Athletic Heroes?

So most of you don't know, but some do, that I am totally in love with football. I love the competition, the spirit, the athletic demand, and yes, the players. A classmate recently posted a blog addressing the issue of whether or not athletes should be viewed as heroes (thus giving me the idea to post THIS blog). Saying that athletes shouldn't be heroes seems irrational to me. If you look at our definitions of heroes you'll see that football players fit the bill almost perfectly. Let's go over the checklist shall we?

• Strong- Check. Anyone that says NFL players aren't strong could very well be blind. You can see their muscles even through all the gear they wear and they train 10 to 11 months out of the year. 

• Possessing superior qualities in any given field- Check. Players are the best in the world at what they do. They're fast, strong, strategic, agile, and many other things. Also, when we look at the college level, student athletes are required to uphold a certain grade point average and do a set amount of community service. I realize that not all players go to college before they hit the draft though. 

• Courageous- Check. I think this one is fairly self explanatory. If you willingly put yourself in the line of fire to be hit by another man that is approximately 300 pounds and over 6 feet tall, you're pretty dang brave in my book.
• Noble- Check... mostly. I know that there are exceptions to every rule but I think that for the most part, NFL players have fairly high morals. Though the public constantly focuses on Michael Vick's dog fights and DeSean Jackson's numerous incidents, along with OchoCinco's straight up dumbness, most of the guys are upstanding citizens.

• Fortitude- Check. By definition, fortitude is mental and emotional strength in facing adversity. If this doesn't scream quarterback to you, I don't know what would. When you snap the ball and eleven huge men are doing everything they can to make your face meet the ground, you have to be able to keep it together. You have to think "This is the play, my receivers should be here here and here, what do I do if they aren't etc etc" all in the 3 to 6 seconds that your line can keep you in the pocket. 

• Male- Check. Every definition of hero plainly states that the hero is the leading male. Yes I could look up heroin, yes that would say it would be the leading female, but we're not looking at the Journey Of The Heroin (if there is such a thing). All NFL players must be male so they fit the standard.

This is my take on why athletes can definitely be viewed as heroes in our society. Obviously not everyone is as into football as I am and some couldn't care less and that is perfectly ok. Whether or not you care about football at all, I think you can agree that players meet these standards even if it's not in the totally traditional way.

It's a... oh wait those are just birds....

Heroes. One word. That's it. Just a single word but all of the sudden, a million pictures and scenes pop into your head. For me, I see Spiderman, Superman, my own personal hero and numerous other individuals. By definition, a hero is a man of distinguished courage or ability, admired for his brave deeds and noble qualities. When we think of heroes, what do we think of? Great hair, bulging muscles, a pearly white smile, and some sort of spandex suit right? Basically, Superman!

See? So many muscles you can't even count them all. Along with physical appearance, we have high standards for the moral standards of heroes as well. Heroes HAVE to work for the greater good of society and that's it. That's what they do. They take care of us, watch over us, keep us safe, and make us feel better about our world. Then there's the extra stuff that they all have as extra baggage. Most heroes have a girl that can cause distractions and they all have a weakness. Whether it's kryptonite or the innocent girl that just can't seem to stay out of trouble.

With all of these stereotypes of people that don't actually exist, how do we distinguish our everyday heroes from the extraordinary? What is our own personal criteria? Do they have to sacrifice their lives for us? Sweep us off our feet? Save our lives? My hero is my cousin Kenna. She's never sacrificed her life for me, never saved my life, or swept me off my feet. What Kenna HAS done is shown me a new way to live my life and to just have faith. She's definitely stronger than anyone else I've ever met even though you wouldn't know it by seeing her muscleless 55 pound 8 year old body. Who is YOUR hero?

Birdwatching Could Be Worth Your While

Since today is Valentine's Day, I figured I would try to find some kind of myth revolving around Valentine's Day and finding love and what not. I turned to the oh so trusty google and found an interesting myth involving the sighting of birds. According to this myth, the first bird an unwed woman sees on Valentine's Day will tell her something about her future marriage or the man she will marry. Interesting stuff. Personally the first bird I saw this morning was a duck since I had class in Howard Hall and had to walk by the duck pond to get up to Wilson so my marriage will be homely and stable... I guess that's good, lol. What kind of birds did YOU see this morning?

Blackbird: he'll be involved in charitable or spiritual work – an aid worker of vicar

Dove: your marriage to him will be happy and loving

Robin: he earns his living through water – a naval officer or fisherman

Sparrow: he works with the land – a farmer or tree surgeon

Blue bird: he likes to make others smile – a comedian

Woodpecker: no marriage will take place

Duck: your relationship with him will be homely and stable

Gull: he travels a great deal for work

Birds of prey: he is a businessman, politician or leader

Goldfinch: he is a person of means

Kingfisher: he has already done well or inherited money

Pigeon: he will eventually return to the place where he grew up


Some theories behind this myth include the belief that birds used to choose their mates on Valentine's Day. It seems to me that for some unknown reason, humans think they need to be like the birds so they decided to look to the birds to help them choose. Also, farms were very popular on Valentine's Day. Why you ask? Well according to this myth, seeing a hen with a cockeral (which I believe is a rooster) meant that you would get married soon! I wonder how well that went over....

The Chicken or the Egg....

Talk about hieroglyphics today in class got me wondering about other kinds of mythological hieroglyphs. So I decided to look up the Green Man and homologies of homologies, the Green Man is a symbol for rebirth, renaissance, the cycle etc! It's amazing to me how allllll of these stories are so strangely connected! More specifically, Green Man represents spring and the rebirth of vegetation basically.

This is basically what Green Man normally looks like:

Pretty self explanatory. Older looking person, male, leaves/vines/vegetation etc. Fairly simple. BUT! Green Man can show up in many forms. Green Man can appear to be a male peeking through foliage, be made of foliage, or be sprouting foliage from facial orifices. Depictions can be strictly facial or full body. Green Man can also be a WOMAN but green women are very rare. There can be Green Men aside from humans as well. Cats, lions, and demons are also fairly common and on gravestones, skulls sprouting vegetation to symbolize rebirth is common.

Here's some other forms of Green Men/Women/Cats/Lions/etc:

After looking at these myths and hieroglyphs it begs the question, what came first? Did ancient cultures randomly draw and then make stories to match them? Were the stories first and the drawings were made to make a historical account of the stories? I think the latter is more likely but we'll never know for sure!

The Trials and Tribulations of Woman-ly-hood-ness...

Today in class we talked about the traits of women (after most of the class was excused) and it got me thinking about how much women have changed in the last hundred years. Women used to be a lot like this:

Thin, tall, properly proportioned, long slightly curled hair, serving tea, and, as always, wearing pink. This is what I think of when I think of a common housewife. It must have been nice- staying at home, cooking, cleaning, having/raising children. Even though it was probably nice to be able to stay at home, I realize that it was a lot of work and I definitely wouldn't want to do it. I could never imagine that being the extent of my working career but some people would like that.

  

But nowadays we have women that have a MUCH more prominent role in society. Almost all moms are working moms and kids go to daycare or stay with a relative while mom and dad are working. Not only are women working more, they have huge influences on society. Women such as Hillary Clinton and Sarah Palin are making waves in a man's political world. I think it's so great that women are making so many advances in today's world because I've never been a girly type of girl and that's good with me. 

Goddess Stereotypes

I think we can all agree that our society is chock full of stereotypes. Emos, preps/jocks, geeks, etc etc. But one stereotype I think we tend to look over is the stereotypes we've received from the goddesses. In class today we talked about the three kinds of goddess stereotypes- the virgin/maid, the mother/life giver, and the crone.

<-- I think this is basically what we all think of when we think of a little girl (at least along those lines). This little girl appears sweet, cute, loving, and, above all, innocent. So hence, she is our virgin. This is what most of the pictures looked like when I googled "little girls". In today's society, we characterize little girls like this. But to my surprise, you get a very different collection when you look up "teenage girls". If anyone wants to see what I'm talking about, just go to google and type in those searches and go to images. It's a shame that this is the way our society views that changes from childhood to the teenage years.

This is our stereotypical mom to the right --->
The only thing that would make this mom any more stereotypical would be cleaning supplies and a child with a soccer ball. Obviously not many moms are like this because it's not very practical in today's world. Few women can afford to stay at home and cook and clean and take care of children all day long. Plus cooking 3 four course meals a day would definitely take a toll on the house income! Though the details of this picture are impractical, the overall message still resonates true today: a mom's main goal is to care for and nourish their family. I think it's safe to say that this mom is doing her job.

This is a stereotypical Crone. Scary! I personally don't like thinking of myself turning into something like this later on in my life so I'll give a different option: grandma! 

Grandmas are awesome. We all know that. But what do we think of when we think grandma? I think of cookies, knitting, shopping, cooking holiday dinners, and a ton of hugs! I would definitely rather be this type of woman than a crone, that's for dang sure!

So this is my take on how the myths we're studying fit our stereotypes to a T. 

My Underworld Moment

So I wanted to start this blog by showing a little cartoon about what I think of when I hear "the end of the world". I'm sure we've all heard the famous story of Nero playing the fiddle as Rome burned and that is what I think of. Sometimes I think Nero was insane but perhaps it wouldn't be such a bad way to go. Just like on the movie Titanic, Nero embraced his situation and they almost seemed like they went into a state of oblivion and just enjoyed themselves. Not so bad, huh?  

So now I'll try to come up with a time that I had an "Underworld Moment". I truly do believe that we all have our demons that we battle every day. Some demons might not be so hard to deal with but others are awful! I don't really know if I've ever had an underworld moment to tell the truth. It's kind of difficult to have demons when you're only 18 years old but there is one regret that I have that periodically comes back up in my everyday life.

When I was 10 my Grammy died. My mom thought I was too young to be in the hospital when Grammy was on life support so I actually didn't get to see her for about 3 weeks before she actually died. I often look back on that time and wish I had made the effort to ask my mom to take me to see Grammy. I remember the day my family came home, I was so excited. I thought my Grammy was coming home too. Unfortunately I had to have the nonbeliever episode before I would accept the truth and I'm sure that didn't help my family at all.

So now you're asking how this comes back up in my every day life. Well my younger cousin that I mentioned in a previous blog has been placed on life support more than once at the hospital she has been in for over a year now. I always feel like I should be in Ohio but it's hard to leave college and head to Ohio on the broke bank account of a student. If something happened to Kenna before I could get to her, I would have to add another demon to my list but we're all hoping and praying that she'll continue to fight.

No Longer A Need For The Opposite Sex

As I'm sure some of you have heard, we have now discovered that it is possible for babies to grow outside of the womb. What does this have to do with anything? Well, if a womb is not necessary to grow a baby, perhaps there is a possibility that men would be able to bear children even without the presence of a womb. Obviously it would not be possible to have a natural vaginal delivery, but a type of C section is a possibility.

This miracle baby is Billy Jones. When Jayne Jones became pregnant, she went in for a 27 week check up and discovered that her son wasn't growing in her womb. Billy was actually growing in Jayne's abdomen on her omentum, which is the fat layer that covers the bowels. Billy was delivered at 28 weeks weighing a little over 2 pounds but ALIVE! There have been other cases reported to have this same problem, including a set of triplets in which one child grew outside of the womb but I don't know if that child lived so I won't say much about it. But if this is possible, perhaps same sex couples could now have their own children. Fascinating stuff....


So what does Billy have to do with mythology? Well we've discussed child bearing in class and how people used to think that women just had babies. Poof! Pregnant. Baby. All on her own! Obviously now we know differently, but with this new discovery, perhaps women won't be valued as much anymore. Could you imagine how ecstatic Zues would have been if he found out he never needed women to reproduce?! That would have been phenomenal for him!

Along with babies growing outside of the womb, women can also go to a sperm bank and become pregnant through artificial insemination. I don't know for sure if we can synthetically create sperm but I'm sure one day we'll be able to do that too. It's amazing to me how we hardly need the opposite sex at all anymore for reproductive reasons.