Changing Language

Often time language constantly evolves whether it’s an individual’s dialect or a community’s vernacular. It is constantly changing due to the introduction of new ideas which lead to new words or the introduction of a new group of people, such as when the people who spoke Spanish mixed with those speaking English to form the Chicanos.
On a personal level, I have seen my language continually change, as I grow older. This was mainly due to the way that slang constantly changes. When I was in second grade, the word tight seemed foreign to me, but by the beginning of third grade I was constantly using it to describe things that I liked. Throughout my life these kinds of slang words have been coming at me and have slowly been becoming part of my vocabulary. This is even more evident in society when these kinds of slang words become prevalent among many different people. These changes can be seen in current music where many of the words are pure slang.
Language continually changes over time, and has been changing ever since the first language came about. It is still and will continue to change as long as humans have an actual language to communicate with.

Red Sky in the Morning Blog

The author of “Red Sky in the Morning,” witnessed a relatively innocent event, which led to a profound realization on her part. There are many people who have had such moments within their lives, though they may not realize it. Though my realization was a fairly basic one, it still changed my life permanently.
My realization began in first grade, when I came home one day from school and found my first dog, Lucy, lying on her doggie bed. At first my brother and I went to pet her but soon realized she was unnaturally cold, which is when my mother came down and led us away until my dad came home. It was then that we realized Lucy had left us. Though this has happened to many people, it was this moment when I finally realized what death truly meant. Because I was only in first grade I had not yet watched much of the news, or read the newspaper or even had a relative die so I did not know what it truly meant. It took Lucy’s death to show to me what death truly was.
Though many people have shared my moment, and there are undoubtedly some people who came to the same realization under the same conditions, it still changed my life profoundly. Since then, several dogs and several family members have passed on too, one of which affected me more deeply than Lucy’s death, but it is her death that I will always remember because of the great truth it revealed to my young mind.

Lines 81 to 119, act I scene I of Hamlet

Marcellus: Whoever knows, sit and tell me
Why does this watch
who watches over the land
And why are cannons made
And foreign weapons bought
Why do shipwrights whose hard task
Does not give them Sunday off
Why does this sweaty haste
Join the night and day laborers
Who can inform me

Horatio: I can explain it
The rumor is: our last king
Who you just saw
Was, as you all know, picked to fight
By Fortinbras of Norway
Challenged to combat, when our valiant Hamlet
As this side of the world knew him
Killed Fortinbras, who, by agreement
Which was made true by law and heraldry
Did give up, along with his life, all his lands
Which he controlled, to the winner
Hamlet had an agreement, that to be returned were
the lands of Fortinbras
Had Fortinbras won, by the same agreement
And by the terms of which the agreement was designed
His land went to Hamlet. Now, young Fortinbras
Of hot anger
Did in the skirts of Norway
Enlist a group of ruffians
Paid in food, to engage in an activity
That’s purpose is to
As it appears to us
Recover the lands lost by war
And those compulsatory agreements, with regards to those same lands
That his father lost. And I believe that this,
Is the main motive of our preparation
The source of this watch
The source of our watch and chief reason
Of this speed and commotion

Feed Blog

I found Feed to be a very interesting novel, but it also seemed very bleak and pessimistic about our future. Everyone seemed to lack emotions, or rather, had very few emotions. Things that had been intimate were now casual things to which no thought was given. Many people expressed indignation, surprise and even anger at the fact that Titus left Violet. While I was fairly surprised at this turn of events, I was not “mad” at Titus for what he did, for I feel that any other person from that time would have done the same thing. They grew up in a society where they were taught to never be attached to someone. Their parents weren’t even together when the kids were first conceived. Sex was viewed as something purely for pleasure and never symbolized anything permanent. With most people in that society, her going into this recession of health would have symbolized the end of that relationship, and they would have moved on. Since will was a part of that group that would move on, he did as he was programmed to do, he moved on to find the next source of pleasure and fun. Violet thought everything should have meaning and that they would be together forever. Even in today’s culture that would be considered rushing, considering they had only been going out for a few months. In this time and day people often go out for a year or more before they decide to even be engaged, but Violet was only with Titus for a few months before she decided that they should be together. This kind of pressure and clinginess is what drove Titus away, he couldn’t stand being with her anymore because everything had to have a second layer of meaning, everything had to relate to them being together forever. She drove him away with her clinginess, so I believe that Titus should not be criticized for leaving her. I also believe that during this whole novel M.T. Anderson scorned free markets and covertly attacked corporations for what they do to the people. I found this to be absurd for the companies have done no true wrong. They’ve done what every person does, they have acted in their own self-interest by marketing to everyone they can. If those people are too weak to deny themselves what the company offers then it is their fault. The company merely provides the goods, it is the people who are too weak and give in and buy whatever the company says. I feel that this also relates back to the housing crisis, in that everyone has criticized the bank for giving out their loans, but have taken none of the blame on themselves or the government. How about criticizing the government for forcing through the CRA in the 1970s? Or the government for revising it in the 1990s to practically force banks to give loans to “disadvantaged people.” More so than the government, however, it is the people’s fault. Those who took mortgages (adjustable rate mortgages normally), failed to pay them, had their house foreclosed then proceeded to claim, “Oh the big mean bank took advantage of me!” No, you were gullible enough to take mortgage you couldn’t afford, just like in the book many people blame the companies without looking at themselves.

Black In America

Throughout the film statistics were constantly thrown at us showing how African Americans are more likely to go to jail or flunk out of high school or college. These are very sad statistics to hear, but I believe that a lot of these problems are self-inflicted problems. As it even said in the film, many African Americans do not do well in school because it is not considered black to get good grades when many of them are capable of achieving those good grades. Fixing errors in ideology such as this would lead to more African Americans graduating and being able to get better jobs instead of leaving high school and turning to a life of crime for money.
I am not saying that it is purely due to this ideology that African Americans seem more disadvantages, for I realize that there is still racism around today, but that small remainder of racism seems to be fading fast, as shown by the election of Barack Obama and the appointment of several other African Americans to high ranking positions within the government. To me, it seems to be not so much racism that holds African Americans back, but rather several mentalities, which have became ingrained within their culture. If these cycles were to be broken I believe that many of the startling statistics presented within the film would drop to much lower levels. Another of these problems is the amount of kids who grow up without father figures because the fathers don’t marry the mother before having the kid. A lot of the time this causes the dad to be distant and not have an influence on his sons’ life, which, though maybe not consciously influences the son who acts the way his dad did.
Finally, though many may disagree, I believe that affirmative action also has a negative effect upon the African American community because young students who might not be qualified for a certain college still get in. Not only does this mean that the college may be too hard and that they may fail where they would succeed at another college but it also would implant a doubt in their mind and in others minds. As the many who worked for a music company said, even if you do a good job, in the back of people’s mind will always lurk the suspicion that, “oh, he got the job because he is black,” so that a persons work may never be totally validated.
I realize that some of my opinions may come across to some people the wrong way and that I can never truly understand what African Americans in this country go through, but I still believe that many of the problems today are not due to racism, but rather due to flaws that became ingrained within the culture.

Epistolary Novel

I believe that reading an epistolary novel is a good experience. It is very different than a normal novel, but I believe that it is different in a good way. I did not think I would enjoy this novel very much because the last book that I read that was an epistolary novel was Dracula by Bram Stoker. Instead, this book has been very interesting to read and what makes it even better is that, even though it is a fiction book it has many references to things that happened in the past that it forces you to look closely. You must also scrutinize the book carefully to be able to pick up on what happens to all the characters. A simple news article or mail between “The Green Hornet” and “The Shadow” could have a large impact on the novel, or it could just be a funny side comment such as Ms. Aubaugh actually turning out to be a Nazi spy.
You had to pay close attention to many things throughout the novel in order to pick up on all the small details that were revealed, such as Joey Margolis mailing Hazel MacKay about Charlie Banks’ brother and saying something along the lines of “he probably feels guilty.” Though this is a very small comment, it is very important to the book because it reveals that Harlan Bank’s death might have been a result of something irresponsible that Charlie Banks did. These small details are sometimes hard to catch, but it makes the novel much more interesting than a normal novel, which would generally come out in some other way or just blatantly announce in some fashion that Harlan’s death was possible due to something that Charlie Banks did.
I believe that the book has been enhanced due to its epistolary style, because you have a wonderful plotline that is full of intricacies that you must be able to see and whenever you see something that hints at a joke or a fact that would come back later in the book you will either get a laugh or start to wonder about how this little detail will affect the characters later on. I think that the epistolary style also makes connecting with the characters of the novel easier because you get to see their true emotions expressed within the letters that they write. You are not told by the author “Joey felt sad,” but rather you see Joey write a letter in which he expresses the grief he feels.
I really enjoy reading this book, and I feel that the epistolary style is one of the reasons I enjoy it so much. The characters seem so much more real and you are able to connect much easier than with other novels and I’m happy that the author chose this style of writing.

Blackhawk Down Blog

The book that I decided to read for the independent reading project was Blackhawk Down by Mark Bowden. This book has been very interesting to me since I am interested in military events (at least the ones that have occurred World War II and after). It has been very interesting so far, and I have also watched the movie, which was very good but considered by many to downsize parts of the true events of the day. The book details the events of the first Battle of Mogadishu (which went under the code name Gothic Serpent). They entered the Bakara and anticipated a quick one hour mission which would end in the capture of two tier one aides of Mohammad Farrah Aidid with very few injuries to American forces. Local spies had reported where the two personalities would be meeting and the Army had soon set up a plan. Members of the Army Rangers would set up positions on corners of the block where the building was to prevent anyone from entering. Elite Delta force troopers would then enter the building using flash bang grenades, stunning the people and getting them on the grounds before they could react, as they had been taught to do.
This would be most easily done using helicopters, which normal pilots would be hard pressed to navigate in the narrow allies of the Bakara market. However, the army had the 160th division (also known as the Night Stalkers) which was an elite force of pilots who had even trained themselves to fly during the night. The Rangers would be brought in on MH-60 Blackhawk helicopters while the Delta force flew in on the smaller MH-6 Little Birds (which would be armed with mini guns and 2.75 inch rockets). At the same time a ground force would leave for the base and meet up at the house where the prisoners would be loaded on and taken back to base. All of this went terribly wrong when two the Blackhawks got shot down by Rocket Propelled Grenades (RPG’s). The army started talking massive casualties as they fought to the crash sights while all of the market continued to rise against them. Eventually they got to the crash sights after suffering casualties to find many of the pilots dead. After all that they had to set up posts for the night where they had to defend themselves from the constant Somali attacks, eventually being rescued by the UN peace keepers also in a peaceful part of Somalia. At the end many of the Rangers and Delta forces couldn’t fit in the cars and had to run the distance to the stadium, while being shot at, after a night of constant fighting. This magnificent run became known as the Mogadishu Mile. I was greatly disturbed by the fact that people called US forces out for accidentally hitting women and children, when in fact, these women and children were running towards the fighting, running towards the Americans and thus blocking the Somali fighters from being hit. They involved themselves in the fight, when kids sit on top of a Somali shooter to protect him they involved themselves and made themselves combatants.
This book really brought to light the massive sacrifices our armed forces make for us. Many suffered debilitating wounds such as having their finger shot off, or suffered through unendurable pain while they slowly died after trying to save one of their friends. Not only has this book been very interesting, but it has made me respect those who serve our country much more than before.