Reflection #5: Law of Love

          This past weekend I had the privilege of going home and seeing one of my friends from high school who just happened to be home from school at the same time. While driving home, I thought about this assignment and who exactly I was going to talk to, the above mentioned high school friend was the first to come to mind. The more I thought about it, the more I realized that I had to talk to her. She has been there for me more times than I can count and has helped me through some extremely rough patches in my life, as well as me being there for her. Our high school is the definition of cliquey. If you don’t find a clique to fit into by the second week of school, you’re pretty much an outcast until everybody realizes how stupid cliques are (around finals Junior year). She was is a year younger than I am and neither of us really found a place where we fit in, so naturally we just kind of drifted together and through that, we became close friends. 

          When we finally ended up figuring out the logistics of our reunion, I sat her down and told her how grateful I am that she was there for me in the past and still in my life to this day, I told her just how much she helped me throughout the years and how much I value our friendship. Before I go on, I would like to state that this girl is possibly one of the strongest individuals I have ever met, with that being said, after I told her that, she bawled like a baby. To say that I was taken by surprise is an understatement. She then told me that she felt the same way and that without me, she probably wouldn’t have found her calling in life (whatever that means) and dropped out of school. 

          After we had our reunion and she beat the crap out of me after telling her I had to write a blog entry about this (thus the lack of direct information...she’s watching), we said our goodbyes and parted ways for the time being. I found myself feeling elated, not only because I could be sure that she knows how much I appreciate her, but also because I know just how much she appreciates me. In the future, I probably shouldn’t wait as long as I did to do something like that. The sooner is always better.

Reflection #4: Cameos and Nostalgia

In my first reflection, I wrote about my favorite superhero, The Incredible Hulk. I would love to have a fiction suit in one of the Hulk’s comics, not when Bruce Banner and the Hulk are separate entities, but later on when they become one, known as the Professor. In later comics, Bruce Banner and the Hulk settled their differences and merged forming a being with the intelligence and rationing skills of Dr. Bruce Banner, but the body of the Hulk, a truly fierce and deadly enemy, not as strong as the Hulk but having the ability to think strategically rather than just smash everything. After this transformation occurs, the Professor begins to work as both a scientist and as an agent of S.H.I.E.L.D. as well as teaching at his former university. I would create a fiction suit where I am one of the Professor’s students, if not only for the reason of picking his brains and finding out the difference between the many different entities that seem to fight inside of Banner (Hulk, Mr. Grey, Savage Hulk, etc.), as well as having the opportunity of being taught by one of the Marvel comics greatest minds.

In recent years, computer graphics technology has advanced far enough that many superhero movies have been either remade, or made for the first time. It is through movies such as, The Dark Knight, The Incredible Hulk, Thor and many others that brought me a great sense of nostalgia from watching TV series and movies while growing up as a kid, especially when talking about the transition from animated TV series to live action films. The thing I really believe I was longing for from my past was the simplicity of life. Where everything was black and white, there were good guys, and bad guys, there was no blurred line, no grey area, everything was simple and easily defined. As compared to life as an adult, where there seems to be no black and no white, somewhere in life a complete phase shift seemed to have occurred and now nothing is black and nothing is white, everything is grey and complicated. My past may inform my future, like with many superheroes, we cannot be bogged down by our past mistakes. We have to accept the fact that we made them, learn from them and the move on. Living in the past is only going to destroy any chance of having a future for yourself. 

Reflection #3

          In an attempt to explain my recent posts on my blog, I am going to expand on our first reflection. As I stated in our first reflection assignment, my favorite superhero is The Incredible Hulk, but, like most American males who grew up around the same time I did, I have more than one. Another one of my favorite superheroes growing up was, the Sorcerer Supreme: Dr. Stephen Strange. The contrast between those two heroes is vast and quite obvious and yet the two are very similar. Where the Hulk is savage, Dr. Strange is cunning; where the Hulk is brutal, Dr. Strange is calculated. The similarities between the two are also quite astounding. Both superheroes where at one time doctors at the top of their respective fields (Bruce Banner was the top gamma researcher while Dr. Strange was a neurosurgeon), both where born of freak accidents (Bruce Banner was caught in a gamma bomb after saving the life of a young boy who had come riding in on a motorcycle and Dr. Strange’s hands where crushed beyond repair after a freak car accident). Both superheroes had tragic backstories (Bruce Banner was beaten by his father until one day he snapped and killed him and Stephen Strange was the lead surgeon in a desperate attempt to save his sister’s life, who ended up dying on his table) and finally and arguably most importantly, both heroes draw their power from raw emotion, the angrier they get the stronger they become, although in different ways, the Hulk becoming physically stronger and Dr. Strange’s ability to call up more magic force is greatly increased. While both heroes tend to pull from their emotions to strengthen their abilities, one has to wonder why Dr. Strange isn’t consumed by the entirety of the cosmos pouring into him when ever he taps into it, but the Hulk can go berserk if he gets stuck in traffic. Whenever I find myself feeling that rising heat of anger flowing from whatever dark recesses of my mind in come from, I like to think about that very difference and I often realize that most of the time, allowing anger to overcome you isn’t a good thing; it often does more harm than good, but; if you take that anger/energy and use it toward something much more productive, such as homework, the results can be astounding. It was then that I discovered the answer; Dr. Strange has the capacity to turn his anger and direct it in a positive manner, while the Hulk is like an oversized toddler, the only way he knows how to cope with his anger is by...well, SMASH! By using this in my life, I discovered the means to not only controlling my anger, but using it in a productive manner.