Challenge 9: Photograph

28. Attach a small photograph of something important to you and explain its significance. (Stanford)

Winnie the Pooh, Pinocchio, Aladdin, Ariel, Bambi, Mickey Mouse, Donald Duck, Tom and Jerry, the three little pigs, Cinderella, Snow White, Sleeping Beauty, Tinker Bell, and the list goes on and on. As I kid, I always the thought the logo read "Disnep" instead of "Disney." I always wondered how anybody could make such a silly mistake, because back then, my life, like many others my age, revolved around Disney.

Earlier, I was talking to somebody and was telling him about the new Disney movie, Tangled. I asked him if he had watched it already and he gave me a confused face and said, "Disney movies are for kids. I stopped watching Disney after I was eleven." First, when he said this, I was shocked: How can anybody stop watching and enjoying Disney movies? And then, I felt pity for him. I felt pity because I could not imagine how horrible it must be to stop feeling thrill while watching Disney . I felt sorry for him because he had just lost an important part of his childhood, a part that made it so much more beautiful!

As for my childhood, my father was off traveling and working in foreign countries while I attended school in Nepal. Whenever he would return from his travels, he would always bring us tons of foreign chocolates. Each time he returned, both my sister and I would be really excited and ready to welcome him back home. It wasn't only the chocolates that made his return more exciting that it was. Each time he would come back home, he would buy us lots of Disney movies. Even today, Bambi, one of the cartoons we would watch regularly, is our favorite one; sometimes randomly in the lazy mornings, my father barges into the room, delightfully screaming, "Hiyyyya Bambi! Wake up! Come on, Bambi!"

Along with the return of my father, Disney also brought various lessons and messages that means a lot to me, even today. Winnie the Pooh taught me how important friends are. Ariel taught me that sometimes you will do some things that you are going to regret, but happiness will dawn in the end (at least in fairy tales). Cinderella taught me that there are people who will try to pull you down, but you just have to keep struggling till you get what you want. Peter Pan made me believe that I could fly (that didn't end too well). But along with these lessons, there came a message: it was okay to have a super-imagination. I understood that animals could not speak, that humans could not touch the sky, that there was no flying carpet or a genie who granted wishes. However, these realizations did not break my heart or crush my imagination. I could freely dream about flying, about living in a chocolate house, about singing underwater, and about have little rat friends. Disney enhanced my creativity and, as one may call it, freedom of imagining.

Bibliography: http://farm1.static.flickr.com/86/238814336_c98d003a25.jpg