case, they spent their whole lives making sure they would fulfill this destiny. Making sure they could do nothing to screw up this wonderful plan God had for them. They were very, very strict and did nothing really "out of the ordinary".

     This sermon is about how God treats the sinners who end up in Hell. Borrowing from one of my very favorite movies, Bruce Almighty, this sermon pretty much gives the listener an image of God as an angry kid sitting on an anthill with a magnifying glass. It has a certain sadist feel to it. Edwards is saying, Haha all you sinners, God hates you and he's gonna send you to Hell, and I'm going to laugh. His sermon is basically scaring other Puritans into being "perfect" in God's eyes. I'm sure they were all raised thinking, "If I do everything right and never sin, God will love me and I'll go to Heaven." Probably, most Puritans were raised in fear; fear of God, fear of sin, fear of Hell. God does not love you, he is angry.

     I think this sermon is probably one of the most ridiculous things I have ever heard. God is supposed to be this wondrous creator, who gave life to all living things, who watches out for you, who forgives you. He's supposed to love you no matter what. The Puritans were all scared into their own religion. No doubt if anyone ever has second thoughts about it, they were shunned, or maybe even abused, I don't know. Of course, everyone is entitled to their own opinion, but somehow I feel like this religion, and also some other religions, aren't one's own opinion. If you were raised to fear God because he's gonna send you to Hell, you don't have a choice. You have to agree. Otherwise you're damned for eternity, and who wants that? I'm not saying it was just the Puritans who do this - I know several other Christian religions use this tactic,  the "be Christian or go to Hell" technique, and I'm sure it happens in situations every day. It's depressing.

     Besides the fact that I think it's wrong to scare someone in to something like that, it just makes me sad. It makes me sad that these people didn't grow up believing in God's grace and mercy and love. I don't care if you're Christian or Jewish or Buddhist or Atheist - as long as you have something good and beautiful to believe in. Without a rock like that in your life, how can you ever be truly happy? I hope that the Puritans were happy doing what they did. I hope that as they were carrying out God's will and not sinning and being perfect, I hope they were thinking, "I'm so, so happy, because I get to go to Heaven." I hope that whatever they did, there was some joy in it.

There Goes the Neighborhood

     My neighborhood has always been pretty much the best neighborhood ever. It has the feeling of a small town in a big city. You need a cup of sugar? Well, why don’t you just hop on over to Debbie and Pete’s house and borrow one? Want to go eat food from all over the world this week? Walk around just outside the neighborhood and find Chinese, Thai, Greek, German, Mexican and home grown American only a few steps from each other. It’s definitely my idea of a Utopia.
     The people in the neighborhood have pretty much always been the same: Stella, the nicest old Polish lady you could ever meet; Marian, her next door neighbor, always watching at her front window to make sure you don’t step on her lawn; Mrs. Speilvogel, the scariest old woman in the world – she hates it when you step on her lawn, too, but she can be deceivingly nice; Pete, the master of all nature, and his wife Debbie (who makes the most amazing food out of that beautiful nature), and their three kids, who aren’t quite kids anymore; Big Jim, the alcoholic who sits in his car all day and smokes, and his son Jimmy; the Filipino family who seems to have a never ending stream of different people going in and out of the house, one of them being my brother’s best friend, Darwin; my next door neighbors Annie and Alan, with the two little girls of the block who everyone baby-sits, but nobody really wants to, Olivia and Kate. There's Celeste, the six foot high, wide as she is tall, loud woman with her dogs Duffy and Pal, obnoxious and unleashed all the time, and her fellow dog walkers who talk as their dogs frolick in the grass and leaves. Then, of course, there’s me and my family, and my four best friends in the world – Rory Johnson, Anna Tai Malone, Nicky Parker, and Ian Reeves. All right on the same block. We had the perfect thing going on.
     Today, all these people are still here, with just a few changes. Mrs. Speilvogel’s husband was whisked away one night in an ambulance and never came home. Deb and Pete’s two oldest are married, and the oldest has a little girl now, Nicole. Olivia and Kate are too old for real baby-sitters (everyone’s secretly relieved). The five best friends are still here, but we’re not really best friends anymore. The three of us girls are, but we’ve drifted away from the two boys. We’re all still friends, and we sometimes hang out in the summer, but not too much anymore.
     Despite most of the same people being here, some people are gone – moved away, died, gone off to college – and new people take their place. At first it was slow, a new family moving in maybe once a year. But now all of a sudden, it’s like an explosion of babies and little kids. Young couples moved in, some with kids, some without, and within a year there were at least six or seven new little kids running around outside with no clothes on. They’re everywhere.
     Now, don’t get me wrong, I absolutely adore little kids. I want to be a midwife or a pediatrician when I’m older, so don’t think I’m annoyed. I love it. But it’s created this weird barrier between the people of the neighborhood. There’re the older people, the ones who’ve been here for ages, who all stick together. Then there’re the hip young moms who organize “the best block party yet”, while their husbands sit around drinking a couple beers and their kids running around in the sprinklers. It’s like the younger generation is reforming the neighborhood. Besides that, it’s created a sort of barrier between the five of us ‘hood friends. We all have our certain kids that we baby-sit, and no one else really baby-sits them. We’ve all got our own families.
     This may not seem like a big change, but to someone who has lived in the same environment her whole life, it’s different. I’m not even saying it’s bad different (I’m so glad there are new little kids and babies to play with and get to know), but it’s different. Luckily for the new guys, the entire neighborhood is really, really nice. In everyone's eyes, more new people means more love to go around. J

Introductions

     My full name is Alaina Louise Stacey. I guess I'm proud to be a Stacey, but I regret to inform you that my original, straight from the Mediterranean name, was way, way cooler. If my great-grandfather hadn't come from Greece with the desire to be as American as possible, I would be Alaina Louise Stasinopolous. How cool is that? Tres cool.
     I really love country music. I feel like I am the odd man (woman) out here, but it doesn’t bother me too much, because I’ve got a pretty wide range of musical taste. My favorite country artists are Keith Urban, Brad Paisley, Kasey Chambers, and Miranda Lambert, but I also love Iron & Wine, Amos Lee, Counting Crows, Bruce Springsteen, R. Kelly (weird, right?) and I am absolutely head over heels in love with Ben Folds. Check him out; he’s a musical genius. (One kind of embarrassing thing about me is that one time I was writing to my friend that I’m a genius and I wrote “genious”. Hehe woops.) I also write and sing my own music, as well as some of my brothers’ music and my dad’s music. We’re just one big musical family!
     I have three brothers named Jordan, Julian, and Gabriel. We all get along swimmingly; thank the dear lord baby Jesus. My parents met when they were my age, and my dad says he loved her from the moment he saw her. Everyone in my family loves to be together (maybe a bit too much), and we love to vacation. So far we’ve been to Greece, Thailand, France, and England.
     I enjoy reading authors such as J.K. Rowling, Barbara Kingsolver, Harper Lee, J. K. Rowling, George Orwell, and J. K. Rowling. I absolutely love walking outside on beautiful days, and I would have to say my favorite season is fall. Or spring. It changes depending on how cold I’m feeling. But mostly fall. I think. I play the flute and the guitar and attempt the piano when I’m feeling brave. For the past five years I’ve done a triathlon every summer, which is very rewarding and exciting (especially the bagels and medals at the end).
     A few random facts: I want to be a midwife when I grow up, and I’m going to attend a birth any day now (she’s about ready to pop!); one of the greatest inspirations in my life was my grandmother “Tada”, who had a squillion faults but was one of the most beautiful people I ever knew; I love Australia and everything to do with it; I wish I knew more Spanish; and my favorite movie of all time is the Princess Bride – I could watch it every single day and never get tired of it – followed closely by Love Actually and Overboard.
     I’m the kind of person that babbles on and on, so I shall bid this blog adieu. Now I have a few hours of homework to look forward to ☺. Life is beautiful.