Tattoos

This part first interested me because tattoos interest me. I only have one, but how I wish my body could just be covered head to toe in tattoos. And I mean every inch, no skin showing, just an array of colors and shapes, and trust me, each and every tattoo would have some special meaning to my heart. Ackerman says it perfectly in her line "Ultimately, tattoos make unique the surface of one's self, embody one's secret dreams, adorn with magic emblems the Altamira of the flesh." (100). Tattoos have been around forever, and as time goes on they become more popular. With tattoos first starting out to mark what tribe you were in, to marking who was trouble, to now, when people get them for an array of reasons. I can't see tattoos becoming something that we teach in history that no one sees anymore. Tattoos can tell us more about someone than they could tell us. They tell us a story, a story of the person's past, or where they want to be. Tattoos can show us the happy and sad times of a person's life. I believe that's why in Tokyo the University has the skins of people that are tattooed, so that they can tell us what they can no longer say.

Stuart Dybek- Confession

Also read "Human Cruelty" by Hayden Carruth

As I am not Catholic, I have no experience going to a confession. But it is something I find myself thinking about often. A place you can go and tell all your secrets to, and then they tell you that you are forgiven. How do you know this person will keep your secrets? How do you know that they aren't telling them? As in this short story I picture an old man sitting in robes, getting bored by sitting there all day listening to people's lives.Who do the priests go to when they need to confess? Although as a priest I suppose you aren't supposed to sin, but if they do, who do they go to? Do they go to another church? I often wonder if priest judge those who go to confession.

Taste

1. to become acquainted with by experience
2. to ascertain the flavor of by taking a little into the mouth
3.to eat or drink especially in small quantities
4. to perceive or recognize as if by the sense of taste


How do you taste a person? You could always be a cannibal and eat them, but that is just not natural. Is it the taste of their lips when you kiss them? Their soft and smooth lips, the first time you touch them. Maybe the way they taste has to do with how they smell. The smell of Axe freshly sprayed. Or the smell of James Bond 007 Cologne.  The smell of their clothes as they have just been washed. Or when they just get out of the shower. Maybe its the way their breath smells that causes the taste. Like after they have just smoked a cigarette and they don't want you to know so they use mint mouthwash, but when you kiss them you can still taste the nicotine on their lips. Smell and taste go hand and hand with each other. Like a couple that compliments each other perfectly.

Wang Ping- "Book War"

This essay made me realize how lucky we are to have the freedom in our country to read what we want. To have the freedom to read fairytales and books about our past where we don't have to hide our mistakes by lies, even though we do sometimes do this. To see how much book meant to other people, is just amazing. I couldn't imagine living somewhere, where I couldn't read Harry Potter or Pride and Prejudice. "When I saw stars rising in their dimmed eyes, I knew I had won the war."

Smells

Lavender, apple pie and tulips. The way my room currently smells. Lavender calms me down and helps me sleep. It is one of the most peaceful smells. When I close my eyes I picture a field full of purple flowers and sunlight warming my skin. But when I really think about lavender, I think about my childhood in which I would put lavender on my pillow each night to fall asleep. Then I started using lavender shampoo and body wash, which would help me relax anytime I took a shower. Each time I smell this peaceful flower, I can't help but to just want to sleep.

My grandma made the best apple pie. It tasted like heaven and smelled like Jesus. I could feel myself float to cloud nine anytime I would come home from school and smell what she was making. I loved Christmas and Thanksgiving because that meant apple pie. The candle in my room smells almost as good as the real thing. 

The pink tulips sit on my desk as a present from my grandma for my birthday. Tulips are my absolute favorite flower. Tulips smell so wonderful. They smell like a spring afternoon after it has just rained. They smell like Easter morning when you go to see what the Easter Bunny has brought for you. But most importantly they smell like my grandparents who were taken entirely before their time.

Language and Meaning

Mantaigne's language and meaning in his essays is different. In "Of Smells" he says  "Nay, the sweetness even of the purest breath has nothing in it of greater perfection than to be without any offensive smell, like those of healthful children, which made Plautus say of a woman:" The language and meaning in this passage is confusing, at best. Mantaigne seems to do this with a lot of his essays. He will contradict himself in his passages and in the same sentences. It's like if I said "I love horror movies, as long as they aren't  scary", it makes no sense and there is no way a horror movie won't be scary, although some horror movies aren't scary at all, but I guess that depends on the person, or the movie, but horror movies are typically scary, sometimes.