Tuesdays With Morrie - My Favorite Tuesday

      Last week, we started reading the book Tuesdays With Morrie by Mitch Albom. It is about the author, Mitch, and his relationship with his old college professor, Morrie. Morrie was diagnosed with ALS, or Amyotrophic Laterals Sclerosis. Mitch reconnects with him and every Tuesday, he comes over and talks with Morrie. They talk about the world, regrets in life, feeling sorry for yourself, family, death, and many more topics like that. My favorite conversation that they had was about the world. 

      The first Tuesday, they talk about the world. They also talk about the news. On page 50, Morrie says, "'The other night, on TV, I saw people in Bosnia running across the street, getting fired upon, killed, innocent victims... and I just started to cry. I feel their anguish as if it were my own. I don't know any of these people. But-- how can I put this? I'm almost... drawn to them.'" Mitch then talks about how, as a journalist, he's reported on many stories like that. People were being killed, innocent people were being killed, and he never cried, he even went to the funerals of some of these people. But he never cried. He didn't understand why Morrie felt so attached to these people. I think that most of the world, because they don't know any of the people personally, they aren't affected as much. If they see refugees getting shot at, and killed, it wouldn't affect them as much as, say, their own child being shot at. I feel like becuase they don't know these people personally, they have a lack of compassion, which Morrie also talks about.

      Earlier in the book, Morrie had said, "The culture we have does not make people feel good about themselves. We're teaching the wrong things. And you have to be strong enough to say if the culture doesn't work, don't buy it. Create your own. Most people can't do it. They're more unhappy than me-- even in my current condition" (Albom 35). I very much agree with that statement. I feel as though in our culture, we are taught to judge people who are different. So many people try so hard to fit in, myself included, because they are afraid of standing out and being judged. I also agree with Morrie's other statement, which is that most people are unhappy, even though they don't have any kind of fatal disease, like Morrie. I think that is because our society is also obsessed with things. Materialistic things. We are obsessed with getting the newest shoes, the newest phones, the newest cars, etc. A lot of people think that money will make people happy, when clearly that is not the case. People are unhappy because they are never satisfied with the things that they have. They will always see something else that they want. Morrie, however, surrounds himself with great people. He has great friends, and great family, so he is happy, even in the condition that he is in. 

Tuesdays With Morrie- Bucket List

      This week, we have started to read the book Tuesdays with Morrie by Mitch Albom. It is about the author and his relationship with his old college professor, who was diagnosed with ALS. The whole book is about their conversations about life, death, family, love, etc. Morrie, has a wonderful sense of humor and likes to make jokes about his own death, which I thought was interesting, because most people are afraid of death, but he embraces it. He doesn't want to take life for granted. Because of this, I will be making a bucket list.

1. Travel

• Italy
• London
• France
• Spain
• Germany
• Ireland
• New York
• Hawaii
• Japan
• New Orleans (Again)
• California (Again)
• Etc.

2. Write A Song

3. Take A Photography Class

4. Live In Another Country For A While

5. Sell My Photography

6. Get A Tattoo

8. Graduate High School

9. Graduate College

10. Add To And Complete My Bucket List

So, it is not the most original bucket list ever, but these are the things that I really want to do. I really love photography, so I wanted to add something with that. I also love traveling, so I wanted to make a list of places to go. I know that I can work hard to make sure that these things can happen.

Psycho by Robert Bloch *contains spoilers*

      One of the books that I read over Spring Break was Psycho by Robert Bloch. It is about a nam named Norman Bates, who runs the Bates Motel. The back of the book says, "Norman Bates loves his Mother. She has been dead for the past twenty years, or so people think. Norman knows better though. He has lived with Mother ever since leaving the hospital in the old house up on the hill above the Bates motel. One night Norman spies on a beautiful woman that checks into the hotel as she undresses. Norman can't help but spy on her. Mother is there though. She is there to protect Norman from his filthy thoughts. She is there to protect him with her butcher knife." The book was also turned into an Alfred Hitchcock movie in 1960. So basically, a woman, Mary Crane, checks into the motel after stealing $40,000 and Norman Bates's mother kills the girl because Norman was spying on her. The rest of the book about the missing persons investigation that goes on about her. 

After reading, I wonder how many other people Norman's "mother" has killed. In the end of the book, a psychiatrist, after learning the whole story and diagnosing Norman, asks the police if they have any missing persons cases that were not solved. We find out that it was Norman's "mother" who had murdered those people. But we never find out just how many people were murdered at the Bates Motel. 

In the book, we learn a lot about Norman and his relationship with his mother. We learn that he loves his mother so much that he becomes her. He dresses up like her, talks like her, and thinks like her. When he becomes her, if he notices Norman's attraction to another woman, he, or should I say his mother, becomes jealous. That jealousy takes over and "his mother" kills the girl. As they described it in the book, he can never be 100% Norman, but he can be 100% mother. 

Something that I think is interesting is that Psycho is based on a real person. A man named Ed Gein who was a "murderer who lived a double life." I don't know how much of the story was real and how much was made up, but I think it is really interesting that it is based on a real person.