Musical books!

Although the song I chose for The Great Gatsby may be a bit weird, I feel as though it suits the book well. Grace Kelly, by Mika, is an upbeat song and is hard to get rid of once it's in your head. After reading the majority of this book, even the first couple lines of this song remind me of the character Daisy: "Do I attract you?/Do I repulse you with my queasy smile?/Am I too dirty? Am I too flirty?/Do I like what you like?" These lines remind me of parts throughout the book when Daisy warms up to other men besides her husband, even to Nick. "'Are you in love with me,' she said low in my ear, 'or why did I have to come alone?'", it states, on page 85, Daisy talking to Nick.

The lyrics "Gotta be green, gotta be mean/Gotta be everything more/Why don't you like me/Why don't you like me?/Walk out the door!" remind me of the character Tom. When Tom realized that there was something going on between Daisy and Gatsby,  Tom was determined to win, to prove to Gatsby that Daisy loves him, not that she's never loved him. After Tom stated that he's won, he wants Daisy and Gatsby to leave and tells Daisy to meet him at home. On page 135, Fitzgerald wrote, "She looked at Tom, alarmed now, but he insisted with magnanimous scorn. 'Go on. He won't annoy you. I think he realizes that his presumptuous little flirtation is over.' They were gone, without a word, snapped out, made accidental, isolated, like ghosts, even from our pity."

I think that Nick's attitude in this book goes well with the lyrics, "Say what you want to satisfy yourself, hey!/But you only want what everybody else/Says you should want, you should want." It seems as though throughout the book Nick can't think for himself; he just goes along with whatever people tell him to do. For example, on page 94 it reads, "I tried to go then, but they wouldn't hear of it; perhaps my presence made then feel more satisfacorily alone." I found more than a couple of passages in this book that were similar to this one, where Nick is trying to leave (mostly when he's with Gatsby, it seems) but when he's told to stay where he is, he simply follows instruction.

Am I a transcendentalist?

I would say that I am a transcendentalist because I do think that everyone is their own independent self, and it should stay like that. Everyone should be themselves; if they're not, they keep living a lie because they seem as something they're not to other people. In Emerson's "Self-Reliance", he states, "To believe your own thought, to believe what is true for you in your private heart is true for all men, --that is genius." Although I think this applies to women as well, I think that this statement is true for everyone. People should know what they believe is true and what is not in their own heart, and they should follow their heart.

Americae nova tabula

There are a lot of descriptive things in this map. One is that there are ships all over the oceans that surround the Americas, and also to the left of the top of South America is what looks to be a sea monster. There are four of these monster-like creature drawings on this map. At the top of the map there also appers to be drawings of what the towns, possibly sky views of what looks like in either different parts of  America, or different parts of the world.
The ships might represent different ways/paths/routes that different people took on a voyage to America(s).  It also seems as though this drawing has South America pretty accurate, but North America seems way off, although I'm not sure if this is because they were still exploring America or not.
Another thing I noticed about this map was that most of the flags on the ships look the same, excluding only a couple.
The last thing was that on both sides of the map there seems to be drawings maybe of how men dealt with different things, such as one of the pictures on the left look like they're almost arresting a man for doing something wrong.

http://www.libs.uga.edu/darchive/hargrett/maps/1665b5.jpg

Crawlers and Squirmers

Although it's not necessarily a phobia, I am scared of worms. I am scared of spiders, I am scared of beetles. I am scared of any squirmy thing or crawler that touches me. So, in a way, I'm simply scared of touching insects; as long as they don't bother me, I don't care. But once they touch me I will freak out.
As far as worms go, I won't touch them unless I have some type of gloves on. In the house I lived in for most of my life, we had a garden in the backyard. If we wanted to go fishing, my brother, sister and I would go "fishing" for worms. Both my siblings were fine with touching the worms themselves, except I was almost terrified. My brother, like most, would hold up a worm in front of my face, forcing me to see the squirming thing that longed to go back into the ground, but instead went into an ice cream bucket with a little layer of dirt from the garden.
Not so much worms themselves, but I can't touch them. I love to fish with my grandpa (this ties in, I swear), but when we do go fishing (which is very rare), I do not touch the worms if we have live bait, and once I get a fish I do not touch that, either. Squirmy things simply freak me out, and I refuse to touch them. Same with bugs--any sort of bug, really. Ladybugs (which we had in my old house every summer we lived there), spiders, ants; I can't stand them touching me. As long as they're crawlers or squirmers, I try to shake them off as soon as I can.
If someone tells me I have a bug on my shoulder or back, I will make a scene. Whether it's in public or not, I just want the thing off me. More often than not, someone will simply tell me that I have a bug on me.
Yes, they're just a bug. But to me, they're creepy crawly squirmers and they completely freak me out.
(Sorry this is so late, I completely forgot about it!)

Two Worlds

In this movie about deaf and hearing cultures, there were multiple heated arguments about whether or not a Cochlear implant was right for children in this deaf-cultured family. Some arguments throughout the movie were that once the kids learn how to speak and hear with their Cochlear implant, they would leave the deaf culture completely behind and never look back.

With the two parents that were deaf and had deaf children, their five-year-old daughter heard about the implant and asked her parents for one. While considering it, the mother thought about getting one herself. The father, along with the wife's parents, thought it would be a bad idea--they decided for her that she wouldn't be interested in their family anymore once she was older and could communicate with people in "the hearing world". All she wanted to do, though, was fit in and understand hearing people, instead of struggling to comprehend what they're saying. Eventually they decided to move to a deaf community in Maryland. Although I thought that was good for their kids as well as the parents, I didn't think it had an actual solution to the "problem" that their kids would face later on in life when they have to communicate with "the hearing world".

In another part of this deaf-cultured family, the two hearing parents had twins, one hearing and one deaf. They decided to give their infant baby a Cochlear implant so he could be in "the hearing world". With that came more disputes about the subject. What I didn't understand, however, was why it would be a bad thing if these kids were both in the hearing world and the deaf world, as some of the parents were as well as the parents with the twins in this movie.

Something else the family argued about was that whether giving or not giving the kids this implant was abuse. I don't understand why some people had said that it was abuse if the kid did not receive a Cochlear implant. I just don't see abuse in the ability to hear or not.

All in all, I think that the parents had good points as to why their child should or shouldn't have an implant, but I think it should be the child's decision altogether. If they ask about it, do what the two deaf parents did and go meet with families or schools that have kids that have had the implant. If they don't, I'd assume that the kid is okay with being deaf and communicating with hearing people. I don't think that a child would automatically become only part of "the hearing world" if they get a Cochlear implant unless the parent(s) don't introduce sign language as part of their daily life.

American Song

The song that I chose to write that I thought reflects America greatly is The 8th of November by Big & Rich. I think that this song is a huge part in most American homes today because the lyrics talk about a soldier leaving his home to go and fight the war.
In 1965, on November 8th, there was an Airborne Brigade in Vietnam. 48 soldiers lost their lives that day, and this song reflects what happened to one of the soldiers, but at the same time includes those who died.

"Said goodbye to his mama, as he left North Dakota, to fight for the red, white and blue". As the first few lines of the song, I think that it's powerful to start out with. As it goes into the chorus, the song acknowledges that there is not only one soldier that is a hero; it's all soldiers. Although it does talk about one specific soldier, I believe that the song can relate to most that come back from being at war and fighting for their country.

"On the 8th of November, the angels were cryin' as they carried his brothers away. With the fire raining down, and the hell all around, there were few men left standing that day." I can't even imagine what it would be like being in the war, having to go over seas to continuously risk your life. However, I am so grateful that there are people that not only are willing to, but want to defend America.

I think that although this song contributes to one date in time specifically, it can relate to every-day soldiers that leave or come home from the war. I also think that this song will always reflect America because in the majority of homes there are people that risk their lives for America, and there will always people that do so. We should always give contribution for those people.

What I failed to mention earlier was the part of the song that talks about the 1200 (pronounced as twelve hundred in the song) Viet Cong attacked the unit of soldiers that were in Vietnam:
"He was dropped in the jungle, where the choppers would rumble, with the smell of napalm in the air, and the Sergent said, 'look up ahead'. Like a dark evil cloud, 1200 came down, on him and 29 more. They fought for their lives, but most of them died, in the 173rd Airborne."
Here's the link to the song on youtube:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ozpdBvB0hek&ob=av3n&safety_mode=true&persist_safety_mode=1

Writing Styles

Everyone's writing syles are certainly different, no one's being the same.
My writing style is unique, and actually kind of complicated. Although when I do my homework I sit at the table--so I can have everything spread out and whatnot--when it comes to writing, I usually end up sitting on the couch or recliner, writing in a notebook. Most of the time I have the radio on, or if there are commercials on most radio stations, I'll turn on my computer and let Pandora play. Even though I'll have all my work written out, when I open Word so I can type it up I actually turn a whole new direction, using parts of what I have written earlier but not really going the direction I had intended to in the first place. Sometimes it works out, but sometimes I have to rewrite what I typed, which is okay. All in all I enjoy writing, and even if I don't stick the my first thought, who does?