Nursing Home Blues

While reading this novel, Water for Elephants, I found the similarities between old Jacob at the beginning of the novel and my grandma when she was in the nursing home. In fact, seeing the nursing home through Jacob’s eyes provided a new perspective on what my grandma had experienced. Both Jacob and my grandmother are strong willed people and they are accustomed to taking care of themselves. When moving into a nursing home it seems that both people have trouble adjusting from leading a life of independence to a life of almost complete dependence. This fact alone bothered my grandma quite a bit and resulted in a lack of patience when she had to wait on the nurses to help her. She also became irritated with the way the nurses treated her. It wasn’t as if the nurses treated her badly or without respect, instead the thing that really bothered her was that the nurses did not treat her like an adult equal to them. With the exception of Rosemary, Jacob seems to have this exact same problem. In the nursing home he is treated as if he is no longer able to make any good decisions and in some instances he is treated more like a child than a 90 year old adult.

Another similarity is their experiences with the food. On several occasions my grandmother flat out refused to force down a few bites of the stuff because it was so terrible. The nursing home even put some powder in her water to thicken it up and make sure she wouldn’t choke which only resulted in her refusal to drink it of course. So, having seen the food that nursing homes serve and hearing my own grandmother’s complaints, I completely understand Jacob’s rant about the pock marked jello and the tasteless food. In fact, I don’t blame him for wanting to toss that garbage on the floor, even if he didn’t mean to.

On the other hand, seeing what nurses have to deal with in a nursing home I also understand their perspective. This fact makes me like Rosemary even more because she doesn’t see Jacob as just another patient, she sees him as an intelligent person. I think it really shows her character if she can work at a place as depressing as a nursing home and still maintain her encouraging, personable and up-beat spirit.

The Kite Runner - The Movie Version

Let me start off saying that I thoroughly enjoyed “The Kite Runner.” I wasn’t sure how I felt after the first day because that was intense and Amir just ran away, despite the fact that his friend was being hurt defending him. Then he tried to have the family fired! I wanted to hate Amir but at the same time you know he’s just a scared little kid that didn’t know what to do. And when he wanted to fire the friend he was just acting out because he didn’t know how to deal with the guilt. He just wanted to remove all reminders of the horrifying incident.

What made it even worse was when Hassan died while still remaining loyal to Amir before Amir could make amends. It didn’t help that you find out Hassan is Amir’s brother. But in the end, Amir does the right thing and the fixes everything as best as he can by helping Hassan’s son escape the harsh land.

When Amir met the man who was in charge of Kabol I expected there to be a connection between his past and that man, but I have to admit that I did not expect the connection to be with the ruler’s right hand man.

I thought it was kind of ironic that at the climax of the movie Hassan’s son saved Amir with the sling shot like Hassan did so many other times when Amir was a kid. After everything, Amir is still being saved, but at least he was also saving the kid at the same time. I think that by the end of this movie Amir has redeemed himself.