Speak

I define myself differently depending on whom I am with. One group of my friends isn’t into sports so when I am with them I talk with them about funny things that I have seen or video games. We watch and play videogames with each other often and when we’re not doing that we are looking up jokes on the Internet. When I am hanging out with the soccer team, we still joke around but we often talk about soccer and other sports. After lunch we play soccer outside or go into the gym and play doge ball or basketball. How I define myself changes depending on who I am with. I don’t even notice the change most of the time, but when I look back I can definitely see that there was a change in how I acted.
In Speak Melinda doesn’t define herself outside of the art room. She wanders around like a zombie, just trying to remain unnoticed. When she is in the art room though she reaches out to people more, becomes someone. She doesn’t notice this change, and if she did she would either stop, or start reaching out more. Once she makes a friend in art class good things start to happen to her. She finally becomes someone again, and stops keeping to herself as much.
Melinda’s old friend Rachel changes how she defines herself from when she was friends with Melinda. Rachel becomes Rachelle, taking on parts of her German heritage. She hangs out with the foreign exchange students and speaks various different languages with them. Andy defines himself as a ladies’ man. He hits on every girl he sees, and tries to get in each of their pants as well. The characters in speak other than Melinda are hard to define their dual personalities because we only see one side of them. With Melinda though we are seeing the world through her eyes so we can see how she acts with different people.

The Dumbest Generation

It surprises me how little some people know about the history of the US, the fact that some students didn’t know what a COLORED ENTRANCE sign meant scares me. I agree with Bauerlein, that the digital age is causing the younger generations to know a considerably smaller amount of information about the world, but I disagree that the digital age is stupefying kids. The point that Begley and Interlandi make is a valid one, that, while the younger generations don’t know a ton about the world they know plenty about other subjects. They talk about how many of these video games help kids learn about various subjects. I know that I learn a lot vocabulary from some of the games that I play. What is also important though is that kids don’t spend all their time trying to learn from videogames, and the authors of this article make that clear. The kids that learn from these videogames need to be able to take the skills that they picked up from them and transfer them into a job or the next super-car. I agree that reading a book can be far more productive in increases my vocabulary, and they do, but as the world moves farther and farther away from paper, not many kids are going to be reading a whole lot, and people need to take that into consideration. The older generations can’t expect things to happen exactly the way they did when they were younger, there’s new technology, new fashions and new ways of learning; and, while they may be different, that does not mean that they are worse.

Why Americans are so Often Restless int. questions

2. A society devoted to equal opportunity weakens the individual because the individual has to compete and stand out from so many more people than he would otherwise. In his book De Tocqueville writes, "the same equality which allows each man to entertain vast hopes makes each man by himself weak. His power is limited on every side, though his belongings may wander where they will." What De Tocqueville is saying here is that the equality that America stresses makes it harder for a man to rise higher in power. Because so many people have the same chances a lower percent of the people going for the same thing will get it. There are so many people that have an equal opportunity to get power that it is harder for people to get this power because they have to compete with more people to distinguish themselves from everyone else.

5. De Tocqueville thinks that Americans are restless because they don't know what they want. He states, "an American will build a house in which to pass his old age and sell it before the roof is on; he will plant a garden and rent it just as the trees are coming into bearing; he will clear a field and leave others to reap the harvest; he will take up a profession and leave it; settle in one place and soon go off elsewhere with his changing desires." Americans either don't know what they want or what they want changes to frequently that it is impossible to get them to keep still. With the means to get what they want Americans have the liberty to want everything, and many Americans if they dont have everything will do what they can to get everything. Because Americans dont know what they want they are always chasing the next "thing" and seem restless.

A Tale of Two Cities blog #1

Charles Dickens writes that Lorry is on his way to dig someone out of a grave. Lorry however, is not digging up a dead person in the literal sense but in a figurative sense. He is on his way to meet Dr. Manette, who was a political prisoner for many years and now doesn’t remember a thing, not even his own name. Dickens refers to Dr. Manette’s loss of memory as him being buried in a grave. In this passage Lorry remembers a conversation that he had with Dr. Manette where Lorry is asking him if he wants to be dug up from this grave. Dr. Manette responds by saying that he had abandoned all hope of being dug up, and when Lorry asks him if he cares to live, he replies by saying that he can’t say. In this conversation Lorry asks Dr. Manette if he wants to see “her.” At this point in the book we can only guess who this could be, but we find out that it is Dr. Manette’s Daughter. After Lorry asks Dr. Manette this question, Dr. Manette replies differently each time he is asked this. These varied responses show the reader just how out of it Dr. Manette is at the time. When asked this question Dr. Manette will either not remember his child, ask to see her, or ask to not see her, that he isn’t ready to see her yet. This passage in A Tale of Two Cities is an extremely important one and being “recalled to life” as Dr. Manette is being here, is one of the main themes of this book.

Blog 2

Freedom and survival are both important parts of human life. But, without freedom life has no meaning. Its good to survive, but in captivity I would imagine that survival wouldn’t be all that great. You might still want to survive, to see your family or for a chance at freedom again, but survival would be a hard and dull process. I do not think that I would be able to take not having my freedom. It would be hard to not be able to play when I wanted to and to not be able to go out into the city or town. The inclination to survive in captivity depends on the manner of how ones freedom is taken. If it is like a big-brother type of captivity I think that the will to survive is stronger than if you are slave to someone. In a big-brother situation, while you are pretty much told what to think, and you profession is chosen for you, you still have some freedoms. Your forms of recreation, while not ideal, still exist to some extent. You would still be able to watch TV, and go out of your living quarters to some extent. But if you are a slave, life would be much more difficult. Being forced to work in unappealing, if not life-threatening conditions for most of the day, then having to go strait to a small cramped space to sleep and eat is much tougher to bear. Whether or not survival is desirable depends on several scenarios. The first of them being, how long you have been a captive. If you grew up in one of these situations you wouldn’t know anything else, and while you would have an idea of a better life, the life that you are in wouldn’t seem nearly as bad as it would if you had come fro a life of freedom. The second scenario is whether or not you have something to go back to when you regain your freedom. If someone has a husband, wife or child to go back to if they get free, they are more likely to try and survive. I believe that freedom is more important that survival, and depending on your beliefs death might even be freedom.

Blog 2

Freedom and survival are both important parts of human life. But, without freedom life has no meaning. Its good to survive, but in captivity I would imagine that survival wouldn’t be all that great. You might still want to survive, to see your family or for a chance at freedom again, but survival would be a hard and dull process. I do not think that I would be able to take not having my freedom. It would be hard to not be able to play when I wanted to and to not be able to go out into the city or town. The inclination to survive in captivity depends on the manner of how ones freedom is taken. If it is like a big-brother type of captivity I think that the will to survive is stronger than if you are slave to someone. In a big-brother situation, while you are pretty much told what to think, and you profession is chosen for you, you still have some freedoms. Your forms of recreation, while not ideal, still exist to some extent. You would still be able to watch TV, and go out of your living quarters to some extent. But if you are a slave, life would be much more difficult. Being forced to work in unappealing, if not life-threatening conditions for most of the day, then having to go strait to a small cramped space to sleep and eat is much tougher to bear. Whether or not survival is desirable depends on several scenarios. The first of them being, how long you have been a captive. If you grew up in one of these situations you wouldn’t know anything else, and while you would have an idea of a better life, the life that you are in wouldn’t seem nearly as bad as it would if you had come fro a life of freedom. The second scenario is whether or not you have something to go back to when you regain your freedom. If someone has a husband, wife or child to go back to if they get free, they are more likely to try and survive. I believe that freedom is more important that survival, and depending on your beliefs death might even be freedom.

War

Is war ever a good thing? Is there any cause for which you would go to war?

War can be good or bad depending on how it is looked at. In the sense that people are dying and cities are being razed it is a bad thing. But the side that wins, depending on how they won and how many casualties they have, it can be a good thing, because sometimes they get land and even control over the opposing side’s government. Also in a sense World War II was a good thing for the USA because it gave lots of people jobs and pulled our country out of the great depression. While WW II was in a sense good for the US, it was devastating to almost all of Europe and Russia. Germany controlled most of the countries in Europe and many cities and towns suffered a ton of damage. Not to mention what happened to the Jewish people of Europe. Then on he other side I guess that WW II was a productive time for the Nazis. They came close to taking over Europe and wiped many Jewish families off of the world. So I believe that war is mainly a bad thing but if looked at from a certain perspective, it can be good.
The only time that I would consider going to war would be if the US got attacked on its home soil and needed more people to defend its borders. War is a messy thing and I would rather not have it directly in my life. If I did go to war though I would join the navy or be someone who directs things from a bunker or command center, not necessarily a leader though.