makeup for our differences

This past weekend, I went shopping with friends. As we piled on bags of clothing, my heart sank as we inevitably walked towards the most dreaded store of all-Sephora. At this point it's essentially a ritual, that everytime we go shopping with a few females, we end up in this horrid, life-sucking, head-ache-inducing store. As my male friends and I made our customary complaints and cries, that to deter the females to no avail, we are dragged unwillingly into the hellish compilation of colors and scents. 

Of course inside, we witness a scene that is no stranger to us: boyfriends with faces glum after a dreary hour-long trip watching his girlfriend sort through the various condiments of eye-liner and mascara. Girls excitedly squealing as they find a foundation that matches their skin color just slightly more. Five different brands of a product coming in a palette of fifty colors and fifty more separate products for each crevice of the face leads to a back-breaking wait for the females to finish their fun. 

My friend and I jokingly looked up at the models on the wall and shouted, "why aren't there any male models here". Looking back now, we hit a little close to the truth. If make-up is all about expression and helping an individual look his or her best, then is there a reason why males are not included at all in the topic? Sephora embodies the qualities of gender segregation, by their huge plasters of female models and the clear preference of services geared towards females. 

For males, makeup is a joke- something to laugh and scoff at when women take up four hours to look slightly different and go to a party that lasts for two hours. On the rare occasion we do put on makeup, those peculiar moments when a female friend decides it would be hilarious to slobber our faces with various colors and tools from their choosing, it becomes a comedic show. Now if we were to do a gender reversal of the situation, where a male forcibly holds down a female and applies various creams and tints to her face, suddenly the situation appears considerably darker and possibly even borderline illegal. 

 

I guess it's this reversal of roles that can oftentimes shed light on the segregation between people of any quality. Now of course, for the equality advocate, these differences ought to be immediately eliminated. We can only hope for the day that we can be truly "androgynous at the core" and when my guy friends and I walk into Sephora, we will be equally delighted to see the vast array of colors and powders we can put onto our faces. But then again, perhaps this isn't the answer, and perhaps some differences are best left alone. I can't say I have an answer for sure.

Certainly, sometimes there's those special moments when I'm lying next to someone different from me in many ways and listening to each other's little perceptions of the world that I learn and crave to have this taste of something different. I might not enjoy the wide spectrum of colors at a make-up shop, but I certainly do love the palette of all the different colorful personalities and flavors of character I see in the people that surround me. 

A lesson on teaching

It is undeniable the reality that students walk about schools with grim annoyance and distaste towards the education they receive. They stroll about with backpacks heavy with textbooks burdening their shoulders and moans of dissatisfaction when asked to pull out certain papers. Of course, the issue becomes even more prevalent when the uninterested student outnumbers the interested one by a long shot. Actually, the numbers aren't even close. It is quite a rarity to find a student who genuinely loves their education and is fond of the teaching they receive.

I think it is agreed upon that education is one of the most critical endowments a person will acquire, it is given during a person's most vulnerable and malleable times- their childhood. It is often these first few years that determine the remainder of that person's life. 

Now of course, with education being in the state it is, it will be hard to make any changes at all and to request change is obviously implausible and absurd. It will be both a burden to the teachers and cost the students a great deal of pain to work towards a better educational format. Some may even argue that the pain and boredom students experience in school will better their character- they will learn the important lessons of resilience and patience. 

So perhaps the effort required for teachers to teach is far beyond reach. The truth is a teacher can only do so much, especially with pays as low as they are today, a teacher can't be expected to do much more than read from a textbook. 

As a result, "this prodigious number of children"(Swift) who despise school truly just lack the discipline that was prevalent in previous generations. It certainly cannot be the educational department's fault that these students can't even stand a few hours in a classroom when previous generations had laborious hours doing much harder work in the fields. 

I suggest that we right now are in a not so happy medium. We are in a state where teacher's are not giving enough attention to completely nurture every child, since teachers only have such limited time, and also giving enough so that student's do not learn their independence. I might even propose that the solution is obvious- teacher's should back off and allow students to learn for themselves. Why should a teacher read off a textbook while a student can read it himself, and learn the ability to read while he's at it. A teacher does his best job when he does not teach at all. After all, humans are very capable of learning entirely without the guidance of others. This might heal the damage that such years of care has caused upon our youthful self-reliance and interest in education. 

Hanging on

The flickering flame of life passes quick and incomprehensibly and before we catch a true glimpse of it, it burns out, leaving a char of blackness where it once stood. It's during the times, sitting before a tabletop, piled with papers and writing utensils when one begins to ponder the reason for his own existence. Is it to rise up every day, to face the grueling day ahead, and mechanically force his own body into action, while his own mind becomes a thoughtless slave to the demands of life. 

Day by day, his heart beats alongside the constant tick of the clock- his life only pushed forward with the progression of time. And he hangs on to the digits of time, gasping and struggling just to remain alive and his hope rests upon the belief that time will save him. The day will come when his unbearable pain ends, and he can find comfort within himself again. 

Before the midnight candle and the silence of the night, he feels a consuming emptiness, of meaning and feeling. He pushes ahead in life without knowing why he pushes ahead- and the constant realization that everything ends with death pervades his mind. He tries desperately to push aside such thoughts and to continue the scratching of his paper with pencil, and the pushing of buttons before a screen. He neglects death and denies it's existence, and doubly forces himself to believe that this endless movement of a pencil does indeed provide meaning in his life. 

He's alive much like a blinking flame before the soft blow of wind puts it out. He rejects the thought that his temporary emotions of emptiness aren't temporary at all. As his skin wrinkles and his eyes droop, he still continues each night with a pencil in hand to jot away at paper- word after word, pencil up and pencil down. At least now, he has grown accustomed to this rhythm of life, the beat and the song of the living dead. He knows he is hardly more alive than the faucet of his sink or the light of his room- turned on and turned off, working as a tool should work, sucked of its usage before it expires.

He is lonely in his struggle and emptiness he feels. But he seeks comfort in the company of others who are as lonely as him. Together they hang on...slowly "plagued out of life"(Hazlitt)...until they flicker out. A thin veil of smoke flow out and finally, time has saved them and now they are comfortable within the arms of death. Together they have passed by their days and together they are forgotten. I hope I'm not forgotten. 

How we've grown

Change flows through all things and is the key in the universe's progression. All of reality obeys change, and bend to its schedule; nothing in the world has ever stood against the wear and tear of change. As a result, it becomes apparently futile to resist change in both life and with our relationships.

My father has always been a smart man-well more so than smart, he's been hardest worker I've ever met. His childhood in a poverty-stricken China has strengthened his will and discipline in everything he does, and the belief of "no pain no gain" persevered throughout his life. And through his growth, he has traversed across a spectrum of cultures and lifestyles. Through it all, he learned to accept the endless surprises that dot the progression of life. Similar to his lifestyle, our relationship was guided by the fluctuating changes between my father and I . 

As an infant, our relationship was guided by intimacy and care. He watched over everything with his careful precision and made sure I stayed safe. I was powerless and dependent on his care.

Growing up, I slowly adopted new capabilities; I walked my first wobbly steps across the carpet, made my first infantile friends while playing with stuffed animals, and began to fill my initially empty cries with words of real meaning. My father allowed these changes to take place, and alongside my growth, he gave me new rights.

As a teenager, with acquiring more and more freedoms and rights, I made countless mistakes. My father used this time of experimentation for me to find my own way in life. Our relationship evolved from physical care, to a careful, tedious nurturing of my own abilities. My father was harsh and brutal with his demands, and I was constantly bombarded with his lectures and workload. Through those hardships and many tears of anger and hatred, I grew and began to "feel less challenged than loved"(Manning 148).

Nearing adulthood, I now have a complete picture of how our relationship has grown. Recently, I've gained complete freedom in what I do. Our relationship is now built on mutual trust and respect. We've become friends, sharing ideas and stories from our own respective lives. Only through the nights of endless pages of work has my character grown enough for my father to trust me. I no longer depend on his strict guidelines but have developed my own will and discipline to carry through my life. 

Change is inevitable, and likewise, my relationship with my father has been dictated by an embrace of the changes that come with age. Every person and aspect to life is a constant flurry of turns and jumps. With the passing of time, life takes on new shapes and qualities. Throughout it all, we must choose to accept this change. For me, at least, I can say that my father and I's relationship has been a fluctuating swell of emotions and actions. I'm sure our relationship still has quite a few twists and turns to take, and our love for each other may certainly change, but it will never die.