Aqualin26's Blog

Most of the time, I find it easy to put myself in someone else’s shoes. I noticed that as I get older, it becomes less difficult for me to sympathize with other people. I believe that your ability to put yourself in someone else’s shoes has a lot to do with what you have experienced throughout your life time. Brooks talks in her essay about the complicated birth of her son and how she uses that experience in her writing. While I am still young, I have already made a number of experiences that help me sympathize with people. I agree with Brooks that emotions are what sticks with us while details about situations are forgotten first. I know the feeling of being in love as well as the feeling of being heartbroken. I know the feeling of missing my family who lives on a different continent as well as the feeling of celebrating Christmas Eve with all the people who are important to me.  I remember how I felt when I found out that one of my friends had committed suicide, and I remember how it felt when I found out that my mother was expecting my baby brother.  I use my experiences to put myself in someone else’s shoes, so I can empathize with other people. I don’t think that it is necessary to experience the exact same situation in order to be able to sympathize with someone. Often times, it is enough to have experienced a certain kind of emotion to know how a person must have felt in a certain situation. For example, the loss of a loved one brings about a certain kind of sadness. This sadness, in whatever form, is experienced by anyone who loses something precious. It does not matter if you lose your mother, friend, or anything else dear to your heart. Therefore, I use my experience to put myself into someone else’s shoes, which works well if I have experienced a similar emotional state than that person. `

I learned about Darwin’s theory of evolution a couple years ago in a biology class. According to Darwin’s theory, all forms of life have been constantly evolving over millions of years. When Darwin came out with his theory, people did not want to believe him since his theory challenged the bible’s version of the origin of the world. Darwin spent his life doing research on different animal species. When he went on a trip to several tropical islands he found different types of finches on each island with each type being specifically adapted to the environmental condition on the island they were living on. He found that all members of a certain species were perfectly adapted to their habitat. A case of Darwin’s theory in play that my biology teacher cited was about a species of moths that was living on birches. The moths’ wings were colored so that they would blend in with the trees. When the moths’ habitat was turned into an industrial area, there could be found an increasing number of dark colored moths. The darker colored moths blended in perfectly with the birches that were colored dark from the smoke of the factories while the whiter colored moths would stand out on the dark trees. The moth species had evolved over time, and it had adapted to the change in their habitat. Only darker colored moths not easily made out by their enemies on the darker trees were the ones who would escape being eaten and get the chance to reproduce and pass their traits on to their offspring. This is a perfect example of Darwin’s theory of natural selection. According to Darwin, nature has a selection process that makes it possible for species to survive in an ever changing world.  

When I read Darwin’s essay on Understanding Natural Selection, I was surprised how much I had retained from my biology class. Of course, Darwin has many more examples to offer, and he uses vivid language for the explanation of his theory. He writes in his essay that natural selection is happening every day all over the world. All types of living things have processes of naturally eliminating what does not work for their species and carrying on beneficial traits to their offspring, so that the species as a whole is constantly being improved. This leads to an ever changing world. According to Darwin, one way natural selection might be exhibited is when a species of birds displays a certain coloration of its plumage that blends in with their habitat so that a hawk will have difficulties detecting the birds. Once a certain kind of color has proven to protect the species from their enemies, it will show up in its offspring with consistency until a change in their habitat makes a change of their plumage color a necessity for the survival of the species. Darwin explains in his essay that any modification of a species will always be of beneficial nature or the modification would not take place since a disadvantageous alteration would lead to the extinction of the species. Furthermore, Darwin uses a pack of wolves as an example to illustrate his theory of natural selection. He says that any beneficial alteration in a wolf’s personality or structure has a good chance of being passed on to its offspring. The wolf’s young will then pass the alteration on to their children. Over generations of wolves, a new variety will form. For example, a species of wolves that is best suited to hunt in the lowlands and another species of wolves that is best fitted for hunting in mountainous terrain might evolve.

My dog Timo and I were running down the concrete path leading to the beach. The path to the beach is lined with high wooden fences on either side, so people walking by can’t see what is happening on the other side of the fences. This provides privacy for the people living behind the fences.  As we were running down the path I noticed an open door further down. I slowed down knowing that Timo would instantly change direction and storm into the open door, which would cause me to fall over his leash. Walking past the open door, we could see a construction worker kneeling on the wooden floor of a terrace. As he bent over his tool box searching for an appropriate tool, his blond hair fell into his face. Little drops of sweat were rolling down his nose. When he noticed us walking by, he nodded his head in our direction. I tried to keep Timo from approaching the man who did not seem to be in the mood for wet puppy tongue. It took quite some pulling on the leash to convince the dog that the man did not feel like being greeted by an energetic little creature.

Once we made it to the end of the concrete path I took my flip flops of, so it would be easier to walk on the sand. There weren’t many people on the beach which was probably due to the weather. The sky was overcast and a cool wind was blowing from the Ocean. I was glad that I had brought my sweater. We walked along the beach for a little while until I designated a spot for us in the sand. I started removing all indigestible items from the area within the range of Timo’s leash. This included but was not limited to cigarette butts, plastic bags, and old socks. I sat down in the sand. Since I did not bring a towel, I could feel the wetness from the sand penetrate my jeans shorts. Timo was sniffing the sand around us. He seemed restless. Faster than I was able to realize what was going on, he found a cigarette butt that I must have overlooked and swallowed it before I could fish it out of his mouth. Feelings of worry and aggravation started coming up my throat at the same time.

As I sat in the sand and Timo chewed on a big log that was washed up on the beach, I could see a family in the distance.  The girl belonging to this family played in the water. Whenever a wave came toward the coast she would squeak happily and jump into it. Her mother stayed at the beach closely watching every move her daughter made. I was surprised when I saw the father walking toward us. For a moment, I feared he would come to tell me that he was bothered by my obvious staring in their direction. He was a man in his forties, wearing blue swimming trunks with white Hawaiian flowers printed on them and a black T-shirt. When he came closer I could see that he was smiling. The creases around his eyes were filled with joy. He told me that my good looking dog had caught his attention and that he could not resist coming over and petting the dog. As he bent over Timo and fondled with his ears, I noticed the man’s awkward shaped feet. His big toes were gigantic and were curved toward the center of his body. I tried to act as if I had not just spotted his unusual feet. I felt relieved when the man walked back to his family.

I noticed the fishy smell in the air. It was getting a little warmer, but the sun was still covered by grey clouds. I could see a freight boat in the distance. To my left there was a Pier. Many people were on the Pier. It seemed to be the place to hang out on this dreary day.

People walking by whistled at Timo. I could see their faces lighten up when they saw him passionately chewing up the log.   

An older couple arrived and set their beach chairs up in the sand. They left their umbrellas closed. The woman wore a flowered one piece swimsuit. Her head was covered with a grey hat. The man wore red swimming trunks and black sunglasses. They were holding hands as they walked into knee deep water. I could see them pointing into the distance. That’s when I decided to walk home.

When my sister and I were younger, our family took a vacation to Mallorca, Spain.  Like all children who go on family vacations, we were extremely excited to be there and were beside ourselves.  We arrived at our hotel room and as the excitement grew my sister and I began chasing each other around the hotel room.  My sister, being younger than me was always the one who was chased.  As we were frantically running around this hotel room, my sister in a moment of near disaster ran right into a sliding glass door and broke through it.  As she fell to the ground, we were both in a state of shock.  I ran to her to see if she was ok.  Besides the fact that she had cut her leg in a few places and had some scratches, she was fine.  We took her the on call doctor at the hotel and got her fixed up and continued with our vacation. 

Now when my sister tells this story at family gatherings, it tends to be somewhat skewed from the events that I remember.  This is the way she tells it:  We were running through the hotel room extremely happy to be on this vacation.  As my sister was chasing me around the room, I ran right into a sliding glass door and shattered the door sending shards of glass, blood and pieces of my body across the patio.  There was so much blood that I nearly needed to have a tunicate applied.  The pain was unbearable and I almost passed out.  All the people from the hotel came to the room to see what had happened and when they arrived they all gasped from the sight they had seen.  I was carried to the emergency room and given 30 stitches, and I had to spend the rest of the vacation in discomfort and embarrassment.    

I realize that my sister’s version has more appeal to an audience, since it is more dramatic. Telling something exactly how it happened can be boring sometimes.

It was a little over three years ago that my husband and I came to Virginia Beach to find a place to live. We drove from one apartment complex to another hoping that we would find our perfect place. We were excited to be moving so close to the beach. I had spent days on the internet creating a list of somewhat affordable places close to the Oceanfront. On the way from our place in Pennsylvania to Virginia Beach we fantasized about our life at the beach. Once we had worked ourselves down my list and only one more place was left to be checked out, our initial excitement had worn down some. Our apartment hunt did not seem to go too well. We found that many places were not at all what they appeared to be in the ads on the internet. After we had ruled out the last place on my list, we felt very discouraged. It seemed as if we had set our budget too low and our expectations too high.  A life at the beach seemed to be out of our reach. As we were about to give up, we suddenly noticed an apartment complex in front of us. We were delighted by the little red brick buildings and the trees that surrounded the buildings. This seemed to be a nice place. Our excitement came back, and we headed straight to the leasing office. There, we were told that an apartment that met our criteria was available. We couldn’t believe that after all this searching we finally had found our new place. Later that afternoon, we talked the whole thing over while enjoying chocolate milk and croissants at the beach. We studied the brochures that we were given by the leasing office and committed to renting that place later that day. When our moving date had come, we almost did not make it to Virginia Beach in time before the leasing office was set to close. It took us all day to drive the huge moving truck with our things from our place in Pennsylvania to our new place in Virginia Beach. We came running into the leasing office five minutes before they were closing. Exhausted and tired from the long trip, we skimmed through our lease and placed our signatures onto all the many pages without really knowing what we were actually signing. The landlord handed us our new apartment keys and off we went to our new home. Throughout the next two and a half years, we would learn that we were not allowed to put our bikes out on our patio, leave our beach chairs out on the patio for sitting purposes, or grill out there. We would also learn that our heating and cooling system uses electricity as well as gas and that turning of the heater in the winter months to save money does not make a difference in our gas bill since the gas usage is divided up by all the tenants in the complex, so even if we do not use any gas we still get billed. All those details are of course stated in our lease. After the second year of living at this apartment complex had passed, we decided to hold off on signing another lease and to just pay rent from month to month. We assumed that paying the higher rent would give us the freedom of being able to move out whenever we would decide to do so. However, we had to learn the hard way that one cannot assume anything, but needs to read the contract that bounds one to obligations. We spent several months trying to find a new place. We needed a place that allowed our new dog and was closer to school and work. After we had almost given up on finding what we were looking for, we came across our dream place. Putting a deposit down on this new place enabled us to reserve it. I was thrilled that I would not have to do my laundry at an onsite laundry facility anymore, but would be able to do it in the comfort of my own home. I would never have to worry again where to get the quarters to do laundry. We were so excited about leaving our current place that we totally forgot to clarify any details of leaving our current place. When we finally contacted our current landlord, we were shocked to hear what she had to tell us. Apparently, as stated in our lease, we were supposed to hand in a written notice two months before we were planning on leaving our current place. The second we found out this terrible news, we handed in the notice. Though, we were devastated. This minor detail that we had overlooked meant that we had to pay double rent for one and a half months. We started to become very angry at ourselves that we had put off inquiring details about our current lease agreement until it was too late. After we had recovered from the initial shock, we started to look for things we could sell to make the money to pay for the double rent.  Today, we are still struggling from this big financial burden. However, this instance has taught us that we should never assume anything and that putting things off can have fatal consequences. We have learned the hard way how important it is to read thoroughly through any type of contract. Recently, I have seen people smile at us when we carefully studied the contract for a new gym membership before we signed it, but we have learned our lesson.

When I was a little, my mother would read bedtime stories to my sister and me. We used to own the brothers Grimm story collection, and my mom would read us a different story every night.  “The wolf and the seven little goats” was one of my favorite stories when I was a child. The story is about a mother goat who lives with her seven little children in a house in the country. One day, she wants to leave her children home by themselves to go into the woods to get some food. Before she leaves the house, she warns her children not to open the door and let the wolf in since he would eat them up. She tells them that they could recognize the wolf by his rough voice and his black paws. Soon after their mother leaves, the little goats hear a knocking at the door and a voice saying: “This is your loving mother, open the door.” However, the little goats recognize the rough voice, and they do not open the door. Then, the wolf goes to a merchant to purchase a big piece of chalk which he eats to make his voice sound smoother. He goes back to the house and knocks on the door for the second time, telling the little goats with a soft voice that he is their mother and that they should open the door. This time, though, the little goats see the wolf’s black paws that he has put up on the window, and they tell him that they will not let him in since his black paws reveal his true identity. Next, the wolf runs to a baker and tells him that he needs some dough for his hurting feet. After the baker has put dough on the wolf’s paws, the wolf goes to the miller to have him put some flour on his paws. Although the miller suspects the wolf of planning something evil, he is too afraid of the wolf to deny the wolf the flour.  The wolf goes back to the house and tells the little goats with his soft voice to open the door pretending he is their mother. The little goats are still suspicious; therefore, they tell the wolf to show his feet in the window. When they see the white feet, they open the door and let the wolf in. As soon as the wolf enters the door, he starts chasing all the little goats and eats them all but the littlest one which he cannot find since it hides in the clock-case.  After he finishes his meal, he goes outside to rest under a tree. Once the mother goat comes home she is devastated to find the house messy and empty. She calls the names of all her children, but only the youngest answers when its name is called. It tells the mother what has happened. The mother gets angry and goes outside to look for the wolf. She finds him sleeping under a tree nearby, with his huge stomach moving as if something inside of it is still alive. This gives her the hope that the wolf has eaten her children so greedily that he swallowed them alive. Therefore, she gets a pair of scissors, a needle, and a thread, and starts cutting the wolf’s stomach open. She is very excited when one after another of her children comes climbing out of the wolf’s stomach. Once everybody is saved, they all help to fill the wolf’s stomach with big stones, and they sew his stomach back together. When the wolf wakes up, he feels extremely thirsty, so he goes to the river to get something to drink. As he bents over to drink the water, the stones inside his stomach weigh him down and he falls into the river and drowns.

As a child I found the story very exciting. I was able to create a vivid picture of the mean wolf and the innocent little goats in my head. I have never really given any thought to the meaning of this story so far. I had to read online how the story exactly goes, since it has been awhile that I have heard the story. Reading the story again I figured that one point the story is trying to make is that people can be manipulated to do bad things. In the story, the miller knows that the wolf is going to do something evil with the flower on his paws, yet he gives him the flower since he is too afraid that the wolf will harm him. Another point the story is trying to make is that things may not always be as they seem. The wolf looks like the mother and sounds like the mother, and yet he is not the mother. The story teaches listeners to watch out for fakeness in others.

My name is Alina, and I am 26 years old. I am new to the blog thing, so I am kind of excited to be starting my own blog. For right know, I will just introduce myself to my blogger friends, so they can get a feel for who I am. I was born in Bavaria, Germany. That is also where I have spent most of my life.  I definitely had the taste of some good beer and pretzels growing up.  I have one younger brother and one younger sister. Being the oldest definitely has its perks. I met my husband when he was stationed in Germany with the army, and I moved to the States with him 3.5 years ago. During our first summer together in the States, my husband’s sister let us use her timeshare in Virginia Beach, and since we liked it here so much, we decided to move here once my husband’s time in the army was up. At that time, we lived in a tiny town in Pennsylvania where we couldn’t wait to get away from. In January of ’07, we made the move. So far, we have not regretted our decision. We really enjoy the area. I have set myself the goal to become a pharmacist, so I have been taking classes at TCC to fulfill the prerequisites for pharmacy school. These past two years, I was able to complete an Associate of Science degree as well. This coming fall, I will start working on my Bachelor in Biology at ODU. This gives us time to enjoy Virginia Beach some more and figure out where we want to go next. I am very passionate about a healthy lifestyle, and I try to eat organic as much as I can afford. I feel that would you put into your body, that’s what you are going to get out of it. I am reading a book about orthomolecular medicine right now, which I find amazingly interesting. I don’t have any children. My husband and I are also not planning on having kids any time soon. Instead we are adopting a sugar sweet Dalmatian puppy to take care for. Later on, once we manage to save up some cash, we would like to go on a bag packing trip through Europe. I am currently working as a personal assistant for a woman who is physically disabled. Since she is sitting in a wheelchair, there are certain things she can’t do without some assistance from someone who is fortunate enough to be all around healthy. That is where I come in. I really enjoy working for that woman, but since I have been doing this for a while now, I decided to try something else soon. I have signed up for a pharmacy tech class this summer and I hope to be a certified technician by fall. That way, I will be able to look over the shoulder of a pharmacist, and I can figure out if I could see myself working as a pharmacist.  So far, I just know that I would love to gain the knowledge. In my free time, I enjoy hanging out at the beach, finding bargains on shopping trips (at the store or online), doing my yoga video, reading interesting writing, and many other things. I hope I was able to give you an idea of who I am.

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