:|Digest

I was a jerk today.

2016-08-10T22:08:00.005-07:00

I was a jerk today.

I was at the mall. Outside, in the designated smoking area, smoking a cigarette. Minding my own business, browsing the web on my cellular device, when seemingly out of nowhere (and I say that because with a person as large as she was, I don't know how I didn't see or smell her coming) this gigantic whale of a female (and I say female based solely on the size of 'her' breasts - and no, not good big) approaches me.

She says, with a smirk, "Cigarettes cause cancer."

That's where the hobbling fact machine fucked up. You see, I was just minding my own business until she decided that my business was her business. And if my business was hers, the inverse must also be true.

I took two steps back, so that I could see the whole of her, and said "Yeah, well food causes obesity. Why don't you conquer your own vices before worrying about those of others? Mind your own business, you atrocity of a human being and leave me alone."

She stood there, shocked. Until her son that was approximately six times the size that he should have been for a child his age started crying. Her eyes went big, and without saying another word the whale retreated to her car that was parked in the nearest handicapped space.

I was a jerk today.

The TV

2016-08-05T01:29:00.003-07:00

Television... an overly abused pastime that has rapidly become America’s babysitter. As
far back as anyone can remember, the television has played an important role in the molding of
young minds. The progression of television shows grew as we did, and it started as far back as
preschool.
Television shows of yesterday and today have played an underlying role in the
development of the young mind. As a child, the most outstanding memory of a television show I
have is watching Sesame Street. Sesame street’s puppet fueled singalongs entertained me for
hours. Not only was the show entertaining it was educational too. The count taught you your
numbers, Bert and Ernie taught you how to count sheep to go to sleep, while Big Bird taught you
about the difference between right and wrong along with the help of Oskar the grouch. Big birds
imaginary friend Snuffalupagus taught kids it was OK to have a creative side. Sesame Street
imprinted early that learning can be fun. As we began to grow, so did the amount of television we
watched.
Our last few years in elementary school were filled with such now classics as Power
Rangers, and Pokemon. The Pokemon theme song “Gotta catch ’em all” is still imbued in the
brains of today’s exPokemonwatching college students, who take the advice to heart when
dealing with a lot of issued throughout life. The “I must have everything!” mentality certainly
didn’t start with Pokemon but the show reinforced the idea and installed it in all of our minds. The
Crime fighting stars of Power Rangers have influenced our views on the justice system. Unlike
past generations who followed the “Forgive and forget” policy of the criminal justice system,
today the average college student follows “kickass” school of thought when it comes to
punishment. These shows influenced our psyche in immeasurable ways, the true effects will only
be seen in the future.
A popular T.V. Show that was watched by our generation back in the times of Middle
school was “Boy Meets World.” With an appropriate name for the experience of becoming a
teen/young adult this show was easy to relate to through the tough times of middle school. It was
also a show that set great examples for students. From Mr. Feeny’s teaching to the unusual
predicaments Eric got himself into, this show was a popular show at the time.
There is so many things now on TV. I remember now my high school years, particularly
near TV, some weird shows from yesterday. One of the most memorable shows from that period
was “Trippin’ the Rift.” I guess I’m a scifi geek. Dark Humor and comedy shows bring the best of
the generation in an easy way to understand. The Simpson’s was a relaxation at the end of a long
Every day, new shows are created. A through Z, I believe we’ve seen them all, and we all
have our own opinions and impressions of them. The main thing is that molded our generation
into what it is now. It reflects news and events, educates and makes fun of politics. As we grew, so
did the television shows we watched. From education shows like sesame street to teenage mellow
dramas like boy meets world.

Notes to a Freshman

2016-08-05T01:25:00.002-07:00

Being a freshman in college seems very exciting- that is, until you actually are freshman in college. Once you get to that 'pivotal' year you realize that it isn't anything special. It isn't hard. It isn't exhilarating. It is; however, very stressful, time consuming, and rather boring. The freshman "experience" is nothing to look forward too.

Filler classes, for example, take up a large majority of your time. They're boring, and designed for failure. These "core classes" are required for everything regardless of how much they relate to your major. Failing one of these classes, even though they have absolutely nothing to do with what you want to do in life, will prevent you from going any further. You need to pass your English 101, even if you plan on majoring in math.

Time management is a concept that most freshmen have yet to grasp, resulting in a mega-ton of wasted time and just as much stress. Unfortunately, time management is very crucial when attempting to pass your "core" classes. Surprisingly time management is not a prerequisite class; though, I digress- I wouldn't want to give them any more crazy ideas.

Three journal entries from prompts in ten minutes, writing exercise.

2016-08-05T01:24:00.000-07:00

What effect – positive or negative – do you think television has had on your life? What would your life be like without it?

I am not a regular viewer of television. I do not loyally oblige hours upon hours of

my time to the dancing picture box. I do not sit on the couch with my eyes glued to the

screen, and perhaps most importantly: I never lets television run my life. I believe that by

following that most important rule, the only effects that television has had on my life

have been positive. When I do watch T.V, which is a rarity in itself, it is with my friends.

We have a lot of good times together in front of the mesmerizing screen, with lots of

good laughs. My life, without television, would be same – for the most part. My friends

and I would just have to find other things to laugh at when we’re bored as the television

has brought us together in a way that nothing else could: by giving us something that we

all could make fun of.

Write an essay in which you consider the effects (including any possiblefuture effects) on the American family of one of these inventions: the cell phone, email, the microwave, the VRC and DVD player, the iPod, or Xbox.

“Heat it up” has become the catch-phrase of one-time stay at home mothers all

across the country, and this has changed the face of the American family. The microwave

allows for much more than just faster cooking, it allows for more leftovers to be served

with little to no effort. It encourages the use of McDonalds and other take-out kings,

because anything that isn’t eaten on the first day can just be tossed in the microwave and

eaten the next day. The microwave changed American culture more than just in the

The ability to cook things with ease frees the mother from this one-time shackling

job, allowing her to get a job outside of her own kitchen. She doesn’t have to be home

when her kids get home to cook them a snack, because the kids can toss last nights dinner

in the microwave to heat it up, and that will certainly hold them over until that night’s

dinner, which will be cooked in half the time it used to take when the mother gets home

from work. The microwave also increases the number of “ready-to- serve” frozen foods.

Pizza rolls, Bagel bites, and many other frozen foods require the microwave to be work.

Lastly, the microwave destroyed the typical 6p.m. dinner. Families no longer need

to sit down at six o-clock to eat, because if someone isn’t home they can heat up what

hasn’t been eaten. The microwave has changed the mother’s roll, what we eat, and how

we eat it – and that’s just the beginning.

Write a cause-and- effect essay discussing the positive effects of television on American society.
American society has greatly benefited from the invention of Television.

Television has created a lot of jobs – actors, cameramen, directors, writers, advertisers,

and many more – just on the creative side alone. It’s a multi-billion dollar industry, and

has flooded our economy with lots of money, which is good for us all. On a smaller scale,

television has benefited every individual to ever watch it. It has made us funnier, even if

hearing T.V. punch-lines at every turn does eventually get old. More importantly, it

brings people together. Time that would have otherwise been spent alone, doing some

hobby, is instead spent with a group of friends, circled around the screen, laughing at the

jokes and situations presented to them. Television also gives us something to talk about

when there is nothing else – “Hey, did you see the new American Idol!?” – making our

water-cooler conversations a lot more interesting. In all, television has certainly been a

positive thing for American society. From more money being made from the invention, to

having more things to talk about when we’re bored – television rocks.

Beards

2016-08-05T01:15:00.000-07:00

Manliness grows on the face of men. It takes the form of facial hair, or more specifically: beards. Beards truly are symbols of status, trophies of manhood, and the epitome of masculinity. There is but one truth that I hold to be self evident in this world and it is that all real men have hair growing from their chins. Ever since I was a child, I aspired to have a great beard. A beard to be remembered by, recognized by, known by.
In ancient times beards have been status symbols. The Egyptians grew their beards in special shapes, and wove gold into them. Egyptian Kings and Queens wore pastiche, or golden beards as symbols of their power. Like many nations of the east, both India and Israel held beards in high regard. The bear was allowed to grow long, as a symbol of dignity and wisdom. Beards were so sacred, people would pledge on their beards that they would repay a debt.
Well, if you’re anything like me, you’re probably already wondering how you could get yourself a beard of your own. Unfortunately it might be pretty tricky, or even impossible. Gender is the most important factor, as females are not allowed to have beards. It violates nature. If you’re not female, you might be able to grow a beard. The second most important factor is genetics. If you don’t have the beard gene, you don’t have the beard gene. You’re beyond help, and will never reach the epitome of masculinity. Tough luck.
So, you want a beard, and you fit into the large percentage of us that is actually able to grow one. This comprehensive list will guide you along your way to manhood. Step one; commit yourself to the beard. According to http://www.beards.org/ , growing a beard may require a bit courage, but real men have courage anyway, and if you’re already this far there shouldn’t be a problem. Once you get the courage to make the decision.. STICK WITH IT! This decision can easily be overturned on second though with just the flick of a razor, so be determined.
Step two; Shave your face clean, get every last hair. Leave no survivors. Just as an artist starts with a clean canvas, you will start with a shaven face. If it is your first beard, shave a couple more times over the next week, to even things out. If you don’t do this, you risk having longer hairs poking out of your beard at random places, which will make things more difficult later.

Stock Project

2016-08-05T01:02:00.001-07:00

NOTE: I found an old school project- spend $1000 on stocks and track them for the school year and see who makes the most money. I did this project back in December 2008, almost 8 years ago now -- and I did not win. Here's the project in it's entirety-

Activision Blizzard (ATVI) is the first stock I chose to invest in. On Aug 28, 2008 one stock was trading for $16.77, and I purchased 9 shares for a total of $150.93. I purchased this stock because it is my favorite video game company, and a recent merger made it the largest video game company in the world. It has a few high-profile releases coming up in the near future, including Guitar Hero: World Tour and World of Warcraft: Wraith of the Lich King.

The second stock I chose to invest in is Electronic Arts, which trades at ERTS. On Aug 28, 2008 the closing cost was $46.82. At that price, I purchased 4 shares for a total of $187.28. ERTS is a major competitor to ATVI, and the entire video game industry is booming currently. ERTS, after acquiring multiple game studios, was the largest company until a recent merger between Activision and Blizzard, which put ATVI slightly ahead.

Diamond Offshore Drilling is the third company that I invested in. They trade as just DO. The closing price for this stock on Aug 28, 2008 was $108.42, and I only bought one stock—making the total spent on DO just $108.42. Diamond Offshore Drilling is a world leader in offshore drilling, with roots in companies founded as early as 1953. The eventual merger of ODECO, Zapata, and Diamond M lead to the creation of this oil giant. I opted to invest in this company because the price of oil has skyrocketed in recent months.

The next company is known as NOV, or National Oilwell Varco. On the 28th of Aug. 2008, one share cost $74.90 and I was only able to purchase one. The total amount I spent on this company was $74.90. I opted to invest in this company because Oil seems like a very solid investment, especially with gas being over $4/gallon. NOV leads the world in the design, manufacture and sale of all the things used to get fuel out of the ground. From Oilfield tubular inspection to internal tubular coatings, National Oilwell Varco is a prevalent company on the oil front.

The last company that I invested in is Exxon Mobile Corporation, traded as XOM. On Aug 28, 2008 one share in the company cost $78.71 and at that cost I purchased 6 shares. The total I spent on this stock was $472.26. XOM is my safest investment, being the most profitable company in the world; it won’t be going anywhere anytime soon. This years outrages fuel prices are sure to make the profits be even higher this year.

In conclusion, I spent a total of $993.79 on all of my stocks.

A line graph is an excellent tool to show changes in data, especially changes in data over a timeframe. In this project, the line graph is used to show the values of stocks from Aug 28 through Dec 1, and then a line of regression is used to predict the cost of said stock on Jan 1.

Activision Blizzard (ATVI) is the first stock I chose to invest in. On Aug 28, 2008 one stock was trading for $16.77, and I purchased 9 shares for a total of $150.93. On Dec 1, the closing cost fell to $10.53. I lost a total of $56.16.

The second stock I chose to invest in is Electronic Arts, which trades at ERTS. On Aug 28, 2008 the closing cost was $46.82. At that price, I purchased 4 shares for a total of $187.28. By Dec 1, the closing cost for this stock fell to $17.77. I lost a total of $116.20.

In conclusion, I spent a total of $993.79 on all of my stocks, and lost a total of $293.02. Most importantly, I learned a lot about excel through trial and error. Excel is a powerful program, the inner-workings of which I can navigate through much better now than in the past. These are skills that will certainly come in handy in the future, be it for another class or for a job. I also learned not to invest in oil at the peak of it’s cost, from there is only has one place to go: down.

Name of Stock	Symbol	8-25 Closing	12-1 Closing	Number Purchased	Total Spend on Stock	Earn or (Loss)	Predicion Closing Jan 30, 2008
Activision Blizzard	ACTI	$ 16.77	$ 10.53	9	$ 150.93	$ (56.16)	######
Electronic Arts	ERTS	$ 46.82	$ 17.77	4	$ 187.28	$ (116.20)	######
Diamond Offshore Drilling	DO	$ 108.42	$ 65.91	1	$ 108.42	$ (42.51)	######
National Oilwell Varco	NOV	$ 74.90	$ 23.15	1	$ 74.90	$ (51.75)	######
Exxon Mobil Corporation	XOM	$ 78.71	$ 74.31	6	$ 472.26	$ (26.40)	#######
Total Earned or (Lost)					$ 993.79	$ (293.02)

STOCK MARKET PROJECT

This ends the old project. Now let's update the results!

Name of Stock	Symbol	8-25-08 Closing	8-4-16 Closing	Count	Total Spent	Current Value	Earn or -Loss
Activision Blizzard	ACTI	$16.77	$40.78	9	$150.93	$367.02	$216.09
Electronic Arts	ERTS	$46.82	$78.23	4	$187.28	$312.92	$125.64
Diamond Offshore Drilling	DO	$108.42	$21.36	1	$108.42	$21.36	-$87.06
National Oilwell Varco	NOV	$74.90	$32.56	1	$74.90	$32.56	-$42.34
Exxon Mobil Corporation	XOM	$78.71	$87.48	6	$472.26	$524.88	$52.62
Totals					$993.79	$1,258.74	$264.95

Freakin' BOOM! My $300 deficit has replaced itself with with a $250 profit!

Which sadly, still wouldn't have been enough to win.

Unfinished work on Forrest Gump. [Errors left uncorrected.]

2016-08-05T00:34:00.003-07:00

There are many ways to express one's political ideology. Marches, speeches, essays, press releases, the spray-painting buildings, and movies. Just to list a few. Movies are frequently used as a catalyst, letting us know how a director looks at life, and politics—in a way that both holds our interest and is socially relevant. It's difficult to think of any movie that doesn't embrace at least one ideology, with only the scary movie series, which was largely an abortion of comedy, coming to mind.

Forrest Gump, despite what Tom Hanks has to say, is no exception. This film touches upon many political hot-topics, and questions the traditional way of life. The Film follows a semi-retarded character through history; from his humble beginnings of being treated poorly in school, to his becoming a very rich shrimper and investor, nothing terribly exciting happens. It does; however, take many side-shots at both popular culture and the United States government. Tom Hanks is wrong when he says "The film is non-political and thus non-judgmental," as will be evident shortly.

Forrest Gump is a very conservative film. It puts the traditional, simple life in the limelight and shows it triumph over the drug induced pop-culture. The traditional life is played and exemplified by Forrest Gump. The counter-Forrest character, Jenny, Is a drug-doing culture queen who lives life like the average liberal at the time. In the eyes of the director, Forrest is showing that it is so easy to live the conservative life and be happy that you could do it even with an IQ of seventy-five. Jenny, on the other hand, is popular, liberal, and miserable. To Juxtapose:

Forrest was born with a low IQ, and legs that didn't quite look right. The children he went to school with were unrelenting in their insults. Often chasing him home, throwing stones at him. Jenny on the other hand was cute, popular, and probably intelligent. Forrest grows up, plays football, then goes into the army and fights in the Vietnam War. Jenny grows up, gets into drugs, and protests the Vietnam War. Forrest is sent to China to play a diplomatic game of Ping Pong. Jenny becomes a stripper. Even though Forrest is borderline retarded, he lives a much better life and is much happier than the woman of his dreams. Why? Because he lived like a conservative and because of that, fate and luck were kind to him.

The director uses Jenny to exemplify the evils of liberalism. At the beginning of the movie, you quickly come to dislike Jenny. She is portrayed as a character filled with inner-conflict, unworthy of your trust, and we look down upon her for not dating Forrest. Then, she gets into drugs. From this point forward, anything she does is equated to something only an evil drug addict could do. So, he places her as a semi-major player in the Vietnam protests. Jenny only lives long enough to marry Forrest, as soon after doing so she dies of what was probably AIDs, to which the reaction is: Serves her right for being a slut who rejected Forrest for all of her life.

All of this points to one logical conclusion—if you live the conservative life, fate will take care of you. Forrest had next-to-no controll over what happened in his life, he simply wasn't intelligent enough. But good stuff happened to him anyway.

Forrest Gump does more than just play up the conservative life. It also depicts the American govern to be a clumsy, uncaring bureaucracy—that is often on the wrong side of issues.. Throughout the movie, Forrest stumbles into an overabundance of important historical events. Interestingly, almost all of them portray the American government in a negative light. Be it Watergate, Vietnam, or the protests of the desegregation of southern schools, Mr. Gump seems to land in some of the darker spots of American history. This was by no mistake of the director. He intends and succeeds in making the audience mistrust and dislike the American government. Showing these events from the point-of-view of a retarded person who thinks that they're silly highlights the hate that American's harbor for these events. Using these events, from the point of view of Forrest, the director painted the government to clumsy, awarding the slow gentleman with a Medal of Honor, on national T.V., while he stands there dumbfounded and drops his pants.

The release date for this film in 1994 puts it in an interesting point in history. It postdates the Americans with Disabilities Act, which Forrest would easily qualify for. Depicting Forrest to be retarded, yet functional shows the directors dislike for the Act. If Forrest can do it, why can't anyone else? Also, the film Predates the Republican Revolution of 1994, even if only slightly. It'd be hard to believe that a popular film with such subtle conservative values didn't combine with Gingrich's Contract with American to assist in the vast conservative power gains of that year. Interestingly, Entertainment Weekly had a similar take.

Both answers are the same; the fates of Newt Gingrich and Forrest Gump are inextricably linked. Just as few in Washington forecast the Grand Old Party's avalanche at the polls in November, few souls in Hollywood could have guessed the huge magnitude of Gump fever at ticket booths. In both cases, a heretofore taciturn slice of the American pie — call it a '90s take on Richard Nixon's silent majority — defied the pundits and cast a vote for a mixed message of candy-apple nostalgia and stern virtue. On screen, Forrest the soldier got into a scrape with a hippie. In real life, Newt declared war on ''counterculture McGoverniks.'' Coincidence? You decide. (Gordinier)

The film was very popular at its time of release; it was even the top grossing film of the year. People loved it then, and they still do today. "Pat Buchanan, the conservative columnist, describes Forrest as one "who always does the decent, honorable thing" -- a Hollywood surprise that sneaked though the politically correct screeners." (Fields) Today, Forrest Gump holds onto its spot of 17^thtop grossing film of all times.

Forrest Gump, despite what Tom Hanks has to say, is no exception. This film touches upon many political hot-topics, and questions the traditional way of life. The Film follows a semi-retarded character through history; from his humble beginnings of being treated poorly in school, to his becoming a very rich shrimper and investor, nothing terribly exciting happens. It does; however, take many side-shots at both the American Government and popular culture. Tom Hanks is wrong when he says "The film is non-political and thus non-judgmental," as will be evident shortly.

As evident, Forrest Gump was anything but "non-political" as most movies are not. Once again, Tom Hanks is wrong.

There are many ways to express one's political ideology. Marches, speeches, essays, press releases, the spray-painting buildings, and movies. Just to list a few. Movies are frequently used as a catalyst, letting us know how a director looks at life, and politics—in a way that both holds our interest and is socially relevant. The director of Forrest Gump uses this catalyst to reach into our inner psyche, and instill conservative values.

The Off limit Journey

2016-08-05T00:26:00.000-07:00

For the past few weeks, I have felt severely out of place and inadhesive to anything worthwhile. My qualitative wist has been snared into an inaccessible container. And I feel like an upside pineapple cake... structured immensely dysfunctional and tasting utterly horrid. My compelling significance is rendered useless, and every immaculate principle I have strived to advocate has collapsed in on itself through a redundant process of ingenuine innovation. I need no longer this shell of a body to displace any value, but a dissipated nebula of which exists for a sole purpose of isolation...

To cradle the nights,
And commune in binary,
To simmer faith,
And channel supernatural evidence that your god cannot provide.

I am a catalyst of which decides death and what remains. Truth be told, that there is more truth to than what you believe, regardless of meaning. I sign this doctrine in peace and goodnight, for I laminate its soul in divine proportions to its natural medium. Simply put... this very piece will destroy itself and burns its meaning like everything's future... and I mean everything.

Fate.

2013-02-12T10:48:00.000-08:00

Fate, the ability to control one’s future, is a common theme amongst songs and novels and is also a common and controversial topic in conversations around the world. The idea that people by nature have free will, as carm.net puts it – “freedom of self determination and action independent of external causes” – is a very popular belief. Perhaps equally popular; however, is the opposite belief, that people do not have free will at all. Illustrated by the Hermetic Philosophy Glossary: “All there is is Consciousness, there is absolutely no free will; everything is God’s will, the impersonal functions of Consciousness, manifesting as destiny, individual or otherwise; decisions have to be made so one makes them as if there is free will – the result is God’s Will.” Both sides have powerful arguments, and neither side can prove that they speak the truth.

Slaughterhouse-Five and Forrest Gump both convey the idea that human will isn’t completely free. Slaughterhouse-Five argues that the book of life has already been written and that humans just exist on the page of today unable to foresee the pages to come and unable to change them. Forrest Gump implies that there are multiple hallways to go down, but in the end they all lead to the same place and that the only things that humans can change are the paths from major event to major event.

Evidence of the “pro-fate, lack of free will” outlook is easily evident in the quotes scattered throughout both works. Perhaps the most famous fate-related quote is found in Forrest Gump: “Life is like a box of chocolates. You never know what you’re gonna get.” This quote is both very similar and very different to the outlook in Vonnegut’s Slaughterhouse-Five. In Slaughterhouse-Five, the Tralfamadorians are the authority on fate. They let Billy Pilgrim know what the truth is: that the future is going to be how it’s going to be, and there’s nothing that Billy, or anyone can do about it. The future, past and present are all happening at the same time, and since the future wasn’t changed, it can’t be changed. These outlooks are essentially the same, but are surprisingly different if dissected. If there were absolutely no free choice at all, as the Tralfamadorians would promote, choosing a specific chocolate out of the box would not be a possibility because choosing exercises free will. Both outlooks have the end result the same: eating chocolate, or getting to the end result. To apply the box of chocolates analogy further: in Forrest Gump, it doesn’t matter what choices are made, i.e.; which chocolate is chosen, because the same end result will always be achieved, i.e.; eating chocolate. In Slaughterhouse-Five, choosing to do things differently is impossible, i.e.; picking a different chocolate, and obviously, the ending will be the same, i.e.; eating chocolate.

Comparing the feather in Forrest Gump to the ‘Poo-tee-weet’ by the bird at the beginning and end of Billy’s story yields similar results. The feather in Forrest Gump can float and twist any which way that the wind takes it, and it will always get to where it needs to be, but Slaughterhouse-Five’s birds will always say exactly ‘Poo-tee-weet’ at the same time, at the same place, and in the same pitch. The idea of the end result being destined shines with both the feather and the birds, but the ability for the pathways leading to destiny is only evident with the feather.

Forrest himself agrees with the analysis presented in the previous paragraphs, and he says so. “I don’t know if Momma was right or if, if it’s Lieutenant Dan. I don’t know if we each have a destiny, or If we’re all just floating around accidental like on a breeze, but I, I think maybe its both. Maybe both is happening at the same time.” Maybe it’s both happening at the same time – the ability to choose ones own path to get to where one must be. Agrees with the box of chocolates quote. Agrees with the feather. Partially agrees with Slaughterhouse-Five. They’re similar in that, they both recognize that free will is not present in every aspect of life, and they’re different in that Forrest Gump gives more power to the people – suggesting that people do indeed have some free will.

Is the future set in stone? Can it be changed? The answer depends on who gets asked, but Forrest Gump and Slaughterhouse-Five agree on one thing – that some things are indeed set in stone, and will always happen. Be it, eating chocolate or floating around in the wind people will always be where their destiny needs them to be. Can humans choose which doorways to go through, even if all them lead to the same place? Forrest Gump says yes, Slaughterhouse-Five says no.

The argument over the truth about fate, destiny and free will shall likely be an endless war because there is no way to know if choices can be made to change the would-be future. Is it possible to influence the future? Or maybe just change how to get from A to B? Or does nothing change at all regardless of the choices that are made? The truth is unknown, but there will always be great novels and song as well as persuasive arguments on every side of this volatile topic.

Will You Take the Effort to Cook at Home?

2013-02-11T10:29:00.001-08:00

Will You Take the Effort to Cook at Home?

Anyone enjoys dinner out on the town – whether it is fast food or at a fine restaurant. The stresses of our fast-paced lives make eating out an easy, convenient, and trouble-free alternative. However, does this mean that cooking at home is more demanding and less convenient than going out? Indeed, eating at home might take some effort, but is it worth such effort? Absolutely! Food is essential to the growth of our bodies and to function in the everyday world. Without food, we would ultimately die from lack of nutrition. By reforming the way we approach food and getting a better glimpse at the positive side-effects of cooking at home, we can improve the hectic aspects of our daily lives. A study by Iowa State University stated: “A simple [home-cooked] meal, eaten with others while sharing conversation is worth more than the most elaborately prepared meal” at any restaurant. Cooking at home provides many more advantages than eating out. Taking the time to prepare a meal for your family will be beneficial to you in more ways than one. Obviously, saving money and time is the primary reason. However, there are additional, more subtle benefits. By eliminating eating out you can gain advantages to cooking at home and take you one step closer to improving your overall life.

Over the years, cooking at home has proved over and over that it saves money and time that could be spent on more important matters. Iowa State University states eating out requires you to pay for your food as well as the service provided by your waiter. This adds up extremely fast if you go out as a family. Restaurants and fast food chains that buy the ingredients and provide the service have to sell their product for more so they can make a profit after paying all their expenses. Staying at home provides you with the option of cheaper ingredients and subtracts the money needed to pay for your service. You are your service. When you cook at home, you usually cook in large quantites which produce leftovers. Leftovers serve two purposes: saving you money by stretching your dollar into not one meal, but two meals and saving you time the next day by not having to prepare another meal. Leftovers wait for you in the refrigerator calling your name, just begging to be reheated. Time is definitely a factor when preparing and eating food. Most people want to eat their food as fast as possible to focus their attention on other things they deem more important. Sitting in a restaurant twiddling your fingers while someone prepares your food is a big waste of time. By replacing eating out with cooking at home you can cut your time spent on preparing food, therefore giving you more for other matters.

Promoting quality family time and communication is a big indicator that cooking at home is beneficial in terms of improving family ties. Although family time could be spent in a restaurant, the quality of the time is often not the same. For example, if you are constantly on the run and are always eating out, you are rushed at dinner and focus more on the moment than time with your loved ones. This highlights the lack of concern family members display after a long day of work or school when hearing personal stories, therefore causing tension and the further divide between one another. An article at MissouriFamilies.org states that it invokes “togetherness, communication, and learning”... It breaks the barrier put up between family members, giving them an opportunity to communicate their real feelings and reach a better understanding of one another as individuals and the role they play in the family. Whether it is cooking together, eating together, or cleaning up together, cooking at home gives you a chance to reconnect with your family. Cooking at home is an activity that the whole family can join in on. Each family member can discuss their day’s events while helping prepare the chicken for a nutritious stir-fry with vegetables or cutting the fish into filets for a protein-packed fish sandwich with a salad as the side-dish.

Supporting a healthy, nutritious lifestyle is another benefit that is credited to cooking at home. Foods consumed at restaurants typically have a lot more calories, fat, and salt than food you have prepared at home. Concern is arisen due to the increase in these additives because they are considered detrimental to your life. An article in Frugal Living simply states: “If you can eat meals at home and adopt a healthier lifestyle, you are less likely to develop health conditions.”

Most restaurants offer portions that are two or three times the size and calorie intake our bodies need. When eating out, you are less likely to eat fresh vegetable or whole grains which are essential to the development and functioning of your body. Cooking your own meals at home allows you to have full control over the ingredients: the amount of fat added, how many vegetables are incorporated, and smaller portioned sizes giving you the opportunity to go back for seconds. This helps you to create healthier food options, in turn providing positive outcomes such as living a longer healthier life and having more energy in your everyday ventures.

Cooking at home lowers health care costs, which may be a problem for many individuals around the world. People don’t have the money to pay for several visits to the doctor’s office because of lack of proper nutrition. When you eat out, you are pressured to clean your plate because you paid for it, but when you’re at home you can store your leftovers in the refrigerator. This eliminates the excess calories and reduces your temptation for other foods, consequently cutting down on your visits to the doctor. According to organization AARP, cooking at home helps reduce the risk of becoming obese, therefore decreasing the likelihood of developing “serious diseases like cancer, heart disease, stroke, and diabetes.” By developing these diseases you could pay thousands in health care and as a result take money away from other things like rent for your house or entertainment on the weekends. In addition, many servers promote dessert which most people would not normally eat in their own home. This can lead to high blood sugar, blood pressure, and cholesterol scores. “Two-thirds of Americans are overweight or obese and that costs and estimated $117 billion in health bills” (AARP). Cooking at home provides more nutritious value and saves you from ruining your life by contracting terrible diseases related to the bad nutrition of eating out.

By cooking at home, you start to appreciate and savor your food more. When you cook at home you have the opportunity to enjoy the wonderful aromas emanating from your pots and pans on the stove top while having the added benefit of being able to eat it afterwards. By cooking food yourself, you begin to appreciate the time put into the food and enjoy it more overall. A sense of accomplishment is developed with every single heart-warming dish you create in your kitchen filled full of wonderful memories. As you cook a healthy nutritious meal in the comfort of your own home you tune into all the sensory stimulus of smell, sight, texture, temperature, and taste floating around your kitchen. By tuning into the stimulus you fully experience the process of cooking and become more satisfied in the end. The act of preparing and cooking your own meals helps everyone who is involved appreciate and enjoy food. According to Cooksaid.com, “mindless munching” is a problem acquired through eating out. In today’s world it’s easy to fall into routine of eating out and participate in eating food without thought. Cooking at home helps you learn to savor your food and become more in tune to what you’re eating and the act of eating.

Having the ability to cook according to your tastes and allowing you the knowledge of knowing what you’re eating provides for another solid advantage of cooking at home instead of eating out. Do you ever get worried about who chooses the quality of your food, who cooks it, and how they do it? The kitchens in many restaurants are largely unseen to patrons and are behind closed doors. When you cook at home you are in charge, not some underpaid cook or so-called executive chef. You choose the ingredients and you determine your own cooking methods. It provides you with more flexibility by having the opportunity to omit ingredients you don’t like or add ingredients that you absolutely love. Journalist Joseph Devine states that cooking your own food at home alleviates any doubts as to what you are truly eating, in his article “The Benefits of Cooking Your Own Food”. Do you ever wonder about the sanitary practices of the restaurant? When you cook at home, you are responsible for the cleanliness of your kitchen. At a restaurant, we have no idea who is behind the curtain: How do we know that the cook washes his hands? How do we know if the dishwasher really washed that pot? You could get ill from eating a meal if the chef didn’t properly clean a cooking utensil. Even worse, it could be harmful to your health if you have a food allergy.

Yes, cooking at home requires effort. By reforming the way we approach food and getting a better glimpse at the positive side-effects of cooking at home, such effort can improve the quality of our lives. Besides saving same time and money, cooking and eating at home is healthier because we can control the amount of additives such as fat, sugar, and salt. It lowers health care costs because healthier eating reduces the risk of acquiring deadly ailments or diseases. It promotes family interaction and communication which enables us to build and maintain quality family relationships. It helps you savior food and appreciate your shopping and cooking efforts. And it alleviates concerns about how others may mishandle your food. All these benefits are important because they help you to appreciate cooking and provide positive outcomes in your life. In short, the choice is yours: Will you take the effort to cook at home?

Works Cited

"8 Benefits of Eating at Home – Other than Saving Money." Passive Family Income. Frugal Living, Web. 9 Nov 2009. <http://www.passivefamilyincome.com/2009/03/26/8-benfits-of-eating-at-home-other-than-saving-money/>.

"Eating Out, the Healthy Way ". AARP. Nov 9, 2009 <http://www.lifeclinic.com/fullpage.aspx? prid=529131&type=1>.

Devine, Jospeh. "The Benefits of Cooking Your Own Food ". ArtLib. November 9, 2009 <http://artilib.org/20002418-the-benefits-of-cooking-your-own-food.html>.

Forthun, Larry . "Family Nutrition: The Truth About Family Meals". University of Florida. November 9, 2009 <http://edis.ifas.ufl.edu/FY1061>.

Lempert, Phil. "Is eating at home better for your health?." Today. 07/12/2006. Web.

9 Nov 2009. <http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/16084487/>.

Leon, Kim. "Family Meals ". University of Missouri. November 9, 2009 <http://missouri families.org/features/parentingarticles/parenting2.htm>.

Marino, Martha. "Background: Research on Family Meals ". Washington State University. November 9, 2009 <http://nutrition.wsu.edu/ebet/background.html>.

"Public Health Scene ". University of Minnesota. November 9, 2009 <http://blog.lib. umn.edu/sphpod/news/2009/03/more_about_the_benefits_of_hom.html>.

Steiner, Patricia. "Eat at Home: It’s Inexpensive, Nutritious and Promotes Family Communication." Iowa State University - University Extension (2009): n. pag Web. 9 Nov 2009. <http://www.extension.iastate.edu/news/2009/aug/110601.htm>.

"The Benefits of Cooking Dinner at Home." Cooks Aid n. pag. Web. 9 Nov 2009. <http://www.cooksaid.com/articles.html>.

Love?

2013-02-10T10:24:00.000-08:00

Love?

Love is the strangest emotion. It is the only emotion able to bring humans to both extremes of the emotional spectrum, from the tip of the tallest mountain to the bottom of the deepest cave. Haddaway, in their popular song “Baby Don't Hurt Me,” sings: “What is love. Oh baby, don't hurt me. Don't hurt me no more” (Haddaway). These lyrics go hand in hand with how Atwood portrays love in her poem “You Fit Into Me.” She uses vivid imagery of hooks and eyes to make the claim that love is both enduring and painful, both harsh and everlasting.

To fully understand how she can portray love in both a positive and negative light in only four lines requires a line by line dissection of the poem. The poem begins as a typical love poem, saying “You fit into me / like a hook into an eye” (Atwood 1-2). Obviously a reference to a button-type mechanism, it brings forth thoughts of two things that were made specifically to be together, to hold each other. These lines also evoke thoughts of that one special person for the reader—how perfect everything seems, how the two lovers feel as though they were meant for one another. The speaker is obviously profoundly in love with someone.

Or is she? After a line of whitespace Atwood drastically changes the image by saying “A fish hook / An open eye” (3-4). This causes a significant shift in image—from the lovey-dovey-two-things-that-were-meant-for-each-other to suddenly one of pain, anguish and probably lots of blood. The very thought of a human eye with a fish hook through it is enough to turn the food in stomachs of even the most battle hardened people. Atwood makes use of this shift in image to make a deep statement on the nature of love itself. She makes the point that any relationship, regardless of how perfect, can turn into pain.

The juxtaposition of these two very different statements on love, separated by whitespace implies that love has a beginning and love has an end. In the beginning the two lovers feel as though they were meant to hold each other for all of eternity. In the end, they’re stuck together as a fish hook is stuck in an eyeball. It was painful for the love to turn to that; however, it would probably be more painful to yank it out. This raises the age old question: “do I take it out or do I leave it in?” just as before any breakup it is wondered if it removing the “hook from the eye” is worth the pain of a breakup, or if living with the hook in the eye is something that can be dealt with. Of course, a very interesting aspect of the fish hook into the eye is that the removal of the hook would leave a horrible scar, just as a bad relationship can scar a heart.

Love really is the strangest emotion: it’s the only emotion that can go from a feeling of perfection to the feeling of immense pain. Atwood’s use of the hook/eye imagery in You Fit Into Me shows how one feeling can be both enduring and painful, and can be both harsh and everlasting. Everyone will likely, albeit unfortunately, experience this at one point in their life. Everyone will have that one bad relationship that they don’t want to let go of. Atwood doesn’t say if it’s better to let go, she leaves that decision up to the reader.

Conformity? THIS. IS. MADNESS!

2013-02-09T10:20:00.000-08:00

Conformity? THIS. IS. MADNESS!

Conformity is an issue that is confronted by every member in our society every day of their lives. It’s something that is unavoidable, and is very negative as it weakens us as individuals and breeds hatred and discrimination. In their poems, both Dickinson and Villanueva show disgust for conformity at the cost of individual freedom. This viewpoint mirrors my own, and affirms my distaste for conformity. While they both go down very different paths to get their points across, their opinions merge along with my own in the end.

Dickinson is very direct in her poem. She uses the line “Assent—and you are sane—“(Dickinson 6) to mock society by saying that all it requires to be sane is submitting to the will of majority. She follows it up with “Demur—you’re straightway dangerous / And handled with a Chain” (7-8) which continues her mocking tone by questioning why if someone disagrees, acts differently or refuses to conform to the group, they’ll be kept locked away from normal members of the community, just for being different. She points out with “To a discerning Eye— / Much Sense—the starkest Madness— / ‘Tis the Majority” (2-4) that any observer who looks objectively can see the madness in this “submit or be pushed away” style of society that we have.
I make no claims of having the most discerning eye, but I see it the same way. It doesn’t matter who I am as a person. I can be the nicest guy in the world, but I’m still going to be judged instantly by who I’m friends with, what I’m wearing, how my hair is cut, if I have my glasses on, if I remembered to shave that morning and who knows what else. If I pass the initial test and am considered normal enough to talk to, I’ll be judged again by my diction. If at any point I fail any of these tests, I’m labeled abnormal. Why? Because society says that I should have contacts and not glasses? That my arms are supposed to be bigger than they are? It is this very process that Dickinson mocks in “Much madness is the divinest sense.” It happens every day, and by and large, we accept it. I know I do it. You have purple hair. Why are you talking to me? Though, thankfully I’ve learned to put the initial thought aside, and get to know what a lovely individualist miss purple hair is—and be glad that I did.

Villanueva uses an example much more extreme than purple hair. She takes a classmate who’s a cross dresser to show the beauty of individuality. She says “Was I moved in the face of / such courage (man/woman / woman/man). . .” (Villanueva 6-8) to show how moving it is to see someone who doesn’t care to conform, how empowering it is to see someone who doesn’t care what others think, if only we all had that courage. She uses the imagery of the rose to symbolize exactly how beautiful individuality is.
To me, Villanueva’s poem brings up memories of my first best friend and my first kiddy peck-of-the-lips kiss. I was in fourth grade, and grew up living next store to a lovely girl who was a year younger than I was. We hung out all the time, since when I was probably two years old, maybe even sooner than that, but long before I can remember regardless. She was black. Who cares? Apparently, there are tons of people that care. And they care a lot. I was called every name under the sun, my other friends’ parents wouldn’t let me over their houses, It was like I was the spawn of the devil.
The three of us agree. Conformity is evil. Conformity is pointless. Conformity is a mutual agreement to all act insane. Through Villanueva’s examples, through Dickinson’s blunt mockery of the system, through my own personal experiences, we all agree that the wanting to be accepted leads to a society that punishes those who don’t care to be accepted.

Metress on The Open Boat

2013-02-08T10:17:00.000-08:00

In His editorial, “From Indifference to Anxiety: The Knowledge and the reader in “The Open Boat”, Christopher Metress makes the argument that Crane uses the structure of the story to move the reader “from indifference over epistemological frustrations to a point of unresolvable anxiety” (Metress 1) . He goes on to state that key moments in “The Open Boat” create an inequality in the amount of knowledge that is known by the crew versus the reader; thereby, creating anxiety for the reader.

Metress is absolutely correct in his argument. It is clearly evident that Crane purposely wants the reader to sit wondering exactly why he neglected to explain what the crew could then be interpreters of. To show how obvious this is, Metress uses the narrator. Early in the story, the narrator steps in to inform the reader that there was indeed no life-saving station, a key argument between the crew, within twenty miles of their location. Granting the reader this knowledge “severs the epistemological equality of the reader and the crew: the two no longer share the same anxieties over the problems of knowledge raised by the crew's struggle.” (Metress 2) He goes on to state, that this severing of the equality, as the reader had only know what the crew had known up until this point (and nobody knew the color of the sky), causes the reader a feeling of privilege. Classic irony. While the crew wastes time arguing over a life-saving station, the reader knows that it doesn’t even exist. This feeling persists until the final sentence of “The Open Boat”. In the final sentence, Crane manages to switch the inequality completely. Ending the story with "When it came night, the white waves paced to and fro in the moonlight, and the wind brought the sound of the great sea's voice to the men on the shore, and they felt that they could then be interpreters" (Crane) shows the reader that they really know nothing. Metress explains how this causes frustration in the reader: “Stripped of anticipated knowledge and anxious about their own epistemological inequalities, readers must now ask why it is that the characters (and not they) have achieved interpretation.” (Metress 3) Crane likely left the reader in frustration to show them that they really have no idea what the crew went through, and reading a story about it would never allow them to fully understand the situation.

The Only Side

2013-02-07T10:11:00.000-08:00

The Only Side

One of the countless downsides of war is the emotional baggage thrust upon the soldiers involved in the war. This baggage has been the topic of many literary works, for example: Tim O’Brien’s “The Things They Carried” and Thomas Harding’s “The Man He Killed.” In “The Things They Carried”, O’Brien uses the literal items that soldiers bring to war as metaphors for the negative impact that war has on the war-fighters. He uses these metaphors as windows into the minds of the soldiers in his story. Similarly, Harding explores a soldier’s psyche in “The Man He Killed.” Harding uses this poem to give the reader a glimpse into the mind of a soldier, and to let the world know how killing a man can have long lasting effects on that soldier’s mind. Both of these works address how mentally challenging it is to go to war and have to kill people in the name of your country. When these two works are read together, they create a chilling feeling for the reader who now has a slight understanding of the minds of the warriors, and an ever so slight understanding of the emotional baggage that our service members must carry with them.

“The Things They Carried” lists off the physical objects that soldiers “humped” through Vietnam. These physical things that they carry are certainly metaphors for the emotional things that they are forced to heave through this foreign land. The items they carry represent emotions that they also carry, and the emotions are always heavier than the physical weight of the item. A perfect example of this is the character Henry Dobbins. Dobbins carries his girlfriend’s pantyhose, but with them he also carries the want for affection, compassion and comfort. This longing for love is much heavier than the twenty-three pound machine gun and the ten to fifteen pounds of ammunition that he carries. It is the same for every character in this story: Cross, who carries the maps and a compass, which are symbolic of his desire for order as well as a general longing for an understanding of the mission in Vietnam, has to carry the responsibility of the lives of the rest of the soldiers in the Alpha Company. There is no burden heavier than this. Through these items, O’Brien opens up the characters in his story. The reader is now able to (begin to) understand what’s going on in the soldier’s minds.

“The Man He Killed” makes similar claims, though does it in an entirely different way. Hardy supplies the reader with an unsettling monologue that gives a unique view into the mind of a soldier. This poem tackles the nature of war—that war is dirty and makes men do things that they wouldn’t do in any other circumstance. Hardy uses that realization to open up the mindset of a soldier and really shows how harsh the reality of war is on the psych. Take “I shot him dead because— / Because he was my foe.” (Hardy 9-10) for example. The dramatic pause, then the repetition of “because” is as if the speaker is trying to convince himself that he did nothing wrong. He goes on to say “Just so: my foe of course he was; / That's clear enough; although” (Hardy 11-12), in a further attempt to convince himself, albeit unsuccessfully. The speaker’s inability to convince himself that he did nothing wrong is evident by ending the stanza with the word “although” then going on to say “Off-hand like—just as I— / Was out of work—Had sold his traps / —No other reason why” (Hardy 14-16) he basically means “well, he was only there because he was out of work, same as me” in more poetic words. This questioning of his actions, however long after-the-fact shows that the speaker has deep psychological issues due to the emotional baggage of war.

Thomas Hardy and Tim O’Brien would definitely agree that the emotional cost on the soldiers is one of the most tragic parts of war. When O’Brien defines “hump” as “walk[ing] or march[ing], but [with] implied burdens far beyond the intransitive” (O’Brien) he’s not just talking about the just physical weight, but also the emotional weight, that the items that the soldiers have to carry. Similarly the speaker in “The Man He Killed” expresses that war is “quaint and curious” (Hardy 7) meaning that there really isn’t anything quite like it—and that if the speaker had met the man that he killed in a bar, he’d treat him to a drink, or at least help him to “half-a-crown.” This shooting of someone that he had nothing against seems to haunt the speaker, and one can only imagine how burdening that must be.

While the two authors may agree in message, their eye opening tales use different styles to allow the reader to understand just how destructive and overbearing emotions of war can be on the psyche of a soldier. For example, in “The Things They Carried” O’Brien uses a wide array of literary devices. The most powerful device is easily the metaphors that he uses throughout the story. He also uses the repetition of the word carried to drive those metaphors home, as evident:

“Dave Jensen carried three pairs of socks and a can of Dr. Scholl's foot powder as a precaution against trench foot. Until he was shot, Ted Lavender carried six or seven ounces of premium dope, which for him was 2 necessity. Mitchell Sanders, the RT0, carried condoms. Norman Bowker carried a diary. Rat Kiley carried comic books. Kiowa, a devout Baptist, carried an illustrated New Testament that had been presented to him by his father” (O’Brien)

The repetition throughout the story serves as the hammer that drives O’Brien’s point home. “The Man He Killed” uses a bit of jargon, when the speaker says “but ranged as infantry” (Hardy 5) it doesn’t flow nearly as well as the rest of the poem, because they’re not really words that the speaker fully understands. This fact alone is very important, because the speaker does not care to understand exactly what the words mean, just as he never wanted to kill anybody. It also uses an alternating rhyme scheme, to help the poem flow, and to make the pauses that much more dramatic.

“The Things They Carried” and “The Man He Killed” are two different works, by two different authors, but share a very similar view of war. Be it through the use of metaphors or dramatic pauses, these works allow readers to look into the minds of soldiers, and see how they’re emotionally affected by war, and the act of killing. These works share the theme: emotional baggage caused by war is overwhelming and forever damaging.

Shakespeare: The Master of Dramatic Irony

2013-02-06T10:07:00.000-08:00

The Master of Dramatic Irony

Irony is a very important element of literature. Proper use of irony allows for an audience to know things that the characters in work of literature to know things that the characters in the literature do not know. When used properly, this knowledge is used to create feelings of humor and suspense for an audience. The power of irony makes it a very common literary element, and many famous authors and playwrights have used it to dramatize their works. For example, in Oedipus Rex, Sophocles has Oedipus search for the killer of the king, only to find out that it was himself who did the killing. The audience of course had known the entire time—which of course made for many humorous situations. Shakespeare is considered to be one of the most renowned ironic playwrights of all time.

One of the best examples of dramatic irony is in his play The Twelfth Night, Shakespeare uses irony extensively. The use of irony in this play is the source of a majority of the humor found within the play. More specifically dramatic irony is incredibly important in this play. Dramatic irony is created when the audience knows something that the characters don’t, and this play is filled with it. The dramatic irony is used to create a very engaging and funny experience for the audience. Without the extensive use of dramatic irony, The Twelfth Night would not have been nearly as funny and therefore there are many examples of irony found within the play.

The first and most important example of irony in The Twelfth Night is the most obvious: the dramatic irony that is created when Viola and Sebastian believe each other to be dead, when the audience of course knows that they’re both alive. This situation becomes even funnier, when Viola decides to take on the likeness of her twin brother—calling herself Cesario. This will prove to get the characters into many sticky situations in which they don’t understand what’s happening. One of the best examples of this is the first time that Sebastian meets Olivia. Olivia has fallen in love with Viola (who was pretending to be Sebastian). So in Olivia’s mind, Sebastian is the man he’s fallen in love with, when the audience knows that they’ve never actually met. This causes their first meeting to be not only very suspenseful, but also hilarious. The dramatic irony doesn’t stop with just that one love triangle, however. Orsino, who is Viola’s boss, loves Olivia. So, Orsino sends Viola to attempt to earn Olivia’s favor for Orsino. He was less than pleased when he first saw Sebastian with Olivia. It’s the perfect example of dramatic irony, and modern writers should take note: Viola is passionate for a man who has no idea she is actually a woman. That very same man is in love with a woman who is in love with a man who is actually a woman!

Even the minor characters have their own bits of dramatic irony mixed into their side story to make it just that much more interesting. Poor Malvolio has the meanest of pranks played on him, and the prank is made even funnier due the presence of dramatic irony. The dramatic irony is created when Malvolio receives a note written in handwriting that looks like Olivia’s. The audience knows that the note was instead written by Olivia’s servant, but Malvolio believes it to be written by Olivia herself. The note gives Malvolio specific instructions to earn Olivia’s love, and is full of things that are out of character for Malvolio. He wears ridiculous clothes and acts like someone that he isn’t in the hopes that Olivia will fall in love with him. His actions instead have the opposite effect: she is bothered by his actions and has him treated like he’s insane instead. The entire time the audience knows what’s up, and every one of Malvolio’s miss steps is funnier than the last.

The use of all of this dramatic irony helps to create one of the major central themes of the play: the foolishness of mortals. Dramatic irony is pivotal in the creation of this theme, because it allows an audience to experience what it’s like to be omnipotent. It forces people to realize what it’s like to be all-knowing, and through that, they can realize that outside of the theatre, they are not all knowing, and that they only know a small portion of every story that plays out in their lives. This theme is backed by happenings in the play. Every character makes decisions and judgments without all of the knowledge necessary to make said judgment. Malvolio is one example. Had he took the time to figure out who had written that letter, he would have acted a lot differently. Another example is when Olivia’s friends and family first meet Sebastian. They assume that he’s Cesario, even when he asserts that he is not. When combined with the dramatic irony that’s present, the audience is really able to realize exactly how foolish people can be.

Another central theme that is reinforced by the presence of dramatic irony is that ocular proof is not always enough. Shakespeare tests the old saying that you can believe what you see, by finding a situation in which what you see is false. The Viola / Sebastian situation is the perfect example of this. The characters in the play frequently trust their eyes, and are frequently proven to be foolish because of this. This repeated ‘what you see isn’t what you get’ asserts that what you see isn’t always the truth. The characters see Cesario, therefore Cesario is who it is, even though who they’re actually seeing is Sebastian himself. The dramatic irony allows the audience to recognize this fact, and presses the issue even harder. The audience can understand that just because something appears to be true, it may not be true.

The irony allows for yet another central theme to be possible. Shakespeare questions gender with his play as well. Because of Viola’s adventures as a man, many awkward situations are made. Olivia falls in love with a woman. Would she have been able to fall in love with the woman if she knew it was a woman she loved? Orsino falls in love with a woman who he thought was a man when he met him. These acts raise an important question: how important is gender? If a woman can love a woman just because she thinks he’s a man, what’s to stop her from loving a woman? This questions is enhanced near the end of the play. Orsino continues to call Viola by her boy name. Even in his very last line of the play, Orsino refers to Viola as Cesario. This raises the question of what Orsino finds so attractive about Viola. He may be attracted to her masculinity. Shakespeare never answers this question however, and leaves it up to the audience to decide.

The dramatic irony also helps to identify some of the many motifs present in the play. One of the most important motifs in the play is that of mistaken identity. Repeatedly Viola and Sebastian are mistaken for one another. The repeated cases of mistaken identity help to advance the storyline in a funny and suspenseful way, as the web that’s being woven continues to become more entangled and complicated. The further the story gets, the more the audience can’t wait for the finale: the time in which the twins will be reunited and everything will become resolved and the desire to see that moment of confusion for the characters builds a ton of suspense. Mistaken identity is closely linked to another major motif in the play: disguises. Many of the major characters in the play assume disguises during the play. Viola uses a disguise to convince everyone that she’s a man. Malvolio uses a disguise to try to earn Olivia’s love. Feste disguises himself as a priest to fool Malvolio. The fact that Feste uses a disguise even though Malvolio won’t be able to see him asserts how important clothing is—implying that in order to be a priest, Feste must first look like a priest. Not to mention, in order to become a man Viola only had to change her clothing.

It’s clearly evident that Shakespeare intended for dramatic irony to play a major part in The Twelfth Night. Without the presence of dramatic irony, the plot of this theme would have been many times less funny and suspenseful, and three of the major central themes would have been much harder to detect. The Twelfth Night uses so much dramatic irony, and Shakespeare proves himself to be the unrivaled master of dramatic irony in this play. Dramatic irony isn’t only found in this one of Shakespeare’s works though; there are many other examples of dramatic irony found in many of Shakespeare’s plays. Dramatic irony is very central in most of Shakespeare’s works.

In Romeo and Juliette dramatic irony plays a major part in making the play more tragic. The most obvious example is of course near the end. Juliette takes the poison to make herself appear dead. When Romeo finds her, he believes that she is dead even though the audience knows that she’s alive. The tragedy is that Romeo, convinced that he can’t live without her, decides to kill himself. Juliette then awakes to find her Romeo dead next to her, and realizing that what he had done, decides to kill herself as well. This scene is perhaps one of the most famous examples of dramatic irony throughout history, but this play does contain more dramatic irony than just that little bit. For example, Juliette’s father promises Juliette to marry Paris when the audience knows that Romeo has already married Juliette making the union of Juliette and Paris impossible. Another example is how throughout the entire play, both families swear up and down that they can never forgive, but the audience knows that they will because of the prologue. There’s also the simple aspect: the audience knows that both Romeo and Juliette will die (also because of the prologue) but none of the characters are privy to the information.

In Othello dramatic irony also plays a very important roll. First and foremost, the audience knows that Iago is the puppet master for the rest of the play when Othello believes him to be a good friend and advisor. The audience also knows that Othello was never cheated on, and they know that Othello trusts someone who isn’t trustworthy. More dramatic irony is also created when the characters step aside to think aloud: this act allows the audience to see into the minds of the characters, allowing them access to knowledge that none of the other characters have. The use of dramatic irony in Othello keeps the story compelling and the audience engaged.

Dramatic irony is a very important story-telling tool, and Shakespeare uses it to its fullest in many of his plays, most notably The Twelfth Night, but also in many of his other works, including Othello and Romeo and Juliette. He masterfully uses dramatic irony in his works to create emotion in his audience, which has a drastic affect on how his plays are taken as well as the messages that they send. His works are time tested examples of how to use dramatic irony to create humor, tragedy, and suspense, and how to keep an audience interested through an entire performance. Shakespeare is truly the master of dramatic irony.

War: Countless Downsides.

2013-01-26T09:58:00.000-08:00

One of the countless downsides of war is the emotional baggage thrust upon the soldiers involved in the war. “The Things They Carried” exemplifies the emotional luggage by using literal items that soldiers bring to war as metaphors for harsh emotions. “The Man He Killed” uses a monologue to give the reader a glimpse into the mind of a soldier, to let the world know how distraught he is over the killing of a man he may have been friends with otherwise. It’s chilling to read “The Things They Carried” and “The Man He Killed” together because they give the reader a feeling of overwhelming pity for the soldiers who now must lug around more than their fair share of burden.

“The Things They Carried” lists off the physical objects that soldiers “humped” through Vietnam. These physical things that they carry are certainly metaphors for the emotional things that they are forced to heave through this foreign land, and the theme is that the emotional sides of the items they carry are much heavier than the physical weight of the item. A perfect example of this is the character Henry Dobbins. Dobbins carries his girlfriend’s pantyhose, but with them he also carries the want for affection, compassion and comfort. This longing for love is much heavier than the twenty-three pound machine gun and the ten to fifteen pounds of ammunition that he carries. It is the same for every character in this story: Cross, who carries the maps and a compass, which are symbolic of his desire for order, has to carry the responsibility of the lives of the rest of the soldiers in the Alpha Company. There is no burden heavier than this.

“The Man He Killed” makes similar claims, though does it in an entirely different way. Hardy supplies the reader with an unsettling monologue that gives a unique view into the mind of a soldier. This poem tackles the nature of war—that war is dirty and makes men do things that they aren’t interested in doing, and through that confrontation it opens up the mindset of a soldier and really shows how harsh the reality of war is on the psyche of a soldier. Take “I shot him dead because—Because he was my foe.” for example. The dramatic pause, then the repetition of “because” is as if the speaker is trying to convince himself that he did nothing wrong. He goes on to say that of course the guy he shot was a foe, and the speaker expresses real doubt that this is the case by ending the stanza with the word “although” then going on to say that “Off-hand like—just as I—Was out of work—Had sold his traps—No other reason why” he basically means “well, he was only there because he was out of work, same as me” in more poetic words. This questioning of his actions, however long after-the-fact shows that the speaker may very well have deep psychological issues due to the emotional baggage of war.

Thomas Hardy and Tim O’Brien would definitely agree that the emotional cost on the soldiers is one of the most tragic parts of war. When O’Brien defines “hump” on page 1173 as “walk[ing] or march[ing], but [with] implied burdens far beyond the intransitive” he’s not just talking about the just physical weight, but also the emotional weight, that the items that the soldiers have to carry. Similarly the speaker in “The Man He Killed” expresses that war is “quaint and curious” meaning that there really isn’t anything quite like it—and that if the speaker had met the man that he killed in a bar, he’d treat him to a drink, or at least help him to “half-a-crown.” This shooting of someone that he had nothing against seems to haunt the speaker, and one can only imagine how burdening that must be.

These eye opening tales use different styles to allow the reader to get the reader to understand just how destructive the overbearing emotions of war can be on the psyche of a soldier. Some of the literary elements used in “The Things They Carried” are metaphors, flashbacks, repetition and imagery. These elements used together are very effective, especially since the narrator is third-person omnipotent. “The Man He Killed” uses a bit of jargon, when the speaker says “but ranged as infantry” it doesn’t flow nearly as well as the rest of the poem, because they’re not really words that the speaker fully understands. It also uses an alternating rhyme scheme, to help the poem flow, and to make the pauses that much more dramatic.

Loveless Lovemaking

2012-03-09T01:28:00.000-08:00

Lovemaking can be one of the most electrifying feelings shared between two people, yet not include an ounce of emotion at all. Sharon Olds’ “Sex Without Love” suggests that despite sex being such a passionate act, it may in fact not include any love at all between the two partners. Olds’ addresses this matter on a very personal and blunt level to the reader. She questions how some people could have such a fire with each other and be so physical yet never have any true deep or emotional feelings for the other partner. Olds’ almost seems to show admiration for how these people can be alone and not depend on one another, yet makes the reader feel cold and empty from the loneliness of each partner. Perhaps it is just a purely physical act for each person, or maybe it is the result of deep-rooted abandonment issues. For such a beautiful thing, making love can be very impersonal for some people.

Olds’ opens her poem with the main question of the poem, “How do they do it, the ones who make love / without love?” (line 1-2). This question sets the tone for the whole poem, the dual-views of awe and pity for the lovers. Olds’ follows up with expressing just how stunning the act of sex can be because lovers are “beautiful as dancers, / gliding over each other like ice-skaters / over the ice” (2-3). She is giving the reader an image to relate with of how beautiful and elegant the act lovemaking is, just so they begin to understand. However, this message could also be used as symbolism for something negative. Sex without love has the possibility of being “cold and impersonal” and nothing is much better than ice to use as a symbol for that (Leilani 1). There is also the chance that the lovemaking could be just a performance, just how ice-skaters perform on the ice, it may all just be an act for physical pleasure. In these lines, Olds seems to show the positives and negatives of lovemaking. Olds’ follows through with “fingers hooked / inside each other’s bodies” to show just how close the two partners are during sex both physically and spiritually (4-5). Olds’ sets all of this up to give the reader a good image of how pleasurable lovemaking can be between two lovers. So how could each partner possibly not love the other person or be alone in life?

Olds’ first major hint of this is when she compares the partners to “children at birth whose mothers are going / to give them away” (7-8). Looking very closely at this line, the reader can get a feeling that there may be abandonment issues in each lover’s past. It is very possible that they were abandoned as a child by their mother which could explain the result of not being able to love another person so easily, even after making love to them. Olds’ then asks the second question of the poem:

How do they come to the

come to the come to the God come to the

still waters, and not love

the one who came there with them, light

rising slowly as steam off their joined

skin? (8-13)

This question is very interesting in the poem. I find that the author repeats the words “come to the” as a way of symbolizing the climax of the lovemaking between the partners. She says “come to the God” possibly because people may say His name throughout the act, especially nearing the ending. Olds’ then uses the image of still waters to represent the moments after the climax, the moment when it is most peaceful and quiet, yet so blissful. She questions however, how each person could go through all of that pleasure, yet not love the person that helped them achieve it, as they lay there, their bodies cooling down.

After this question is posed in the poem, Olds’ proceeds to describe these types of people, instead of describing their act of sex, “These are the true religious, / the purists, the pros” (13-14). She seems to be using the term “purists” to show that the partners believe they are causing the pleasure themselves without the help of the other person, “They do not / mistake the lover for their own pleasure,” (16-17). This line reinforces the point that they do not want or need the other partner, and the sex was only for pleasure.

Olds’ begins to describe the people in a rather awe-filled tone, while at the same time using certain words and metaphors that make the reader feel the loneliness that the loveless lovers might have, “they are like great runners, they know they are alone / with the road surface, the cold, the wind, / the fit of their shoes,” (18-20). A runner is usually alone, and knows it, as Olds’ points out. The road surface, cold, and wind, are all words that make the readers feel empty and alone, like the lovers. There is nothing in their world but themselves, and “the fit of their shoes” represents that they will not have room for anybody else in their lives. In a way though, the runner running along the road with the cold, wind, and fit of their shoes could very easily be construed as a very comfortable or refreshing feeling. It all really depends on what kind of person the reader is, whether they prefer to be alone, or prefer to be in love.

There could be many different reasons why the lovers have sex with without love, whether it is the abandonment issues, for pleasure, or even physical health. When Olds’ states that “their over-all cardio- / vascular health” is a factor, I believe it could be one of the possible reasons the lover does the act of sex without having to be in love, same as a runner runs (20-21). Olds’ continues afterwards to say that everything she listed are “just factors; like the partner / in the bed” which is very bluntly and openly saying that the sex was just an act, a performance for whatever purpose the loveless lover had. Olds’ decides to end the poem with the truth of the matter, “which is the / single body alone in the universe / against its own best time” (22-24). She is describing just how alone the person is, despite having made love to another person. Using the words “single” and “universe” helps the reader to understand just how alone that person is in their own world. The phrase “against its own best time” is a reference back to the metaphor of the runner, it is used to show that the person will not be racing against anyone else’s times in a race, that they are completely alone and facing themselves.

Olds’ ends the poem bluntly and harshly but she gets her main point of the title across. She seems to almost give respect for the loveless lovers, or even be envious of how they can commit so physically yet not emotionally. Ultimately, however, Olds’ makes the reader realize that they are completely and utterly alone and will not love the other person no matter what kind of connection, even one as strong as sex, has taken place between the two of them.

Expecting To Be Loved

2012-03-08T01:26:00.001-08:00

New York City, Grand Central Station, people are moving at a pace most of the country has no experience with. After all, it is the city that never sleeps. John Cheever’s “Reunion” suggests that an attitude of arrogance and pride from a parent can ruin the ability to spend quality, one on one time with a child who is expecting and seeking that from a father. In this case it was the straw that ended the relationship according to the last line of the story, “I went down the stairs and got my train, and that was the last time I saw my father.” (Pg. 256)

Charlie’s parents divorced three years ago and he had not seen his father since. He called and made arrangements to meet with him for lunch while traveling through New York City. He was excited to see him again. He reached out to his father for a visit while passing through the city. He loved his father and was sure he was going to “be something like him.” (Pg. 256) Without being totally aware of it Charlie may have had some pre conceived ideas of how the lunch date would go that aren’t uncommon expectations for children to have of a parent. I’m sure he expected to have a nice lunch with some undivided attention and catch on up some of the time they have missed apart from each other, otherwise why would he have made an effort to see his dad. Unfortunately that’s not exactly how the story unfolded. There are several reasons why Charlie’s expectations were not met.

The first indication that the there is trouble in the air is when the it is mentioned that the fathers’ secretary responded with the details of the reunion, that implies that there isn’t much of a personal, father/ son relationship between the two. A secretary handles a lot of responsibility for employers but some things should be done by the person themselves. Responding to a son that hasn’t been in your life for the past three years whom is reaching out for love would certainly be one of those times. His father was on time which gave the idea that there was some type of importance to the visit. When the two first encountered each other it wasn’t a warm fuzzy embrace, more like a hand shake and pat on the back. It was close enough of an encounter for him to get a whiff of the alcohol on his father’s breath and to notice the after shave. Because of the short amount of time the two had together they quickly moved right into heading to a restaurant. That’s when all the madness started. Immediately after walking into the restaurant Charlie’s father was demanding, loud and disrespectful. The waiter wasn’t taking the abuse from him. He told him, “I don’t like to be clapped at. I think you’d better go somewhere else.” (Pg. 255) Charlie followed his father to a different restaurant. They lasted at the next venue long enough to get drinks served and enough time to have a small conversation about sports before the father acted out again. The same behavior of rudeness and disrespect caused his father to leave that restaurant and go to yet another place. He seems to very bossy and controlling especially when he says things like, “Don’t argue with me, just do as you are told” (Pg. 255) to complete strangers. It got so bad that the fourth and final restaurant they attempted to eat at wouldn’t even seat them. They claimed that all the tables were reserved.

Through the entire visit Charlie hardly spoke any words. His father was too busy shouting orders and demands to employees at the places they were trying to have lunch. Reference was made at three of the four places that the father was always ordering alcohol. That may have been a factor of the unmanageability that was going on with his personality. They met in the train station at noon and Charlie smelled whiskey on his father then so that tells us he had been drinking in the morning. After the last unsuccessful attempt to have lunch it was time for Charlie to get his train home. There was one last episode of his father’s personality aimed at the clerk at the news stand. During the encounter between the two Charlie had to leave. The last words he said before turning around was, “Goodbye, Daddy.” (Pg. 256)

It leaves a sense of sadness that Charlie’s father couldn’t be present in the moment for the visit with his son. It costed him a relationship with him.

Love is a Waltz

2012-03-07T01:08:00.001-08:00

Parents. Just thinking about them creates a waltz with nostalgia. Reminiscing about childhood memories, be it that family vacation to the far off land, dinner at six, Dad coming home from work, even that time spent in the bedroom after doing something stupid can easily invoke that warm fuzzy feeling inside. That is exactly the feeling that Roethke captures in his poem “My Papa’s Waltz.” In the poem, Roethke uses word choice, rhyme scheme and tone to emphasize the unconditional love felt for ones father.

Before getting into exactly how Roethke creates his waltz, it is first important to discuss the time in which it was written. “My Papa’s Waltz” is not a modern poem, it was instead written in the 1940’s. As such, the full understanding of this poem cannot be reached without first coming to terms with the fact that life was different back then. Mom stayed at home, raised the children and cleaned; while Dad was the bread winner. It was the father’s job to provide for the family, and the father in the poem clearly did as evident in lines nine and ten “The hand that held my wrist / Was battered on one knuckle; “. Without this understanding of the timeframe in which the poem was written, some of what’s said can be easily misconstrued as child abuse or neglectful parenting. Lines one and two are a perfect example of this: “The whiskey on your breath / Could make a small boy dizzy;” as without the knowledge that in the early 1900’s it was very common, and not looked down upon, for a laborer to work all day then stop by the bar before heading home, it would appear that the father was neglectful when this is not the case.

Knowing the pretext makes the theme of the poem become much clearer. Rather than a lamentation of his father’s drinking problem, lines one and two take on a whole new meaning. It instead becomes the loving memory of a boy who races to see his father as soon as he walks in the door. This becomes even more apparent when word choice comes into play. Words like “romp”, “cling”, “waltz”, and even the use of “papa” rather than father or dad, all imply a happy time. There are some negative words such as “death”, “scrape”, “beat” however in the way that they’re used, they’re not negative at all. For example, “But I hung on like death.” (Line 3) shows a son holding his father really closely, never wanting to let go. Later in the poem the “scrape” is caused by a belt buckle (Line 12) which again shows a really tight hug. In line thirteen, “You beat time on my head” doesn’t mean the father is beating the son, but rather tapping to the beat of the music. Now, Roethke did use these words for a reason. The alternating good and bad connotations create a real waltz like tone, and they also show how the father isn’t perfect but the son loves him anyway—unconditionally.

The tone of the poem is also very important in determining the theme as Roethke uses many tools to affect the flow and feel of the poem. First, he uses an ABAB rhyme scheme, which creates a verbal sway, a back and forth, like a waltz. He mixes in different rhyme patterns to add to this effect, rather than just using all one syllable rhymes (breath/death, for example) he also uses two syllable rhymes (dizzy/easy). Combine those with the alternating good and bad connotations mentioned before, and the poem reads like a happy waltz. If the poem was about anything other than happy childhood memories, then the tone would have been much different. It would have sounded harsh, or mellow, not happy. Certainly not waltz like.

Just like in the father, there are some imperfections in the waltz-like tone. For one, Roethke uses mostly six syllable lines, but occasionally, a line will have seven syllables. A great example of this is in line twelve “My right ear scraped a buckle.”, another example is in line two “Could make a small boy dizzy;” and interestingly both of these lines contain some of the more negative words of the poem. This is no mistake, because that pattern continues with line ten, a line that contains battered. Roethke does this on purpose; he does it to show that while nothing is perfect it doesn’t matter when it’s family. This is proven by the fact that while the pattern of six syllable lines is broken, it doesn’t have any bearing on the overall happy waltz-like tone of the poem just as while there are some bad times or negative words, they don’t have any real bearing on how unconditional a child’s love is.

Everyone loves their parents, even if they’re not perfect. Roethke would definitely agree with this statement, as evident by his poem “My Papa’s Waltz”. Be it through his use of alternating good and bad connotations, his ABAB waltz like rhyme scheme, his use of the slight mistakes in his poems layout, or just the happy tone, Roethke makes it perfectly clear how he feels about a parent child relationship.

Communication is Love

2012-03-06T00:58:00.000-08:00

You sit at a table with the one you love. There is a problem in your relationship that you know threatens to destroy everything you have together. You know that if you talk about it your relationship could fall apart because of your opposing views. But if you let it go and ignore it the problem might become inevitably worse than if you just discussed it in the first place. So all you and your significant other have managed to do is scratch the surface and avoid real conversation about this dilemma and time is running out. This could be the death of love. This is exactly the the subject of Ernest Hemingway’s “Hills like White Elephants”. Ernest Hemingway’s “Hills like White Elephants” suggests that couples have difficulties communicating when a situation threatens to permanently change their lives.

In this short story, Hemingway opens with an american couple sitting at a table outside a train station in rural spain during the 1920’s. They are drinking beers and waiting for a train to madrid. The couple are indulging in light small talk but the conversation quickly segues into something of a much more serious nature. The man starts this new topic by telling the woman that “It’s really an awfully simple operation, Jig” (Hemingway 690). For the next sixty or so lines the man and woman bicker over an issue that is never revealed to the reader. The remainder of the short story, which is about five lines, consists of the man getting the bags and taking them to the other side of the station in preparation for the train which he is told, by the waitress, will be arriving in five minutes. Then he goes into the bar and has a drink before returning to his girlfriend. When he returns to the patio and she smiles at him. He asks if she is feeling better and with the last sentence she responds “There’s nothing wrong with me, I feel fine” (Hemingway 692).

Throughout the piece there are many ways Hemingway proposes the theme of communication, namely characterization, symbolism, and tone. The characterization conveys the theme by presenting the man and the woman as relaxed and uncaring. As the story goes on though they seem to become more and more uneasy. When the woman describes the hills through the trees as looking like white elephants the speaker is symbolizing the couple’s unborn child. The tone of the story is one of reserved uncertainty and steadily increasing desperation and uneasiness. This conveys the theme by demonstrating the couple’s lake of real communication.

The dialogue of the characters is the main attribute of characterization in this piece. We get to know the couple by what they say, not by a detailed description. The speaker does not even tell us what they look like. Yet if you read carefully, by the end of the story you feel like you know the man and woman relatively well. The dramatic shifts in conversation and toward the end, the woman’s determination to not carry the conversation any further are our best indications to the theme of communication. The fact that they are having a laid back conversation about their general surroundings and all of a sudden the man says “It’s really an awfully simple operation, Jig” (Hemingway 690) gives us a really clear indication that something isn’t right about this seemingly normal couple. for the first five lines of this new topic the man holds a monopoly on the conversation and the woman is hanging her head, looking at the ground. This suggests that they have had this conversation before and it was not resolved, adding to the theme of communication. For awhile the girl seems to rely on the man to carry the exchange. She is asking him if they will be okay if she has the abortion and he is reassuring her that they will be fine and everything will go back to the way it was before she got pregnant. Then at line fifty nine the girl says “Then i’ll do it. Because I don’t care about me” (Hemingway 690), speaking about the abortion. The man goes on to say that he doesn’t want her to have the operation if she is just doing it to make him happy. This chunk of dialogue, lines forty two through sixty nine, are a very strong indicator to a severe lack of real communication between the man and woman. A lot of this dialogue is very redundant with the woman asking if they will be okay and the man saying they will be. They never ask each other what they want and why, and they don’t weigh out the consequences. So they end up just talking instead of actually communicating. The same process starts again at line seventy one. The girl looks toward the mountains and says “And we could have all this” (Hemingway 691), referring to the world. The man then says “We can have everything” (Hemingway 691). For the next ten lines the couple have a very meaningless exchange of no we can’t, yes we can that just seems to upset the girl. On line eighty six the man says “I don’t want you to do anything you don’t want to do---” (Hemingway 691) and then she says “Nor that isn’t good for me, I know.” (Hemingway 691). This exchange tells us that she wants to get deeper into the conversation and talk about both of their wants and needs but all he is doing is saying he doesn’t want her to if she doesn’t want to, which effectively gets them no where, which again ties the dialogue back to the theme of a lack of communication. This also gives us a clue that they have had this conversation before because she was able to cut him off and finish his sentence. On line ninety eight the woman effectively ends the exchange by saying “Would you please please please please please please please stop talking?” (Hemingway 691). This sentence marks the end of the conversation. She is contributing to the lack of communication by refusing to open up and talk about what she really wants. From lines forty two to ninety eight both of the characters says a lot but none of it amounts to anything. He says she shouldn’t get the abortion if she doesn’t want to; she says she will get the abortion if he wants her to. Neither character wants to be selfish or make the other upset. So they spend the majority of the piece talking but not communicating.

The most important symbol in “Hills like White Elephants” are the hills that the woman sees through the trees. The woman is sitting at the table, drinking her beer, and looking at the hills in the distance when she says “They look like white elephants” (Hemingway 689). A white elephant is an idiom for a precious possession that is financially burdensome. In the case of the short story, the hills symbolize the man and woman’s unborn child. The couple is afraid of the uncertainty of their future and they know that getting an abortion is a huge decision. On the one hand they are afraid of the responsibility of taking care of a child. On the other hand they are afraid what might happen to their relationship if they do get an abortion. They feel that if they do get the abortion they might be damaged physically and emotionally. All of these things together contribute to the theme of Communication. Because of all their misgivings they avoid the situation by not devoting themselves to a conversation aimed at resolving the issue.

The tone of the story is one of reserved uncertainty and increasing desperation and uneasiness. The story starts with the couple having a relaxing drink while they are waiting for their train. It is easy to discern this relaxed environment because they are commenting on the weather “It’s pretty hot” (Hemingway 689), and observing their surrounding “The girl looked at the bead curtain” (Hemingway 689). Although the conversation escalades quickly, there is a feeling of ease throughout the story. None of the character’s dialogue is rushed, angry, or packed with too much emotion. Even one of the most serious lines in the story, line eighty one “No, it isn’t. And once they take it away, you never get it back” (Hemingway 691), does not have a resentful feeling to it, it is almost playful. However, you can tell by the dialogue that both characters are trying to reassure not only each other but themselves by saying things like “I know we will. You don’t have to be afraid. I’ve known lots of people that have done it”. (Hemingway 690). This mixed feeling of ease and uncertainty demonstrates that they are trying to feel relaxed and act like everything is normal because they don’t want to face the real problem so they bypass it with self reassurance. By the end of the conversation about the abortion there is more of a feeling of desperation and uneasiness. The woman wants the man to engage her in an exchange that will have meaningful dialogue instead of just words. She demonstrates this by cutting him off and finishing his sentences, she is tired of the same old exchange of words. The man is uneasy because as the conversation progresses he is losing the ability to reassure her that everything will be okay. He is worried because she isn’t satisfied with his same responses anymore and he may have to start a conversation with some substance. She wants real communication but is afraid to engage it and he is afraid of a real conversation because he does not want the responsibility of a child.

The theme of this Short story is that couples have a hard time communicating when it comes to issues they know could ruin everything. Through the use of characterization, symbolism, and tone, Ernest Hemmingway was able to build a perfect example of a couple avoiding things that they should really be addressing. Hemingway was able to keep the mood of the story light but by doing so he actually asserted the theme even more because this dilemma isn’t something that should be taken lightly. If you ever find yourself in a situation with someone you care about that could ruin everything, don’t turn your back, take it head on.

Important. Please watch.

2012-02-04T16:33:00.001-08:00

Affection is a Waltz

2012-01-31T17:00:00.000-08:00

Things were very different in the early-to-mid-1900s. The family dynamic of the time was much different than the family dynamic of today. Virtually every family at that time was a single income family—the father was the bread winner, while the mother stayed at home to raise the children. This very traditional lifestyle made inter-family relationships unlike what they are today. In My Papa's Waltz, Roethke uses an ABAB rhyme scheme combined with alternating good and bad connotations to create a tone that exemplifies a father-son relationship in the earlier half the 1900s.

To fully understand My Papa’s Waltz, it’s important to remember that this poem wasn’t written today. It isn’t a modern poem. This is important because without reading it in the proper context, it may seem like a poem about child abuse. This simply isn’t the case. When read in the context of the time that it was written, it shows a much more loving family. Without knowing that it was very common of the time for a father to work all day, every day, and then go to the bar and have some whiskey before coming home, lines one and two “The whiskey on your breath / could make a small boy dizzy” could come across very negatively. The key component in identifying that the speaker in this poem enjoys the time he spends with his father is the tone.

Roethke writes this poem in a way that almost sounds like a verbal drunken-waltz when read aloud. He accomplishes this with a skillful use of an ABAB rhyme scheme, which creates a sense of verbal swaying, much like that of a waltz. Instead of using strictly one syllable rhymes, like breath/death and shirt/dirt, he adds some two syllable rhymes as well such as dizzy and easy, which really embodies the back and forth swaying of a waltz. The number of syllables in each line is another clear indicator of an imperfect waltz—almost every line has six syllables but there are a few with seven. These lines show the stumbling (or miss stepping) of the tipsy father.

Another significant way that Roethke creates the tipsy tone is through the use of words with good and bad connotations. There are many words in this poem that might push the reader towards a feeling of child abuse, such as “death,” “unfrown,” “beat” and “scraped” their positioning with words of good connotation neutralizes and overcomes the bad connotations that these words carry. Saying “But I hung on like death:” (line 3) implies that he doesn’t want to let go of his father while they romp around the kitchen. There are two other lines that have the same implications. “My right ear scraped a buckle” (Line 12) shows that the speaker is hanging on so tight, that his ear is up against his father’s belt buckle, a clear sign of affection. Roethke even ends the poem with another similar line “Still clinging to your shirt” (Line 16). Had there been any abuse or any implications that the speaker didn’t enjoy the time with his father, after all of that, he wouldn’t have been still clinging. Romp is another word with a good connotation. Romping, which is defined as to frolic or to play boisterously by Princeton, would never be used to describe something that wasn’t enjoyable.

The tone of My Papa’s Waltz paints a vivid picture of a son who enjoys spending every possible second with his father. Papa (which is a much more loving pronoun than say, father) comes home from late at night from work, a little drunk. The speaker can smell the whiskey on his breath, but doesn’t care. He instead gives his dad a big hug and they begin to romp or play around. Their waltzing knocks a few pans off the shelves, and the mother gives a frown, but does nothing to stop the playful dancing of father and son. The playing eventually ends and Papa brings the child to bed where the child doesn’t want to let go. Without the proper tone, this poem could have been easily taken is a much darker sense. Did he really beat the kid on the head, or was he keeping a drum beat? The reader knows that it was a playful encounter between a loving father and son because of the tone Roethke creates using the rhyme scheme and alternating connotations.

A little video about ACTA

2012-01-28T19:15:00.000-08:00

Here's a little video about some things you need to know if you enjoy the internet.

You Laugh You Lose!

2012-01-14T09:38:00.000-08:00

You Laugh You Lose Facebook Logo

Hey guys, I know we've been neglecting TBD recently. I apologize. I've got over a months worth of content ready to pump out, but our new project has been taking up a majority of the time recently. That project is YouLaughYouLose.Net. It's a great little funny pictures website.

I'm not too great at plugs.. but seriously, check 'em out, pump their social buttons a few times for me, and drop some comments in their comments box. :)

Drink Tea, live forever.

2011-12-13T00:47:00.000-08:00

Alright maybe it isn’t that great, but never-the-less, tea is a very healthy beverage option. In fact, throughout the East, tea has been regarded as the key to the three most important things in life: health, happiness and wisdom. Ancient wisdom should never be taken as scientific fact though. That’s where western science comes into play. In recent years, western scientists have studied and are discovering some of the many health benefits of drinking tea. The list of benefits is simply astounding. Tea can not only encourage weight loss and help lower cholesterol, but it can also bring about mental alertness and help fight many of the most glaring diseases that plague us here in the States. Specifically the big three: heart disease, diabetes and even cancer. Not to mention tea’s apparent antimicrobial effects.

Noted tea drinker, Katherine Tallmadge, MA, RD, LD who is also te spokeswoman of the AMA (American Dietetic Association) states that “there doesn’t seem to be a downside to tea.” She goes on to say how much better tea is for you than say coffee, a very popular morning beverage. A major reason for this is how tea is good for your heart, but also because it contains much less caffeine.

It’s also interesting to note that different teas appear to have different health benefits, even though they’re all derived from the same plant, Camellia sinesis. There’s not much more that they have in common though, as they all use different flavonoids. The antioxidants are in the flavonoids, so differentiating can make for drastic changes to healthiness.

In green tea, which is made with steamed leaves, has a high EGCG (an antioxidant). EGCG has been linked to the prevention of swelling of organs, such as the bladder, stomach, lungs and the breasts. EGCG seems to be the healthiest thing ever (hyperbole) because it also helps to burn fat, prevent clogging of the arteries. It also even can help prevent Alzheimer to Parkinson, and even help prevent stroke. It’s a real wonder drink.

The other tea blends aren’t necessarily as healthy. They’re also not as well studied, so it isn’t easy to say. That isn’t to dismiss their unique benefits though. Rather than steaming the leaves, to make black tea, the leaves are fermented. The fermenting process is what gives black tea the highest caffeine content of all the tea blends. It’s also interesting to note that black tea is the basis for most instant teas and flavored teas (think chai). Black tea can also reduce the risk of stroke, but this next bit is the most interesting. Black tea ‘may’ protect lungs from damage caused by cigarette smoke. So if you’re going to smoke, black tea might be a good idea for you.

The other tea blends are even less studied. White tea, being both uncured and unfermented has the strongest anticancer ability – when compared to the other teas. Oolong and Pu-erh teas have shown that they may reduce LDL cholesterol. Herbal teas are even less studied. While some have been done, all that’s been shown is a reduced amount of antioxidants, and scientist are unable to support the claims made by the beverage industry that herbal teas can help you lose weight or keep you from catching the cold. This is not without exception though. Chamomile tea can help prevent nerve and kidney damage. Hibiscus has been shown in one study, that when consumed three times daily, lowers your blood pressure. Instant tea is not included in anything that I’ve said thus far. Most of the time, instant tea will be 99% sugar, 1% tea (hyperbole). So, be sure to check the label to avoid falling into that trap.

Almost as great as it’s health benefits, are its lack of health risks. Literally, with tea, there are only a few potentially unhealthy things. The FDA actually warns against “dietary” teas, and teas that claim to kill pain. The teas that make those claims have often lead to come with harsh negative effects, such as kidney problems, liver problems and bowel problems. Sometimes even death. To keep yourself safe, keep on the lookout for these ingredients: Lobelia, Chaparral, Germander, Willow bark, Ephedra and Comfrey.

Overall, tea is an excellent beverage for any diet. It’s absolutely amazing antioxidant properties, combined with its benign negative effects; make it a must-drink for anyone concerned with their healthiness. Be it by reducing your cholesterol, protecting you from stroke, keeping your liver healthy, or any of the other positive effects that tea boasts, drinking tea will make you live longer.