More then a Name

More then a Name

Before the second session of the service there was a lot on my mind on what I could have been done differently compared to the first session. Analyzing the first session more in depth I personally felt like there were some things that I wanted to change for the better.

Looking back at it I was very active and tried to talk to as many children as possible of those attending, however that made me realize when the session was over that I never really got to understand anyone more than knowing what their names was.

Therefore the goal in my mind was to not do the same thing as last time, walking around talking and helping as many children as possible.  

But instead focusing on maybe one or two kids and learn something more about who they are not only their names and of course teaching them some soccer.

Going into the session with the goal in mind I knew it would be hard to complete it. Most of these kids are not able to talk or they have a hard time expressing themselves verbally. My belief whatsoever is that speaking is only a tool or one language of a million others. There are possibilities to express and define you in other ways and with the children using other methods, I was able to learn something more then just the name.

The child I decided to get to know more for this time name was Nate.

Nate is a young boy with different disabilities, which makes his everyday life pretty hard. Verbally he has hard time expressing himself, but something he does not have a hard time to do is expressing himself in other ways. During this time you was able to tell his happiness. Almost the whole time Nate was laughing, running around and most importantly having a great time. Seeing that smile made me laugh as much and gave me also a lot of joy. This soccer clinic made his day, and Nate made my day.

This just shows how important it is to get out and help the community and foremost kids. Getting to know them more personally helps them more then you can imagine according to me. From Nate I learned that he is a boy who loves when you joke around with him. He never gives up either no matter how tired he his and he always does his best. Seeing him in the end with his father also gave me the feeling of how much he loves him and respects his dad, but also the other way around when you saw how proud he was of Nate.

Most of these kids who are suffering of disabilities of this kind have a tendency of feeling lonely. As mention before they have a hard time expressing themselves verbally and being some sort of inverted, it is not easy to make friends. So “I wandered Lonely as a Cloud” can really connect to this service we are doing by helping these kids. Just as the person in the poem feels very lonely at times, his memory pleases and comforts him and this is what we do by hosting this soccer clinic. We give them a good memory and a good time, so when life is hard and lonely they can look back at this in a positive way but it is not these kids who feel lonely, everyone experience loneliness. Being far away from family and friends makes me lonely at times. However just as how the poem expresses itself, looking back at all the good memories grants me joy and happiness.

“The Birthmark” is a story about the scientist Aylmer and the beautiful Georgina. This whole story is surrounded by Georgina’s birthmark that Aylmer asks to remove. This birthmark symbolizes mortality and sin according to Aylmer. Therefore he wants to remove it and she eventually agrees to the removal. However the surgery does not go well and Georgina dies. This story represents the same ideals as “A Valediction: Forbidding mourning” by John Donne.

Both talks about that there are more then just loving the body and its features. Just how Socrates expresses that the most heavenly love is the love of the soul and not the body. In “A Valediction: Forbidding mourning” John Donne achieves this, but in “The Birthmark” Aylmer does not achieve this by being more interest in her physical features.

The last story “The Yellow Wallpaper” by Charlotte Perkins Gilman has one main theme in common with both “A Valediction: Forbidding mourning” and “The Birthmark”, which the love between a man and a woman. However this story represents something else. The yellow wallpaper obviously plays a huge role in the story. She explains how hideous it is and for me the wallpaper represents their relationship. This relationship is something she is trying to get out of and she mentions that she saw a woman behind bars trying to escape the wallpaper. In other words it symbolize her trying to get out of the relationship.

The further she analyze the wallpaper the further she analyze her relationship, which eventually makes her realize that her relationship is just as hideous as the wallpaper and with this being she starts to despise John when she see his true color.