Under the Dome

So, I started Under the Dome by Stephen King a week or two ago. This book is a freaking monster, weighing in at over 1000 pages! I am about 450 pages into the book and it is pretty good.

I'm wondering how it will keep going on though because as it is it seems like the story is going to be over in about 100 pages. At times the book gets to be a bit of a slow read.

Stephen King does a great job though with detail. I literally know all the characters and their personalities and it is amazing. At different points in the story it jumps between the different characters' points of view. There really is a huge variety of characters, from a drug addled mother, to a silver-tongued politician, to an ex-army soldier turned into a cook for a local restaurant.

The plot is intriguing and isn't as far fetched as you would think. Also, the way the characters deal with the situation they are placed in is interesting. King definitly did his research on human behavior.

Almost Done

Looking at everyone else's recent blog posts, I have to tend to agree that the last few weeks have gone by fast. After the research paper rough draft was done, class seemed to fly by.

Now we are down to just one more day! Tomorrow is the final (an HOUR AND A HALF of solid writing, oh joy) and then AP Comp is done.

Probably my favorite thing we did in AP Comp was the articles we shared during first quarter. Every Friday two people would discuss their articles with the rest of the class. Most of the articles were really interesting and I think that was because most of them were about current issues. I like the articles a lot more than the America as a Movie presentations.

I also really enjoyed the book The Things They Carried. TTTC was a really interesting book about the Vietnam war and I thought it was a really interesting read. It was a nice change to stuff like Wolestonecraft.

New West

What was with that play? My first question about it was who would pay to watch that... you would have to pay me to watch that again.

It was such a weird play. Austin started out as the good guy. His brother on the other hand was super sketchy and yelled A LOT. Not only was he loud, he also had a little stealing problem. When Saul decided to switch to Austin's brother's idea, all of a sudden the roles completely changed. Austin started stealing toasters (what?! I know, right?) and drinking. His brother still yelled a lot but now he was trying to write a paper.

I kinda wish we could have seen the end because I was hoping one of them killed the other. Oh well I'll live without knowing since it wasn't a good play to begin with.

So... About that Research Paper

My research paper's topic changed a lot from my abstract. I had originally planned to write about race and how it was depicted in American literature. After starting to write my paper though, I became interested in the American Dream. More specifically, I was interested on how the American Dream had become corrupted.

The Great Gatsby is all about corruption of society. There were lots of points in the book that I didn't realize had to do with corruption until I did some research on it. For example, Gatsby and Tom represent how the pursuit of happiness has been corrupted into a pursuit of power and money.

While the paper wasn't fun to write, I actually got a lot of interesting information out of it. It really helped me to understand the Great Gatsby in greater depth, along with several other pieces we read.

Art of America

The picture I found at the art museum was a piece by the artist Peter Saul. It was a drawing dated from 1985. The reason I chose this piece of art is because it caught my eye. There were lots of bright colors and the person and cow in the picture were cartoonishly distorted.

The picture seemed to express the corruption and distortion in America today. The man, who was twisted like a noodle, was riding on a cow. A tag around the cow's udders identified that the substance dripping from them was beer. Around the cow's neck was a tire labeled art. It was a rather odd piece of art, but I think the critiques it offered were valuable. The tire labeled art seems to represent America's lack of depth--now, almost anything can be claimed as art. Art used to be about meaning but now there are all kinds of paintings such as the random paint pieces that sell for millions.

The only thing I didn't like about this piece of art was that it didn't mention any of America's accomplishments; it only focused on the negatives. Critiquing America is important, but I think it is also important to recognize that not everything we do is bad.

I Hear America Singing V2.0

I HEAR America singing, the varied carols I hear;
Those of the transit bus drives-- weary but well payed;
The architect singing his, as he designs the buildings of the future;
The engineer singing his, as he invents new computers and cars;
The pilot singing as he soars through the air-- the stewardess singing as she passes out salads and cocktails;
The corporations sing as they find the newest loopholes to exploit the law;
The lawyer singing his, a song full of malice and disregard for what is obviously just;
The corrupt politicians sing as they pass selfish laws that hurt the economy;
The dying song of Earth, as it is consumed by our lust and greed;
And of course, of our youth, reveling in instant gratification and ignorance;
Singing, through cell phones and instant messaging, their distorted auto tuned songs.

Research Papers Suck

So with the newest addition to our writing assignment, the research paper, I am finally starting to get frustrated. I have another research paper due on Monday for a different class and the projects are starting to add up.

My abstract is about race and how it is portrayed. I think it would be interesting to analyze how different writers portrayed Native Americans, Blacks, etc. Unfortunately, I recently realized I need to have an arguement. The thing is, I don't want to analyze just one side...

It just takes away from a lot of the possible sources to say that America portrays other races negatively or positively. I think it would be much more interesting for me to write and others to read if I was able to go over the different ways that races are depicted.

Oh well. I guess it's just going to be another one of those papers I'm gonna write as quickly as I can and be done with it.

Self-Reliance

Man is timid and apologetic; he is no longer upright; he dares not say 'I think,' 'I am,' but quotes some saint or sage.

I picked this quote by Ralph Waldo Emmerson because I feel like it is a focal point of his arguement. In these few words, Emmerson has called out man, saying that he is weak and no longer believes in himself. Rather than meditate on a subject and come up with a new view, man is content to 'quote some saint or sage,' aka an academ of the past.

Later in the paragraph Emmerson says that man needs to live in the present, not the past. Only then will he be able to advance.

As a side note, this essay reminded me of the Old Spice Commercial "I'm on a Horse." It just seemed like Emmerson jumped around topics just like the commercial does.