September 11, 2001-Ten Years

I am having a hard time starting this particular entry. It has been ten years since the single greatest tragedy our nation has ever seen and I felt compelled to reflect, but I am at a loss on how to start. There is not a single day that goes by that I do not think about the events of September 11, 2001. The numbers 9-11 are no longer just numbers, but a constant reminder. I cannot look at the time when the clock reads 9:11am/pm, or even talk about my final class period of the day without a slight hesitation. Ten years passing has not made that any easier.

It is a difficult day for me. It is a day that I still strive to understand. I struggle to wrap my mind around the shear magnitude of those whose lives were forever altered in a single second. Not only those who lost their lives, and their family members who miss them everyday, but even those people who where able to evacuate the buildings or those who missed their flights that morning. Each one of those lives will never be the same. They all carry that day with them as they live out their daily lives. I wish that I could reach out to each one of them.... I wish that I could let them know that I share in their pain.... I wish that I could take some of that burden and that sorrow from them....nobody should have to feel such pain.....I wish that I could help them.....

I think that is what bothers me the most. All of the 3,000 or so people that past away that day had family and friends that cared about them. They had people that relayed on them. They had people that loved them. They had children who looked forward to playing catch with their dads and shopping with their moms. Those children had their lives flipped upside down because of hate. That is a pain that can never be erased with time. 

They say that time heals all wounds. I don't know if I believe that to be entirely true. Time has allowed people to come to terms with what happened. It has allowed people to understand the why and to begin to move on with their lives and adjust to a new way of life. There will always be that memory. It will always replay in the mind. The wound may have closed, but there will forever be that scar. 

I have taken from 9/11/01 the importance of living each day to the fullest extent, telling the people around you that you care and love them everyday, not taking anything for granted, and to not waste time being sad. Anything can happen. Those people have given me that gift, and I will honor them each day by doing just that. They brought together our nation in a way that I never thought possible, and I am so thankful that I was able to be a part of that unity.

The first 16 years of my life were lived in a different world than the last ten years of my life. It pains me to think that my little niece and nephews will never know the world as I did. Terrorism was not in my vocabulary and War was just something you learned about in a text book. Nobody thought twice about getting on a plane, and I had no idea that we even had a color coded terror alert system. It is amazing what a split second can do. 

I do not dwell in the sadness and I do not think that we should take the day as one of mourning. I believe that it should forever be a day of true remembrance. We should take those moments of silence, we should listen to their names, we should remember the events, and we should reflect on how they have changed our nation and ourselves. Talking about it and remembering does not mean that we are stuck in the past, and not talking about it and remembering it will not change the fact that it happened and that it will forever be painful. We should never stop remembering and honoring. I think that it is important to educate the younger generations and allow them to be a part of the day and to teach them those precious life lessons that those who lost their lives left us with. 

I will take each September 11, for as long as I live, and I will reflect. I will shed a tear.  I will stand proud as an American. I will pray for those families. I will light my candle in my window, and I will never forget. 

Black Swan

The first thing that I said when I walked out of the theater was, "That was a mind________ (fill in explicit language here)." Black Swan was one of those movies that you're not quite sure what you just watched for the last hour and forty five minutes. IT took me about twenty four hours to sort through everything that my eyes had taken in, and that was after the damn thing gave me nightmares. They were not lying when they called the movie a psychological thriller.

The basic plot of the movie focuses on Nina (Natalie Portman). Nina is a young ballerina in NYC. The dance company that she belongs to decides to put on Swan Lake. The lead role requires the dancer who plays the Swan Queen to play both the White Swan (innocence) and the Black Swan (sensuality). It becomes apparent early on that Nina is a perfectionist when it comes to her dancing and in life itself. Nina is chosen for the role. She is able to perform the part of the White Swan with ease, but a struggle arises when she begins to practice the Black Swan. The company leader, Thomas (Vincent Cassel), tells her that she is not able to let herself go enough to become the role of the Black Swan. The dance is more than just dancing the steps correctly. Nina becomes distressed because she cannot understand what she has to do in order to perfect the dance. She becomes even more bothered when a new dancer in the company, Lily (Mina Kunis), seems to understand the Black Swan role. Nina begins to spiral out of control.


After initially watching the film, it is easy for someone to say that it was the role of the Black Swan that drove her insanity. Then I thought about it some more, and the more I thought about it, the more it seemed to me that the movie is just one be ironic situation. It becomes clear throughout the movie that Nina has struggled with some kind of psychological problem before being award the role of the Swan Queen. She was able to control the problem, but not without the constant help of her mother. I believe that it was this psychological problem that drove much of Nina's desire to be perfect. The idea that being perfect would make everything wrong disappear. Her psychological problems began to surface again when she begins to struggle with dancing the Black Swan. She cannot be perfect without embracing the parts of her that are imperfect. That is the true story- Nina's struggle with perfection, and the fact that perfection sometimes is not always perfect.

Darren Aronofsky did a fantastic job directing this strange and twisted story. There are little things in each scene that take you into Nina's mind. You felt the mental struggle in Nina. You began to struggle with her. She    was never quite sure what was going on. You are never quite sure what is going on. He never gives you more information that Nina herself has. He allowed his audiences to become Nina and to suffer with her. That is something very hard to do.

Everyone who know me, knows that I have this deep dislike for Natalie Portman. It would be wrong of me to say that she didn't do a fantastic job with this movie. She was amazing. Her dancing was breathtaking. It is a difficult task to portray two completely different personalities with such ease and grace. I believe that the best actors say the most when they are not saying anything at all. She said so much with little looks and tiny movements that could easily have gone unnoticed. Mina Kunis also did a wonderful job as the opposite personality. Without a strong cast, this movie could have easily fallen apart with such a complicated plot. Snaps for the actors!

I would have to recommend this movie. The more that I think about it, the more and more I like it. Just be prepared to not really know what it was you just watched when you walk out of the theater. Don't think about it to much. It seems to figure itself out. One thing I would have to say though, don't watch it before bed!