Hunger Games Craze

"Destroying things is much easier than making them"-Katniss Everdeen
I balked and balked at reading The Hunger Games. I held out as long as possible to forego reading the Twilight series and finally fell victim to temptation, with disappointing results. Sure, I read them and even reread them but I didn't even watch the entire of Eclipse when I saw it in theaters and have yet to see a glimpse of Breaking Dawn. On another note, I haven't touched the Harry Potter series. They never ever interested me and I saw the same thing happening with The Hunger Games, so I prided myself on not relenting to peer pressure.

Until Savannah (my RA turned great friend) essentially FORCE fed the book to me. She is majoring in elementary education and reading aloud is excellent practice for her future profession so she begged me to allow her to read the book to me. She was only halfway through, so she started, with a little backstory to help me along, at the point where Peeta professes his love for Katniss to all of Panem. Instantly, I was hooked. I literally hung on every word, staring her down when she paused at the end of each chapter until she turned the page. 10...14....17....19, the chapters flew by. Finally we stopped for some mandatory sleep, even I couldn't stay up much past 3:30 with a 9:30 class hanging over my head. 
We read more the next day and finally finished the book last night. We screamed at the appearance of the tributes-turned-wolves and cried when Claudius Templesmith reversed the rule change. There is something about hearing a story that invokes so much more imagery and I crafted a picture of the arena in my mind, so vivid that I could probably map it out. 


As I listened I reluctantly began to see some cunning political commentary placed by Ms. Collins. Normally, I am entirely indifferent to politics but I couldn't help but notice the allegories and Savannah and I had a total political epiphany when she shouted out, "WE are the Capitol!" And we (America, the first world) are. We watch the evening news for entertainment, we see the suffering and HUNGER present in less fortunate countries. We send out a silver parachute every now and then, in the form of charities like Water4 and Samaritan's Purse, but that is merely a basic application of salve. Nothing longterm. 


I'm not sure what I want to do with this realization. But I don't think that it is something that can be ignored. Until then, I'm reminded that I'm A Very Lucky Girl. 

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Selfies. Selfies EVERYWHERE.

Image
judge away. Circa 11th grade Consider this an intervention. Trust me, I've had my fair share of selfies. But then I graduated high school. high school shopping swag These are some hard and fast rules of those pesky self-absorbed images: 1. Try to have another person in it. I have zero judgement for the visible arm holding out the photography device if there are two faces in the frame. Sometimes you just don't have a third person to take that perfect picture. We forgive you. 2. If a partner is unavailable then at least use a webcam and NOT a mirror. Myspace-esque photography ended at the same time as That's So Raven. And no one cares to see your current brand of toothpaste reclining on your bathroom counter.  3. Keep ALL clothes ON.  I cringe when I see those horrifyingly low slung shorts as people boast in their gym time. I'm proud of the mornings I spend running as well, but I'm not trying to plaster it across Facebook. Save it...
Read more

A Penny for Your Sin

Image
I heard an analogy recently about sin that I wanted to share as a caution against judging others. I searched online for someone who could put it more eloquently than I, but my google search came up empty.  Imagine that every time you did something wrong, a penny was stacked against you. You lied, you cheated, you drank in excess. Those are pennies stacked against you. Then someone you know committed a more "grievous" sin, according to what some in the world may think. They partook in adultery or gave in to a harmful addiction. In our human minds, those sins deserve higher stacks of pennies. But in God's eyes, He looks down and just sees the fact you both have pennies stacked against you. He doesn't see the height of the stack the world sees. He only sees the one coin on top indicating your imperfection and need for redemeption that you share with the person who sinned "more."  Sin is not measured in degrees "None is righteous, no, not one....
Read more

Talk Tinder To Me

Image
There's been an app floating around for probably a year or two now called Tinder. If you aren't familiar, I'll try to explain the basis for how it works. All users sign up through their Facebook account and the app reveals several profile pictures, the first name and age of the user, and their interests. Everything you've liked since you first signed up for Facebook in 2008 will appear on Tinder, including "Eating" and "Mama Mia." I do thoroughly enjoy both things, but I usually don't let strangers know right off the bat. On Tinder, I didn't have a choice. The language of my phone is currently in Portuguese, so I was even more at a disadvantage with how to navigate this new app. I eventually figured out how to set my preferences, and opted for people within 10 miles of me of the ages 21 to 25. If they couldn't buy me a drink they were automatically out of the running.  I added two more pictures to my profile, each user is allowed six,...
Read more