Gatsby, The Great

5. Evaluate The Great Gatsby as a criticism of the corruption of the American Dream.

What is the American Dream? To put it simply, it is the idea that through hard work and perseverance, you gain money and become happy. Throughout the course of F Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby, though, this so called American Dream is thrown on the dirt, stomped on, flattened by a steamroller, thrown in a fire, turned to ashes, fed to a dog, the following feces burned again, and thrown into a tornado to be scattered into the oceans across the world. Basically, it completely destroys the idea, by personifying it through Gatsby himself.

Gatsby himself started out as a lowly boy, who started to attend college but could not keep up with the bills and payments required to continue attending because the job he had taken up was, as he believed, below him. So he dropped out of college to become the image of what he wanted to be - a rich man with power and the capability to fulfill his destiny. And, in the process, he wishes to become a happy individual who can live life to its fullest, as a rich and powerful man. In the process, he meets Daisy, who he falls in love with and wants to share his destiny with.

Gatsby, however, looses Daisy because he has to go to war; and when he comes back, she has married Tom and has mostly forgotten about him - until he comes up in conversations, at least. Gatsby, who has accomplished all of the goals of the American Dream, on the other hand, is still missing two things - Daisy, and happiness. Through Nick, Gatsby manages to get closer to Daisy, and the end of the American Dream is finally in grasp - all he has to do is manage to convince Daisy that she doesn't love Tom and she loves him, and they can go off and be happy.

Wait. Crap.

Cue confrontation. Gatsby tries to get Daisy to tell Tom that she doesn't love him - but Daisy, much to his dismay, tells him that she loves both of them. This reacts in an argument, after which Tom insists that Gatsby allow him and Daisy to drive back in Gatsby's car. Daisy drives, and on the way back, hits Myrtle in Gatsby's car. There is a huge freakout, as the impact of killing someone sets in - especially someone like Myrtle, who had a connection to Tom. When George finds out about his wife's death, he eventually links it to Gatsby - the American Dream - and goes to his house...

Draws a gun...

...

Gatsby embodies the American Dream as someone that works hard to accomplish something he can never have. He is also selfish in the regard that he wants everything to go his way. He wants Daisy all to himself, he wants to complete his amazing destiny as a powerful man... and what does he get for it? He loses Daisy, even when he gives everything for her, and he even takes the fall after Daisy (accidentally) kills Myrtle. Gatsby represents the flawed vision that we know as the American Dream... that thing that we will never reach, no matter how hard we try.

Honors History Blog #3

Every time period has its peaks and perks. It is only natural that many changes can come around, even during a short period of ten or so years. There have been many examples of such prominent changes, but by far the most incredible of these time periods was the Roaring 20's, which brought about many changes to life as people of that time period knew it. From commercial music to Women gaining the right to vote, to the beginning of Prohibition and the Lost Generation, the 1920's had a lot to show for itself as far as changing the way people lived.

It is not like the banning of a certain substance had not been tried before - and the American government should know that when something is banned, it only becomes more sought after. The banning of alcohol could essentially be considered the rise of the mafia, in the sense that it gave them business and a way to become rich quite easily - thus influencing other, ordinary people to get involved in it. Many people with wealth also enjoyed having parties, in which alcohol was abundant, and thus the people who were in charge of these shady businesses were able to make a huge profit, and were also smart enough not to be caught by the government.

Other industries that popped up during this time period were commercial music groups. Jazz became a prominent musical genre in the 1920's, and in an effort to make it more popular, record companies began to come to life, giving this music a way to be heard by everyone else. Radio broadcasts were heard for the first time by the people of the country, a way to just listen and get away from everything else that was going on in their lives at that time. Jazz essentially started the movement that is modern music nowadays, creating ways of displaying music that nobody had ever even thought of using before.

Music wasn't the only new innovation that the 1920's brought about. Women's rights sprang up, and people began fighting for their rights as women and equal citizens of the United States. For the first time, women were standing up for equality and rights that were normally only reserved for men - the right to work, the right to be free from the prisons that were their households, and most importantly, the right to vote. This was an important movement because, before this, men were basically the dominant species and women had no say in anything that went on in the country, at all. (unless they got the STICK OF JUSTICE.)

Despite all these advancements, though, the Roaring Twenties was still known as the Lost Generation. The Roaring Twenties came right after World War I, known then as the Great War, and advancements made in technology, like aircraft, which were originally to carry people from place to place, were suddenly used to carry bombs from country to country. This sudden shell shock once the war was over - the "What do we do now?" mainframe that came afterward - was what gave the Roaring Twenties the nickname the Lost Generation. Despite all of the advances made during that time, people were still lost, and clueless as to where the future would take them. It's not that hard to believe, really - If you thought these essays were to be turned in for grades, and then Randy used them in a history novel and gave you no credit for the writing whatsoever, you'd be lost too.

Source:
http://history1900s.about.com/od/timelines/tp/1920timeline.htm

Blog #23- In Which Articles Were Read

1 Million Pounds Of Trash Removed From San Diego River

-> This event was basically a huge trash cleanup in the San Diego River. It details what kind of things that were pulled out, from things that are 'regular' to things that are single-time finds (like a small slot machine!). It estimates how much trash they pull out each month- I believe the number was something like 5000 lbs!

-> The most important information was what kind of things got dumped into the water, how much of it was dumped into the water, and how it all flowed straight downstream into the ocean.

Things you wouldn't BELIEVE you would find floating down a river.

"Shopping carts and tires and refrigerators, kind of the things you expect," Hutsel says. "But then you also get these small little slot machines and other things that happen. It's kind of bizarre each time we kind of find new things we've never seen before along the river."

-> If anything, I would have to say that this is missing what kind of effect that these things have on the animals, people and water before they get cleaned up, and where they get picked up in the first place (not to mention how far they've traveled before they do).
-> I changed my question to one relating to trash/waste and how it affects the animals like birds and stuff. Thus, knowing what kind of trash goes through the river, and how much of it does go through in the first place (or is taken out) will be handy in answering my essential question over the course of the project.

Blog #22- In Which Organizations are Researched

ORGANIZATION NUMERO UNO
Name: United Port of San Diego

Mission Statement: One of the Port of San Diego's many responsibilities is to protect the bay and its resources. We invite you to look through our website to see how the Port is strengthening its role as an environmental steward and find out what you can do to help.

->This is either a local or state issue; the poaching of an endangered species of sea turtles, which is trying to be banned by this group.
->This is probably a federal government thing, because the group is working with the navy to record information on different birds and fish that live in the area.

ORGANIZATION NUMERO DOS
Name: San Diego Clean Coalition
Mission Statement: The San Diego Clean Beach Coalition is a collaboration of local non-profit organizations and city agencies focused on coastal stewardship, raising awareness of beach litter issues, and preventing marine debris.

->This article details plans that the organization has to work with the local governments to make the water a better place.
->This article gives plans for cleanup ideas on Independence Day (and forward) that would require government input to put into effect.

Blog #21- In Which We Are Distant

Nick and Gatsby are both detached in the sense that they don't seem to enjoy getting in on the party action; they kind of just sit back and try to avoid the parties, and would much rather just sit and idly talk to one another if they didn't have other things to do. However, Nick's disease is much worse than Gatsby's. While Gatsby finds it hard to trust other people, and is (relatively) good at speaking to people, Nick just kind of says "I don't want to be involved in this, for I must maintain my neutrality despite this poise saying that I'm better than everyone and can judge them based on what's going on around me." And yet I don't think anyone else would make a good narrator, sadly, so we're stuck with the slightly egotistical guy who thinks he's the most honest person in the world.

Blog #20 - In Which Narration is Done

The narrator is Nick Fuzzypants, the one who only loves.

No, I'm kidding.

The narrator is Nick Carraway, who, like most people of any given time, believes himself to be an honest person. However, through the book, you can see that he tends to look at people differently than he might think he does - he looks at Tom as someone who is dominant and absolutely has to be in charge, and he looks at Daisy as someone... eh, he knows her, but he kinda wishes he didn't... at least, that's the message that I pick up. He also seems to have feelings for Jordan, and doesn't quite know Jay just yet.

I think it gives the air of mystery. It gives the idea that you're actually experiencing it, rather than just watching it unfold, and the 'Great Gatsby' is completely shrouded in mystery. You don't even get an idea of what he looks like, and with someone like Nick, you get a kind of neutral position as far as West/East Egg goes. He is also descriptive but that's just the writing so it doesn't really count...

Blog #19- In Which Professional Examples are Critiqued

1. The most successful element of this work sample is the smoothness involved in the animation of this video. Naturally, stop motion is very hard to work with, especially when there are so many images involved in the making of the video. It is hard to believe in a video this smooth that it was not just filmed and everything was moving on its own.

2. The basic message of the work is "Our product is awesome and you should buy it because we have cool games based on movies", even though everyone knows that games made off of movies are not very good at all. I know this because it is an XBox commercial and that's what just about any commercial for any given game system entails, because in any commercial for a game system you have to have games being played on it that makes you say that these games are better than what the other system offers so I should play it instead.

3. The intended audience is, as with any game system or game commercial, people who love to play video games or are looking for a game system to play. The aimed demographic is probably teenagers and younger kids, because of the games advertised (Spider Man, Pirates of the Caribbean, Shrek), and what demographic those movies were aimed at. People that age would recognize those movies and say "Hey, I liked those movies, I should get that system so I can play those games!"

4. The commercial mostly consists of animation of the figures from each game moving around, in green clay whereas the guy doing the 'animation' is wearing white. Green and white are XBox's main colors, and the animated figures are showing what games the XBox has to offer people who decide to buy it. At the end, of course, it states the message loud and clear, though, for those of us who have an IQ equivalent to that of a fifth grader (no I'm kidding).

5. The clean animation of stop motion indicates hours and hours of photography work (when you look at the making of the video, it mentions that it took about 3 and a half years). Because so many photographs were taken, it makes it look like everything really is moving cleanly and smoothly. The only problem is that occasionally the guy in the background moves a bit to the left or right, which kind of throws everything off in the video if you're looking hard enough.

6. I picked this piece because I have intentions to make some sort of animated stop motion video in photoshop, and I'm looking around for examples that portray smooth animation so I can get an idea of what exactly I want to do in the video, and how I can pull it all together, even if I don't end up using spoken words in the video.

Wellington, Garden Fork

The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time by Mark Haddon is certainly a strange book worth reading. The cover features all lowercase text with a poodle pictured upside-down, the chapters are labeled with prime numbers because the author does not like any other number, there are often interludes where the main character will go off on a tangent to explain some obscure math concept (though this is most likely because he either has Asperser’s Syndrome or Autism) or go into detail about something that has nothing to do with the story, and is writing a book about an investigation of the murder of the next door neighbor’s dog. Yeah… it’s exactly what it says on the tin.

It is also through these tangents, or slips of genius, in which the main character, whose name is Christopher John Francis Boone, makes predictions that can solve the case he is investigating. For instance, he goes into a brief rant about how the author of Sherlock Holmes joined a spiritual society, and how some small children took pictures of some paper fairies in their backyard and everyone believed they were real. He ties this together by giving a quote: “Entia non sunt multiplicanda praeter necessitatem. Which is Latin and it means No more things should be presumed to exist than are absolutely necessary. Which means that a murder victim is usually killed by someone known to them and fairies are made out of paper and you can’t talk to someone who is dead.”

Boone has a lot of character development in the book, namely because he is either Autistic or has Asperser’s Syndrome and has to learn to grow socially while adjusting to the strange ups and downs of society. He has strange habits such as hiding in small places to feel more comfortable (evidently, he is not claustrophobic) and counting colored cars to see what kind of a day he will have. He knows all the countries of the world and their capitals and every prime number up to 7,057. He relates well to animals but has no understanding of human emotions. He cannot stand to be touched. And he detests the color yellow. Over the course of the story he has to adjust to the ways that people and society function; at the start of the book, it is mentioned that he would carry around a piece of paper with faces on it to try to identify what kind of emotions people were feeling, but someone helped him realize that this was a bad thing to do because it would make them feel uncomfortable (illustrated with a face). So Boone tore up the paper and didn’t use it anymore so people wouldn’t feel that way. He has to adjust to the way that people feel, even though he doesn’t understand those things, and the book illustrates his struggles to adjust to society as he tries to solve the mystery of the murder of the dog.

Boone travels from his hometown to London and back again, in an effort to try and figure out who murdered the neighbor’s dog, and ends up finding out about sexual relationships that his parents are having without the other. It is written in first person, which means we get to explore the interesting perks of Boone without seeing it from a third person omniscient view that knows everything before it happens, and thus we get to go through the process of solving the murder of the dog next door with Boone. It turns out his father murdered the dog, in an attempt to get the neighbor’s, who he was having an affair with’s, attention because she would only talk about that stupid dog.

Mark Haddon is a brilliant writer in the sense that he takes a character not many people could relate to and gives him such life and such personality that even if you have nothing in common with him you can’t help but feel what he feels as he goes through trying to discover just what is going on in his family and in his life. From when he is awake at 3 or 4 in the morning and goes outside on walks so he can feel like he is all alone in the world to taking a test to be placed in an advanced class because he really is a smart boy and points out facts that ordinary people just don’t seem to notice. Whether you love the writing or you hate the writing, you can’t help but fall in love with the story about The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time.