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.