samdrdg0910's Blog

We’ve been working with the story Sucker and ideas from it for the past week or two. I’ve learned a lot since we first started. The first time I read the story I didn’t really understand the point of it. As we progressed through the points of the story that are important, I understood the idea of the story more. I learned that when people admire you, it could be because you do something that they would want to do in the future. The admirer probably looks up to the person and in most of the other students writings, they are writing about their younger brothers or sister, or in general, someone younger.

I thought originally that there was only a downside to having a “follower”. I learned that there are somewhat plus sides and down sides to having someone follow you around and want to do everything that you do. The admirer agrees with you when others aren’t and they sometimes compliment you when you feel bad about yourself. Also, somethings that younger kids say just make you feel good about yourself. For example, Sucker says, “I’m gladder than ever to be like a brother to you, Pete,” and that is pretty encouraging to Pete, it probably made him feel like he was doing something good. It makes you feel that you’re accepting the admirer, when you really arent. I was also correct in a way though. There are downsides of having someone admire you unquestionably that I learned. You can’t ever be alone when you want to. Caroline says, “I mean who really wants to be around someone who is always admiring you and agreeing with what you say?” I completely agree with her. I wouldn’t want someone always agreeing with me, because sometimes I like to be original and have my own ideas, without someone “taking” them all the time.

This story, Sucker, has a lot to do with the core values activity that we participated in on Wednesday. We talked a lot about how there are targeted groups in our school, which in the admiration side of this subject, is the admirer. The dominant groups in the school are like the person being followed around. Whatever the dominant groups do is right and everyone copies them or wants to be like them. Sam is talking about a younger kid in his writing but it goes along with what happens at school. He says, “they do it to seem “cool” around me.” This relates to the targeted and dominant groups at school. When someone in a targeted group talks to someone in a dominant group, they usually agree with the person just so that the can seem “cool.”

After thinking so much about admiration over the past week or so, I’ve looked at both sides of the “arguement” and realized that if someone were to follow me I wouldn’t be rude to them like Pete was to Sucker. I do not want someone that is close to me to have the “look in their eyes that makes it seem like if they could, they would kill me.” I feel bad for both Pete and Sucker, in Sucker, because they both are having really hard times in the story. The next time someone follows me around, I’m not going to be mean to them because it could become a bad habbit. I don’t want anyone to hate me. In closing, I took a lot from talking so much about admiration because it relates a lot to my life.