Walter's perspective

I need that money! What does mama need the money for anyway? She's too old to chase her dreams. I am the man in this house and I should be the one earning money for the family! This job I currently have isn't gonna cut it. I need to get investment money for Willie and Bobo and become rich from the liquor store. If only the women in this household will understand!They treat me like I'm a kid who doesn't know what I'm doing; well, they're wrong! The investment plan is solid, I know Bobo and Willie personally and their good people. If I buy in on this deal I can become the man that dad could never be. A man that doesn't serve other men and is the boss of himself. I can be like those white boys in the restaurant making million dollar deals with each other. That is who I'm supposed to be,and yet I'm stuck in this miserable job. What does Travis even think of me? How does Ruth see me? She probably thinks I'm a failure. At this rate even Beneatha is gonna surpass me and become a doctor. I want the title of the savior of this family and I want power. I want to rule other people, I want to be able to buy my family extravagant presents to show off to other people. But now,all my dreams rests in the hands of mama's money,and I need  that money bad.

Puzzle paragraph- Anticlimactic

I was taking the vocabulary quiz about rhetoric modes and features when I fell into deep slumber and had a weird dream. The dream went like this: after School I walked outside to catch my bus;as I was reaching my destination, I was intercepted by a suspicious looking white van and was kidnapped. Moments later I was dragged out of the vehicle blind folded and decended in an elevator into what seemed to be an underground facility. My kidnappers took off my blindfold and escorted me into a room where I met the renowned chef Gorda Ramsey. He told me that he decided to make me his apprentice and offered to  train me in this underground kitchen. Of course,I accepted his offer. For the next two weeks,I was coached rigorously by Gordon. Receiving his classic insults that he uses on everyone such as, "You're a disgrace," or "I wish you'd just jump in the oven! It would make my life a lot easier." Finally,I was able to earn Gordon's approval.  I was no longer that boring kid once upon a time, long long ago who didn't know how to cook;I was the successor of Moses equivalent of the culinary world. As Gordon and I parted ways, and I was driven back to my house,we were intercepted again midway by members of the Pink Elephant Mafia. I was enslaved and became the Head chef of the Pink Elephant Mafia kitchen for eternity. Brainwashed by our recent English classes,I woke up from the dream trying to identify aspects of verisimilitude.

The end

Which One?

     Throughout this punctuation debate, I learned that we created two different categories of punctuation; hence our arguments for team 1 and team 2.  Punctuations can be used subjectively in creative literature in order to add dramatic pauses, emotions, respiration, and so on. This is shown through the works of shakespeare, through the poems by Elizabeth Auster and Emily Dickinson, and through the inner struggles that Ben Dolnick has about using semi-colons.  On the other hand, punctuation can also be used under precise guidelines. This is seen through Lewis Thomas's briefing on how and when each punctuation mark should be used. The integration of both uses seem to morph into our daily lives as we communicate verbally and creatively through the subjective use of punctuation, and we use the current set of rules for punctuations in grammar applications during class. The ambiguity of our punctuation is what confuses a lot of people, but it is necessary in order for modern language to exist.

Those Beautiful Eyes

As "The Bluest Eye"  comes to a close. We encounter a section of the book where Pecola converses with her friend about how beautiful her blue eyes are.  She brags on and on about how she has the bluest eyes and how nobody looks at her or talks to her because of her eyes.  In reality,  we know that the reason why  nobody talks to Pecola is because she is pregnant with her father's baby.  The people feel too pitiful,  ashamed, repulsed, or maybe even detested to acknowledge Pecola's existence. On the other hand Pecola completely ignores the fact that she is pregnant and perceives them as envying her "blue eyes." Pecola seems to be in absolute denial of the fact that she has been raped by her father twice. She use the fake blue eyes that Soaphead Church granted her to try to omit the fact that she is raped. This makes Pecola perceive herself as being beautiful instead of pitiful, poor, and  un-pure. The false identity of beauty helps Pecola mask the truth but ultimately make her gradually more unstable until, the blue eyes ultimately drive Pecola insane.

Irony

As the story of "The Bluest Eye" progresses, we come across the scene where Pecola enters the home of the three prostitutes. Pecola describes the prostitutes with nothing but positive statements. Stating that Poland has a "sweet and hard voice" voice that is like "new strawberries." (Morrison 51) China is described as "forever and forever curling her hair," giving her this eternal aura of perfection(52). Marie is given an always positive and optimistic personality,  "Marie threw back her head...  Laughter came like the sound of many rivers, freely, deeply, muddied, heading for the room of an open sea." (52) The three, even though despised by most of the world, are portrayed in the most glorious and beautiful descriptions found in the book so far. This is ironic.  The decent characters in the book are mangled and tainted with negative descriptions of physical and emotional ugliness; yet the three "whores"  are washed with positive remarks by Pecola. To Pecola, the three prostitutes are far better people than what the majority view as normal decent people. The question of why arises.  Maybe it's because the three prostitutes are few of the only people that do not look down on Pecola; maybe Morrison is trying to tell us that what defines one is not one's job but one's treatment towards others and his/her personality.

Self Enrage Phenomenon

As I was reading "The Bluest Eye" by Tori Morrison, I came across a part at the very first few pages where the narrator puked on the bed and the mother got upset. As the mother was cleaning up the puke from the pillow and sheets,  she keeps on prattling about how inconvenient and unnecessary the puke on the bed is. Through this, I was reminded how sometimes when my mom critiques me,  she gets progressively angrier the more she talks about the matter.  This also happened to me when I was trying to console a parent who thought that their child was mistreated in the school tennis team.  I call this the self enrage phenomenon. Being on the receiving end of this phenomenon, I find it annoying and extremely unfair because it shows the lack of control in emotions the individual on the giving end possesses.  What was simple critiquing is now the person venting and raging on the poor victim. Sadly, it's human nature to be emotional,  thus there is no way around it but to just take the hits.

The End Of The Journey

     As our class reaches the end of our declaration of independence seminar/debate. I couldn't help but to wonder whether equality can truly exist.  Sure, we're almost to the point now in our society where every individual has been given equal rights by the government; but this cannot guarantee that they are treated equally. A perfect example is school bullyings. All students in school share the same student code of conduct and have the same rights. Even though students are given the same rights,  these rights are ultimately artificial. They cannot guarantee to stop actions that are almost human nature to us,  which are to single out,  alienate,  and ridicule the outlier or the weak. This phenomenon can be seen through history: the Spartans abandoned malformed male babies, the Witch trials, the British discriminating the colonists,  whites discriminating blacks, Tannen being discriminated by a man at a talk show (men discriminating women).  It is evident that discrimination is somewhat implanted to our human nature. With this in mind,  people should question whether it is possible that someday, people will eventually stop subconsciously differentiating others and treat everyone the same. Considering this, another question arises:  if everyone is viewed equally, how is it possible for us to fall in love? Or elect a leader? We would no longer have the ability to categorize and prioritize,  or feel different things about different people.  The world would be a better place in the means of everyone will be treated fairly , but we would lose sentimentality which is a part of what makes us human.

Drop Dead Minister

Towards the end of "The Scarlet Letter", the minister, Dimmesdale finally confesses his sin to the public.  This makes Pearl happy and she finally acknowledges Dimmesdale as her father.   Unfortunately, Dimmesdale seems to be relieved from his burden and loses his will to live. He says his final words with Hester and dies instantaneously. This scene in the book made me wonder whether a person can simply choose to die just by losing his will to live. Judging by Dimmesdale's previous actions he was in decent conditions, he was young,  and well fed. The way in which the minister dies can vary in perspective. Maybe he learned a yoga move that could make him so zen that he can just relax to the point 'till nothing on his body functions anymore; or maybe God really did come down and take him away.  In my opinion,  the most likely way Dimmesdale died was through cardiac arrest. Throughout the story,  he puts his hand above his heart as if it's hurting or bothering him. Hinting that he could potentially have a heart problem.  On the Scaffold when he confesses his sin, it is probable that he had gotten too emotional and thus triggered his heart failure. 

Warrior Mentality

     Most of the things that people want in this world are not free. Some are more challenging to acquire than others. In today's society, Darwin's theory of Survival of the Fittest (Natural Selection), applies to the the strength of ones mentality. The ones who rise to the top or reach success are often the ones that persevere. For example, doctors, Navy Seals, lawyers, CEO of Hershey's Chocolate. This desire for success can be seen through the writings of Tannen and the story of Hester. They both share the same determination to achieve their goal. All obstacles can be overcome, the cost to overcome them is what stops people. That is what I perceive as warrior mentality, the determination and perseverance to accomplish an objective at great cost.

Which God?

As the class delves into the Puritan religion in "The Scarlett Letter", There is no doubt that some students view the Puritan perspective as incorrect; or at least the perspective of the citizens that follow the religion in Boston. However, this raises the question of whether there is a correct religion with real god(s). Viewing the situation in an objective standpoint, religions change the perspective and protocol people have in their lives whether there is a real god or not. The bases of most religions make followers behave better in society since they have to follow certain guidelines in their religion. Personally, I think as long as religions make people contribute more and behave better in public, whoever the real god(s) is/are will definitely be happy. Even if there isn't a god, the world would be a better place. All in all, the human race in general is making a substantial effort to have different religions and viewpoints coexist with each other. Having an aggressive approach to an opposing viewpoint will only lead to conflict, and conflict only leads to anger and grief.

This person has a really extreme perspective on religion.

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Sauerkraut, Tofu, and Pizza

The world consists of different people with different cultures. These cultures are molded by the environments in which the people inhabit. Consequently, different cultures invented different kinds of foods, for example: Vietnam with pho, Germany with sausages, Japan with Sushi, Italy with spaghetti, and so on. Even though our society has taken huge steps towards cultural understandings, we still have room for improvements. A feasible option would be for us to bond through food since food carrie heritage of a culture. Pizza was a food for italian peasants, chocolate used in a beverage served to Aztec royalties, and curry was possibly used to preserve meat or disguise the taste of spoiled meat. Tasting foods can potentially lead to more cultural understandings and make people gain more respect for the ways others live. All in all, foods are a effective way for cultures to communicate culinarily.

Lost Soldiers

As advances in military technology become more frequent, soldiers are presented with some drawbacks. For example the dependence of electronic equipment can prove to be a fatal liability if enemy EMP(Electro Magnetic Pulse) waves destroy all objects containing a standard microchip. The fairly recent invention of cloaking, or what some might call invisibility, can also present problems to soldiers who use it: Such as cloaked troops getting caught in cross fire because their allies can't see them, soldiers running into each other because they are unable to pinpoint the positions of one another, or simply getting lost because no one is visible. One of the problems of cloaking that deals with our in class discussion is the difficulty of locating bodies throughout war. If the bodies of soldiers cannot be visible, how are we able to locate and bring them home? Theoretically there are a number of solutions: if soldiers that are cloaked and still emit body temperature, they can be located through infrared detection; even dead bodies should emit enough body heat to be detected. Another solution is to simply assign everyone with a GPS tracking chip, this proposal provides both a tactical advantage to commanding officers, since they know the location of all their soldiers, and a solution to  locate the missing bodies on the battlefield.






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