Save the best for last!

Hello. My name is Joe Stempo, and I am from the beautiful streets of Catasauqua, PA. I am majoring in Physics and considering becoming a teacher. I work at a boy scout camp during the summer, and it is a great experience. I'm really not a big fan of reading at all, mostly everything I sit down and try to read either bores me or I get distracted. Henceforth, I never read for enjoyment and I have a growing list of books that have been suggested to me but I've yet to touch. I know that I should change this, but I'm not really motivated to. I'm also very sarcastic at times, so if I say anything that seems conceited or whatnot, it's probably not true (i.e. my title).

Williams begins this essay with a brief description of a bus trip taking his from Cambridge University, where he attended, and his hometown in the Black Mountains of Wales. He describes the changes that have happened in both cultures, with a cinema showing animated films right across the street from a cathedral with hundreds of years of history behind it. He also describes the widening of the roads through the valley he grew up in as another example of how culture changes over time. He also describes how he, his father, and his grandfather all share different ideas.

He then begins to describe culture as having two aspects, where it is a growing entity that teaches its members "known meanings and directions", which the members in turn use, in addition to "new observations and meanings", to further itself along. Essentially, he is saying that the past experiences and new ideas and discoveries both help to advance the future. Culture is ever-changing, and cannot flourish without a rich knowledge of both of these aspects.

One thing, however, I did not like about his essay was his word choice. I personally thought of "ordinary" to mean something plain, mundane, or pretty much boring. Culture is definitely not any of those things. It is very diverse, it means many things to many people. It also is ever-changing, always filled with new occurances, thoughts, and findings. After thinking about it, though, I understand what he means. Culture is everywhere, every second, in every thought, and in that sense, I guess it is very "ordinary".