[Free]SOB

     Son of a bitch I thought my internet stopped working so I frantically spent like 20 minutes trying to fix it and then I missed the 12:00 deadline. Then I realized I pressed this button on my laptop that disables wireless connection....

     I agree that it IS scary that as we get older, we as humans become weaker physically and mentally. It is inevitable that our memory degrades, and our ability to recall events in our past accurately diminishes.  The part that I do not see eye to eye is when Stephen says "Memories are your life experiences, how you perceive your world, and in some cases your best companion.  Without memories, you essentially lose who you are and what you stand for.  I'd like to convince everyone to make as many memories as you can throughout your life because at the end of the day they're all you got." While it is true that memories are basically what you have experienced in life,  I don't think that memories are how you perceive the world.  Memories are just things you remember, they don't have anything to do with how  you perceive to world. Unlike Stephen, I think that Even if you lose memories you are still the person you are.  Your perceptions about certain things may be different , and you may act differently, but in essence you are still the same person you were, whether or not you had those memories or not. You may have memories. The good and the bad, exciting and boring, but memories do not influence the things you stand for. Memories aren't all you have, you have the whole world at your disposal. You have family, friends, pets. You can never just have your memories, there's too much in the world for one to be alone with their memories.

[Free]

     It is easy to tell that from the very beginning, Christopher Johnson McCandless had a goal-driven personality and did not like to follow a normal path. In addition to his goal-driven personality, Chris was also a man who was stunningly stubborn but also a very sociable person. His way of living was based on his personality which meant that he lived in an eccentric way: living simplistically and in meager conditions,  which may have convinced people of his insanity and suicidal intentions. He absolutely admired Leo Tolstoy, who abandoned a life of wealth and privilege to wander among the destitute, enough emulate Tolstoy. He was an intelligent and athletic man who excelled in school, but got too big for his britches. Nevertheless Christopher McCandless was someone who knew what he was getting into and did not have any suicidal intentions when he walked into the Alaskan wilderness.

     Many of the things Chris did during his lifetime was due to his peculiar personality. He just had an odd way of seeing things and an even stranger way of doing things, like he was the one who could tell himself what he could and could not do. When Jim Gallien asked McCandless whether he had a hunting license or not, Chris replied with: "Hell, no, how I feed myself is none of the government's business. Fuck their stupid rules," showing how Chris felt about the government and that he didn't care about any of their rules. Another trait that Chris had was stubbornness. With his mind set on living in the outskirts of Alaska in the beginning, there was no changing his mind. No one could change his mind unless he wanted to, including Wayne Westerberg who recalls "A couple of times I tried to tell him it was a mistake to get too deep into that kind of stuff, but Alex got stuck on things. He always had to know the absolute right answer before he could go on to the next thing." Chris McCandless's determination fueled his desire and helped him achieve most of the things he set out to do. In the words of Jon Krakauer  " No longer would he answer to Chris McCandless; he was now Alexander Supertramp, master of his own destiny."

            Books played a major role in how McCandless acted, and felt about things. According to Ron Franz, "McCandless's face would darken with anger and he'd fulminate about his parents of politicians or the endemic idiocy of mainstream American life." The same way Jack London, one of Chris McCandless's favorite writers felt. London's "fervent condemnation of capitalist society, his glorification of the primordial world, his championing of the great unwashed", mirrored all of his passions. According to Jon Krakauer, "McCandless was so enthralled by these books that he seemed to forget they were works of fiction." Chris was basically looking for the things described to him in the books he read. It seems as though Chris's life was all based a variety of books combined into one. He reenacted Leo Tolstoy's actions, giving away all his money, leaving behind all his belongings, and living a simplistic life.

            Chris McCandless was given a false sense of security when he first started his adventure living off the land. He traveled through the West, encountering brushes with the law, and admiring the scenery, living off plants, using a book on vegetation.  Paddling through to Mexico and living off of five pounds of rice and fishing. These experiences led him to believe that he could handle Alaska. Jim Gallien, the man last to see Chris pointed out: " His gear seemed exceedingly minimal for the harsh conditions of the interior. Alex's cheap leather hiking boots, a .22 caliber. He had no ax, no bug dope, no snowshoes, no compass."  Chris McCandless fooled himself into believing he could survive in Alaska even though he had no prior experience or any information at all. He might have survived elsewhere, but all the places he went, there was one thing that they all had in common that Alaska didn't, these places had people. The Stampede Trail was the most isolated place Chris had ever lived, and that was probably what killed him.

            Christopher McCandless was and is a truly extraordinary person. Forsaking his former life and becoming Alexander Supertramp, doing things most people today tend to shy away from. Trying to live off of books he read, trying to experience what the characters in the stories had was what he wanted. There was no way that Chris McCandless was in any way suicidal. His actions may have seemed like he wanted to die to others, but that was just the way he was. All he was looking for was happiness, happiness that was attained by something that was out of the ordinary. His journal never says anything about being depressed and wanting to die, instead it tells of his adventures, how he met people, what he was looking for.

[CE]Europe's tuberculosis spreading fast

"Infections are resistant to first-line and then second-line antibiotic treatments - are spreading fast, with about 440,000 new patients every year around the world."

Science has always been an interest of mine. I'm pretty much horrible at memorization, which is pretty much required. Almost anything that has to do with science interests me, if it doesn't get into too much detail. I was just scrolling through the Al Jazeera posts because all of the stuff looked really uninteresting to me. Things about winning crucial votes, sex abuse, and arms smuggling don’t really interest me much.

                In this day and age, I would not have expected any diseases to be able to spread so much. With all the technology we have, all the high tech instruments, the medical treatments we have, the doctors, surgeons, medicines. All these things that we have to help us combat anything that tries to hurt our body. I would never expect something like tuberculosis to spread in Europe. Especially London, the capital of England has the highest TB rate of all the capital cities in Western Europe. I find it unnerving from the fact that even though TB is an old disease, we are still so susceptible to it. There are treatments for it, but the scary part is that these treatments are less and less effective because of evolution. Evolution was good for us, but when evolution happens to things like bacteria, it can have devastating consequences for humans. Scientists will probably run out of ways to fight off certain diseases as they start to evolve and become more resistant to the cures we have. I think that this is the way the human race will become extinct.

[CE]

     This video about the Haitians and the United Nations only bring out one thing in my mind. What the hell? I mean it is OK to be angry if these strange people come into your country. I understand how the anger could spread if these strange people came into their country, and used force. It is natural to be mad if you heard that one of your own people was "raped".  This is all just baseless conjecture though. There is no proof, only verbal accusations that a man was raped by UN forces.

     I don't think that the UN should pull their peacekeeping forces out of Haiti. The UN is there for a reason. They are keeping the peace and the law intact there until the police and other enforcement agencies are able to retaliate against criminals. It is an especially bad time to decrease UN forces because of the earthquake,  things have been more chaotic. If the UN leaves Haiti, I do not believe that the law will hold.  Many of the Haitians feel that the UN are there just to keep an eye on them. The citizens of Haiti have pretty much lived in severe poverty and political instability. I believe that if we do leave, the government won't be strong enough, and things would not get better at all. Things would just get worse with no one that can actually back up the government.  The one man in the video says that the UN didn't go there to help them or anything which I think is the complete opposite since UN forces have made it safe for many of the Haitians.

[Re]Response to Stephen Tang

     I am responding to Stephen Tang's post. I don't know if this post is a response, or just his thoughts. If it is a response, then it's responception!! Anyways I will be trying to answer the same question that Stephen is answering: Who was involved in the attacks of 9/11 and what could have been done?.

It is pretty obvious that the person/ people behind the attacks were terrorists. Maybe it was the organization Al Qaeda and Osama bin Laden, maybe it was other terrorist cells, maybe it was a combination of the two. The widely accepted theory is that it was in fact Bin Laden and Al Qaeda who planned and executed the whole thing. I believe  that Al Qaeda and Bin Laden did carry out these attacks on our country. Yes, the attacks invoked fear into the hearts of many Americans, but it also stirred up the flames of racism against Muslims.

      I disagree however, on the part where Stephen says the following thing:

"I agree for the most part of what Natalie said and I believe there is truth in that President Bush for whatever reason decided that this threat held no importance." 

He is agreeing with what Natalie Ybarra, who said that "hes at this ranch doing whatever because he doesnt think ntional threats are a problem and then a month later 9/11 happens so obviously he wasnt apart of it directly cause he just didnt care." I don't believe that President Bush may have been entirely at fault. The U.S government probably gets hundreds of calls from people saying that there is probably going to be a terrorist attack or something like that. They don't have the time or resources to check out every single case to make sure. Even if Bush tried to do something, 9/11 might have still happened because you can't just instantly find where these terrorists are hiding, know what they are planning and act quickly to stop them.

[Free]Hmm...Hello again.

     Hello. This blog is going to be more active now since I have the same teacher again.  This year is going to be a little bit tougher. I assume that everyone in my class is a senior. We have many things to worry about during senior year. It's a wonder why everything is always piled on on people's last year in high school. Not only do we have the SATs/ ACTs, but on top of that we need to work on getting our statements for college written and completed soon. Luckily Sutherland will be including the UC personal statements in our assignments. I have a lot of things to worry about this year.  Not the typical things you would expect a senior to be worried about. I have other, more important matters to handle this year and it's especially tough for me because I have to deal not only with academic things like homework, tests, SAT/ACT, and college, but I also have personal things to deal with. Most of the free blog posts I write will probably be about my life. I don't know if I will write about it or not. These problems aren't about other people. I'm not going to be talking shit about other people, but I may write about them with a different name if they have anything to do with what I'm writing about at that time. I'm just hoping that writing about my problems will help to sort of relieve my stress, like the feeling when it feels like weight has been lifted off your shoulders.

Im backkkk -Damien Lo