Blog 9: Analysis of your writing

As a writer my weaknesses in writing are grammar and punctuation. I have many good ideas but I don’t know how to structure good sentences with them. Throughout the semester I learned to develop grammar skills. I was able to organize good ideas into become great sentences. I do have a few strengths as a writer. I am able to procrastinate and focus on more  than just one idea. I am a creative writer; I always have good ideas to discuss in my papers. One weakness that I still have yet to improve on is developing my own argument in my paper. In my paper I focus more on explaining my sources instead of just using them as a brief idea.

At the beginning of the term I wasn’t able to write a 500 length word page paper. I felt like I was always running out of ideas, but now I feel like I am able to continue writing without hesitation. I am able to write without worrying I won’t have enough words in paper. These blogs have been a lot of help for my writing skills.  Every time I write a blog my writing improves. I am able to realize the grammar errors in my paragraph.

The assignments in class that helped me the most were writing blogs about the movie Minority Report  and the movie Gattaca. I was able to develop full structured paragraphs about these movies. I learned how to include them in my paper and how to use movie ideas in my paper. I was able to improve my paper by discussing it in class with my classmates. It was a huge help because I was able to get different perspectives on my paper. My classmates shared their ideas and thoughts about my paper. This gave me the motivation I needed to improve my paper.  Another assignment that helped me improve my writing was typing up our “In Class Essay”. I was able to review the errors in my essay and see how I could improve for the next essay. As I was typing out my essay I realized I had a lot of grammar errors that needed to be fixed. I liked this activity because it gave me a chance to see all the wrongs in my essay.

When I attend ENG 102 I know I have to work on developing good long structured papers. I have to improve my grammar skills and use bigger vocabulary words. I also need to focus more on what the topic of the paper is requiring me to do. I need to learn how to focus on my own argument in a paper and not constantly rely to sources outside my paper. I have to learn to accept the help of my peers, to get a better understanding on how I can improve my paper.  I feel like this semester in ENG 101 has helped me out a lot. My writing has defiantly improved since the first day I stepped into class. I know I have yet to improve my skills but I’ve defiantly become a better writer.

Blog 8: Thematic Connections

Brainstorming

Movies we have watched in class Gattaca and Minority Report , they both provide a insight to what reality is. How cruel and unfair it is. How it violates privacy and the way of living.

In class essays about both movies, research about the topic more in dept. Made us realize what the world can become.

Articles and Plays, for example Oedipus The King and Minority Report

Blog Entry’s about every topic we discussed

Blog

After watching the movie Gattaca I realized how society can be cruel and unfair. It provides me a sense of knowledge to the reality of what can really happen in our society. It shows how corrupt government is and how it can manipulate innocent people into believing an unethical reality. Doctors are trying to design perfect human beings in the movie Gattaca, which is rather similar to what doctors do today. We try to perfect the human being. We allow parents the option of keeping their un born child or perfecting it by taking medication and pills that allows the baby to grow healthy. This movie gives insight of the reality we live in. Throughout the semester we discussed many topics on how society is cruel and unfair. The movie Gattaca seemed to have the most influence on me because it shows how a perfect world could go corrupt and not even know it. In class we wrote a blog about the movie. This blog turned to become a essay. After writing the essay, much research had to be done. It made me realize that no matter what government and society develop it’s never going to be a fair and reliable. It’s always going to exclude a group of people. Writing about this movie and developing a essay, improved my thoughts on how to structure a essay and include valid information about it. Made me understand how to cite and include other sources into my essay. I enjoyed writing the essay because the movie was interesting and insightful. If you like the movie you are more likely to write a better essay since you are interested in that topic. Throughout the semester this movie seemed to be the most interesting to me, since I have already watched Minority Report  and had a discussion about this movie before I entered this class.

Blog 7: Reflection on blogging

The benefits of using a blogger is the available online access everyone has throughout the world to read and check up on your blog. Visitors who view your blog are allowed to share comments and interact with you through every blog you write. A blogger is very well organized. You don’t have to worry about having bad handwriting because you’re typing everything out. A blogger is very useful for someone who wants to share his thoughts to the world. You have the ability to private your blog from everyone and have an anonymous name. You can share your thoughts to the world without anyone ever knowing who you are.

The disadvantages of a blogger are online updates. Sometimes a site shuts down because of global web interruption. Another disadvantage of using a blogger is, if you have enable visitors to comment on your blogs, you must be prepared for any kind of comment. Some online visitors can be cruel and very judgmental. They might not share the same opinion as you. You must be prepared to handle peoples crucial comments or spams.

My personal opinion about the online blogger is; it’s very useful and fun. My experience using it in English Class has been very productive. I am able to work on my writing. My classmates are able to view my work and share opinions, even so criticize my work. They are allowed to leave notes and leave me advice for a future blog post. I like having a blog because I am able to customize it; I am allowed to change the font size and color. I could have a background with unicorns flying over rainbows. You can have a very creative blog or a very plain one. It’s your choice. Every week we are asked to write a blog, not only does this help me improve my writing but it allows me to share my thoughts of a movie we recently watched or write down information we’ve discussed in class for future essays.  In blogs we tend to blog about everything we learned in class, this makes my blog a good resource. I could always look back to my blog to find out information and use it for a homework assignment.  This blogger has been very useful and I’m very glad we are using it. I’m positive most of my classmates feel the same way as I do.

Blog 6: Free will and determinism

In the movie “Minority Report” and the play “Oedipus the King, both experience issues of free will and determinism and how free will and determinism affects their everyday lifestyle. In the article “Free Will and Determinism in the world of Minority Report” explains the theory behind “free will” and how it’s unfair to send future criminals to jail.

In “Oedipus the King” Oedipus’s future was already foreseen since the day his mother gave him birth. His parents realized that they didn’t want Oedipus in there lives because he was to kill his father and marry his mother. They got rid of him. They had free will. They choose to get rid of Oedipus and not got against the prophecy. This incident is like the “Minority Repot” just because in the move “Minority Report” once an incident was foretold, the people choose to listen and believe it. In “Oedipus the King” once a prophet told you what he seen, people choose to believe him.

In the movie “Minority Report” people are arrested for pre-crime, for crimes they haven’t committed yet but are foretold to happen and occur. There’s absolutely no free will, people are taken in to jail for something they haven’t done. In the beginning of the movie, a husband was arrested for pre crime because it was foretold he would kill his wife’s lover. The police came into the house and arrested him. In the movie the statement that is trying to be argued by the state is “all who have been accused of crime would have committed crimes if not for the intervention of the police.” They honestly believe that if not for them this person who was accused of pre crime, would eventually commit the crime. What proof do we have of that though? This is similar to the play “Oedipus the King” because what proof do we have that Oedipus was truly going to kill his father and marry his mother. Another similarity is in both the movie and play people choose to believe what the person who foresees the future says. It is also seen that the person who’s future isn’t going to be good, choose to deny it and becomes ignorant to it. For example in the movie the husband gets arrested before he commits the crime. He doesn’t believe that he was really going to kill this man. In Oedipus the play, Oedipus can’t believe that the prophet told him he was going to kill his father and marry his mother.

In the article “Free Will and Determinism in the world of Minority Report” it is said “future criminals lack free will, and that it is unjust ice to punish them since they are not morally responsible for what they would have done.” I agree with this because why future criminals should be locked up, what proof we have that they will go forward with the crime. They might change their perspective. How do we know that their perspective of what they want to do won’t change? Is it a crime to have negative thoughts?

Blog #5: The “Other” and Gattaca

In the essay “The Man on the Moon” written by George J. Anna’s, argues about historical occurrences that make the statement “human rights and human dignity depend on our human nature or weather we have been genetically engineered into ‘superior’ ideal human beings” possibly true. When Columbus believed he has found “New Land” he was also determined to stop the Native Americans who were already living on this “New Land” to convert their way of living and religion. Columbus believed in the Catholic Church and believed in Catholic Religion. He converted these Natives and it resulted in genocidal destruction.

In Gattaca people were being genetically engineered. They were trying to make people superior and better. In Gattaca normal human beings weren’t allowed to work in big institutions, only genetically engineered people were. As in the essay Columbus believed in the Catholic Church and wanted to convert all Native Americans. In the movie Gattaca people believed in the “ideal human” they wanted to change as many people as they could. In Gattaca people who weren’t genetically engineered were being downgraded and treated as if they were slaves as well for the Native Americans. In both the essay and the movie both the Native Americans and the normal human beings who were called “God Children” were deprived of their lives. These people have been living in their world, without any change whatsoever.

In the essay the “Man on the Moon” if you were superior and had the power to change society, then that’s what you were going to do, that’s what Columbus did.  In the movie Gattaca, if you had the power to develop a perfect ideal human, that that’s what you were going to do. In both the essay and movie it is proven that the more power and dignity you have in yourself the more likely chance you have to accomplish that goal.

Essay 1

 In the “Allegory of the Cave” Socrates interprets Plato’s theory. He believes “the cave” that the prisoners have been living in, is an illusion. The “cave” is a reality that only the prisoners know of. They have never left the cave, if they were to leave the cave and experience the reality Socrates lives in, they would feel scared and uncertain. The “Allegory of the Cave” is similar to the Amish people. They both live in an illusion, away from society.

The Amish are a small group of people who are strictly for culture and tradition. They exclude themselves from society and live far away, by a farmland. Amish believed in religion and culture their ancestors followed. They didn’t believe in technology or modern development. In the “Allegory of the Cave “ the prisoners were living in a reality of no modern culture or technology. They never looked beyond the cave walls. They could only see what the puppeteers would cast in the shadows. Amish grew up in the reality that there was no world beyond the Amish society. At the age of eighteen, Amish mothers allowed their children an option of leaving Amish society and exploring the city which was hidden from them all of these years. The prisoners at a certain point were also allowed to explore the world beyond the cave, just like in the Amish society, they had a choice to accept this reality or go back to their own reality.

In the Matrix you also were given a choice. One of the reality’s the man face was a perfect world with no problems. The other was a world of suffering and pain. This world was reality and the perfect world was an illusion. The man in the Matrix was given two pills; each pill would allow him to live in whichever society he chose to stay with. The truth of it was, once he took the pill, he was to never to leave that reality and live in that reality forever. The Amish society gave their children a choice of either staying in the reality they grew up in or to explore more of this new world beyond Amish lands. As in the Matrix's once the Amish decided what reality they were willing to live in, they weren’t allowed to leave it.

I was reading an article online about a young couple in Virginia. They lived in a huge house and a trailer in their backyard. This couple had two children, a little girl and a boy who they trapped in their basement an  locked them in a cage. These children have been living in this cage for over years. Their parents barely giving them any food for survival. They were not washed or educated. They lived in a cage deep in their parent’s cellar. Once these children were found by police officials, they were delusional. I read that when the officer ran in the basement to open the door the little boy could not walk. He was confused to what he was to do and collapsed in the officers hands. Later on that day when the children were being treated, the doctors said they were so closed off to society that they developed a language between themselves to communicate. They didn’t choose to live this reality; they were forced to believe that the basement was their realty. The prisoners from the “Allegory of the Cave” believed there was no world beyond the cave. Once they were allowed to enter a new reality they were fearful and scared just liked these children.

In the play “Oedipus”, the young boy tried to escapse reality. Oedipus was given away at birth to a messenger so he could die. His parents were told that Oedipus would kill his father and marry his mom. Once his parents found this out they got rid of Oedipus. Oedipus didn’t die; the messenger gave him away instead. Oedipus parents chose to live in a world without their son, but reality is they were living in a world where fate wasn’t to be questioned. Oedipus lived and killed his father; he married his mom not knowing that she was his mother. Oedipus chose his reality once he was told his fate and he chose to become kind and marry the queen. He didn’t choose a different path. He chose to be king.

Not everyone can choose the reality they grew up in. In the “Allegory of the Cave” , The Amish People, the article of the two children and the Matrix’s, each of them there were two reality’s, an each reality was either bad or good. Once you chose a reality, you’re stuck to live in it.

Blog 4: Ignorance, Bliss, and Knowledge in Oedipus the King and The Matrix.

In both Oedipus the King and The Matrix each character experiences a moment of unawareness and deception. Each character learns the truth of their reality and can no longer be ignorant to it. They take moral action and learn to live with the agonizing truth they have discovered.

In Oedipus the King, Oedipus is given away to a messenger to so that he can be killed. Oedipus's parents were told by a prophet that their new born son was to kill his father and marry his mother. The King, Oedipus’s father sent his child to be killed. The messenger then left Oedipus to die. Oedipus was then rescued by a Sheppard and lived. Many years later he met a man on the road and ended up killing him. This man was his father, Oedipus didn’t know that. He later married Jocasta who was his mother and lived forever happy. Oedipus was unaware that he had just killed his father and married his mother. He was happy. Later on Oedipus was told by a prophet that he was really married to his mother. A important line from Oedipus the King that shares Oedipus’s emotions after figuring out the truth are "As I listen, my queen, my thoughts went reaching out and touched on memories that make me shudder..."Oedipus was so overwhelmed with the truth he blinded himself. All this time he was unaware that he was living a horrific and painful reality.

 In the Matrix Neo believes the world he’s living in is reality. He later then is exposed to the truth; he realizes that the matrix is a huge computer program. Neo wants to discover what reality is, what the real world is. When he sees reality, he sees it’s a world full of pain and deceit. The difference between Neo and Oedipus is Neo chooses to stay in the world of pain, though he was blinded to this reality for so long, he chooses to stay and live in it. Oedipus had no choice but to live in this reality.

Blog #3: The Matrix: Utopia, Dystopia, and Realities

In the “Allegory of the Cave”, Socrates explains that if the prisoner was to leave the cave and endure the world outside the cave, then they would learn to accept the outside world though feeling   deceptive and uncertain about it. If the prisoner was to give up the illusion they were living in and embrace truth beyond the cave, they would learn to adjust and realize the world beyond the cave is a more improved and better world then the world they were living in. Plato’s theory was questionable but overall had a valid point.  The Amish were a group of people who didn’t believe in any other world except theirs. They were simple living and dressed plainly.  They were strictly against modern culture and technology.  The Amish people were not allowed to use electricity or allowed to use or own automobiles.  The Amish were closed off from society; they were raised in a strict environment away from technology and advance development of machinery. There kids were raised to believe that this was their world, at least for 18 years. After the kid had become 18 years of age, they were allowed to leave the Amish society and enter the world of technology. As Socrates described when a prisoner leaves the cave he feels scared and deceived, as do the Amish people. The Amish people never experienced a reality where cars were moving, or people were able to communicate through a cellular device. They entered a completely new world. This new world was better; it was an easier way of life. This new world had technology and machinery to help out with everything. The Amish people lived in a reality where everything was hand done.  This world was better, just as this new world that the prisoner entered.

I grew up in Brooklyn but growing up; I would always travel back to my home county Poland. My grandparents lived in an area of open space. They didn’t believe in technology themselves. Instead of using a heater they would burn firewood every morning for hot water and heat.  My grandparents owned a bunch of chickens, so instead of going to the supermarket for eggs, every morning they would just go into their backyard and pick up a few eggs from there hens. Every summer I would help them out. I would dig up potatoes and plant vegetables.  Then one summer I bought my grandmother a toaster. She looked at me in disbelief and asked me why I brought that for her. I told her it would be much easier for her to toast things with a toaster. She used it once and never tried it again. She told me even though this toaster was amazing and a huge help to her, she would rather do things her own way. She said the world I lived in was different and she wasn't familar with all the advances in technology and cooking equipment I lived around. She then told me,  she loved the world she grew up in and was just to scared to adapt into the world I was living in. Years later she accepted my toaster gift and started using it, she soon began using more cooking items and adjusted to this new better world. She found life to be way more easier.

Blog 2: The Allegory of The Cave through History

For many years, mothers whom were pregnant believed that their thoughts and emotions gradually affected the characteristics and child development of their unborn child. This theory was very popular in the early 18th century. It was believed that if a mother were to be depressed in her pregnancy, then that would result in her child to be depressed in his or her life. If a child was to be born blind, then it was because the mother had been exposed to loud noise or the mother associated with a blind person at the time of her pregnancy. Joseph Merrick was born with a very unusual disease; he grew up with disfiguring tumors which spread all over his face. He was led to believe that because his mother was frightened by an elephant when she was pregnant with him, he had developed elephant features on his hands and face. As he was growing up his face and body developed many more tumors made of bone.

Towards the beginning of the 20^th century more people stopped believing in this theory and only noted it as a superstition. After many people dismissed this theory they started believing in the Mozart Effect. Many people didn’t know what to believe in and kept their minds set on maternal impressions. The reality of the maternal impression theory is as one begins to believe that the reason their child becomes ill or undeveloped is because of their own thoughts and exposure to different sight, touch ,smell, hear and taste they start to question what they need to do for the better health of their unborn child. Many mothers left the reality in which they believed their kids were growing up ill because of their exposure to ill people and started taking care of themselves and began thinking as normal people.

Blog 2: (Summary) The Allegory of the Cave

In Plato’s "Allegory of the Cave" it is argued that many people are prisoners of their own reality. The cave is preserved as a hole of darkness and eternal life. Socrates explains his theory to Glaucon that the prisoners who have been living all their life in a cave chained up to wall will not accept reality for which it really is. They will not want to adopt to it and will deny it.

These prisoners are chained to a wall with no way of escaping. They are forced to look at this wall because they are unable to turn their heads. They may only look in front of them for which they are looking at shadows that are being cast by what we now call are puppeteers. Every prisoner experiences the same reality. The cave overshadows the true reality these prisoners aren’t experiencing. Socrates, Paltos brother believes that if these prisoners were to be let free into their reality, they would be gravely mistaken to what is reality is.

Socrates explains to Glaucon in their conversation that if a prisoner is adapted to there old habitation they would deny and rather live the reality they’ve been living then adapt to what they would see beyond the cave. They would rather suffer and live depressing lives then accept this new reality they’ve been introduced to. Socrates argues the idea that because these prisoners grew up in the reality where they cannot turn their heads, or see because of the darkness surrounding them they will not accept the reality he and Glaucon live in.

Our light is the sun; our lives revolve with the ability to see. These prisoners see what darkness is. They have no sight, though they are not blind but only unaware of the light that doesn’t enter the cave. If they were to be let free into the reality beyond the cave they would deny it and wish to return to their own reality they have been living in for their entire lives.