draft of #15 history

Arden, 

Reading your posts is very enjoyable as they are quite clear and easy to read. The way you format things make it easy to understand. You often briefly introduce the topics at the beginning of your text and then go into further detail of everything you stated at the beginning. 

  In your most recent blog (blog post #14) you make connections with the text were responding too but you formed your own opinion as well. I was skimming through other peoples work and realized that a lot of what they wrote was just direct ideas of what was in the text and they did not even state whether or not they agreed with what they were saying. It was almost like i was reading a shorter version of the text that we were assigned too because no new ideas were introduced. 

I think organization is your strongest point in your writing because unlike myself, you break all the topics into paragraphs and dont jump from one topic to another within the same paragraph. As far as improving on your writing, i think your choice of vocabulary and usage could be stronger. You often use a word to describe something where you could easily select a better word for that sentence. 

Who is this guy? English blog homework

Meursault as a character so far is someone who seems to rarely show emotion. He is not necessarily negative in his thoughts but you cannot make a clear cut decision on what he is feeling. From the first page you think that he does not care about his mother and shows no affection to her. On page 15. I see the first glimpse of him relating or thinking about his mother. "Seeing the rows of cypress trees leading up to the hills next to the sky.....I was able to understand Maman better."
With this quote I believe he is saying that with seeing with gorgeous landscape around him, he is able to understand Maman's reasoning for living here. He can directly relate to his mothers feelings because perhaps she had an appreciation for landscape.
From what we have read so far, we know or think the Meursault is an emotionless guy and does not question what he is feeling. Although it may be considered boring by some, I think it raises the excitement to find out what kind of guy he is and what he really feels inside. It is the mysterious personality that we see so far that makes me curious to know more about his background. From the start of the book we are told so little exact information to form a clear opinion on who he is. We are not told any background information besides "Maman used to spend her time following me with her eyes, not saying a thing" We are not told what type of relationship they had and why Meursault is so detached from her. He seems to be very lonely and in denial about his feelings. His social life is rarely mentioned so far, so I assume he does not spend his nights partying with friends but instead staying in and wondering about his ideas.
When I am sad or hurt about something i am similar to Meursault. Instead of complaining or seeking help, I store it all inside of me. I bottle up my fears and sadness and do not share them with the outer world, similar to the way Meursault does.
We look at people and immediately judge them by their outfits, we have no idea what they have been through or overcome yet still for some reason we often think we know how they are feeling and what they are thinking. In the case of Meursault he is very unpredictable in what he says. Right when I was convinced that he did in fact have strong feelings for his mother, he tells the man that he does not want to see her again.

English: I <3 Huckabees

The movie I heart huckabees was a new and original idea. I can imagine that most people only went to see the movie because of the cast that was in it. The plot and story of it is very original which makes it surprising that so many top actors agreed to be a part of it. I can imagine the script may have sounded very dull to a lot of people but when actually carried through it makes for quite the interesting movie.
This world that we live in is definitely meaningful, at least in my point of view but rarely does it make complete sense. I question our reasoning behind our existence and what our job is on earth. Is it really to be the best person that we can be? Or is there maybe a deeper meaning. Maybe each person, at birth is set fourth a list of goals that he/she is supposed to fulfill and complete before dying. Maybe there is no meaning. It is ironic how we always strive for another level. In grade school we are told to work hard so that we get into a good middle school. From there the same story carries on to high school, and from high school to college and then to graduate school. We work our lives away so that we have enough money to be stable during retirement. But at this point our bodies are so old and worn out there is not much left for us to experience. The order in which we do things seems reversed. The meaning of life comes into question. To me personally, people that are living meaningful lives are those who do not even worry about there own lives. They are constantly out to help others. We strive to make it seem like we are helping others so we can feel like we are living a honest meaningful life. We go to charity events or we donate money to organizations where we have no idea where the money is going. The important goal of this "helping others" is a feeling we get and hoping our peers see us as good meaningful citizens. It brings back a quote that “Once you realize the universe sucks, you got nothing left to lose.” This is sort of true because you play your life in a way that you take risks within your life because you believe they are not risks. This would cause you to experience and get so much more out of your life.

History Homework #14

Personally, both of these texts go against most of what the older generation believes in. The typical thought is always books and writing are the pathway to success and television and video games are the key to failure. In both of these texts, the main point or points is that video games and television are really not so bad, and we have evidence to back it up. This, in a sense goes back to the start of the enlightenment period. John Locke and Thomas Hobbes questioned theories that the people were born to believe. Although at first considered controversial, people became very interested in these thoughts and questions posed by the "enlightened philosophes"
The argument is how the stimulation provided by video games and television is rewarding to the brain. He goes deeper into the differences in digital entertainment of television and video games. For example on television we just lay there and attempt to follow the story board that is appearing on the screen where in most cases video games you are more in involved and faced with "decision making" within the game.
He begins to talk about how children that are raised and brought up reading will later in life spend more of there free time reading because they are so accustomed to it. I can personally say a lot of my friends parents got them video games as a way of preventing boredom because the parent themselves could not provide entertainment with and for their child.
This text i just read is a breath of fresh air away from all the stuff we are filled with in our brain by outside sources. Because it is so different and because it is a original thought it makes it more appealing to me. Michael Moores new movie called Capitalism: a love story is very appealing to the mass audience because they know before even going into the movie that it will be a contradiction to what we hear. This is how i feel reading this text. Even if the argument were to be faulty it would still come off as interesting to me because it is a brand new idea. The way it is written is very convincing and provides good examples for almost every argument stated which makes it, at least to me, seem more reliable because some form of backup or background is provided.
This text in most ways is a complete opposite to feed. Although it can be argued against, Feed is more about how our society is already or will in future be failing completely, this text is more about how maybe our society and all this technology is not such a terrible thing after all. Maybe we are going overboard when we say we are all heading for doom and our society is so dumb. My grandma always tells me how dumb our generation is with our texting or computer usage but meanwhile she doesnt have the knowledge or patience to operate a computer or cellphone. We naturally critique what is different and what we are not used to seeing. "Toben" is telling us in a story how crazy our society is becoming while Stevin Berlin Johnson is providing the good aspects of digital technology and how it stimulates our minds constantly regardless if is through television or the stimulation provided in video games.

Homework #13 feed b

Feed is written about teens but unlike many other teens related books, it is written to a more broad audience. Pre teens would enjoy this book because it is about the future and what things would be like. Adults would read the book feed with a different insight than most teens because they have already seen the difference in society from when they were growing up to the present whereas teens only have experienced there own generation and really have nothing to compare it with.  Feed to teens is what our generation is to adults. 

 Books like feed are interesting because they appeal to a wide audience that can be read on multiple different levels. It is similar to the book Animal Farm. In Animal Farm children read it as a childrens story about farm animals and adults often read it as a metaphor to stalinist russia. The style of writing something to appeal to more than one audience is extremely difficult because you have to write it in a form where it is complex yet easy to understand. 

   The book Feed states a problem but not much of a solution which is not necessarily bad. After all Al Gore's 2006 documentary, An Inconvenient truth is about the effects of global warming and how doomed our society is if we continue at this rate but it does not provide any solution or progress method. Still, Al Gore managed to win the nobel peace prize. Feed is similar through the fact that it shows a problem on our generation and the following one but does not end in a way that a disney movie would, making it more interesting as a whole. 

homework 10

http://espn.go.com/
www.facebook.com
www.miniclip.com
www.funnyjunk.com
FOX 5


These are probably the top five media devices or categories that i use. Espn is my bible for sports and news and watching highlights. The website is more appealing to me than the tv channel because of the mere fact on the website i can personally select and customize what i enjoy watching and what interests me most. Facebook, like most other kids my age, serves mainly to communicate with friends quickly and to alleviate my boredom when i have nothing planned. Miniclip and funnyjunk are purely for entertainment and funny jokes. Although a lot of it can be considered a waste of time i still enjoy going on either once in a while to check up on things and maybe even forward a joke to my grandmother.

blog #3 english banach

In this section Banach constantly brings up the idea of our goals in life and how we are too often happy and satisfied with the situation we are given. When we are faced with a situation our way of dealing is just getting through it. As I understand it Banach is telling us that we should quit taking the suffer and do something about it. Only we can truly change the outcome of the situation to better ourselves. Banach asks “Why would this fool be happy eternally rolling a ball up a hill?” Although we are not technically rolling a ball up a hill our entire lives it can be compared to what we do as people. Constantly accepting the situations we are given and every time we do finally reach a goal, we move on to the next thing we want to achieve. We always strive to get what we cannot have. In elementary school we are told to work hard to get into a good middle school. In middle school it becomes important to do well on the test so we can go to a good high school. From there it continues on to college, and graduate school and then we need to work hard to get a decent job. We work our entire lives so we can retire at around age seventy. This seems reversed to me. The youthful days where our body is well and fully functioning we spend time in classrooms where we could spend time exploring the world and experiencing different cultures. When we are old and retired we worry about getting sick and stay home all day. We spend to much of our time worrying about things we have control over. Technically speaking if man constantly put in the right amount of work he would end up doing a lot less worrying.

time a wasting