Thursday, April 10, 2014
Personal Philosophy: The Use of Time
Time. It is immortal. It is unchanging. Therein lies the value of time. Every person is given an amount of time. this amount is undefined, and unknown. It is from this realization that I conclude, that is something takes 10 minutes, just do it.
Humanity squanders time it is given over and over again. Weather this be through procrastination or just simple dismissal of those little things so easily taken care of. Perhaps the worst example of this wasting of time would be in the teenage years. The pending question is what why would this be the worst waste of time in human life. The reason is simple: teenagers tend to procrastinate or put all any work or assignments given to them. Granted this is not an all inclusive statement. But often enough to be true. What makes this a waste of time and not a reappropriation of it to another area is that most of what is being put off can be done in 10 minutes or less. Whether this be homework or chores.
Ideally we would waste no time. But that is and idealism and not a reality. Even this paper, which might have taken a mere 10 minutes to do (were it apparent what to wright ere it was written), falls into that category of being delayed though not for as long a time as other tasks may have been.
But doing just doing something if you can do it 10 minutes does not mean don't do it well. Doing something poorly is rather a greater waste of time then simply not doing it. Time in itself is precious, taking 10 minutes now to free up time later is priceless. So if what you have to do can be done in 10 minutes, just do it.
Tuesday, March 18, 2014
Post #8 (16-19)
Topic D
Initially the family was the center of all of the Joad lifestyle where following true musketeer motto one for all and all for one..... by chapter 19 though this belief is still central, the practice of it is very different. Chapter 16 shows us one incident where when the Wilson's truck breaks down Tom and all propose that the majority of the family go ahead whilst a few remain behind to repair the vehicle and catch up later. Ma responds with what borders on violent resistance picking up a jackhammer and threatening to beat anyone who tries to get her to move. To her the physical unity of the family is all important, an idea that she had held onto since the beginning of this venture. Pa and the rest of that party display a more realistic view where the good of the family provides unity and that it causes more hurt to maintain forced physical unity. By the end of this section Grandma has died, the Wilsons have split off, Noah has become a river man and Sharon & Connie have this dream of separating from the family unit and begin a new unit in town under different circumstances.
Topic D
Initially the family was the center of all of the Joad lifestyle where following true musketeer motto one for all and all for one..... by chapter 19 though this belief is still central, the practice of it is very different. Chapter 16 shows us one incident where when the Wilson's truck breaks down Tom and all propose that the majority of the family go ahead whilst a few remain behind to repair the vehicle and catch up later. Ma responds with what borders on violent resistance picking up a jackhammer and threatening to beat anyone who tries to get her to move. To her the physical unity of the family is all important, an idea that she had held onto since the beginning of this venture. Pa and the rest of that party display a more realistic view where the good of the family provides unity and that it causes more hurt to maintain forced physical unity. By the end of this section Grandma has died, the Wilsons have split off, Noah has become a river man and Sharon & Connie have this dream of separating from the family unit and begin a new unit in town under different circumstances.
Post #7 (16-19) ***
Topic C
Poetically most things are best brought to light, and there most things make more sense. Fear is as much a driving force as desire, greed, or any other emotion. Unlike many other emotions though fear is deeply grounded in a perceived reality rather than actual reality, emphasizing that our very mind is often our own worst enemy.
Breath,
The mark of life,
and Breath,
The mark of strife.
Or Breath,
Hate's delight,
Oh Breath,
My eternal night.
Sing sweet little bird
Of all the wonders you've seen
All the horrors you've heard.
Oh sing little bird
Of all the hope you've lost,
All the past ripped away undeterred.
Oh cry little bird
Of all the sights you've seen
All the flaming nights unburned.
Oh sweet little bird,
What wonder's you've seen
And what beauty you did glean,
Oh kind little bird
Watch it all melt away
And drown in darkness there to stay.
Pray, die little bird
Your cries have gone unheard
As ever it will draw near,
Shrouded in a nameless fear.
Pray, why little bird
You waste your last breath
Ea're the final call of death....
Topic C
Poetically most things are best brought to light, and there most things make more sense. Fear is as much a driving force as desire, greed, or any other emotion. Unlike many other emotions though fear is deeply grounded in a perceived reality rather than actual reality, emphasizing that our very mind is often our own worst enemy.
Breath,
The mark of life,
and Breath,
The mark of strife.
Or Breath,
Hate's delight,
Oh Breath,
My eternal night.
Sing sweet little bird
Of all the wonders you've seen
All the horrors you've heard.
Oh sing little bird
Of all the hope you've lost,
All the past ripped away undeterred.
Oh cry little bird
Of all the sights you've seen
All the flaming nights unburned.
Oh sweet little bird,
What wonder's you've seen
And what beauty you did glean,
Oh kind little bird
Watch it all melt away
And drown in darkness there to stay.
Pray, die little bird
Your cries have gone unheard
As ever it will draw near,
Shrouded in a nameless fear.
Pray, why little bird
You waste your last breath
Ea're the final call of death....
Post #6 (11-15)
Topic E
Chapters 11 through 15 really seem to be a transitional phase between different conflicts. In the first several chapters the conflict was between man, nature, and machine with a near to even division of power on all sides. At this point we really see nature take a back seat to the unspoken war occurring as man is driven out ahead of machine. The begining of chapter 11 even starts with the statement that "The houses were left vacant on the land.....only the tractor sheds...were alive...." Clear that man has lost on this front and must move on, fleeing the invasive machines and what has become an almost hidden but no less menacing force of nature. Often times it is pointed out that it is dry, forcing people to stop for water, in this way nature drives a thin blade repeatedly into the bodies of man whist he flees opting rather than to overwhelm man as the machines had done, instead to kill him by a thousand cuts. Man against man comes into play here as a new adversary. The views of the waitress in chapter 15 show a disdain for those fleeing the calamities they faced and fell to. Her remarks show also an unwillingness to aid unless pressured into it, this conflict is, like nature passive, but just as deadly.
Topic E
Chapters 11 through 15 really seem to be a transitional phase between different conflicts. In the first several chapters the conflict was between man, nature, and machine with a near to even division of power on all sides. At this point we really see nature take a back seat to the unspoken war occurring as man is driven out ahead of machine. The begining of chapter 11 even starts with the statement that "The houses were left vacant on the land.....only the tractor sheds...were alive...." Clear that man has lost on this front and must move on, fleeing the invasive machines and what has become an almost hidden but no less menacing force of nature. Often times it is pointed out that it is dry, forcing people to stop for water, in this way nature drives a thin blade repeatedly into the bodies of man whist he flees opting rather than to overwhelm man as the machines had done, instead to kill him by a thousand cuts. Man against man comes into play here as a new adversary. The views of the waitress in chapter 15 show a disdain for those fleeing the calamities they faced and fell to. Her remarks show also an unwillingness to aid unless pressured into it, this conflict is, like nature passive, but just as deadly.
Post #5 (11-15)
Topic C
So many of them. Smelly, poor, thieving oakies the lot of them. Musta been a thousand drove by today with no regard to how they was gonna pay their way. Or the worst ones, them that stops and steals ev'rthing not nailed down. They're invaders, swarming over everything and everybody. How hard can it be to get a respectable job like those truckers? Today at least there were some truckers stopped by for a sip er'r more of them oakies came through. By God, I don't know when I'll see the end of them.....
Diary entry of waitress Mae from chapter 15
Topic C
So many of them. Smelly, poor, thieving oakies the lot of them. Musta been a thousand drove by today with no regard to how they was gonna pay their way. Or the worst ones, them that stops and steals ev'rthing not nailed down. They're invaders, swarming over everything and everybody. How hard can it be to get a respectable job like those truckers? Today at least there were some truckers stopped by for a sip er'r more of them oakies came through. By God, I don't know when I'll see the end of them.....
Diary entry of waitress Mae from chapter 15
Friday, March 7, 2014
Post #3 (1-10)
Sub topic A- brief 1930s research
Naturally as it is known after taking an American history class (and in greater depth if after taking an AP course) the Dust Bowl was just one component to a massive crisis that confronted the nation in the 1930s. The stock market had crashed and with it the world's economy. Food prices were rising as famine broke out across Europe and consequently much of Asia (still under heavy European colonial influence I submit India for example). When the Dust Bowl hit the U.S. food prices on the home front rose even farther, and horrified many parts of the nation at the dismal situation industry and agricultural trade were in. Worse yet, it is almost certain that had the Dust Bowl NOT happened, recovery would have been more quickly attainable, perhaps fast enough to avoid the fall of many newly formed democracies in eastern Europe. These falls led to the rise of regimes like the Third Reich. The depression, coupled with the Dust Bowl perpetuation what would become World War 2 just fourteen years from the beginning of this decade of scarcity. How knows, perhaps if the economies of Europe had recovered more quickly, France and England would have not adopted an appeasmatic scheme.
Sub topic A- brief 1930s research
Naturally as it is known after taking an American history class (and in greater depth if after taking an AP course) the Dust Bowl was just one component to a massive crisis that confronted the nation in the 1930s. The stock market had crashed and with it the world's economy. Food prices were rising as famine broke out across Europe and consequently much of Asia (still under heavy European colonial influence I submit India for example). When the Dust Bowl hit the U.S. food prices on the home front rose even farther, and horrified many parts of the nation at the dismal situation industry and agricultural trade were in. Worse yet, it is almost certain that had the Dust Bowl NOT happened, recovery would have been more quickly attainable, perhaps fast enough to avoid the fall of many newly formed democracies in eastern Europe. These falls led to the rise of regimes like the Third Reich. The depression, coupled with the Dust Bowl perpetuation what would become World War 2 just fourteen years from the beginning of this decade of scarcity. How knows, perhaps if the economies of Europe had recovered more quickly, France and England would have not adopted an appeasmatic scheme.
Post #2 (1-10)
Sub-topic G- conflicts in the novel (Man against Machine)
This was largely covered in class, still it is worth going into with somewhat more detail.
"The man sitting in the iron seat did not look like a man" (35)
Set up here with this quote is the underlying emotion of what can be construed as horror at the way once immersed in a mechanized world, man looses his humanity. This is not a quote of triumph of one over the other, but it is the depiction of an aberrational relationship between a creation of god and a creation of a creation of god. This unholy relationship maybe seen by the farmers in the book to be the tool of a 'monster' that is driving them into oblivion.
"The tractor cut a straight line on, and the air and the ground vibrated with its thunder" (39)
This quote seems to be set up the way it is in the passage on page 38 and into 39 to show that the opposition of man as an individual against a man/machine hybrid is useless. This shows that at the direction of men, machines, used as tools, are un-opposable by the individual and that the only option available to survive this conflict is to flee. It is this broken conviction that will force many families west, and gives the book an interesting parallel in its period of industrialization driving away farmers as farmers drove away settlers who drove away the natives.
Sub-topic G- conflicts in the novel (Man against Machine)
This was largely covered in class, still it is worth going into with somewhat more detail.
"The man sitting in the iron seat did not look like a man" (35)
Set up here with this quote is the underlying emotion of what can be construed as horror at the way once immersed in a mechanized world, man looses his humanity. This is not a quote of triumph of one over the other, but it is the depiction of an aberrational relationship between a creation of god and a creation of a creation of god. This unholy relationship maybe seen by the farmers in the book to be the tool of a 'monster' that is driving them into oblivion.
"The tractor cut a straight line on, and the air and the ground vibrated with its thunder" (39)
This quote seems to be set up the way it is in the passage on page 38 and into 39 to show that the opposition of man as an individual against a man/machine hybrid is useless. This shows that at the direction of men, machines, used as tools, are un-opposable by the individual and that the only option available to survive this conflict is to flee. It is this broken conviction that will force many families west, and gives the book an interesting parallel in its period of industrialization driving away farmers as farmers drove away settlers who drove away the natives.
Sunday, March 2, 2014
Post 1- Grapes of Wrath Travel Blog
Blog Post 1 (1-10) ***
Sunday March 1st
Topic F of the Travel Blog
Sub-topic; Pride
"'I don't never take a drink till I'm through.'"
"'I done time. So What!'"
The first quote here from page 11 of the Grapes of wrath is made by the driver of the truck Mr. Joad is hitching a ride in. At this time in history sobriety was being pushed heavily by women, and alcohol, which has been used as a means of escape throughout history from the pressures of life is kept under strict regulation by the driver, or so he claims. How this is an example of pride may be clouded, yet that the driver deems it important enough to boast about to another person provides enough empirical evidence to suggest that this is indeed a prideful claim. The second quote is by a Mr. Joad our main character and shows a different kind of pride. Whereas the first is evidentiary of pride through upholding a societal value, the second is pride in the history of one's self in the sense that there is an absolute absence of shame for a deed done. Known to us of the 21st century the general public of the early 20th century was very reluctant to accept support from the government, and turned to that support only as a last resort. This reluctance came from a stubborn pride, which so far has been shown to us in the novel came in two forms, pride for one's deeds in society and pride in one's self.
Sunday March 1st
Topic F of the Travel Blog
Sub-topic; Pride
"'I don't never take a drink till I'm through.'"
"'I done time. So What!'"
The first quote here from page 11 of the Grapes of wrath is made by the driver of the truck Mr. Joad is hitching a ride in. At this time in history sobriety was being pushed heavily by women, and alcohol, which has been used as a means of escape throughout history from the pressures of life is kept under strict regulation by the driver, or so he claims. How this is an example of pride may be clouded, yet that the driver deems it important enough to boast about to another person provides enough empirical evidence to suggest that this is indeed a prideful claim. The second quote is by a Mr. Joad our main character and shows a different kind of pride. Whereas the first is evidentiary of pride through upholding a societal value, the second is pride in the history of one's self in the sense that there is an absolute absence of shame for a deed done. Known to us of the 21st century the general public of the early 20th century was very reluctant to accept support from the government, and turned to that support only as a last resort. This reluctance came from a stubborn pride, which so far has been shown to us in the novel came in two forms, pride for one's deeds in society and pride in one's self.
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