Getting Beat

There is nothing worse than getting beat in a game. I suppose the only thing worse than that would be getting embarrassed in a game. That's exactly what happened to me and my team this weekend in the Memorial Day Invitational. We had won our first game in a tight battle, so my team and I were feeling pretty good when we stepped onto the field for our second game. We had heard that the opponents were pretty good, but we had no idea. We got the kickoff, and the ball was played back to me. Immediately their forward was on me, fighting for the ball, and I was just barely able to kick the ball away. That was the beginning of a very long night. To make a long story short, the game ended in an 8-0 trouncing of the home team, us. I had been battered and bruised, had been independently responsible for at least two goals, I had dislocated thumb, and worst of all, I had let my team down. But I got to thinking, maybe we need beatings like these to realize what our flaws are, and what we need to work on more. We won the rest of our games, and I know that I worked especially hard to make up for my errors in that second game. I hope that I will become a better player from this game, and I am sure that the rest of my team will too.

Discussion Question #5

Having a wife with bound feet was a status symbol for men, and, consequently, having bound feet increased a woman's chances of marriage into a wealthier household. Women took great pride in their feet, which were considered not only beautiful but also their best and most important feature. As a child, would you have fought against having your feet bound, as Third Sister did, knowing that you would be consigned to the life of a servant or a "little daughter-in-law"? As a mother, would you have chosen to bind your daughters feet?

If I was a child in the days of ancient China, I would fight with every fiber in my body to stop my mother from binding my feet. I don't think that I would last during the constant pain that coursed through my feet and up into my legs. I wouldn't be able to continue walking after continually having my toes broken one by one, and my feet cracked in half until there was a deep crevice in the middle of my foot. Currently I don't think that I would make my daughters have their feet bound, although if I had lived in ancient China I'm sure that my opinion would be much different. This is the way that everyone was raised, and such a break in tradition would mean the exile of your entire family. I believe that everyone would say that they would not have their daughters go through foot-binding, but if they lived in the same time period as Beautiful Moon, Lily, and Snow Flower, their outlook on this subject would be quite different.

Discussion Question #4

Madame Wang, the matchmaker, is a foot-bound woman and yet she does business with men. How is she different from the other women in the story? Do you think that she is considered a woman of status of is she merely a necessary evil?

I believe that in this story the matchmaker Madame Wang in both a woman of status as well as a necessary evil. On one hand, she is a very powerful woman, in charge of making all of the matches between men and women of different villages. With out her the village in which Lily and her family live, and all the other villages that Madame Wang works with would be left in disarray, with no one to carry on the tradition. On the other hand, she is just a woman, in the eyes of the men in the village, and in fact, the country, believe that she is a worthless branch of her family tree unless she can marry into a rich family. This is a repeated theme throughout the book. Through the eyes of the people who lived in ancient China, woman were good for nothing.

Discussion Question #3

Because of its phonetic nature, nu shu could easily be taken out of context and be misunderstood. Today, many of us communicate through e-mail of instant messaging. Have you ever had an experience where one of you messages was misunderstood because of lack of context, facial or body gestures, and tone of voice? Or have you ever received a message that you misinterpreted and had your feelings hurt?

I know there are many instances throughout my day in which I use instant messaging, e-mail, and text messaging, and I know that the lack of body language and tone of voice can definitely be a major factor when reading a message such as the ones above. I know that I personally try not to use sarcasm in my messages because although I use it quite often at school, it can be easily misinterpreted as something mean. Tone of voice also plays in to the sarcasm. Sarcasm is often made by the tone of voice in which it is said. With text messages or e-mails it is impossible to bridge the gap that is what I like to call a "body language barrier".

Discussion Question #2

The story takes place in the nineteenth century, and seems very far removed from our lives - for instance, we don't have our feet bound, and we're free and mobile. Do you think we're still bound up in other ways: by career, by family obligations, by conventions of feminine beauty, or even events beyond our control (war, the economy, and natural disasters)?

I do believe that many women in this country are bound by many things, although their feet may not be bound like in ancient China. I think that many modern day women are restricted in very small ways such as spending more time in the morning to get ready, because it is considered socially acceptable to be pretty. I believe that the happier people in life are the ones who do not care what other people think of their outfit, how pretty they are, or how they look when they walk out the door. The happier people in life are the ones who wear what is comfortable, they are at peace with who they are as a person, and are unbound by social stigmas.

Discussion Question #1

The Chinese character for "mother love" consists of two parts: one meaning "pain" and the other meaning "love". In your own experience, from the perspective of a mother or daughter, is there an element of truth to this description of "mother love"?

I believe that there is a very strong and prominent element of truth in the Chinese character for "mother love". The common term that we use today is also called "tough love". This means that a mother, while it may be painful for both the mother and the daughter, is hard on her daughter for her own good, and to teach her a lesson about life. A mother may be tough on her daughter so that later in her life she is that tough on her children. This line continues because, while that daughters may say to themselves, "I will never be like that to my children", they will realize that it is in the best interest of their children for them not to be babied through their childhood. This is exemplified in Snow Flower and the Secret Fan, when most all of the mothers in all of China put their young daughters through foot-binding. As much as it may have hurt them and their daughters, they knew that it was for the best, and for them to be married into a good family and be worth something to the family, they must have beautiful golden lilies.

Nike Air Tiempo

As ridiculous as it may sound, this post will be about how amazing my soccer cleats are. I first got them a week or so in to the spring soccer season. At the store where I got them, I had an internal battle as to what shoe I should get. The Nike Total 90 Lasers were also a great shoe, with premium grip on the instep and great power control for shots. They are built for power, and overall mostly a shooting shoe. My cleats, the Nike Air Tiempos, have a completely different style, material, and overall feel to them. First off, they are a lot lighter than the Lasers, which is always going to factor into the decision. The Tiempos also have great grip all around, whereas the Lasers only have the gripping material on the instep. The Nike Airs are built mostly for a great touch on the ball, aided greatly by the kangaroo leather that the shoe is made up of. The major deciding factor for me was the fact that not only do my shoes have superior touch, but their shooting aid technology is on par, if not superior to the Laser's. Another thing that makes the Nike Air Tiempos a better buy in comparison to the Lasers is the price. With the Tiempos the price will range anywhere from about $110 - $125. When considering the Lasers for your next boot, you are probably looking at price anywhere from $175 to upwards of $200 dollars. My shoes are also more sustainable. I have a pair of the Lasers for my indoor soccer shoes and I have found that when they are worn excessively they become flimsy and your foot support goes down exponentially. My shoes have been in use for near two months, and I have done more running in these, and they are still going strong. Please consider these things before buying your next futbol boot. I know you'll make the right decision. Or else...

Fort Wayne Soccer Tournament

This past weekend I traveled to New Haven, Indiana for the State Cup soccer tournament. It was a fun drive down, because I watched Walk Hard, The Dewey Cox Story. Anyways, when we got there we had about twenty minutes two stretch and put our equipment on before we had to start warming up with the team. I have been battling several injuries during this soccer season, including pulled and aggravated tendons in my foot, a pulled butt muscle, and sore legs because of the amount of team I have spent running for the soccer season. I spend at least twenty minutes before each game stretching these particular muscles and dressing my wounds meticulously. The first game was a fairly easy one, against the host of the tournament, Fort Wayne Citadel. We won the game 5-0, with some spectacular goals from Christian Ibarra, Brandon Speedy, and others. The second game was against one of our arch rivals, the Millennium Soccer Association. To put things lightly, we came out slow and two goals were scored on us in the first ten minutes. Approximately five minutes later there came another, presumably the final nail in the coffin. But we rebounded spectacularly in the second half, scoring two goals in the first five minutes, and the equalizer in the final three minutes. The final score was 3-3, but it was a victory in our book. Our third game was against a team who had lost both previous games by a score of at least 5-0. It was a cakewalk, and we won 5-0. Since the Millennium team had won their first game 5-0 and so did we, it was down to goal differential to see who would move on to the semi-state round two weeks from now. The final score of their last game was 4-0! We had advanced! Since we had scored tied against Millennium, that was not a deciding factor. We scored 13 goals overall in the tournament and they had only scored 12. It was certainly a very close call.