Song Blog

Throughout the Great Gatsby, the mysterious Jay Gatsby does all he can to win the affections of Daisy Buchanan. He's always loved her from the time they met five years ago, but it's taken him a long time to tell Daisy this. The song that I thought fit this situation was No One's Gonna Love You by Band of Horses. The song basically sums up what Gatsby is feeling throughout the story. The line, "You are the ever-living ghost of what once was" accurately depicts how Gatsby is trying to recreate what he once had with Daisy all that time ago. I would say Gatsby probably loved Daisy more than her husband Tom did, and he was quite obsessed with her. One of the lyrics in the song is, "No one's ever gonna love you more than I do" and I would say that's a decent description of how Gatsby must have been feeling. I feel the song I chose accurately described the love triangle between Gatsby, Daisy, and Tom, and summed up Gatsby's feelings quite nicely.

Are you a Transcendentalist?

I would say that I am indeed a transcendentalist because I agree with the idea that society, organized religion, and political parties generally just end up corrupting people. When people follow all of these organized institutions I feel they stop thinking for themselves and being "self-reliant." It's easy to just follow along with what a leader says but it's harder to come up with your own ideas. Ralph Waldo Emerson expressed this excellently when he stated, "To believe your own thought, to believe that what is true for you in your private heart is true for all men, --that is genius."

 I also agree that being independent is crucial and that you can't be self-reliant if you're constantly conforming to society. Emerson talked about the evils of society in his essay Self-Reliance and he stated, "Society everywhere is in conspiracy against the manhood of every one of its members." I agree with Emerson when he talked about society, because I also feel that society is constantly telling people how to change themselves to fit in with everyone else. I can't see how constantly worrying about what to change about yourself will ever bring you happiness or self-relience.

Maps

http://www.libs.uga.edu/darchive/hargrett/maps/1734g6b.jpg
In the His Majesty's Colony of Georgia in America  map, I noticed that a lot of the natural foliage was destroyed in order to make a settlement there. This map also shows the European's essentially taking over the land and waterways. The large boats can be seen floating through the water, while the indiginous animals curiously look on. Just from this map of the colony of Georgia, one can sense the Europeans feeling of ownership of the territory, and it doesn't appear that they even remotely respect the land. In Valerie Babb's Crafting Whiteness in Early America, she summed up this sentiment quite well when she stated, "...A growing sense of European entitlement to the Americas is evident."

The Evangelical Rejection of Reason

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/18/opinion/the-evangelical-rejection-of-reason.html?_r=1&ref=contributors
The article I found discussed the apparent anti-intellectualism present in many of the Republican candidates running for office in the upcoming election. The author of this article fears that the Republican candidates tend to be too evangical and not intellectual enough. His main argument was that too many of the candidates reject science that has proven to be true. Herman Cain, Rick Perry, and Michelle Bachmann for example have all denied  that climate change exists, and that humans are the cause of it. Both Perry and Bachmann have also dismissed evolution as an "unproven theory" when it has indeed been proven beyond a reason of a doubt. The author is clearly frustrated by the ignorance of many of these candidates and that they take religion too seriously. This article was really well written and brought in a lot of solid examples. I enjoyed the fact that the author considered himself to also be evangical, but he understands that the Bible shouldn't be taken literally for every issue and that science should be accepted. I also appreciated his ability to criticize other Christians that he doesn't agree with.

How I Write Blog

It can be a challenge at times to actually sit down and start writing and I think it's important to come up with ways to begin the writing process. Like most people, I procrastinate, especially when it comes to writing. I like to first brainstorm ideas for the topic I'm writing about, and I love to make lists. It's a good way to organize my thoughts and it makes starting to write a lot easier. I often skip around from one idea to another when writing and through later editing try to have it all make sense. I enjoy writing rough drafts and getting a good outline completed before I start typing. That way I don't feel too overwhelmed and have a good sense of what the final draft will look like.

Sound and Fury

In Sound and Fury, two families had to deal with the difficulties of having a deaf child. One family was hearing and one family was completely deaf. However, the hearing family did have ties with the deaf community because the mother's parents were both deaf. The controversy in this movie was that one family wanted to give their child a cochlear implant and the other did not.

The hearing family wanted their child to grow up as normally as possible, and they thought the best way for them to do that would be to get their son a cochlear implant. They wanted him to have the implant because they felt their child would have way more opportunities in life if he could hear. They felt that deafness was a disability and if they could fix his disability, why wouldn't they? They knew what a struggle being deaf could be, through watching the mom's parents, and they didn't want their son to have to go through that. Seeing as the parents could hear, they knew what their son would miss out on, and they didn't want that. They also knew that deaf culture was shrinking due to advancing technology, and they didn't want their son to feel isolated or feel as if he didn't belong anywhere.

The deaf family questioned the cochlear implant and almost thought of it as a negative thing. The parents felt offended by it at times because they thought it would distance them from their children. Both of the parents grew up before the cochlear implant was available, and although they knew growing up had been a struggle, they felt their children could have opportunities and still be deaf. The deaf family was a part of the deaf culture and people from the deaf culture discourse don't think of their deafness as a disability. They've come to accept their deafness and are proud to be deaf.

People outside of the deaf culture questioned their decision not to give their children a cochlear implant and thought of them as being abusive parents. It was hard for hearing people to imagine deaf people not wanting to hear. I don't think the deaf parents fully realized how much easier life could be if they could hear, especially since most of the population has the ability to hear. The parents had never been able to hear so I don't think they fully realized the implications of not giving their children cochlear implants. They thought their children could be part of the deaf culture, like themselves, but they didn't take into account that the deaf culture is shrinking and will eventually be basically non existent due to all of the technology becoming available.

Irrational Fears

After a terrifying event in my childhood, I have been in constant fear of garage doors. My fear began one day in elementary school when I thought it would be a good idea to jump rope in my garage. The door of the garage was open until i hit the the button that makes the garage door suddenly close. It was so sudden and loud that i've been perpetually scared of garage doors ever since. Every time I have to walk under a garage door, I start to panic. In my mind, I think the garage door is going to slam shut the minute I step under it. I imagine myself being killed when the door bashes me in the head. These days, I try to avoid using my garage door as much as possible. I make sure to always have my key, so I can enter the front door instead. On the unfortunate occasions when I have to go under a garage door, I sprint as fast as I can until I know i'm safe.