Classmate I guess I'm thankful for

Thanksgiving is a holiday that most of us take advantage of as a time to shop and travel. Most people never think about the true meaning of Thanksgiving. Ever since the time of Pocahontas, people in America has celebrated Thanksgiving as a holiday to give thanks to a great year of harvest. Over time however, we have adapted Thanksgiving as a holiday that allows us to buy discounted electronics, toys, and clothes. Luckily we were given this topic for our blog post to express our thanks to our classmates. Although I appreciate everyone in our class, I would like to write about the one and only, Nate Cronin's Sister.

Throughout high school, Jessie's twin brother and I have become great friends. Sharing the love of baseball and sports we became close enough where we'd go over each others houses. It was through Nate that Jessie and I first became friends. I didn't believe Jessie and Nate were twins at first because she is much smarter and more athletic than him. Mostly through high school, Jessie and I would say the occasional "Hi", but it was not until this year we got to become closer friends and even lunch buddies.

I am very thankful that Jessie and I have become such great friends because she is the one person in our class that I can rely on to complain about assignments with and also ask about homework. It is actually because of her I am writing this blog post right now. Jessie is also one of the most relatable people to me in our class because we both share a competitive and athletic background. We talked about the possibility of her swimming at the same college as me and even being training buddies. But no matter where she goes I am sure she will be very successful because she's one of the smartest people I know. I have been lucky that I got to be in the same class as Jessie Cronin this year and couldn't be happier to have been able to be such great friends with her.

Into the Wild- Alone

Chris McCandless had it all. He was raised by a supporting and wealthy family, and also obtained an education from one of the country's finest institutions. However, all of that wasn't what Chris wanted. Chris wanted to be alone and away from to commotion of an urban society. He wanted to be free from being ruled and live life in the wild. His decision to leave his family and reach his own nirvana is similar to what Siddhartha goes through in the book "Siddhartha" by Hermann Hesse. In the book, Siddhartha is also raised by a supporting and educated family. He lived through no struggles but yet he decided to leave his family in order to reach enlightenment. Like Chris, Siddhartha leaves behind a struggle free lifestyle and wanders off on his own, seeking minimal to no help from others. At the end, Siddhartha and Chris reach their enlightenment, however due to the uncontrollable conditions of the Alaskan frontier, Chris struggles to survive on his own and realizes being alone takes away the feeling of love.

In my opinion the idea of being alone is dumb. Even Chris realizes he made a mistake when he is dying without anyone there to help him and love him. I think reaching enlightenment is good, but is the sacrifice that is caused from achieving it worth it? To me it is not because we all only live once, so why should we sacrifice so much of our living lives to reach something that may be impossible to achieve in a lifetime. Although the book Siddhartha says that Siddhartha reaches enlightenment at the end, that book is fiction. When someone tried to achieve enlightenment on their own in real life the outcome wasn't as great.