Tumblr Project - Final Draft
Valdez 1
Brian Valdez
English 101
Meghan Foraijter
3.25.14
Stay Inked
I always had an interest in tattoos. I love the way they look and how they all have a meaning. Most people would get tattoos just because they look really nice and they don’t know what it means. When I get a tattoo, I will make sure I pick one that looks really nice and I know what it means.
The first time I saw a tattoo was on my older brother, Ricardo. He got his first two tattoos while he was in the United States Marine Corp. He chose them like most people do, just because they look nice. He doesn’t know what they mean, but now he has more tattoos and they look really nice, but this time he knows what they mean. He now has a tattoo similar to this one. He says that a gun dug into the ground, the helmet on top, the boots in front, and the dog tags on the handle means that a friend or loved one has died. Their team does this to honor the person who has died during their time in the service.
When a person gets this tattooed on them, they get it to never forget the loved ones that have died in the time of their military service and to take those people everywhere they go to also remind others to never forget them.
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My sister-in-law, Brooke, has a lot of tattoos also. she says that ever since she was a kid, she liked tattoos too. Now she has tattoos all over her body. She says that all of her tattoos symbolize something individually.
One of her tattoos is a portrait of her dog that has died. She got it on her lower left arm so that she can see her dog everyday. Another one of her tattoos is Goddess Durga. She says that Goddess Durga symbolizes the divine forces (positive energy) known as divine shakti (feminine energy/ power) that is used against the negative forces of evil and wickedness. She protects her devotees from evil powers and safeguards them. But out of all of her tattoos, her first one was a red rose with her mom’s name in a banner around it, similar to this one.
The red rose signifies love and passion. With her mom’s name on the banner around the rose says that she loves her mom very much. She says she got the tattoo when she was 19. She says she got the tattoo because she wanted to show her mom how much she loves her and how she is such an amazing person. She says that her mom was a single mother raising two children, Brooke and her sister, and she still had to work as a teacher. She chose all of her tattoos because they have a meaning, and she knows what it is, and they all look very nice.
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Another person in my family that has a tattoo is my uncle. My uncle has a tattoo that represent the two opposite principles in nature, the Yin and Yang. My uncle says that yin characterizes the feminine or negative nature of things and yang stands for the masculine or positive side. Yin and yang are in pairs, such as the moon and the sun, female and male, dark and bright, cold and hot, passive and active, etc. But yin and yang are not static or just two separated things. The nature of yinyang lies in interchange and interplay of the two components(about.com).
He says he chose this tattoo because he really likes how the yin and yang resemble two opposites in nature. He says that he and his wife are similar to the yin and yang, that they both can’t live without each other, that they were born for each other. He says she is the sunlight to his darkness.
I don’t know how it resembles to the yin and yang, but it’s too late for him to change it because its permanently inked onto his body. I thought my uncle didn’t think his plan all the way through in getting this tattoo, but it turns out that he only said it just because my aunt was sitting next to him when I was asking him the questions and he only wanted to sound romantic, but after she left, he told me that he got the tattoo just because it looks really nice. He knew what the yin and yang meant but didn’t really care because it looks nice.
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And just like my uncle, my friend chose a tattoo that looks really nice, but doesn’t even know what it means. He chose the Eye of Horus as his tattoo. He chose the tattoo thinking it looks very scary and thought that it meant something scary, but what it symbolizes is totally different to what it looks.
The Eye of Horus is an ancient Egyptian symbol of protection, royal power and good health. Many ancient Egyptians used this symbol on the tombs of their kings to symbolize their royal power and to provide protection from evil spirits. After I told my friend what the tattoo what it really means, he changed his opinion about the tattoo. Since he got the tattoo, he believes he will gain power, get protection, and gain wealth.
My friend now walks around thinking he is better than other people just because of the tattoo he mistakenly chose thinking it meant something scary just because it looked scary. If it wasn’t for me, he would still think that the tattoo meant something other than what it actually means. The only reason I looked up what it meant was because I thought that it looked very nice and I wanted to know what it really meant.
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Then there is my other friend that also wants to get a tattoo, but he actually knows what he wants and knows what it means. He wants to get a tattoo of marijuana on his arm, like this one, because he strongly believes that marijuana shouldn’t be an illegal plant. He believes that marijuana has more and better uses than those of people make it seem.
He says that research has show that marijuana can help ease pain, headaches, a disease like cancer, glaucoma, etc. He says that his mother has glaucoma and that the state won’t allow her to use marijuana because it is illegal. It has been medically proven that marijuana’s treatment of glaucoma has been one of the best documented. There isn’t a single valid study that exists that disproves marijuana’s very powerful and popular effects on glaucoma patients. Also, the American Association for Cancer Research has found that marijuana actually works to slow down tumor growth in the lungs, breasts, and brain considerably(webmd.com). There are a lot more things that marijuana can be used for to help cure, but states make it illegal for the bad reputation people give it, and thats why my friend wants to get the marijuana plant tattooed on his arm, because he knows that there are better uses for it, rather than for
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getting high and to have a fun time.
Seeing all these people close to me getting tattoos for good reasons makes me want to get a tattoo too. I want to get a tattoo that means something to me and that looks very nice. I want to get something that I won’t regret getting, or lie about to make someone else feel good, but that I will be proud of having on me for the rest of my life. I probably won’t know the meaning of it right away, but I will eventually.
stay-inked-valdez