Life of Pi: Final Essay

          In Life of Pi, the main character Piscine Patel’s life takes an unexpected turn for the worse: Pi’s pious, stable life as a zoo keeper’s son in India abruptly ends when his family decides to migrate to Canada and escape escalating political instability in India. Pi, his family, and a few of their animals board a ship headed to their new life, but tragedy strikes when the ship sinks. Pi is faced with an unimaginably difficult situation; his religious beliefs are put to the test when he is faced with life or death situations, and, to a reader, Pi’s sanity appears to be dwindling and overtaken by madness. However, just as Emily Dickinson stated, sometimes madness is simply the barest, most instinctive form of human sanity.

          Pi ends up on a life boat with a few of the animals, but soon all of the animals except the tiger, named Richard Parker, die. Pi knows he must find bait to fish with to get food for Richard Parker and himself; the problem is that Pi’s devout religious beliefs, especially his Hindu faith, have discouraged him from killing or eating animals for his entire life. To survive, he must do both. He starts by killing the flying fish that surround the life boat for bait, and states that, “A lifetime of peaceful vegetarianism stood between (him) and the willful beheading of a fish”(page 175), to convey his unease regarding the situation at hand. However, Pi “knew it had to be done”.

          Pi “wept” after killing his first fish, but then he states that “after that it was easier”. This marks his transition into what some may call madness. Pi thanks a Hindu God for giving him a fish to kill, which is completely contradictory to his prior beliefs. He states that killing the Dorado “was no problem”, and he even beat the fish to death (page 177). However, Pi does not ignore this evolved mindset of his. He states in a side note that “a person can get used to anything”. Pi’s quick transition from an earnest, faithful vegetarian to a brutal, apathetic animal killer is certainly one that appears to be caused by pure madness, but in actuality, it is caused by his sheer will to survive. Pi has to become “mad” to some extent because it is the only way he can force himself to kill the animals he loves and save himself.

          After getting over his initial, religion-fueled uncertainty, Pi only becomes more savage and continues to digress from his previous culture. He dons himself in fish scales and kills many sea turtles and other aquatic animals not only for the meat but also for the game, and he “descended to a level of savagery he had never thought possible” (page 197). While this shows that Pi does become increasingly less mentally stable, or mad, killing for sport is one of the very few things Pi can do to stay busy. Pi spent hundreds of days at sea, and possessing a form of madness is inevitable for anyone denied human contact for that long. He kills so he will have a task instead of spending thousands of empty hours staring at the sea.

The term madness certainly has a definition that varies by the situation. Pi’s madness is not madness in the traditional sense: Pi acknowledges his absurd, mad behavior and that his actions do indeed deviate from his traditional beliefs, but he also realizes that his response is the only way he can exit the ocean alive and retain any ounce of sanity. The true meaning of madness is a major theme in Life of Pi because it marks the transition from a pure, innocent school boy to a teenager looking death in the eye, begging the readers to relate to Pi’s situation and asking them just how far they are willing to sway from their steadfast beliefs when faced with a challenging situation.

         

Current Event

A Mexican drug cartel known as the Zetas has dumped forty-nine bodies in a town close to the Mexican-American border. This barbarity is not unique; many other powerful gangs have also participated in these mass killings, and the number of killings is growing tremendously leading up to the Mexican presidential elections.

I know this sounds strange, but one of my biggest fears is Mexican drug cartels. While, needless to say, there are few violent drug cartels in South Mississippi, last summer I spent a ton of my free time learning about them. My family and I spent a few weeks in in San Diego, and I was determined to go to Tijuana. We were so close, and I didn't understand why, if we had our passports, they refused to take me. We eventually compromised, and they said that we would go to the border but no further. When we got to the boarder, I was appalled. I was extremely ignorant as to how big of a deal the whole drug trafficking issue had become. There were hundreds of Mexican and American border guards everywhere we looked, and there were around ten helicopters circling right over our heads.
After that experience, I learned all about the sophisticated cartels. The most powerful had their own 747 planes, submarines, and private cruise ships to transport their products. I also learned that these transportation methods frequented the United States. I think what scares me most about these most recent killings is their proximity to our country. Boarder areas are known for their violence, and these acts are happening increasingly closer to our home. Some of these people were probably even killed in the United States. This also makes me think about the innocent people in these drug infested cities. If these killings scare me thousands of miles away, I can't imagine what the local people are feeling. Many are too poor to escape, and, with the corruption of the government and police force in favor of the drug cartels, they have no protection.

Miroff, Nick. "‘Total barbarity’ as Mexican cartel dumps 49 torsos along highway." The Washington Post, 13 May 2012. Web. 13 May 2012.

Life of Pi: Blog 4

I enjoyed this book far more after I read the last twenty or so pages. Before, I had a hard time making sense of Pi and his relationship with Richard Parker and the other animals, but now I am glad that I read the "better story" instead of the true story. In actuality, Pi had to struggle with far more than just becoming a carnivore. He had to witness the shocking death of the other survivors, including his beloved mother, in addition to becoming a meat eater. I was most certainly not expecting this plot twist: I was under the impression that Pi and Richard Parker would somehow be rescued, and then Pi would open a zoo and live happily ever after. At first when Richard Parker ran away, I was mainly just mad at the tiger, but now I realize that his departure symbolized the arrival of reality: Pi was no longer able to mask the true story with stories of animals. What amazes me, though, is that Pi retains the ability to distinguish the truth from his "better story". I would think that he would subconsciously forget what really happened and just stick with his story about the animals. Pi's religious beliefs also make more sense now. He was on the raft all alone, and his devout faith and his "better story" were all he had to hold on to what sanity he could keep.

Current Event

Facebook has added a new, unexpected option amidst its sea of  check-ins and relationship statuses. Now, thanks to the social networking web site, Facebookers can become organ donors with only a few clicks of their mice. Found under the "life event" category,  the Organ Donor status should have many positive effects. By becoming an organ donor, people not only help save the lives of others with their organs but also spread the word about the benefits of organ donation. This new program is a great way to increase organ donor numbers, and, therefore, decrease the number of people on the organ donation list. I wish everyone would understand that he or she has no use for his or her organs after death and that by donating unused organs, many people can live healthy lives in return.

"Facebook Gives Boost to Organ Donation Registry." Tiffany McCall. WKRG.com News, 3 May 2012.Web. 6 May 2012.

Life of Pi: Blog 3

In this chapter, Pi's religious beliefs are tested. As a devout Hindu, Christian, and Muslim, Pi has certain practices that he has become accustomed to, especially in his Hindu faith because, as a Hindu, eating meat is forbidden. Pi tries to fish to no avail, showing that he is open to the idea of feasting on meat, but his real transformation happens a little after his failed fishing attempts. After seeing Richard Parker dining on flying fish, Pi takes the difficult plunge and kills a fish for himself. This shows that humans, when faced with difficult, possibly religiously affiliated decisions will most likely choose survival over beliefs. Pi realizes that he must eat to live but that eating meat means that he isviolating his religious beliefs. While this isn't savagery, this concept is similar to that of Lord of the Fly's when the boys resort to violence to survive. The boys weren't initially savage people, but their predicament called for savage measures to insure their survival. Pi soon becomes content with killing the fish because he understands that when it comes to religions, flexibility is okay (as seen in his simultaneous practice of three).

In this section, it also is becoming evident that Pi is experiencing some of the "zoo morphism" as well. He seems to be becoming more and more like Richard Parker in his eating habits, just like how Richard Parker is not acting as a tiger should. They both changed their ways to accommodate one another, and weather it was subconscious or not, the morphism allows them to relate to one another and is key in their survival. Pi needs Richard Parker as a companion, and Richard Parker needs Pi for food.

Current Event

 A bill has been passed in the Senate to help ease the struggle of the United States Postal Service. The bill plans to limit the closing or consolidation of post offices around the world and increase retirement benefits to tempt those eligible. However, as John McCain said, "This of course kicks the can down the road." While this bill protects the Postal Service in the short run, a long-term solution will need to be implemented.

I have mixed feelings about this bill. The Postal Service obviously is becoming obsolete with e-mail's ever-increasing domination. I had to go to the post office for the first time in six years last week. It was there that I realized I am far more fluent in HTML than I am in USPS. I was completely ignorant, and it was embarrassing: I had no clue which labels to use or which stamps to buy. However, I am not alone. In present day, my ignorance is shared by millions. I have only had one reason to go to the post office in the past several years. The USPS's numbers have been dropping for the last decade, and no number of senate bills can stop this decrease. I don't want the USPS to shut down because I don't want its thousands of employees to be out of work (and also because it has very good flat rate shipping prices), but if it were to shut down, I think I would be more accepting than angry.


"Senate Bill Aims to Save USPS." Hope Yen. The Associated Press, 25 April 2012. Web. 26 April 2012.

Life of Pi: Blog 2

I have a hard time reading fiction books, and truthfully, Life of Pi certainly doesn't make it any easier. I like the parts about religion and the acceptance of all, but the rest is very hard for me to follow. There is a zoo, a teenage boy, sloths, boats, land animals battling to their deaths in the middle of the ocean, and a man-eating tiger that isn't so man-eating. I understand how they all connect, but this story line is so far from reality that I think the author was intending for readers to see it just as a hypothetical situation and not a real story at all. I know fiction can be and is as far from reality as possible sometimes, this story just seems to have so many weird aspects.
After his ship sinks, Pi allows a Bengal tiger named Richard Parker onto his lifeboat. I don't understand the logic behind Pi's allowing a deadly creature to possibly compromise his chance of survival, but for whatever reason, the tiger is not an issue. Maybe this has something to do with the "zoo morphism" mentioned in our previous section: the tiger and Pi are both in the same situation so the tiger is most likely sympathizing with Pi and sees Pi as one of his own. After the orangutang and the zebra are killed by the hyena, it is clear that Richard Parker will be an instrumental part in this book.

One Last Flight for Discovery

NASA space shuttle Discovery took one final flight on Tuesday (April 17th, 2012) from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida to Washington, D.C. for its new purpose as a display at the Smithsonian Institution. Mounted on top of a Boeing 747, Discovery logged a few more miles, adding to the over 148 million miles it already had traveled, on its journey. Thousands were watching and paying their respects to the thirty year old veteran of space flight. Many voiced their concerns that the display of Discovery marks the end of the United States shuttle program, but experts like NASA Deputy Administrator Lori Garver said, "To those who say our best days of space exploration are behind us, I simply must disagree."


Boyle, Alan. "Shuttle Discovery Takes a Piggyback Ride Into Posterity." MSNBC  Today Tech, 17 April 2012. Web. 17 April 2012.

Life of Pi: Blog 1

I read about fifteen pages of this book before realizing that the author's note was part of the story: I thought the note was intended to be like every other author's note I have read and not written in a character's perspective. After my initial confusion, I didn't exactly have an easier time relating to the novel. 

I did notice that when Pi's father makes his brother and him watch a tiger kill a goat, it could be symbolic of a Muslim (which Pi later becomes) sacrifice. Muslim people often sacrifice goats to show how Abraham sacrificed his son to God. I like how Pi practices three religions because I think it would be amazing to be a apart of that many different cultures, but I think it is strange because they are somewhat contradictory of each other. I also found it interesting that Pi believes that the animals will overlook their natural instincts in favor for the "better story" he previously mentioned.

Fahrenheit 451: The Sieve and the Sand and Burning Bright

          The second and third parts of Fahrenheit 451 remind me of the movie I Am Legend. In the movie, the main character is one of the only human survivors of a mass pandemic caused by a drug that was thought to be a cancer cure. The drug turned everyone it didn't kill into strange human-like life forms, but there were few similarities between the life forms and normal humans. The main character is one of only a few survivors of the pandemic, and he does all he can to cure the other weird human-like people of the disease. Like in the movie, Montag is one of only a few people who still retain human qualities. Montag has a desire to read and to learn from what he reads, and he attempts to convert the others from their book-free, government-controlled lives by reading a poem titled Dover Beach; the poem relates perfectly to the novel: "..also in the sound a thought, Hearing it by this distant northern sea" could relate to Montag's desire to read being crushed by society, "..But now I only hear Its melancholy, long, withdrawing roar" parallels to Montag's feelings about the forced monotony that is his life, and "Ah, love, let us be true" could possibly have been a plea from Montag to Mildred for a change in their loveless life.

         

Fahrenheit 451: Part One

          The entire dystopian plot of Fahrenheit 451 is a plot I find truly horrifying. The idea of burning books to ensure monotony among the thoughts and plans of people is disturbing to say the least, as promoting a closed-minded society is fruitless. Instead of books to read for pleasure, the people entertain themselves with jet cars and parlor walls, which also promote the government's seedy agendas. For instance, the government altered the history to such an extent that Montag has no idea that firemen once prevented and extinguished fires instead of starting them. These parlor walls are also a way to have a "family" (which actually was just a fake projection that viewers thought was real) created to further conformity.The government has been changed in this society to prevent its people from reverting to their previous state of war and promote its ideologies.  I don't understand how book burning would  succeed at ridding the wold of controversy to end dispute. Toddlers dispute all the time without ever having read a book.

          Montag's questioning shows that not everyone is as brainwashed as the government intends for them to be, so I can't comprehend why these people haven't rebelled and all of the Montags of the world haven't bound together to form a giant book club. Society thrives and is shaped by controversy and diversity. Although Mississippi is somewhat of an anti-free thinking state,  I cannot imagine world in which we were not permitted to think for ourselves. The printing press was, without a doubt, the most important invention our world has seen as it allowed for the spreading of knowledge on an extremely broader scale. To purposely revert back to the days before its invention is so foreign I can't comprehend it.  Even though burning books may be a far-fetched idea, the first part of this book made me ask "What if?". Our nation could go into two atomic wars and we could be ruled by someone or a group of people striving for conformity as a solution. While I doubt it'll ever happen, it seems eerily plausible.

The Great Gatsby: Final Essay

                Although different people have different versions of the ideal American Dream, the general consensus is that to achieve the American Dream is to achieve financial success regardless of previous economic status through the freedom bestowed upon us by our founding fathers. In The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald, Nick Caraway documents the life of the main character, Jay Gatsby, to portray the withering of the American Dream.
                Just as plants are healthy and fresh before they wither, the first part of The Great Gatsby consists of Gatsby’s lively and healthy relationship that came from his “new” money. When Gatsby first fell in love with Daisy Buchanan around five years ago, there was one major disparity in the pair’s relationship: Daisy had money and Gatsby did not. Gatsby was not reared nearly as privileged as Daisy was; he lied to Daisy about his financial state, claiming that he had inherited money so he could live the social portion of the American Dream, but when Gatsby returns from war to find his beloved Daisy married, he devotes the next chapter of his life to prosperity in hopes of winning Daisy back.
                After making a sizable fortune from bootlegging and purchasing lavish goods and a luxury house, Gatsby has finally achieved the American Dream. He started in poverty, but he proved that backgrounds don’t matter in regards to future financial success. Even with every material item at his fingertips, Gatsby’s life is still devoid of the one thing that would make it complete: Daisy Buchanan. Gatsby throws lavish parties to get Daisy’s attention so she can discover what he has become. When Gatsby finally gains Daisy’s attention, he is thrilled to show off his possessions, knowing that Daisy is very materialistic in nature. As Nick said on page 91 in reference to Gatsby, “He hadn’t once ceased looking at Daisy, and I think he revalued everything in his house according to the measure of response it drew from her well-loved eyes”.  After a few more meetings and afternoon get-togethers, Gatsby has everything he ever wanted, fulfilling his American Dream.
                Sticking to the overall theme of the novel, this American Dream is short-lived. The second part of The Great Gatsby shows the contrary effects of the pursuit of the Dream. The turning, or rather, the first sign of the withering in The Great Gatsby occurs when Gatsby, Nick, and Jordon visit the Buchanan’s house (page 117). Gatsby reluctantly meets Daisy’s daughter, realizing that no matter what, the daughter will always tie Daisy to Tom. Soon after the introduction, Tom Buchanan catches a loving glimpse between Gatsby and Daisy, and he can no longer deny that the two are intimate.
                The group then ventures into the city and goes to the Plaza Hotel. Tom prods Gatsby about the affair, to which Gatsby replies “She’s never loved you. She loves me”, on page 130. Gatsby pleads with Daisy to reinforce his claim, but after Daisy looks back at her relationship with Tom, Daisy can only respond with, “I did love him once-but I loved you too”. This is the ultimate death of Gatsby’s American Dream; after all, “He wanted nothing less of Daisy than that she should go to Tom and say: ‘I never loved you’” (page 109).
                Gatsby is murdered at the end of the novel because he took the blame for a horrible act that Daisy committed, symbolizing the complete withering and decay of the American Dream. Gatsby made a fortune out of what little he had, and he used his fortune to re-gain Daisy’s affection; before his murder, Gatsby realizes that Daisy will never leave Tom, and even though he had everything he wanted financial-wise and had fulfilled the American Dream, he still couldn’t have what he wanted most. No amount of money could solve his problem, representing the downfall and the opposite side to the highly sought-after American Dream.

The Great Gatsby: Chapters 6-9

When I read the first five chapters of The Great Gatsby, I was very skeptical as to why this novel is a tragedy. Those chapters were full of hopes and dreams, but once I continued reading, I realized everything wasn't as absolute as it seemed. At the end of the sixth chapter, Daisy attends one of Gatsby's parties. This point signifies a turning point in the book because all of Gatsby's parties had one goal: to get Daisy's attention. When Daisy makes an appearance at the party, she doesn't seem as impressed as Gatsby would like her to. He worked so hard to get her there, but then he is disappointed about Daisy's reaction. The not-everything-is-as-good-as-it-seems attitude is extremely prevalent in this section of The Great Gatsby. Gatsby had this dream about Daisy, but he is coming to realize that he had built her up to be more than she was during the five year hiatus in their relationship. I would say that this is the start of the transition to tragedy, and in chapter seven, the tragedies start to accumulate. After Tom discovers Daisy's affair and Gatsby prompts Daisy to admit that she was never in love with Tom, Daisy fails to admit that there was never a connection between the pair. At this point, Daisy hurts Gatsby emotionally and by leaving him to take the brunt of Tom's anger. On the drive home, Daisy runs over Myrtle, Tom's mistress, in a hit and run collision. In the next chapter, Gatsby is shot and killed by Wilson (Myrtle's husband) because Tom tipped him off as to his wife's murderer. The lack of mourners at Gatsby's funeral is the cherry on top of a tragic ice cream sundae.
Every tragedy in the book is based on materialism and its consequences. Daisy's materialistic are what eventually made her less appealing to Gatsby, and Myrtle's materialistic views caused both Gatsby's and her death. If she hadn't desired to life the lifestyle of the rich and famous (funded by Tom, of coarse) and have an affair, her husband would never have found out about the affair and locked her in the closet. She would not have escaped and run on to the street, Daisy wouldn't have hit her, and Wilson would have had no reason to kill Gatsby and himself.

The Crucible Chapters 1-5

In The Great Gatsby, F. Scott Fitzgerald criticizes the people in the 1920s via the symbolic elements that intertwine with his characters in his novel. 
The first symbol is the difference between East and West Egg. In West Egg, people have "new" money. While they are generally as wealthy as those in East Egg who have "old" money, there is a definite disparity between the two. Tom and Daisy are examples of characters who possessed "old" money, and Nick and Gatsby have more "new"money. This is significant because Gatsby is in love with Daisy, but they are from two different back grounds. Gatsby has spent the past five years of his life trying to make up for their different upbringings by becoming more wealthy, and Gatsby is eager to show Daisy how well-off he has become. 
Another symbol in The Great Gatsby is the green light. The light first appears at the end of chapter one when Nick sees Gatsby at the end of Gatsby's pier reaching out towards "a single green light". This light symbolizes new life and money, which for Gatsby, means Daisy. The green light also appears in the fifth chapter after Gatsby tells Daisy that her house is right across the Sound from his. He says that she always has a green light that burns all night at the end of her dock. The green light turned into the renewal of Gatsby and Daisy's friendship and possibly a rekindling of their prior relationship.
The third symbolic element is the Valley of Ashes. The Valley is the epitome of dull, mundane life. The other side of the Valley consists of a life where anything is possible. This is very similar to the difference between Gatsby's past and Gatsby's potential future with Daisy. Gatsby dreams of re-igniting Daisy's interest in him, just as one is almost revived as a person when traveling from the dismal Valley to the lively city of New York.

The Birthmark and The Crucible

The Birthmark begins with an exceptionally intellegent scientist named Aylmer who has recently married a woman named Georgiana. Georgiana has a red birthmark shaped like a hand on her cheek, and soon Aylmer becomes strangely entranced by the mark. When his wife faints, he assumes it is because of her evil birthmark. In The Crucible, the fainting girls were said to be possessed in a similar manner. He becomes completely obsessed, just as the people of Salem became obsessed with the persecution of the witches, and decides that it should be removed. The birthmark isn't a mundane trait, similar to the dancing in the woods, so Aylmer considered it wicked; he could no longer accept its obscurity, and he forces his wife to drink a potion that he says will remove her birthmark from the inside out, since it's "deep in her body". Aylmer ends up killing his wife over a fallacy he has created, just as the Salem "witches" were hanged for doing "witchcraft".

On Writing: Essay

Amidst Stephen King’s tales of his childhood, his failures, his triumphs, and his trials in his book On Writing, he makes one message extremely clear:  to become a successful writer, one must write frequently. At an early age, King began developing and fine tuning his writing skills; he continued to advance and evolve these skills throughout his teenage and college years, never skipping an opportunity to further his competence as a writer. King’s incessant dedication to his field allowed him to become one of the best writers of his time; with forty-nine published novels and numerous prestigious awards, Stephen King shows aspiring writers just how much dedication can pay off.
                After completing Happy Stamps in his early teenage years, King was eager to send his piece to Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine (page 27). He was proud of his writing, and he considered it to be a good story, but instead of a published paper, all King gained was a rejection letter. He nailed the rejection letter into the wall with a nail. This rejection didn’t discourage King, however. He wrote story after story to send off in hopes of publication, only to be rejected a bountiful number of times. As he put it, “the nail in my wall would no longer support the weight of the rejection slips impaled upon it”. King was persistent. He had too many failures to count, but he knew that he had significant potential as a writer, and he knew that the only way to advance his abilities was to keep writing.
                Stephen King was not an instant success in any way. At one point in his life, he was a college graduate working two jobs: one at a laundry mat and one at Dunkin’ Donuts. Having a college education and working jobs that a twelve year old could easily fill would be enough to discourage even the most adamant person, but King faced these challenges head on. During his stint at these jobs, King had several small successes sending his stories to men’s magazines, and as he said, the profit was “just enough to create a rough sliding margin between (them) and welfare” (page70). Between washing loads of motel sheets, King continued to write horror stories; little did he know at the time, this undying devotion would turn into a career he couldn’t have imagined.
                The unimaginable accident that King suffered in 1999 would prove to be the most trying obstacle in his writing career. He was struck by a van driven by a reckless driver, and he broke countless bones and required a number of painful operations. Upon his release from the hospital, King decided to continue working on this book, On Writing, but he faced several problems. King not only suffered from extreme pain while sitting upright but also had writer’s block.  “All my old tricks seemed to have deserted me” and “there was no inspiration that first afternoon” show how much trouble King had getting back into the task he loved best. As King’s injuries healed, his spirit improved, and he conjured up the energy to complete On Writing. Even after a disfiguring accident, King never stopped; although he could only write in small increments, he did what he could with what he had, showing that perseverance and dedication yield great results.
                Stephen King’s story is one that every writer should admire as it is one of dedication. Throughout all of his struggles, highs, and lows, King never failed to write. If one wants to become a good, successful writer, he or she must always follow King’s simple message: write frequently.

On Writing Blog Three

The last portion of On Writing covers two main topics: King’s post first draft actions and King’s tragic accident in 1999. After the unassisted creation of a first draft, Stephen King has a well-defined revision procedure that he abides by. King doesn’t recommend letting close friends or family members read this draft unless one can be certain that the friends or family members will not discuss the novel unless the author is ready. I think this is a very practical piece of advice because I tend to take constructive criticism from those close to me too personally, and I think that if I were to ever write a novel, I would get too discouraged to continue editing the piece. King recommends a 6 week vacation period in a drawer for the first draft of a book, but after that, a “two drafts and a polish” approach to the revision process, and the formula he follows is 2^nd draft=1^st draft-10%. This is to prevent the story from becoming too “PUFFY” as an editor described one of King’s earlier pieces. This part really made me ponder my own approach to writing because in every class other than my English classes, I tend to include copious details that truly have no relationship to my topic just so my paper can seem longer. I learned that while King believes that fact-checking and research are important, writers should focus more on the task at hand: the story. I disagree with King on this issue, however, because as an avid reader of non-fiction books, I like being able to learn real facts use when perusing a book. In my opinion, doing less fact-checking for the sake of “the story as a whole” is not the best attitude to have. I believe the two are synonymous and that fact-checking leads to good stories.
                If I hadn’t already had the epiphany that Stephen King was an incredibly inspirational person, I would have made that determination after I read “On Living: A Postscript” section. King was in the middle of writing this book when he was abruptly struck by a van under the control of a reckless driver near his summer house in Maine. King had numerous broken bones, and simple things like sitting down were monumental challenges for him. Regardless of his excruciating pain, King began to write again just five weeks later. His physical challenges weren’t his only problem though; King was also having trouble with the actual writing process, a process that had previously come so easily to him. If I had been confronted with King’s situation, I know I wouldn’t have fared half as well. Despite all of these hardships, King persevered and created this book, and, as he stated, “The scariest moment is always just before you start. After that, things can only get better.”

President Obama's 2012 State of the Union

                Prior to President Obama’s State of the Union address, he stated that his plan was to discuss “the central mission we have as a country and (his) central focus as president”; after Mr. Obama’s obligatory handshakes and his heartwarming embrace with Congresswoman Giffords, he made his way to the podium for his exceptionally good speech that would do just that. President Obama was born for public speaking, and this was evident in his clear words and inspiring tone. With the 2012 election nearing, Mr. Obama spoke from the heart about several pressing issues our nation is currently facing.
                Mr. Obama’s first topic of interest was the end Iraq war. To a standing ovation, the President declared that for the first time in nine years, there were no Americans fighting in Iraq. I think that this was a great first step in the eventual conclusion of the War on Terror, but I also know that that Mr. Obama has a long way to go to fulfill his promise of ending the entire war. President Obama expressed his desire to take the money we will eventually not be spending on war and use it to do “some nation-building right here at home” which was an indirect stab at former President Bush, who claimed that we were” building nations” when we began the war in the Middle East. I believe that we have done far more destruction of the Middle Eastern nations than we have building. The President also discussed the elimination of both Osama bin Laden and the majority of al Qaeda’s top lieutenants.
                The part of Mr. Obama’s speech that I related most to was when he said that we should grant our schools flexibility by  “ (teaching) with creativity and passion and stop teaching to the test”. Our nation has become overly concerned with high standardized test scores. In Mississippi, eighth and ninth graders have the Algebra 1 test, ninth graders have Biology, tenth graders have English, and eleventh graders have the U.S. History test. In all of these classes, a strong emphasis is placed on test performance rather than the actual comprehension of the subject. Teachers are chastised for swaying from the strict test prep curriculum put forth by our state; this allows little creativity in the classroom, and it forces teachers to suppress what they desire to teach.
                I also liked that President Obama’s stance on immigration. He is strongly against illegal immigration, but he stated that in regards to foreign students on school or work visas, “we should be working on comprehensive immigration reform”.  This reminded me of the DREAM Act considered last year that I found very appealing. “The DREAM Act would provide an opportunity for eligible undocumented students who have been raised and educated in the United States to earn legal status by pursuing a higher education, or by serving in the U.S. military,” said Secretary of Education Arne Duncan. I believe that if someone is willing to fight for our country or get an education in our country, which is far more than some of our current citizens would do, he or she is qualified to be a citizen. Unfortunately, this Act did not pass.
                To conclude his Address, President Obama spoke of his desires to have a more unified nation. He discussed the day that SEAL Team 6 eliminated Osama bin Laden, expressing the cooperation that occurred between the parties involved. That day, he was working with George Bush’s former defense secretary, republican Bob Gates, and Hillary Clinton, his top opponent for the democratic seat in the 2008 election. Their unbiased collaboration mixed with the Navy Seals in-sync actions allowed for the number one threat to our nation to be terminated. If the bold lines dividing the two parties were smudged like they were on this day, I think our nation could be more powerful than ever before.

On Writing Blog Two

In What Writing Is, Stephen King notes the parallels between writing and telepathy. While initially I was skeptical of this idea because I didn't see the likeness, once I completed the section I realized that King wasn't referring to telepathy in the super natural sense. King didn't mean that he or any other writers could read minds; he simply was using the term by its definition, "the ability to know another's thoughts", to convey his message that the reader must be able to comprehend the author's purpose and messages when reading the author's work. His example of the rabbit in the cage with the number 8 on its back shows his ideal writer to reader "telepathy" in action. King also stresses that a writer must be serious about his or her work, and that he or she must "not come lightly to the blank page".

In The Toolbox, Stephen King uses an actual toolbox that belonged to his uncle to base his metaphorical instructions for writing on. Just as his uncle’s toolbox had several levels, King describes the various levels that one needs to be familiar with in order to succeed as a writer. In the first level, King talks about two of his pet peeves: using passive voice and using adverbs. While I have been taught the horrors of passive voice, King’s opinion on adverb usage was one I hadn’t heard before. I learned that using strong verbs to convey a message instead of adverbs is a great writing technique; therefore, now I will be more aware of my excessive adverb usage. In the second level, Stephen King discusses paragraphs and how to use paragraphs in writing. King expresses the necessity of “frags”, or fragments, in writing. He says that while sometimes they are over-used, fragments help to streamline writing, and he emphasizes that at this level, one must learn that the paragraph is flexible and can be a single word or several pages long, as long as it is used well. This was also a new idea to me because I had always learned that paragraphs should generally be no shorter than three sentences, but I understand now that while the tree sentence rule may apply for a more formal educational-based paper, they have no place in the book world. King’s third level is simply “begin to write real fiction”. He says that once you have all of the ingredients, or tools, rather, the only thing left to do is write.
            Another part of this section that I found interesting was King’s views on grammar. As he states, grammar deserves the top shelf of (my) toolbox.  I don’t particularly favor literature, but I could go on for hours about the wonderful aspects of grammar. Grammar is not something that I have to decipher or form an opinion on; the rules of grammar have already been created for me, and my job is simply to execute them. As King stated, “bad grammar produces bad sentences”, which in turn, produces bad stories. I have started several books that I simply could not finish because the grammar was so horrible, and I’m disappointed that Stephen King did not include the detailed section on grammar that he was considering, as I know I would have found that section most appealing.

On Writing Blog One

Prior to my reading On Writing's CV, I had a clear image of the person I thought Stephon King was, and that person happened to be a mentally ill, middle aged man who got a kick out of writing horrific -albeit best selling- novels. I am pleased to say, however, that my views on King quickly morphed as I progressed throughout the CV. I generally only read non-fiction books, so I welcomed the departure On Writing was from King's namesake scientific horror thrillers. The no filler, to-the-point stories of Stephen King's life were as intriguing as they were sparse; they were precise enought to keep my attention but lofty enough to tell his whole story. In King's psuedo-autobiography, I learned that he is actually a rather typical person dispute his seemingly psychotic demeanor (although I did begin to retract my newly discovered appreciation for the author on page 59 when King expresses his desire to make a necklace out of human teeth); King had a challenging childhood but a supporting mother dispute his father's deserting him when he was an infant (page 15). He believes that television is ruining our generation (page 22). He believes that a writer should recognize good ideas instead of searching for them (page 25), and he shows us how he did just that by mentally fusing the image of his mother's green tongue and the concept of counterfeiting Green Stamps in his book, Happy Stamps. King also states that, "having someone who believes in you makes a lot of difference", (page 64); this statement really came into play earlier on in his careetheir ring the early seventies.
Stephen King also toutches on the several hardships he faced. By the winter of 1973, King was living in a double wide trailer in what he called, "the armpit of the world", the town of Hermon (page 63). His teaching job, while certainly more profitable than his prior stint at the laundry mat, was not enough to make ends meet. After his novel Carrie became a success, King got drunk for the first of what would turn out to be numerous times, blind to the consequences this would have for him in the future. Eventually, he added a drug addiction to his severe alchohaulisn (page 87). He continued down this "ugly downward spiral" until his wife stepped in. She helped him to become sober, bettering his family life and his writing career in the process. Throughout his experience, Stephen King grew as a person too. As highlighted in the desk story, we went from a dominance seeking alcohaulic to a family man in his sobriety. The CV documented King's life in good times and bad, leaving no stone unturned in his journey to be a writer and have the career he dreamed of.