Giving was a concept my mother tried to instill in me when I was young, but for some odd reason it never quite stuck. If I learned anything from birthdays it was this: It was much, much better to receive than to give.The first time I gave (willingly) to someone, I was 12. Our family had traveled from North Carolina to Virginia Beach for a craft show.
Travelers returning from a journey always face one last challenge: being forced to tell others about it. People come to expect stories of wonder, personal evolution, enlightenment. With long or intense trips, they’re right to expect these things. But it’s incredibly hard to convey exactly what effect a trip has had on you, and in what way your understanding of the world has changed.
And the neighbors keep trippin’, I’m like “I’m in a castle … f*ck your condo.”– Macklemore, “Castles”IT’S BEEN A DREAM of mine to stay in a real castle since I was a young kid. My parents would break the mundane summers indoors in Vegas by taking my little brother and me to the arcade at the Excalibur Hotel.
My camera rested on its tripod, focused on a mosaic above the base of the escalators. The inlaid red, yellow, gray, and blue marble looked like a Picasso treatment of a hammer and sickle, the pieces of this once dreaded symbol of Russian Communism coming together only when I blurred my vision. My finger was on the shutter button, but right as I began to apply pressure the viewfinder went black.
WHEN THE ACADEMY AWARD nominations are announced every January, there are inevitable outcries from the people watching: “No way that movie was better than this other one I saw!” “I can’t believe they snubbed her again!” “When are they going to nominate that incredible voice-over performance?”But every so often, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences does something historically or socially valuable, as in 1939 when African-American actress Hattie McDaniel was awarded Best Supporting Actress for Gone With the Wind, or when Marlee Matlin — who is deaf — won Best Actress in 1986.
Living as an expat teacher in Korea, I come into contact with drinking culture on at least a weekly basis.That’s not to say foreign teachers are all living the rock star lifestyle; Korea just has an alcohol-fueled social system, and regular and heavy boozing does not carry the stigma it does in the Western world.
Find more tips like these in the curriculum of the Travel Writing program at MatadorU.Commodificationcom·mod·i·fy (kə-mŏd’ə-fī’)tr.v. com·mod·i·fied , com·mod·i·fy·ing , com·mod·i·fiesTo turn into or treat as a commodity; make commercial: “Such music . commodifies the worst sorts of . stereotypes” (Michiko Kakutani).
