Honors History Blog #4

1. Discuss your successes as an honors student this past semester.
->As an honors student, my biggest success would be balancing all the work that needed to be done while being out sick and attempting to keep up to date with everything that was going on during class and all of the work from the decaf class as well. I managed to (somehow) keep up with all (if not most of) the work that was expected of me. Other successes would be learning more about historical events than I already knew, and managing to make essays sound like there was actually a point to reading them.

2. Discuss what you might have done differently if you do this past semester of honors over again.
->Not been sick as much! I missed so much work that I feel like it was almost pointless for me to be in class when I was in the first place, since I often missed out on the starts and ends of assignments and kind of just walked in while they were in progress. I could also try and communicate with Randy better about what kind of work that I missed and how I could get it done while keeping up with the decaf work.

3. Discuss your goals for honors in the second semester.
->Basically, everything that I listed above. BE THERE! It would help if I were in class more often. Also, I should focus on my work a little more instead of goofing off all the time, which I'll often do when I feel unmotivated (which is a lot when I'm sick). I think I'll also try and make sure I look through more sources for the historical work, especially when I am not present to learn about it.

4. If you could choose any parts of literature and history for our honors work, what would you pick and why?
->I would pick the terrible yet awesome fanfiction My Immortal. Insanity aside, I would totally pick Twilight. Why would I curse our class with reading such a terrible piece of literature? So we can take the story, find what's wrong with it, and make it better. It would be an impossible undertaking, yes, but it would be one that we, as Randy's honors students, would be able to do to cure the world of this dreaded Twi-hard disease!

...okay note to self never do blog entries while slightly hyper. I'm done now.

Nature Reading - Desert Solitaire

(did you know that I was always spelling that 'Solitare'?)

Wilderness. The word itself is music.

Desert Solitaire is a story that only concerns itself with passion - passion for the world around it, passion for a dislike of the things that it dislikes, and a passion for the story it has to tell. At many points in the novel, Abbey is faced with the ongoing struggle between civilization and wilderness. Abbey has an undying love for the natural world around him, and thus tends to reject the civilized world that so many other people chose to live in. However, the life in the wilderness is also a refreshing break from this civilization, so there is no doubt that Abbey begins to struggle between the choice of what he loves and what he loathes and fears.

Abbey has a love for the wilderness that is unrequited and endless in its bounds. He feels that nature is peaceful and should be left in peace, left so that people in the years to come can appreciate its beauty and elements for what it really is, instead of what it has been molded to be. During his stay in Moab, Utah, watching over the Arches National Monument, Abbey bonds with nature in a way that not many people would even consider. He becomes a part of it through a theory which he tests by - of all things - throwing a rock at and killing a rabbit. What makes it worse is that this was merely an experiment he performed to try and determine his place in the world that was around him, to find a place of belonging in a world of solitude.

I try but I cannot feel any sense of guilt. I examine my soul: white as snow. Check my hands: not a trace of blood. No longer do I feel so isolated from the sparse and furtive life around me, a stranger from another world. I have entered into this one. We are kindred all of us, killer and victim, predator and prey, me and the sly coyote, the soaring buzzard, the elegant gopher snake, the trembling cottontail, the foul worms that feed on our entrails, all of them, all of us. Long live diversity, long live the earth!
Rejoicing in my innocence and power I stride down the trail beneath the elephantine forms of melting sandstone, past the stark shadows of Double Arch. The experiment was a complete success; it will never be necessary to perform it again.
-Page 34

Blog #26- The Prospect of Competition

As of the day I am typing this, I am unsure where I can possibly enter an art piece that has a more symbolic meaning. It would not be wise, however, to enter it in anything until after the exhibition, in case the physical copy is needed at the exhibition and our exhibition's dates and needs conflict with the contest or exhibition or wherever it happens to end up. However, I have looked into some possible ideas for contests.

Prospectus: 12th Annual All Media Juried Online International Art Exhibition

Entry Fees:
A fee of $25 must accompany up to five slides or jpegs/tiffs; $5 for each additional. No maximum. Checks or POSTAL Money Orders or for artists outside the U.S. send an International POSTAL Money Order or a Cashier’s Check in U.S. dollars drawn on a U.S. Bank, payable to: Upstream People Gallery. Western Union via www.westernunion.com or cash (where possible) may also be used. PayPal may be used with payments made to: shows@upstreampeoplegallery.com, with $2.00 added to cover PayPal's fee or $27 entry fee. Later entries after postmark deadline is $30; Later entries with PayPal is $32.
Forms are on the link.
Deadlines too.
There don't seem to be any visible requirements...
So thus I can't evaluate my work against them...

Cue Loony Toons "Th-th-th-th-th-th-that's all folks!"

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.