Genres

Topic: Running

Song: I can go the distance, from Disney's Hercules

This song creates a feeling in the reader that makes them want to keep working towards their goal of being a better runner; however, there are limitations to this. This song is not specifically designed to help people run better by teaching them about running or getting good at it.
Article:
http://www.active.com/running/Articles/Tempo_Running_Tips_to_Boost_Your_Speed.htm

The article is about how one can become a better runner. Unlike the song, it doesn't make you want to jump out of your seat and go for a run, but it makes you think of a strategy that will help you to reach your goal of becoming a better runner.

Poem: http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/running-61/

In a poem, it creates a different thought environment about the act of running. It makes you feel the writer's love of running instead of the idea of it.

Writing Metaphors

To me writing is a way to create an escape from the world we live in. With words one can create a whole new world with new whole new worlds and universes. In the world of writing one can be whoever, do whatever, and make anything happen. In the world that is created by words, imagination roams free. People can put ideas into a language that everyone can understand and share. Not only writing down ideas or inventions, but writing down the ideas of whole new worlds. Worlds inside worlds, and words inside words. An endless dance of letters creating all new combinations. With only 26 letters people can create endless amounts of words, and then combining those words into sentences doubles the endless possibilities of combinations. So writing is a creation rivaled only by the cosmos that created us.

Storm of Steel: Ernst Junger

First there should be an umlat on Junger.

This book is about a German Soldier (Junger) who fought through World War One, and kept a very detailed journal about it. He fought in numerous of the famous battles throughout the war and wrote about the hardships and evils caused by war. What I love so much about this book is how simplistically Junger writes about war. He has just enough details in the writing that you can picture it in your head, yet the wording is so simplistic that a 12 year old could read it all (maybe not understand it), but I didn't have to find a dictionary to understand what they meant. I highly recommend it for anyone.

Mary Walstonecrap

I have had dealings with Ms. Walstonecrap in Academic Decathlon, and I have grown to hate her and her writings. It seems as though she grew up in a very hostile environment that grew to hate men. Yes feminists do have points, men do get treated a little better, but some of these are just outrageous. At one point she talks of the man eating from the tree of knowledge and the woman got drawn. WRONG!! Eve ate and Adam was drawn to it. She talks about how the common woman should rise up against wrong doing, but in her time period the language and vocabulary she uses wouldn't make sense to the common woman, let alone the fact you can barely read it now. Bland, boring, and just Blah!!

Google?

I agree and yet despise the thoughts proposed in this writing. The thought that reading things in a shorter amount of time and wanting information faster makes sense to me, and that the "deep reading" is leaving us is a good point. But being unable to focus long is not because of the internet. I was born with ADHD, I automatically lose focus. You can't blame google for a mental bonus that I have had my whole life. There are things that I can focus intensely on for hours, including reading, that does not mean that when I lose focus it's because of a website. It's true that I don't read deeply into writings, but that is because most of the writings that are now being published do not have the deep writing prowess that writers like John Steinbeck had. It is not so much that we are unable to read deeply, but we do not have enough writings that we can read deeply into. So it is not that google and the internet is making it worse. It is ourselves that cannot write or read deeply.

Skunks

This essay was both boring and weird. It seems as if the writer had to write about everything, literally, EVERYTHING!! Every agonizing detail, every weary feeling, and they loved to mention the odor of skunks. And they compared things that at times did not make sense. "I thought of a woman tossing, anchored in passion: calm one instant, full-throated the next,". Overall I really did think it was bland and quite boring.

Talk of the Town

These were quite interesting essays in my opinion. Adam makes a good point in saying "the point of law-making is to act as comprehensively as possible, in order to prevent the next one". Does this sound like something our government would do? Plan ahead? Adam quotes in his writing Virgina's governor talking about how people use these events as a political hobby horse, but then he continues to write on against the government using example much like the Virginia college tragedy. He writes almost hypocritically. In some ways he is just speaking mournfully and in others he is talking against everything our government does. Yes shootings are horrible, but we must think about the millions rather then just the 100's that die, that sounds horrid, and it is, but that's the truth.

Susan makes interesting points about the 9/11 attacks. She talks about how America is not ok and this was not pearl harbor. And I entirely agree with her. America today compared to Pearl Harbor had almost no response to the attacks on the twin towers and the Pentagon. When Pearl Harbor was attacked a Japanese general was quoted saying, "I fear we have awoken a sleeping giant". We were attacked and the world then saw one of the greatest showing of arms in history. We reacted in anger. The whole nation jumped at the chance to go overseas and fight for our country. Now people say, "I want war!!! send the troops not me". How do you fight a war with that?