Blog Activity Week 1

Before reading The Things They Carried, I hadn't read any novels related to war and have seen maybe one movie that involves war in its plot; those kinds of books and movies were just never my thing. My ideas and opinions about war have come soley from what I've learned in history classes over the years. The Vietnam War in particular is always addressed due to the difference between it and the other wars fought by our country in the last couple hundred years. I knew that there were many casualties and that we didn't win or lose that war. The Things They Carried didn't help me learn much about the war as a whole, and its effect on our nation, but it really made me see what a soliders in Vietnam faced. This book probably is different than many other books written about war because the themes focused on weren't the battles, the military, and even the dying aspects of the war; it went much deeper.

The things I got most out of the book was the emotion that seeped from the pages of every different story told and what it means to find truth in within those stories. This war was not glory; the country went into the war blindly with vague goals.This caused so much non-legit killing of innocent citizens no matter the sex or age. It drove people insane. It made them lose sight of themselves and of life in general. The book captured the emotional response of Vietnam wonderfully. The other thing I liked most about the book is the idea of what truth in stories was. I really think Rat Kiley was right saying that sensation dictates truth of a story instead of the other way around, the way that most see it.

Get the Lead Out

http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/commentary/la-oe-miller-lead-ammo-20101018,0,4641644.story?track=rss&utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+latimes%2Fnews%2Fopinion%2Fcommentary+%28L.A.+Times+-+Commentary%29



Millions of birds in America are suffering miserably from the affects of lead poisoning. It's something that is 100% preventable by requring non-lead hunting ammunitoin. A petition requring hunters to use non-lead hunting ammuniton went around and gained a lot of support, but was shot down by the EPA. They claimed they didn't have the authority to regualate such a thing under the Toxic Substance Control Act.

I choose this essay because I love animals, and it makes me so sad if they are being harmed in any way.

Portrayal of Heartbreak

Pain, rejection, lonliness, anger, doubt...things commonly felt after parting ways with that person you couldn't see your self without. Breakups are rough and something everyone experiences at one point in their life, making it a popular topic for producers to make movies about, musicans to sing about, and authors to write books about. Each genre brings a slightly different portrayal to the idea of breakups and the emotions that surround them.


The Notebook is a classic love story and does a great job drawing the viewer in to feel the ups and downs of Aly and Noah's relationship. Movies are very effective in getting emotion past the screen and into the hearts of viewers because they allow a person to phyically see a relationship be built and then fall to pieces, hear the sobs of a person desperate to catch a glimpse of their ex or the sound of their voice, and feel the sting of emptiness of life without the person that made it worth living for. Very few people can make it through The Notebook without shedding a tear.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tJOcKJNGGCE&feature=related

Songs and music are also very effective in conveying the feeling of a breakup. I connect with music the most out of any genre. There are so many songs that you can listen to, and you feel like it was written for you, like you were singing it. It brings to life the relationship you shared and the memories your trying to forget. You don't need to be watching anything, the lyrics paint the picture for you, and you can hear the sorrow in the voice of the artist. My favorite breakup song is Forever and Always by Taylor Swift because it expressed exactly how I felt after my biggest and hardest breakup. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eaBF9TeZ7Hw

Dear John was a great book I read that dealt with breakup. Books get to me, but not near as much as music or movies. Good authors can paint a vivid picture as Nicholas Sparks did in Dear John, but the feeling and emotion doesn't quite jump through the page as much. I feel like it's much more up for interpretation. http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0989757/synopsis

Writing and Skating...Not so Different afterall

A lot of time and thought goes into creating a finished piece of writing. It starts with an idea, and then the idea has to be taken to the next level and interpreted into words. When first put into words, its rough, unpolished; there is much room for changes and rearranging to make it your own and the best that it can be. These adjustments aren't going to acheived by revising just once, or even twice. It takes many drafts of writing to get it perfectly how you envisioned. You need to be flexible and open about the revisions you make; you need to see what fitting and what isn't. After that process is done, the writing has come a long way since that intial draft and is perfected to be the writers own.

Creating a program for figure skating is a very similar process to writing. When a choreographer listens to a piece of music, they get an idea that they want the skater to convey when he or she skates the program. So the choreographer finds a way to transfer their ideas into movements. Depending on the skater's abilities and style of skating, the intial program the choreographer comes up with is going to have to be tweaked and adjusted, most likely more than once. The skater needs to be comfortable skating the program, and its going to take some work by the choreographer to achieve that yet keep their intial envisionment of what they wanted the program to look like. After multiple changes, the program is in its best form.

My Sergei

I used to be a competitive figure skater. Due to a back injury I no longer skate at all, but skating is something I still love and am very passionate about. So for my book I chose a biography of a famous pairs skater. Ekaterina Gordiva and her husband Sergei were two-time Olympic champions and were extremely talented athletes. The book is written from Katia's perspective from the time she was just 4 years old up until her late 20's when Sergei passed away from a heart attack.

The first part of the book talks about Katia's childhood in Russia, her love for her family, and her discovery of skating. She started training as a singles skater until she was nine and was then told she could make a great pairs skater, and that's when she met Sergei. Even though their romantic relationship off the ice did not develop until years later and after they had won their first Olympics, the book shows the slow development of their relationship as friends and pairs skaters. Because their relationship was fairly slow coming, the middle of the book focused mainly on the skating aspect of their lives: the travel, the intense training, the injury, and being away from family at such a young age. The book gives you a great understanding of what it took to be successful in this sport. Being a skater myself i had an idea of what it took to get somewhere in the sport, but being from the United States and being a skater, and being from Russia and being a skater are very different. Figure skating is huge in Russia. The successful skaters in that country are famous like the Kardashions are here. Things are taken very seriously over there so it was interesting to get a different take on skating. It makes me give them so much credit for being strong enough people to get through training of that level at such young ages.

After winning their first Olympic gold, Katia and Sergei decided to go professional, skating in only certain competitions and mainly touring in different ice shows. Their lives were a lot more relaxed now and they started to see eachother as more than just partners. I loved this part of the book because it was all about the excitement of first love. I also liked this part of the book because they were a lot more on their own as professional skaters, so they were discovering so much about life as well as themselves. They were so perfect for eachother and were so happy they were experiencing all of these new things together. When Katia was 19 and Sergei was 23, he proposed and they were married no even a year later.

About two years after becoming professional, the newly weds got offered to skate in Stars on Ice, which is the biggest American tour there is. They were going to be making great money and loved America the last couple times they had visited, so they decided to not only do the tour, but to settle down there. After skating that tour, a new rule was established allowing professional skaters to be elligible for amatuer competitions, including the next Olympics. They decided they wanted to go for a second Olympic gold and began training hard core again. Though not long into their training, Katia found out she was pregnant with a baby girl. Her and Sergei were thrilled that they were going to be parents; however, they weren't ready to give up skating and the upcoming Olympics. So they skated and trained for as long as Katia was allowed by her doctor and then prepared for the birth of Daria.

When Daria was born, Katia's mother flew into the States to be a babysitter while her and Sergei trained. It was a very hard decison for them to give up raising Daria for their skating career,, but they knew that if they wanted to have a chance at winning a second Olympic gold, it was what they had to do. They worked very hard and saw Daria and Katia's mother as much as they were able to. Olympic time came and their choice paid off when they won their second gold medal. They were now satisfied with their accomplishments as skaters and were ready to be full time parents. The few years they all had together were precious. Though when Daria was only 4, Sergei died unexpectedly of a heart attack. Katia was lost and depressed for a year after his death and the only thing that kept her going was her daughter. Katia started skating again because it was the only thing that could make her as happy as she was when Sergei was alive. On the ice she could feel his presence and came to realize that at least she had been blessed with the years she had had with him.

Katia and Sergei's story is a great one, and it makes you see how great of a gift life is and how much one person can make you the person you are. It also shows incredible strength of self and drive to get through extremely tough times. The book has so many great life lessons and makes you really appreciate everything you have. It was a great read and I would recommend it to anyone who likes love storys or adventure; you don't have to like or know anything about skating to like this book.

Is Google Making Us Stupid?

Written by Nicholas Carr, this article focuses on the controversial question of whether the Internet is dumbing down the minds of people in the world today. Most people are overjoyed by the opportunities the Internet has presented and the efficiency it offers the user; however there are some skeptics that argue that it has shortened the attention span and shallowed the thinking capacity that people are capable of. The article presents multiple examples of this and I don't at all disagree with this idea; there is scientific evidence as well as people just noticing that the Internet is changing the kind of thinking we do and are capable of. So I believe that the real question is whether the affects that the Internet is having on people and our society are all bad. Yes it sounds bad that the Internet seems to be taking away from a person's skill to think deeply and interpret the text we read, but I feel like it's merely a shift in the times. The article gives many examples, some as far back as the earliest and brightest Greek philosiphers, of how certain behaviors or technoligies have come to replace the current and accepted method thinking or doing things. At the time there is all this controversy on how the new invention is going to negatively impact society and the human race, but looking back on these things, they helped advance and improve life as those people knew it. The idea of publishing a person's thoughts into print, the printing press, the televison, and the internet all were and are criticized to some extent due to some of their effects on the world, but they were all stepping stones to create the society we have today. All of those things contributed to the advancement in research and communication, which are two very crucial things in the basis and functioning of any society. When something comes along to alter or change the current method of something, people are going to be a little weirded out at first and maybe not open-minded about what this invention could do to benefit their lives. The Internet is merely a change to adapt to our current society and help us to function better within it. All of the inventions comparable to the internet in the past did had the same intention. Some qualities valued by people in society have some standard throughout time, whether it's 200 years ago or 50 years ago, but others change and adapt depending on the day and age. So even though a person being capable of deep thinking may have been a critical value in previous years, if we have something to do that for us or at least assist us, we should utilize it. Inventions like the Internet help advance the world we live in and spark change and new ideas.

Skunk Dreams

After reading a little bit into this story, i was so confused. Everything seemed so random and disjointed. When i finished it however, everything made it a lot more sense. It's just not one of those stories that's super straightforward; it's incredibly descriptive and paints an execellent picture for the reader, but you have to be able to make sense of what is being described to you and how it applies to the story. "Skunk Dreams" addressed a couple interesting and complex concepts that really make you wonder. I've always been fascinated by dreaming, and it's something many people find themselves wondering about. It mentions a theory that that dreams are actually a seperate dimension, and because of that the standards by which we live wouldn't apply. That's something pretty deep and not easy to wrap your head around, but if you really think it makes sense. This idea was brought up in the story by the women expressing her curiousity in what do skunks, dream about. What if they dream about some of the same things we as people do? Humans have some very strange dreams; we dream about things that would never happen in reality. For example, people cant fly or be invisible, but in our dreams we can do those things, we can do almost anything. So for animals I'm sure it's the same. Another idea the story addresses is a person dreaming about someone or something, a place or a situation, and then find that they end up coming across whatever they happened to dream about later in their life. The woman in the story had this happen. She dreamt about a place she came across years later. You wonder how your mind could paint a perfect picture of a place you have never seen and then at some point in your life you come across that place. It's crazy to think about. The last concept that i found very interesting was how obsticles and desire relate to each other. Does desire create obsticles? Or do obsticles create desire? I sat and thought about it for awhile and came to the conclusion that it can happen either way; it just depends on the situation.

The Talk of the Town

The Virginia Tech shooting is only one of the many shootings of the sort to occur in America's history. The aftermath of these events are always devasting; families and friends of students and staff are worried sick about their loved ones and praying that they are okay. The first paragraph of this article illustrates the effects that shootings like this have on the community and eventually on the people all across America. Once people get over the intial shock and horror of the shooting itself, they start to bring up the motives people have to commit such a terrible act of violence and how to stop things like this from happening again. As mentioned in the article, a common solution people jump to is advancement in the treatment of mental illness. A good idea this is; however, there is evidence to a quicker and more effective resolution: much stricter gun control. I think this is a much better solution considering there are always going to be metally ill people that are prone to violent behaviors, and research to better the treatment of these types of people will take years. Gopnik includes plenty of evidence leading to the conclustion that stricter gun control will signicficantly lessen the chance of shootings like this from reoccuring. Mass shootings like Virgina Tech occur all over the world, and countries that have made weapons of mass killing more difficult to get ahold of after such events have had almost no more similar incidents occur. The concept is logical; the harder it is for killers or people in general to obtain guns, the less violence will be able to occur. We just need to get people to see that connection and be able to put it into action.

Sontag's article was a good addition to Gopnicks. It adressed a similar issue, but in a much more broad sense. It talked about people's false sense of reality and ignorance to what's going on in Iraq. The message being drilled into American's heads is that everything is fine and that we are a strong nation that can't be hurt. As Sontag wisely says, "Who doubts America is strong? But that's not all America has to be." It is clear that there is a problem, and that we as a nation need to do something about it, and it's going to take more than just strength of a nation. There needs to be awareness and a specific action plan. The article does a good job informing the audiance of the problem but it lacks how to fix it or the "action plan." I definately don't have enough information to even form an opinion on what should be done, but there are plenty of people that do, and it's their job to educate the public and form a solution.