SEMESTER FINAL

“A blog is a personal diary. A daily pulpit. A collaborative space. A political soapbox. A breaking-news outlet. A collection of links. Your own private thoughts. Memos to the world.” ~Anonymous

I have mixed feelings when it comes to having a blog. Sometimes, I enjoy writing on my blog, other times; it just seems like a waste of my time. Most of the time, I find that I detest having a blog, and blogging every week is just a pain in the ass. As I stated in the previous semester final:

            [At the beginning of the year, Mr. Sutherland was lecturing everyone about how he had a new idea, which was to blog. He said that we would write a blog every Friday and that would be like a weekly assignment. When I heard this, I was like oh my god! Thank you!! I had so many ideas on what to blog about. Subjects that included games, movies, technology, and worldwide issues were all of interest to me. As the school year progressed on though, I started having doubts about it.]
My first experience handling a blog has definitely changed how I feel about writing and how I write. Before blogging, all I knew how to write was essays, essays, and more essays. With blogging, I discovered free writing, and when I say free, I mean free writing. One thing I have gained this year is that writing is not just restricted to a set of writing styles like persuasive, descriptive, expository, and narrative. Blogging is a nice change of pace. Since blogging only requires Internet, and a computer and of course an imagination. With blogging, there’s hundred of thousands of topics to blog about, however you choose to do it. Grammar and spelling don’t have to make much sense either. That is truly free writing. Another positive/negative effect of blogging is that I’m such a procrastinator, and like always I wait until the last minute to do it. When I blog, most of the time I wait until the day it’s due, then I have to think of a topic to write about and then write about it. So in a way blogging is sort of like practicing quick writing. I don’t know if quick writing is the same as writers block per se. I know that blogging has helped me somewhat in the area of writers block such that if I really concentrate, many times I can come up with something within a minute or two. Comparing my thoughts now, and my thoughts last semester, they’re pretty much the same when I said:

[I have to think about this one. I mean I can’t really say that I like having a blog. Ever since we made them, I keep forgetting to write one every week and it affected my grade so much. So we are not off to a very good start. Well, aside from dropping my grade down to a D, blogs are pretty OK. They can get annoying since ninety nine percent of the time I don’t have anything to write about. I end up sitting there watching the screen for an hour.]

            Everyone wants life to be easy, but for ninety-nine point ninety nine percent of the world’s population, that is simply impossible.  The same goes for blogging. Blogging is easy, but my writing has been badly damaged by the carefree ways of the blogger. Like I said before, I spent my whole life writing persuasive, expository, narrative, five paragraph essays. In eighth grade, my teacher was a pretty hard grader when is came to writing, my average grade in his class was probably a low B to high C, BUT I learned how to improve my writing, and blogging has sort of diminished the “professional” way of writing. Like this excerpt from New Statement of Purpose:
            [ I know that like all of my blogs suck since I don't put any kind of time or effort into since I write them at the last minute. These topics don't even actually interest me that much. I just write about them since i procrastinate and then write it at like eleven. That's.... all..]
As you can tell, my writing dropped considerably in the beginning of the year, now nearing the end of the school year; there has been a slight improvement. For instance, in a recent regular post Hidden Water:
            [It's clear, pristine and refreshing. Soothing and necessary, and it makes up almost three quarters of the Earth. It is water, and all life depends on it. Without it is without life, with it there is survival. But only a miniscule portion of that can actually sustain life. We humans alone use up so much of the Earth's resources that other life organisms can barely hang onto existence and in many cases have already died off yet everyone, including me, are still abusing what we have.]
I guess that towards the end of summer, teachers didn’t pile on as much homework, which allowed me to seriously think about what I wanted to write about, without worrying about other classes. I don’t want to give a bad name to blogging or anything like that, but it is seriously a bane on improving my writing. When I think about it, this is what is going in my head. Since its been drilled into my head for the past fifteen years, essay equals professional and neat, while blogging equals laid-back type of writing which is why I think blogging has not improved my writing at all.
            As I’m writing this, a quote keeps running through my mind. Jim Buckmaster said that:

[I read blogs every day, for all sorts of reasons, but I turn to blogs especially when I want to hear alternative viewpoints — for example, information on a particular medical treatment from the viewpoint of patients receiving it, rather than doctors administering it; reports from the battlefield seen through the eyes of soldiers rather than politicians; thoughts on a particular technology from the standpoint of engineers rather than executives.]

which is why I implore you to check back later through the year because I might return to blog about whether my writing improved from blogging to essays.

Confessions of an Economic Hit Man: Final Review (Questions Five and One)

The Confessions of an Economic Hit Man written by John Perkins is one of the most informative, eye opening, and enthralling books I have read in my entire life. From the beginning of the book, with “It began innocently enough.” To “…to come clean, to confess- to write the words in this book.” This gripping story will open the door to a truth you never knew. Confessions of an Economic Hit Man is a recount of the life of the author, John Perkins, who says that he was part of an organization (or multiple ones depending on the way you look at it) that drained nations to bankruptcy. As described by John Perkins:

           

Economic hit men (EHMs) are highly paid professionals who cheat countries around the globe out of trillions of dollars. They funnel money from the World Bank, the U.S Agency for International Development, and other foreign “ aid” organizations into the coffers of huge corporations and the pockets of a few wealthy families who control the planet’s natural resources. Their tools include fraudulent financial reports, rigged elections, payoffs, extortion, sex, and murder. They play a game as old as empire, but one that has taken on new and terrifying dimensions during this time of globalization.

     I should know; I was an EHM

           

John Perkins account of his life, packed with politics, deceit, betrayal, and much more will most certainly open your eyes to the world we Americans live in, and how the rest of the world lives.

            John Perkins stated clearly in his book that one of the key reasons he was writing this book was to spread awareness of the situation going on. He knew that most citizens of the U.S had no inkling of the devastation outside of their homes. They led a comfortable life, sheltered from all the things that many would have protested. Perkins mentions this multiple times. In his book, Perkins mentions that later on in his life, while he was an EHM, he observed something that turned his stomach:

           

            A movement up the canal caught my attention. An elderly man had descended the bank, dropped his pants, and squatted at the edge of the water to answer nature’s call. The young woman saw him but was undeterred; she continued bathing…  

This is one of many incidents that contributed to his first attempt at getting information out into the world. Perkins’s first attempt was to write a tell-all book called Conscience of an Economic Hit Man, which ultimately failed. In the near beginning of the book, when John Perkins was training to become an EHM with Claudine, his mentor told him one thing that stuck to him: Once you’re in, you can never back out. The first attempt failed because someone from MAIN, the organization he used to work at offered him a lucrative job, but he had to keep quiet and Perkins accepted the bribe. He never gave up though, and after years of mental torture, he decided that this was it and that he had to tell his story, or forever keep it quiet. Finally, everything that had piled on top of him since the start of his life as an EHM, through 9-11, to the millions of deaths and impoverished countries got to his heart and the voice inside his head that bothered him his whole life won over and the Conscience of an Economic Hit Man was published.

            Born in 1945, John Perkins was an only child of a middle class family. He Graduated prep school in 1963, enters Middlebury College, befriending Farhad, the son of an Iranian general and drops out in 1964. Marrying in 1966, Perkins’s wife’s “Uncle Frank” helped him join the Peace Corps. In 1970, John Perkins’s first contact with the consulting firm MAIN takes place in Ecuador and he joins MAIN a year later, undergoing training as an economic hit man. During his nine-year career as an EHM, John Perkins successfully negotiates plans to bankrupt several different countries, quickly rising through the ranks writing a few books along the way. Even with the success of his career and all the luxuries he could care for, John Perkins experienced the lives of the normal people of the countries he was trying to destroy with friends, or through friends. During the 1980s, he suffered from depression, guilt, and he fact that money and power have trapped him at MAIN and quits soon after. After MAIN, he starts up his own environmentally friendly electricity company. From 1983-1989, his company prospers which he suspects to be the doing of former associates and because of the things he did as an EHM. He starts to write a tell-all book of his life, but a sudden job offer stops him. After September 11, 2001, he is convinced that the truth had to come out. The attack on the twin towers sent him a message that he could delay no longer, accepting bribes and threats. It also gave him a sense of responsibility now since as he was an economic hit man, he might have had something to do with it. Sending all those countries into bankruptcy and dependence on the U.S.A might have sent some people over the edge, making enemies. The first signs of this in the book would be when John Perkins is with Paula and one of his workers receives this threat:

           We, who work every day just to survive, swear on the blood of our ancestors that we will never allow dams across out rivers. We are simple Indians and mestizos, but be would rather die than stand by as our land is flooded. We warn our Colombian brother: stop working for the construction companies.

He wanted to expose the fact that EHM are everywhere today and there are more than before. He felt he owed this to his country, to his daughter, to all the people around the world who suffer because of the work he and other EHMs have done. In the Confessions of an Economic Hit Man, he describes the treacherous path his country is taking as it reaches for global domination.

Seriously the FINAL Literature Circle Letter

    

            So I’ve been reading “Confessions of an Economic Hit Man” for about a month and a half. So far, I’ve really enjoyed the book. The book contains a substantial amount of gripping details of greed and deceit that’s happening in our very own country, with its ideals of freedom and a chance for a better life. In the last section of this book, my mind is just like O_o… what the hell man. I thought our country was awesome, but now I know why people hate us so much. They aren’t just haters, they have an actual reason. Things that John Perkins says like:

           

The EHMs had failed. The jackals had failed. So young men and women were sent to kill and die among the desert sands.

            This book…this book is an eye opener, difficult to read, yes. Even though it’s difficult, just have a dictionary handy or something. Seriously the last part of the book just pries your eyes open; the first two sections were like, holy shit! This can’t be true but then the last part is like when the truth dawns on you. I mean I just can’t believe this stuff. One of the most shocking things I read, though I don’t know why, was when John Perkins says this one thing which was:

            The ability to print currency gives us immense power. It means, among other things, that we can continue to make loans that will never be repaid… by 2003, the notional debt exceeded a staggering 6 trillion dollars. Much of it owed to Asian countries particularly to Japan and China…As long as the world accepts the dollar as its standard currency, this excessive debt does not pose a serious obstacle to the corporatocracy. However if another currency should come along to replace the dollar, the situation would change drastically.

            I don’t really know because I’m not that intelligent, but this has already happened and China is now dominating the global economy when the U.S just sank, and now we actually really owe those countries huge amounts of money, and now everyone is aware. This is just mind blasting and I don’t even know what to say anymore.

           

DOCTOR WHO

     I feel that this blog is long overdue. I mean I’ve been watching Doctor Who since... I don’t know, like since middle school. For those of you who have never watched or even heard of Doctor Who, you can kind of tell already that it’s a T.V show. Doctor Who, which is on BBC, is a science fiction series. Its about a man, not from our world, with technologies that humans on Earth could never dream of. (What the hell is up with me and my science/space/technology obsession?) Beginning in 1963, Doctor Who was about “The Doctor”, the main character who is a quirky individual. He is strange because, although he has the appearance of a human, he is actually a Time Lord from a planet called Gallifrey. The last of the Time Lords, the doctor travels through time and space, searching and searching. For what, I don’t know. Maybe searching for companionship since his life is a solitary one. The Doctor uses the TARDIS (Time And Relative Dimensions In Space) On the outside, it looks like any old police box in England, but in reality it wasn't really a police box at all. In fact, once inside the box, the space expands to hold a futuristic room that couldn't possibly fit into the police box. It was in fact a ship that could travel in time and space! And so began the travels with the Doctor…
      David Tennant, Doctor Who’s tenth doctor was the first actor in the show I saw the first time I watched Doctor Who. I don’t know what was so interesting about him. Now I know. David Tennant was probably one of the greatest doctors in the series. He made the show come to life with his acting and it shows because when it was finally time for him to end his career as the tenth doctor, almost every fan of Doctor Who was saddened at the thought of losing him and protested.
     One of the things I thought was an ingenious idea was the idea that in the show, the Doctor is able to regenerate whenever he is critically injured. This gives way to many possibilities since the show is able to go on for virtually forever. What I’m saying is that if Doctor Who continues to run in the future, some of the actors might die and here is where the ability to regenerate comes in handy. If the current doctor is unable to act, there is always the possibility to regenerate the doctor into the thirteenth, or fourteenth and etc. I believe that is one of the reasons this show is so successful unlike the other shows where there is a fixed set of main characters with one person acting, but with Doctor Who, anyone could play the Doctor because he can change appearances. This show is hard to review because it’s always changing, the characters, the plot, anything can happen since it’s a science fiction show. The only way I can think of talking about it is episode by episode. I might do that…O_o

Confessions of an Economic Hitman

Well this book so far has really been a great read for me. Although there are some bits and pieces throughout the book like some words or terms that I have no idea what it means. As mentioned in part one, John Perkins tells his story in a way that expresses his feelings. I found that I could experience the things he expierenced like meeting important figures situated throughout the world. Whether they were warm, friendly people, or if thhere was a sense of hatred, I would usually share the same feelings with the him in the story. Whenever something bad happened, like one of his friends dies, I felt sorrow as in this excerpt:
"He died there in a fiery airplane crash, on July 31, 1981. Latin America and the world reeled. ****** was known across the globe, respected as the man who regained control of the Panama Canal and continued to stand up to Ronald Reagan. I was personally devastated by this travesty. I spent many hours reflecting on my conversations with this man. I recalled my first sight of him, and and the thought sent a shudder through me even as it had on that stormy night."
I guess it's so simple and easy to becoome part of John Perkins is because all his experiences had emotions and thoughts that people can relate to, making everything much easier to remember and recall. As I read on, more and more subjects I've known to be true are now sent into turmoil and I'm just puzzled and whenever I read this book, I can't help but to think about all that has happened in it and what will happen. My assumptions of certain things have changed and I am not used to all of this and yet I still want to read on.

Hidden Water

It's clear, pristine and refreshing. Soothing and necessary, and it makes up almost three quarters of the Earth. It is water, and all life depends on it. Without it is without life, with it there is survival. But only a miniscule portion of that can actually sustain life. We humans alone use up so much of the Earth's resources that other life organisms can barely hang onto existence and in many cases have already died off yet everyone, including me, are still abusing what we have. I've seen some people at school who do stupid stupid things like jamming a faucet so that it runs continuously. Little things like this drains us and every other life form of potential survival. Sure there are groups of people who try and sometimes succeed to improve our way of living, but there has to be more, maybe we will not be able to stop the catastrophe waiting just over the hill. Face it, we are all greedy, inconsiderate hypocrites. We are basically killing what we need to survive. The Earth the home of the the human race will die into a lifeless drifting planet, turning into one of the other billions of uninhabited planets, all because of us.
You may never stop to think about it. Regular everyday things. Everyday items such as jeans or a cup of coffee. Oh you say, it's just a venti six pump hazelnut, ten pump vanilla extra mocha drizzle cappuccino. Nothing much. Well think about this. A cup of coffee takes thirty seven gallons of water to make. And those favorite pair of jeans? Oh nothing much, just two thousand nine hundred gallons of water to produce.
The term virtual water is the amount of water used to create a product that we the consumers don't see when we buy something. Our population is so over populated that we have started to waste water unnecessarily. That steak your eating, one thousand eight hundred fifty seven gallons of water down the drain. During class, we learned about global warming and what cows had to do with it. America in its own right is a major consumer of meat products that we probably have billions of cows to meet our " McDonalds" craving, or steak. These cows produce so much methane that it surpasses the carbon dioxide levels of emissions from cars and such. Another big issue about this is that we use up unbelievable amounts of water to jeep these animals alive before we kill and consume them. I just have one more fact to share with you. Imagine a farm of cows. If it takes eight hundred eight thousand, four hundred gallons of water for pastures, feed and hay, six thousand three hundred for drinking, and one thousand nine hundred for hygiene for stables and farmyards, add up the data. That's right it takes eight hundred sixteen thousand, six hundred gallons of water. And guess what? That eight hundred sixteen thousand, six hundred gallons of water is used for the entire life of ONE cow. Imagine that and multiply that by a billion and see how much water we use. With that thought, my blog post ends.

The Confessions of an Economic Hitman Part One LCL One

Remeber the first time that Mr. Sutherland started to introduce reading circle books? Well I had a bunch of thoughts on the books that were made available and "The Confessions of an Economic Hitman seemed a tad bit boring. First impressions are rarely good anyways. Now that I've glanced through a couple pages of the book, I find it very well written and also interesting. I commend Alvin for choosing such a difficult yet in some way addicting book. The introduction to "Confessions of an Economic Hitman" was a very intriguing excerpt from the book. It was along the lines of:
"Economic Hitmen are highly paid professionals who cheat countries around the globe out of trillions of dollars they funnel money from the World Bank and other foreign aid organizations...their tools include fradulent financial reports, rigged elections, payoffs, extortion, sex, and murder."
The part that stands out the most to me is of course the murder part. U just thought that the book was something really boring, but in reality it houses all these brain squeezing information and makes me want to keep reading it. In fact I would say that Patient Zero and this book are like "brother books" or something. I say this because some paragraphs like this:
"...if we fail, an even more sinister breed steps in, ones we EHMs refer to as the jackals, men who trace their heritage directly to those earlier empires, lurking in the shadow."
To me this stlye of writing is not that different from Jonathan Maberry's stlye of writing, he has the right amount of action to captivate me, but has much more to tell.

Not so long ago, maybe a year or two ago, I fell in love with zombies (no not like that!). I was just crazy. The first real hands-on experience I had was reading a book called Zombie Survival Guide by Max Brooks. Although it was in the humor sections of the books, the content of the book was extremely detailed and I could have believed that it would help me in case of any undead surprise attacks. Over the years I've been reading many a horror stories with zombies. From World War Z by Max Brooks, to Patient Zero by Jonathan Maberry, I've grown into them I guess. I remember the first time I actually saw a zombie was in the game RESIDENT EVIL I or II (I think it's Resident Evil). My cousins were playing and they told me that if I watched them play, I would get nightmares. But of course I stayed and watched them, which was not a very bright choice since I was about seven around that time. It isn't as clear to me as it was before, but I remember a train and then a man sitting in the abandoned train, and my cousin's in-game character walked over to the man, and then all of a sudden the man's neck just rips open and a stream of bugs come out of it. Ever since that day I've been sort of afraid of the dark and I hate myself for watching my cousin play that game. Even though I am pretty freaked out about all that, I still love zombie games such as Resident Evil 5 and Left 4 Dead 2 because they aren't as hardcore scary as their predecessors. Seriously, even though graphics have improved and there are more ideas, the old games were way scarier than today's modern genre of horror. Anyone who has ever played the first or second resident evil would most likely agree with what I'm saying.
Now that I've got that out of the way the rest of my blog post is devoted to a mini review of Left 4 Dead 2: The Passing which is a DLC (Download-able Content) on the Xbox360 which is already OUT. In The Passing, players will meet up with the original Left 4 Dead's survivors, Francis, Bill, Zoey and Louis, who will appear as non-playable characters and I was so bummed out about this because...I wanted to play as Bill. In the new campaign, there will be one new uncommon common infected type, which Valve is calling the Fallen Survivor. These new zombies, were formerly survivors like the main characters of Left 4 Dead 2, but were infected later on. And with fallen survivors, everyone knows that they would have had some items on them meaning that they will sometimes drop items when killed, like health kits or ammo. In addition to the fallen survivor, another witch has been added to Left 4 Dead 2. This witch, who is not different from the original witch I believe, is just a regular witch in a wedding dress. That concludes my blog and I hope I didn’t bore you too much.

The Memory of Earth: Final Review

"The Memory of Earth" is a somewhat interesting sort of science fiction book. The Memory of Earth is the first book of the Homecoming Saga by Orson Scott Card, also known for his other book "Ender's Game". The story itself takes place in the desert, possibly a couple hundred years ago told through a third person point of view. Nafai, the main protagonist is a young man who lives in a city called Basilica. Instead of living on Earth, as I thought the title implied, Nafai and his family live on a distant planet known as Harmony. The planet holds true to the name it was given, harmony throughout the land, but not for long, as turmoil is in the air. The Over soul, a powerful super computer watches over all of Harmony. The inhabitants of the world have been specially modified so that the Over soul is able to remotely control people's thoughts. All this work to preserve the harmony...yet it is losing control. What may be surprising to most is how the simple life of the population mixes in together with sophisticated technology. Technology such as refrigeration, finger print scanning, and hovering chairs, used side by side with camels and caravans. As the book progresses, relationships will be broken, relationships mended, secrets revealed, secrets hidden. Complete with lust, friendship, faith, action, and vengeance, the first of the five book series offers an in depth look into the life of an ordinary boy turned upside in the midst of a war for power. “The Memory of Earth” will catch the eyes of readers with patience, and a taste for slower-paced novels.

How would you describe the author's style of writing? What's your opinion of the style?

When I heard the hype of “Ender’s Game”, written by Orson Scott Card, I naturally assumed that his other books would be as interesting. I have never read Ender’s Game, but hearing from classmates and teachers, it seems like a pretty well- written and exciting book. The Memory of Earth on the other hand, is a book in which the reader has to read and reread to understand certain parts of the book. They have to read well into the last few chapters since the author has stretched to the brink of boring the reader out of their minds. Orson Scott Card’s style of writing in this book is not bad, but is still needs a bit of refining. While I was reading the book, I encountered many chapters where the only thing happening is a conversation. When I encounter paragraphs where it just seems the paragraphs are used to take up space, like the conversation between Nafai and Issib, where Nafai says “...I study history all the time. I left my class behind years ago. I know something about how wars start and who wins them. And this is the stupidest plan I’ve ever heard. Potokgavan has no chance of holding this area and no compelling reason to try. All that will happen is they ‘ll send an army, provoke the Gorayni into attacking, and then they’ll realize they can’t win and go home.” I end up skipping pages because of all the non essential information provided. The information is not unlike the things in Patient Zero, but the extra information provided in Patient Zero actually has a purpose. I can’t vouch for the other books Orson Scott has written, but I don’t think that The Memory of Earth is his best work, all the reviews I have searched rate the series as mediocre and not as good as the other books he has written.

Pick a character that interested you and write about them in depth.

           

Nafai, the protagonist of the series is a young man who is basically the interpreter for the Over soul. Born in the city of Basilica, Nafai is a tall, well-built, eighteen year-old-boy. He is the youngest son of wealthy parents, Wetchik Volemak who is the most prominent man in Basilica, and Rasa the most well- known woman in Basilica. He has three brothers: Elemak, Mebbekew, and Issib. Studious, and a thinker, he led a normal life, thinking about things boys worry about at his age like marriage, finding a trade, and planning for the future. One day, everything changes because he hears the voice of the Over soul in his thoughts after Nafai and his brothers and father are banished from Basilica and are forced to live in the desert. He’s going through his normal routine one day, and the next he’s in the desert using skills he has learned to stay alive. Everything he learned before has changed. Rules that have never been broken for thousands of years have suddenly been broken. Nafai himself has to break a rule to follow the Over souls orders. Nafai is an interesting character to talk about because he is so cunning and he is able to adapt quickly to everything that happened. Unfortunately, everyone has faults and his biggest fault is his big mouth. There’s one thing that Nafai has not been able to change about himself, and that is he can never seem to keep his mouth shut. Little disputes where he and his brothers argue over something ridiculous and he just HAS to have the last word. For instance, in one of the many fights with his brother Elemak: “…Nafai knew he should let Elemak’s taunt go unanswered, shouldn’t provoke him anymore. But the very fact that he looked up to Elemak so much made it impossible for Nafai to leave the gibe unanswered.” His big mouth also gets him in trouble with his brothers when they bargain with Gaballufix and loses their inheritance because he thought that his more experienced brother was going to lose their one chance to acquire the Index. I haven’t read the other four books in the series, but making an educated guess, I think that Nafai will learn to become the man he wants to be, through trial and error, and with the help of the all powerful Over soul.

The Memory of Earth: Part 3

     The third part of "The Memory of Earth" is just as boring to me as the other two sections. My God... it’s a freaking sleep aid. I...I can't read any more... it’s just so plain. By the time I got to section three, I pretty much knew what was going to happen. There are I think five other volumes continuing this story... what is he going to write about? I seriously cannot read the others. This is probably the only book I wouldn't want to read. As the story advances, Nafai and his brothers are forced into situations where both paths of the roads are dangerous. Along the way they just keep going over the same things. How Nafai or one of his brothers does something that he has already done before. It's just so repetitive. The parts describing the women being more powerful than men in politics, reverse roles have already come up several times, yet Nafai still seems to be puzzled whenever he meets a woman... During certain parts of the book, while I was reading about something awkward happening to the characters, I would put the book down and just stop reading awhile and go take a nap. I just have so many pet peeves and one of them has to do with reading about an awkward situation. The biggest problem of all is that fact that there are so many small conflicts in the book. It’s alright to have a few here and there, but so many all together, plus the major conflict of the book makes it hard for me to follow each one. The storyline skips around to one conflict, and then another one from another point of view, instead of several conflicts organized so that I don’t have to remind myself what’s happening.

Why are you reading this? Just Cause.....2

A new game was released not so long ago. Just Cause 2, which is a sandbox game, aka a free- roaming game. Similar to the Grand Theft Auto series if you're into that genre. Just Cause 2 follows largely in the footsteps of its predecessor, so if you played the first one you can skip to the next paragraph. You play as James Bond/ Batman, aka Rico Rodriguez. He's a specialist in regime change and jumping off things that are quite high up, so that's what the whole game is going to be based off of and what you're going to be doing. He's off to Panau, where your bosses ( I'm assuming that he is working for the CIA) are unhappy about the new president. They're also unhappy with the fact that his old mentor, Tom Sheldon (who is like the most American man you would ever meet. ) is looking like he's gone rogue and may have defected. Rico's job? Find and if needed, exterminate the target.
So Square Enix has supplied you with a grappling hook, which the in-game advice tells you there are lots of uses for. There's the obvious – latching on to things and reeling yourself in to either get up high or just move about a bit quicker. You can also use it to get yourself a bit of speed up and then use your parachute, gliding serenely across the landscape a darn site faster than you would plodding along on your two little legs. This technique is known as slingshotting (pretty cool huh?).
The missions themselves offer up a good amount of variety. There aren't as many of them as you'd perhaps like, but the assorted base captures, hijacks, race-against-time missions and everything else stops things from getting boring. They also offer up some good set piece play. Riding a bike straight off a cliff so you can parachute onto a limo, take control of it then drive it straight through several roadblocks is very cool.
Now with a massive location and a ton of action going on you may wonder if the graphics are up to par, and I was very impressed by the jungle locales in the game. I am used to a lot of jankiness in sandbox games, but this is remarkably solid and looks lush with falling trees and the great explosions. Though you won’t want to get too distracted by the beautiful sights on the island as you are more than likely to run into some Panau government agentswho will take great pleasure in blasting you to bits. Sadly the gunfights are a low point in the game. The AI have incredible accuracy, forcing you to stay behind cover, but this is not a major problem when there are more fun and inventive ways to take out your foes.

Part Two: The Memory of Earth

Alright, I have completed the next section of "The Memory of Earth". The book is starting to make sense to me now. I understand a lot about the people living on this planet called Harmony. It is a weird feeling, reading about a world where women run the place and men don't. To start off, the four brothers Elemak, Mebbekew, Nafai, and Issib are part of some plan of the oversoul and disrupts the flow of daily life in Basilica where they live. I needed to reread some parts of the book because of things like this. It is very difficult to follow sometimes because of the way the book is written I'm guessing. Within the second paper clip, much more gruesome and horrifying acts and events pop up than the preceding section. As I read more, and the events unfold, things become clearer but problems also keep arising too. There is a noticeable difference in word choice and the descriptions used. Actually, quite a bit has changed since the beginning of the story. Where there once was trust, is now replaced with contempt, corruption, and envy. I find that The Memory if Earth is confusing now because I haven't read about that yeti thing on the cover of the book. There are also some things I wonder about now. For instance, how come these people have a supercomputer, sattelites, hovering chairs, laser swords (or something like that) but their ways of living are pretty primitive. They use camels and caravans and things like that. How can they have such advanced technology but still live like that. This quetions keeps popping up as I said before and it hasn't been answered yet. The book is getting kind of interesting now because there's some gore and things like that.

Part One: The Memory of Earth

Well, I've just finished reading the first section of "The Memory Of Earth" by Orson Scott. The toughest part of reading a new book is The transition from the action packed book, "Patient Zero" that contained the usual zombies in a post-apocalyptic world to a more subtle and laid back genre. When I first noticed what Alvin had chosen, I was of course skeptical. I took one glance at the cover and wondered to myself whether this book was worth reading or not. The cover in general was a tad intriguing. The cover portrays a quiet scene that emits a sense of serenity. Two boys, one in some sort of hovering device are strolling through a marketplace if some sort while merchants are setting up shop. Unfortunately that's not what intrigues me. It is the fact that a gargantuan beast of perhaps a form of yeti is part of the scene. From what
I have read so far, this story takes place in a desert on not Earth, but a whole different planet called Harmony. I never knew it but I am surprised by the contrast between the old ways doing things, things like camels and caravans mixing together with futuristic features like "floats" which are like things that permit the disabled to move freely and without restraint.
I'm not very impressed by this so far but I'll give it a chance since it is just the beginning or the book after all. Everything is very misleading with the Oversoul being a computer that helps control humans and I find that hard to comprehend. It reminds me of our in class discussions of the human race starting to become attached to technology. The Memory of Earth looks pretty interesting and all but I just can't get interested in it enough.

End of the Month Literature circle Book Review: Patient Zero

Uhh..so this week I'm writing the book review of Patient Zero. Sorry but eh, I don't really feel like writing anything right now because someone stole my Ipod Touch today during P.E -_-. Therefore, I'm just like...out of it right now. Ok so I am back and my internets all screwed up. It’s just disconnecting like every fifteen seconds and I don’t know if I’ll be able to post this up.

            So, it’s monthly review time. Great lets get started. The book that I have chosen for our very first Literature Circle was Patient Zero by Jonathan Maberry. When I look back, I don’t really know why I chose this book. I was at Borders, browsing around and I just saw it in a corner. Maybe it was the awesome cover of the book, or maybe it was the description on the back. I don’t know. Take a look at it. The cover could mean anything, war, murderer, romance. Out of all that, it would probably have never been guessed that this was a story of zombies. I instantly knew that I had to have this book. After reading the small paragraph on the back of this book, I was already hooked and I DEMAND that anyone who likes horror novels, zombies, or something along the lines of that needs to read this epic book.

The story begins with this man. Some guy called Joe Ledger. Occupation: Detective. He works on the police force, but has something you can’t see, but you would get chills if you got on his bad side. He is the man who will save your ass in the events to come. From what I see, there are three groups within the story, although there might actually be just two [The Enemy of my Enemy is my Friend…]. There’s Joe Ledger, and his company of ass-kicking squad, the highly, yet not very religious faction, and the typical greedy and wealthy party funding the terrorists. The book sets off on a good pace; holding your eyes so that you can’t stop reading the book the instant you set your eyes on it. Ledger gets recruited by the DMS (Department of Military Science) and also gets to meet his so called acquaintances early on in the book who describe to him the horrors of the terrorist’s plans. One of the people that Ledges meets is a queer man who goes by many names, Mr. Church, Churchill and others. This man is very mysterious, so mysterious that the world’s most technologically advanced piece of equipment is unable to find one single thing about him. So, who is he? Beats me. As the events unravel, Joe and his crew go through terrifying ordeals to discover the plans of the terrorists. I don’t want to spoil the entire book for you so let’s just say that Joe doesn’t really save the world.

John Maberry has a very peculiar style of writing. Well I think I have seen it before but I don’t remember. I have never read a book that switched between so many points of views. One second you’re in the mind of a terrorist, the next your in Joe Ledgers mind, and then you go to the mysterious leader of the Department of Military Sciences. It’s not bad, actually, it’s pretty damn smart of him because many times while I was reading the book, I became engrossed in what was happening. I turn the page and it goes off to someplace else right in the middle of the good part. I get all twitchy afterward and I have to read through a couple sections to get back to it. I can’t stress this enough, from the very start of the book, to the very end of the book, there is so much going on. It’s all really very exciting. From the zombie brain busting, to the self-inflicted wounds, everything is in such great detail. Maberry’s style of writing is like…like a T.V. I could imagine all the events being played out. Even though he doesn’t describe things in excessive detail, I could always imagine that dark, dank room filled with coppery blood. The shoes of small infants, toys, electronic devices, tattered clothes strewn all across the floor. All in all, I would state that his writing style is based a lot on action, and the ability to let the reader visualize without seeing it mind you. I’d think this book was written for guys, because of all this blood, and secret organizations, and…well…the zombies. I must applaud Maberry for writing the book like this. I have read other zombie novels but this tops them all. Using already overused ideas, he manages to put enough action so that the reader barely even recognizes that fact because they’re so into reading the next part.

The mysterious man, who lives in shadows, and dies in the shadows, the man who we know as Mr. Churchill. As I have said, no one knows who he is. In the story the Department of Military Sciences have a piece of equipment called Mind Reader which is sort of like Google, but which can pull up basically anything at will. Joe Ledger and Grace Courtland use this to try and find some bit of information of Churchill. Unfortunately for them, they don’t find anything. Nothing at all. Probably the most advanced equipment they have can’t find one single thing on this man. This piques me greatly. I want to know why he is such a shadow in the world, but also one of the most powerful men in the world, he probably has the whole world at his fingertips. Churchill already has some very important people on his side. He can get anything he wants at the push of a button. There are all these questions again which Maberry creates, which pisses me off. Despite that, I can’t help admire how he has spent a great deal of time making Churchill such a major part of the story, yet no one knows about him beyond the fact that he’s the leader of the DMS. In the first or second section of the book, Grace tells Joe how she saw Churchill fighting in the hospital. I won’t spoil it but, she says Churchill rivaled Joe in skill. Who IS this guy? Man. It really bugs me… Churchill is the type of guy who people would avoid, just cross the street and walk as fast a possible. I think that he’s creepy and it just makes me nervous how he has so much power, yet he somehow remains under the radar, unseen, and unknown except by a handful of people….

LC Letter 3

So this is the last literature circle that my group is going to write for this book. haha...HAHAHAA!!! I'm so glad, I hate writing these things. I find it difficult to write these blogs about a book after reading it. I have to say though, The last section of Patient Zero was the best part (pfft of course it is, it's the end of the book duh!). I really like how Maberry just wraps everything up so neatly, tieing off the loose ends. Now I don't want
to go into detail and spoil everything which I usually do.. -.- What I don't really get is the ending of the book. It just suddenly goes to these people. I thought that Joe Ledger would have been included at the very end which wasn't true apparently. And I would like to revisit what I said in an earlier post when I said that Joe was absorbed in his own world, well he is REALLY absorbed. whenever he not talking with someone he's all talking to himself. Even with all the surprises and the little "oh! Whoa! I didn't expect that!" moments, I thought that the things Maberry puts at the end really just makes this one of those books that gives you all this action and gets even better throughout the book until the very end. As with my previous blog, i still that some parts of the story just brings to flow of things to a grinding halt which I don't like when reading a book. Things like his attention to detail like describing to people prion diseases. Let me borrow something from alvins post. Parts like "Prions are neurodegenerative diseases called transmissible spongiform encephalopathies...sometimes you see it occurring as a result of cornea or dura mater transplants, or in the administration of human-derived pituitary growth hormones...they are not compatible according to what we know of modern transgenics---or they've found a way to alter the chemistry of the body to cause artificial hibernation...Once the victim is in hibernation this disease cluster reorganizes the functioning matrix of the body. It somehow uses fatal familial insomnia protein to wake the victim up again and keep them awake." really just bore me sometimes.

Last LC Letter

LC Letter 2

Dear Alvin,
Thanks for doubting me. Haha. Anyways I didn't really have the same feelings as you. I had more of an "Ooh awesome!" reaction when I first encountered Patient Zero. I have to admit that I'm kind of a zombie fanatic. Zombie games, T.V shows and movies although admittidely some of them freak me out. I'm a bit put out by the fact that you thought that the book I picked out was another typical zombie apocalypse book. Even so I am pleased that Patient Zero has so far, exceeded your expectations. I too agree with you yet again on the fact that in the first few chapters of the book crammed a bunch of information.

Now after going through all of the introductory phases, and all the setting up a setting and the characters part, we start getting to the juicy parts. In section two, Johnathan Maberry Really held back a lot of action to keep people glued to the book. There is just so much going on for me all at once, it makes me dizzy. First there's interesting scenes, then all of a sudden your attention just locks onto the intense zombie fighting heart throbbing action. I literally felt my heart beating because of the anticipation of what was going to happen next. When I read a couple parts of the book where Joe kills zombies, I unconciously compared
them with all the others that I've seen or read. I find myself thinking to myself,"hey these zombies move and act differently than the other ones!"
One more thing, to our surprise, johnathan maberry, the author of the book commented on alvins blog post which I thought was pretty awesome.(and creepy)

LC Letter

Well the book Patient Zero is very interesting. Mainly because I chose the book. I don't annotate at all because I can't concentrate very well. It's impossible for me to read and write at the same time. Even if I stop and start writing, I find it difficult to write anything at all. I remember when I used to annotate in middle school and the annotations never really helped me out. The book is filled with action, but there are some parts in Part One of the book where things slow down a bit which gets really boring after reading through something exciting. At first when I looked at this book's cover , it looked like a story about a patient who kills people. After reading the first part of the book, I was just thinking.. This book is good! The author just drops you into the middle of everything and for a second, you're all confused since you have no idea what's happening. The beginning starts off with the important information, skipping all the boring parts that a lot of other books have. The grabber of the story draws you in because it's about the FBI. Who wouldn't want to know what's happening when the FBI are involved? While I was reading section one, I suddenly realized that Joe Ledger, the main character tends to think to himself. Like he's talking to himself in his head. I was so absorbed in this book that I couldn't even remember who the characters names were. In my opinion the story so far doesnt have a lot of action. But when there is, it's very descriptive. It's like your playing a game, and your watching other people fight through a third person camera. Also sometimes the descriptions describe something to the tiniest detail. Like when Joe was eating an Oreo cookie, he took apart the cookie, then ate the filling and then ate the outer cookie. Overall I really enjoyed the story so far.

[Posted with iBlogger from my iPod touch]

The "Dead" Farm

I think I have found my source for information. There's this website that I randomly clicked on and well, it has some pretty interesting stuff. (To me) Anyways for this week, I thought we would take a look at a farm that holds death. Yes. That's what I said. Death. In Knoxville, Tennessee, at the University of Tennessee an acre of woodland is secluded. Fenced off with two fences, the outer fence made of chain-links, garnished with prison grade razor wire. The inner fence is made from wood. All of this to keep curious bystanders out. The "Body Farm" as people call it lovingly was founded in 1981 by Dr. Bill Bass, a professor of anthropology at the university. The Body farm was and is still used as a
Place where studetns gather around to study the mysteries of death. The story starts off with a quaint scene.. A quiet peaceful forest, everywhere surrounded by nature in all its glory. A man sits under a tree enjoying nature.. But wait.. Take a closer look, that man is dead. What looks like a forest is actually the testing and experimenting grounds. The corpse is actually an experiment done by some students on the effdects of bacteria and such. It's all very interesting actually. They get all these dead bodies which the put to good use of course. The experiments range from body decomposition to the study of bacteria decompositions. The bodies, which are generously donated by people giving their bodies away to science. On the body farm, the majority of the bodies are naked, with a few exceptions like seeing how clothing affects the rates of something. Sorry if I'm sorta repeating some information. I'm typing on my iPod and my friends are here bothering me lol. Anyways the doctor was all like diagnosing a victim and hypothesized that the victim died not very long ago but it actually died in the civil war period. This prompted him to create the body farm so that people could practice identifying what happened to the body. Even the police use them to reenact the crimescene. The bodies are placed in some pretty random places like cars cement vaults graves bags water or just lying about. The first victim of the body farm was a hog named pig doe. They noticed that a low fly planted eggs inside of it only eighty seven seconds into the death of it. The researchers there also use chemicals on the bodies and stuff.
The reason we start decomposing so fast is because our stomach doesn't create any more stomach acid and then the bacteria grow fast. The report goes into detail about the decay time for humans. It really goes into detail, explaining how the body changes every couple of days talking about insects and bacteria. I also learned that natural soap can be produced since we accumulate a lot of body fat. Dr.bass the scientist suggested that there should be facilities like his everywhere because it could help crime units and investigators in murders and things like that.

[Posted with iBlogger from my iPod touch]

something interesting

I read a very interesting Blog post. Apparently some guy was super crazy and went on a rampage. So in the beginning, way before all of this happened, this man was the owner of a muffler shop. His name was Marvin Heemeyer, a former soldier but now a muffler repair man. His friends and family stated that he was violatile in personality if he was mad and that he was being mistreated by the justice system. Even though he spent years attending protests, petitions, and town meetings, the thing that pushed him over the edge was when the Docheff family offered to buy his property. Heemeyer wasn't angry or anything but his inability to make a final decision on the selling price led to the beginning of this devastating event. The buyers of his plant decided to go to the city council to get a rezoning request approved. Even though Marvin attended the meetings and everything, the final decision of the council was to approve the rezoning request and then to add insult to injury, they fined him for the junk cars scattered throughout his yard. Even with all these odds against him, Marvin perservered. He even tried to comply with the city's ruling, offering to install sewer pipes underneath the concrete plant's land. The owners denied him access and cut off the route to his shop. Again Marvintried to compensate by renting a bulldozer to pave a route to his shop which the city ultimately denied. This led to rumors of corruption or the like of it, the plant cooperating with the city.
The revenge begins. After trying all possible solutions to his dilemma, Marvin finally loses his patience and begins work on the the deadly killdozer. Marvin used the Komatsu D335A bulldozer as his vehicle of choice. Over the span of one and a half years, Marvin spent all of his resources working to complete the last task he would ever do. He started by adding home-made composite armor–cement sandwiched between thick sheets of steel–to protect the cab, engine, and parts of the tracks. He installed front and rear cameras to feed images to monitors in the cab, and several gun ports were set around the control center. A stockpile of food and water was stored inside, as well as an air tank to help provide air circulation. On June fourth, a Friday Marvin sets his plan in motion. He used the winch controls to lower the concrete and steel shell onto the top of his vehicle. Nothing short of a crane would be able to lift the thirty-ton armor shell off the vehicle once it was in place. With that fateful metal clap, Heemeyer was sealed in a concrete and steel box that he could never escape and drove off to fulfill his duty. He drove to a list of targets destroying them while authorities tried with no effect, to stop this mechanical behemoth. The concrete tank destroyed everything in it's path until it was stopped by a shallow basement. Heemeyer, with no other choice killed himself, leaving the impression that a man can be pushed beyond his patience, and do drastic actions. And in the end, the rampage lasted 2 hours 7 minutes, and caused about $7 million in damage.

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Was ist Völkermord? ( What is genocide)

Was ist Völkermord?

     Genocide by definition is the deliberate and systematic extermination of a national, racial, political, or cultural group. The term "genocide" did not exist before 1944 when Polish Jewish scholar Raphael Lemkin used it to describe the atrocities of Hitler's Nazi Germany. Genocide is a term created during the Holocaust and declared an international crime in the 1948 United Nations Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide. The Convention defines genocide as any of the following acts committed with the intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such:


1. Killing members of the group.
2. Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group.
3. Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part.
4. Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group.
5. Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.
Genocide is generally considered one of the worst moral crimes a government (meaning any ruling authority, including that of a guerrilla group, a Soviet, a terrorist organization, or any kind of authority) can commit against its citizens or those it controls.
     It is impossible to say who participates in genocide. People could debate about it forever and still not come up with an answer. On one side of the topic, we could argue that everyone commits genocide. They commit genocide when they watch the news and see people getting killed, but do nothing about it. Well I can’t really explain why because I simply don’t know. I guess when people watch the news, it’s just like none of their concern and they don’t have anything to do with it since it’s halfway across the world. But on the other hand what can they do from across the world? You can’t stop genocide even if you wanted to. I remember someone saying that there will always be one person that disagrees with the majority. Which is like there will always be that one person to ignite the spark which starts the fire. Individuals opposing this statement may dispute that only people that actually has some substantial links to participating in genocide. Essentially, those who commit genocide are the ones who harm others in some way or another. It doesn’t matter if you’re paying someone to do it for you, you are paying that individual to go out and kill others. Some historians argue that only people that are contributing to the cause participates. This issue about who and who don’t take part in genocide is like the numerical value of Pi. It will keep going and going, there is no end in sight, possibly there never will be. It’s just another one of those unsolvable problems.
     Why does human nature allow genocide? On that same note, why does humanity allow the abuse of animals, and the environment, and resources? Great. Another one of those unexplainable problems that we seem to be running into more and more often. My take on why we allow it? Humans are not perfect. There has never been a perfect human, we are built with flaws that a lot of us call “unique traits”. There will never be a perfect human because that’s how we function. The closest we would ever be to perfect would probably be Leonardo Da Vinci. The reason? He was probably the most diversely talented person ever born because he was an Italian polymath: painter, sculptor, architect, musician, scientist, mathematician, engineer, inventor, anatomist, geologist, botanist and writer. Scientists just found out that his painting, the Mona Lisa was actually a self-portrait. Humans need something to obsess over because we are humans, and we need stimulation. The problem is that our lives need to be interesting coded into our minds. The same reason drug addicts take drugs, is for the excitement. We allow it because we have to have something to talk about, something to rant, write, blog, report, think, and get angry, sad, happy, scared, or nervous about. Like the book Night, the Jews that were living in the community didn’t even worry about the Nazis. When the Nazis came to their town and starting taking people away, they still didn’t do anything. Though the Jews were the ones whom the Nazis were committing genocide on, they didn’t do anything. I guess most of us have just become immune to these things, what with the violence in entertainment today. I’m starting to believe that we’re just going to keep ignoring these problems until it happens to us.

What's up?

            Ha-ha. So this week, I couldn’t think of anything to blog about...again. So I spent a couple minutes just browsing through people’s blogs, seeing what they wrote about. There didn’t seem to be much to talk about and I was getting kind of worried. Then an idea slapped me across the face. I went to Google and typed in “interesting stuff.” You would be amazed at the stuff you end up getting when you search something so simple.

            Sorry if you already knew this, but I don’t so deal with it. Apparently, there’s this substance called Aerogel. It is basically like I guess you could say Styrofoam but it’s kind of transparent and stronger. Someone defines Aerogel 99.8% air and is made by high temperature and pressure-critical-point drying of a gel composed of colloidal silica structural units filled with solvent. The resulting silica dioxide structure is sponge like with micro porosity on a nanometer scale. (No idea what it means). Aerogel looks like something that was badly photo shopped into a picture because it just seems all fuzzy. This stuff is so cool; I mean something that weighs almost nothing, but can still hold four thousand times its own weight is pretty awesome. It looks like you’re holding a piece of light. I wouldn’t mind having some but some of them can be toxic or like irritants.  But Aerogel is really expensive. I think you can get it from eBay, and it would set you back around eighty dollars for 0.8 grams of the stuff. NASA uses aerogels for their space suits because it like excellent at insulating. They also use it to trap space dust. I don’t know what space dust is but I know that the dust vaporizes when it hits solids and passes through gas, but gets caught in aerogel.

commercials

Meh I don't rally have anything to talk about this week, my mind is just like......Bleh. But really I just spent like five minutes just sitting here. I still can't think of ANYTHING to write about. Not much has happened this week. I had a history project that I had to do so I couldn't really do anything else on top of my pre-cal homework. I don't really like math, I never understand it and I think I'm like the only one... Hahaha.... I mean it would be great to not worry about math. But it will always be a shadow over me. Great..... ._. Now I'm starting to say random things.... Eh what's up with all this dumbass commercials? They've either been done a hundred times are they're just plain stupid. I mean there's this commercial with a woman that's "depressed" and she's talking about having to wind herself up all the time. I mean what the hell does a wind up doll have to do with depression. Oh yea I just thought of about some others. Ok. Here we go! There's those stupid annoying ass hell head on commercials. Yea we get it. You put it on your forehead. Oh another one of my favorite most hated commercials are the ones with some celebrity telling some people that saying "gay" is bad. Like some girls are looking at clothes and one comments "that's so gay" and then god knows which celebrity came out of nowhere. She thens says " you shouldn't say gay, would you like someone to say, that's so... Girl in a skirt." I mean do they really think that that's really going to affect us? Yea so I don't have much to say. Well I do have other commercials but it's like 11:55 right now and I can't type fast enough on my iPod so that's the end of my blog for this week.

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Death and it's iron grip on life

So I don't really have time to write this since I just forgot about it until the last second. I guess today I'll talk about the universe. Sometimes I just start thinking about the universe and what may be in it. Like just randomly, in a car, watching tv anywhere. It's usually when I'm all by myself and it's very quiet. I start thinking about what's in the universe and the human population and stuff like that. It isn't really specifically the humans that I'm thinking about our life now. As we all know is pretty good. But we take it for granted. I read in like newsweek about probably the biggest crisis the human populace has ever or will ever face. I have to say.. Admitting this is not easy for me. Whenever I think about these things I get really creeped out. I can't really explain it well. It's like this have you ever thought about life and what happens after you die? Like is it just total darkness and then it's just empty.
And then another thing, what will happen to the memories of this life. If you do get reincarnated, will you know what your former was vaguely about? If when you die.. I can't think about like what the earth and it's inhabitants will face when I die. Or when the fucking world gets cremated by our sun.... What will happen then? If the human race is extinguished... Wouldn't the universe be any less different? And then noone to remember us. As I am writing this, my heart beats rapidly and I feel panicked.. I guess.. I don't want to die so that I can see what the future will be like. With all these fascinating technological wonders and what will happen to our ways of life, the environment, races, animals, water, food, and climate

I am afraid of Death. But if I must... I will go with as much courage as I can muster

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Leviathan (Continued)

     Recap: Aleksander’s Great War is one split down the middle of two factions: the Clankers and the Darwinists. The Clankers depend on mechanics and steam power, man-made machines with legs that mimic animals and firepower that rivals the creative weaponry and biotechnology of their rivals (Each boasting theirs is more advanced). The Darwinists are inspired by Charles Darwin and his Theory of Evolution. In Leviathan, the mystery of DNA --brought forward a few decades for the sake of plot--has been discovered and manipulated to create crossbreeds of animals and huge, living dirigibles as part of their military power.

   The Leviathan is one of these airships--one of the biggest--in which a young girl, Deryn Sharp, manages to serve aboard after an accident during her practical entrance exams leaves her stranded among its crew. She’s looked forward to this day for as long as she can remember, but being a girl hasn’t made it easy. Women aren’t allowed to join the military, but Deryn’s brother; already an airshipman helped her study and perfect her disguise as Dylan, the boy. Their ruse has worked so far, but Deryn is in for more than she ever could have expected. Before the Leviathan can return Deryn, Alek’s parents, on the other side are killed and war declarations start cropping up across Eastern Europe, summoning the huge airship to a highly secretive mission that involves a thylacine, a zookeeper, talking lizards, and a batch of eggs which noone seems to have any clue about.

     So now that i have had more time to research and hings like that, i have some opinions.  First of all, this book, although it is a childrens book, I recommend it to anyone of any age to give it a chance, the details of war machines and mythical monsters giving people a break from technology. Scott Westerfield’s writing transforms the reader's brain into a sponge. Once I started reading, I couldn't stop until I finished. The story just hooked onto my brain and drew me in. Anyways here's the rest of my review or more like a summary hoped you liked/hated it. Oh and if you want to read it I have the book if you would like to borrow it.

Ye Olde English Paper (Finals)

English Final Questions 7, 8, 10

I have a major problem with writers block. Every time I write, I get stuck. Throughout my entire life it has just been there, appearing every time without fail. It’s like a disease that affects everyone and there are no medicinal treatments for it. Whether it is free write, essays, or research papers, I always get stuck. I think that I get stuck while writing most of the time because I over think. Whenever I start writing, I obsess over things like how the paragraph should be structured. Minute things like what the perfect sentence starter would be or the best word for this sentence should be. There isn’t really any kind of strategy to writers block. All I do is sit there until an idea pops into my head. I know that this is bad since you waste time and time is everything. Everyone has their own strategy or whatever they may call it and this is mine. I’ve noticed that whenever I get stuck while writing, there’s always some factor in it. I basically need complete silence to concentrate on what’s at hand. My mind tends to drift off and I end up sitting there daydreaming. On second thought, I get stuck because every time I write, I just write. I don’t plan it out extensively or anything. Once I start writing, I just go with the flow until I run into a dead end. So my main problem is that I don’t think enough about what I’m writing about, deciding whether or not I have enough to write something. I’ve had writers block enough to know that it will never go away and that anyone, whoever they are will get writers block. You could be the best writer in the universe but you would need something to write about.

At the beginning of the year, Mr. Sutherland was lecturing everyone about how he had a new idea which was to blog. He said that we would write a blog every Friday and that would be like a weekly assignment. When I heard this, I was like oh my god! Thank you!! I had so many ideas on what to blog about. Subjects that included games, movies, technology, and worldwide issues were all of interest to me. As the school year progressed on though, I started having doubts about it. I’ve noticed that almost everyone else has the absolute opposite feelings than me. They love blogging and you could say they are hooked. When we first started writing blogs, I thought my ideas were awesome! Over time the ideas just seemed stupid and really uninteresting to me. I don’t really have a main source for all my blog post ideas. Future blogs might come from anything, like a scrap of paper, to the back of a cookie box. Occasionally, things like Newsweek end up stuck in my mind and I decide to write about them. I tend to stick to more factual topics. What I’m basically trying to say is that I like to write about things that have a major effect on people lives which are discussed by the majority of the population. Nothing really “inspires” me to write. Most of the time, I just write to finish the assignment. I don’t recall anytime when something inspired me to write. Everything I write is just ideas on a piece of paper that has been expanded to create a story, nothing more. Maybe that’s my problem. Nothing inspires me to write so I have nothing to write…interesting. After answering this question, I think I’ll wait and see if something will inspire me, or if I will stay as I am.

I have to think about this one. I mean I can’t really say that I like having a blog. Ever since we made them, I keep forgetting to write one every week and it affected my grade so much. So we are not off to a very good start. Well, aside from dropping my grade down to a D blogs are pretty ok. They can get annoying since ninety nine percent of the time I don’t have anything to write about. I end up sitting there watching the screen for an hour.  Well, there are some good aspects for having a blog. Almost every week we get to go to the lab to just work on them. In there I can catch up on homework if I need to and then blog. Weighing in the good and bad, I’d say that having a blog isn’t good but it’s also not bad. Before I started blogging, I used to write without thinking. For instance, I would write about something that I would find interesting. Then we started to blog and Mr. Sutherland told us that it would be best if we let anyone read them. I believe that I understand why he wanted us to blog and let the world view our writings. If we had just written in class on a piece of paper, there would be a finite amount of opinions. But blogging on the internet, where billions of people can get access to them, gives us an infinite bank of opinions. Mr. Sutherland may or may have not have thought about this, but getting feedback from people outside of our classroom is beneficial. We get information from people we don’t know about their preferences, not just limited to the few in our class. Perhaps this is why we were assigned to blog, to voice our opinions, our interests to the world. This is what blogging has started to do for me. It is opening my mind to millions of different possibilities. It is teaching me to expand my mind, to absorb not only what I think, but the ideas of the world.

“Speech has allowed the communication of ideas, enabling human beings to work together to build the impossible. Mankind's greatest achievements have come about by talking and its greatest failures by not talking. It doesn't have to be like this. Our greatest hopes could become reality in the future. With the technology at our disposal, the possibilities are unbounded. All we need to do is make sure we keep talking.”-Stephen Hawking