My MARTA Experience

Yesterday we wrote in our free write journals about an experience we had when we were made aware of our race or gender. I wrote about the time when I was on a mission trip in Atlanta, Georgia about four or five years ago. It was my family, and a couple other teenagers with us, riding on the MARTA to get to downtown Atlanta. I was only about 6th or 7th grade, and we came from the most German town there could ever be in Minnesota, so i didn't have too much experience with colored people. When we got on the marta i couldn't believe that we were mainly the only white people on the train. It was one of the most scary times on the whole trip, and i sat there the entire time right next to my dad.

This also relates to the story we just read called "Speaking in Tounges", when Tia was in Atlanta, taking the MARTA for her first time and not knowing where she was going, having to take five more train rides. By our trip, my dad had already been to Atlanta two times before, so he pretty much knew what he was doing with at the station, which helped us out a lot.

Making the Children Behave

This was a poem in our war poetry packet, and it was one of my favorites. The way I interpreted it, this poem was about an American man in a different country feeling like the "odd man out", like he sticks out of everyone else living there, and even the other soldiers who are in perfect unison with each other. At the end of the war, he knows he will be referred to as the "evil one" when all the other people are telling stories to their children about he war. They tell their stories as if the soldiers are bad people and fighting with bad intentions, so their children won't grow up learning that fighting is okay. Everyone else has different view of the war, like they all see themselves as the hero, fighting for their country. But to the other side, you're just someone trying to harm their ways of life. This soldier, however; doesn't want to feel left out, or evil, or even scary; he just wanted to help his country.

I don't have a personal connection to this poem, but I really liked it. I know what it feels like when everyone is noticing you, but not in a good way. And I know what it also feels like to just want to fit in, but it's never that easy. You'll always feel like there's someone who doesn't like you, who doesn't want you to fit in, so they can seem better than you, and the hero in someone else's eyes.