Monthly Blog- April

Well this is my last monthly blog and I am going to talk a little bit about what I think about the story that we read, The Tell Tale Heart. First off I thought this story was really weird. From my point of view I saw the narrator as a crazy person because he was so obsessed with killing this old man and there was no real reason that he gave the reader for doing this. It would make perfect sense to me if the background of the story was they were both in an insane asylum because they were both really paranoid. As the story progressed, the narrator got extremely paranoid and eventually cracked and during the night the old man seemed like he was more paranoid that he should be. The narrator made it seem like the old man was pure evil or at least his "eye" was. It seems like the narrator was in his own this world the entire story because he is the only one who sees this evil eye and is also the only one who hears the old mans beating heart in the end of the story. Overall this story was just kind of weird to me but it did keep me interested at least with the narrator going crazy.

Monthly Blog - March

For my monthly blog this month I wanted to talk about the Superman Theory. First off I dont agree with this theory at all. When I look at a group of people, I don't see them as seperate groups of ordinary people and extraordinary people. That just doesn't make sense to me. This theory is basically saying that some people are above the rest of everyone else and are entitled to certain priviledges, such as they are above the law on some points. The one thing that bothers me about this is that who dictates if someone is extraordinary? What is stopping someone from doing whatever they want and just pleading that they were doing it for society and we should all just ignore their crimes. Now one part of the theory says that these supermen do things for the good of society so that means they should always be considered good guys. But if that means that they break laws and dont get punished, then that means that they are just setting up more chaos to happen. If one person is allowed to go above everyone else, what stops everyone else from thinking they are that important too? These supermen make no sense to me because it seems like even if they do some good, there are so many other bad consequences that could happen.

Monthly Blog- February

A Room of One's Own caught my interest this week so I thought that I would write a little bit about that. Virginia Woolf writes this as an essay which I dont really like to read but the idea of the essay sparked my interest. She discusses how women are not treated as well at they should be and there are huge differences in the way men and women are looked at. Woolf begins her essay looking at different points and one that caught my eye was how she refers to a library as a treasure house. This just goes to show how much value she took in learning and reading and how other people take these things for granted. To her, book were like treasures in that they should be taken care of and handled with care. Another thing that was interesting was how different the two meals were between the two sexes. At the men's luncheon party, all the food was elaborate and extremely delicious and everyone there was having a great time. But when she talks about how the women's dinner party is Woolf describes a mediocre dinner that really wasn't anything to be happy about. I just thought it as interesting how different the men and the women were treated during her time period and how they were even served different food.

Monthly Blog- January

Well since we have been talking about gender roles in class for a while, I wanted to talk about that a little bit. I think it is really interesting how society looks at gender roles these days and how they used too. In the past, women were basically possessions and that seems weird to everyone these days but in the past it was an accepted way of life that even the women themselves accepted. That way of life was quickly rejected though and now women and men are on the way to being equal. I say on the way because I still think that society looks at men and women differently. Some examples would be just the way parents raise their kids. Boys are taught to explore and play rough, while girls are taught to get along with everyone and play together nicely. Then there is the example like we have talked about in class. If a man murders someone, the media doesn't pay to much attention to it. But when a women murders a person, it is the headline and everyone is very interested. I think that men and women will never truely be equal because it is ingrained into society that men and women are just different. It is going to take a very long time, if it ever happens, to change societies views enough that men and women are treated equally.

Monthly Blog-December

Cultural Relativism sounds like a great thing in theory but in practice I dont think it will work as well as everyone hopes. Basically the idea of not judging other cultures is a good thing because then people would really have no reason to hate each other. Cultural Relativism shows that different cultures have different views on similiar issues. Take the Callatians and the Greeks for example. The Callatians believe in eating their dead fathers while the Greeks believe in burning their dead. King Darius did an experiment to introduce the two cultures to the other ritual. It turned out that each group of people was disgusted in the other culture's practice. This experiement shows how what you see in your own culture as acceptable, someone raised differently than you may see it as crazy or disgusting. This can be viewed as a good or bad thing. On one hand, cultural relativism proves that judging other cultures is a bad thing because it was just how they were raised and is viewed as acceptable in their society. On the other hand, not judging cultures on their social behavior doesn't only include different things they eat for example. It includes other practices such as taking slaves or abusing women. It can be hard to look at things that you morally think is wrong, and not judge the people based on your own views. This is why I beleive that it's good to know about other cultures but I think that just knowing won't really stop people from judging other cultures.

Monthly Blog-November

When I was reading through this Beowulf article, one part that stood out to me was when Lerer was talking about how Beowulf doesn't really have any "dark thoughts" but instead he just makes jokes about different situations. One such instance was when Beowulf is retelling the story of how Grendel killed the warrior, to his king and queen at home, and he turns it from a gruesome act to something less frightening. I thought it was interesting how Beowulf always looked at things in a good way and was never really pessimistic or had any "dark thoughts." But even thought Beowulf jokes about different events, his jokes do tend to be a little gruesome. For instance, when Beowulf jokes about how if Grendel wins then Hrothgar will not have to feed his guest because Grendel will be feeding on his guest. He is joking about if he loses this battle then he will be eaten himself instead of feasting at the mead hall. Another place where Beowulf jokes around is after the battle when he says that Grendel escaped but left his arm and shoulder to save his life. Beowulf's jokes about death and ripping off limbs kind of show that he is arrogant in his power. He is basically saying to everyone that there is no way he could have lost the battle with Grendel because he is so heroic. But I did think it was really interesting that he does acually joke about these different things.

Monthly Blog- September

During the Socratic Seminar for The Power of One, there was a question that I want to talk more about. The question was that when Peekay watched Hoppie's fight, he learned the most important rule of winning, keep thinking. What other things happened that showed that Peekay already knew this? During his time at the boarding school, Peekay was tortured but he never stopped thinking of ways to abate this torture. One example that stands out is when he decides to start doing the Judge's homework so that he wouldn't be punished so often. This showed that even in times of stress he was thinking and figured out way to get out of it. Also when he thought of his whole camoflauge idea. Again he was in a very stressful area, with the other kids basically torturing him, and Peekay thought that if he didn't stand out as much, he couldn't get punished as much. I beleive that this is a very important lesson that should be applied to not only winning, but also to everything you do in life. So many bad things happen because people rush decisions and not think through them clearly. The most apparent example i can think of is the position of leader of a country. If the president of the United States didn't keep thinking under stressful situations, then the world would be a much more chaotic place. This holds true for basically any world leader at the moment. Thinking about your problems before acting is probably the single best way to coming out of a situation without to many bad things happening to you and I think Hoppie would agree with me.