The Urge To Live

          When I saw this article, the novel, "Beloved," lit my light-bulb by an idea that was in the story. This article is basically about improving our health and making our lifestyle better even at an old age by providing some type of drugs. However, from "Beloved," what is the point of trying to stay alive? Is it for freedom or is it to escape a nightmare? From Paul D and Sethe, they've escaped from hell and had many memories that they wish they wouldn't remember. So why not just suicide in prison or die on the farm. Paul D gets tortured in prison and had to face all those pain and Sethe had been raped multiple times and then barely survive when she escaped from slavery while pregnant. I just want to bring up an idea about the will of survival. What is the goal that we accomplish by staying alive "longer" than we should rather than dying of old age or suicide from grief/suffering? Isn't it great to have Alzheimer’s for Paul D and Sethe?

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/05/06/magazine/06dialogue-t.html?pagewanted=3

The Mind Projects "Rememory"

         The influence of the past of everyone shapes our personality and even teaches us a lesson of things that we should do or should not do again. However, the perception of the past brings forth two opposing ideas of a past. It could be the past of a bad experience/terrifying/horrifying moment that we wish we would not remember it or a past in which we experience total bliss for the first time.
          I truly believe that a past will never die and always be a part of us however we try to diminish it from our existence. Even though most people face depression in their lives, the past could not be erased. What most people could control is to try and lie to themselves. In order to do this, we control our mind to create an illusion that drifts our attention to something else. From Sethe's philosophy in "Beloved," the past will never die even when we try to forget it. According to Sethe, "rememory" occurs when we see an image in reality that strikes our brain to remember a similar image we've seen in the past. Most of the time, memorizing things from the past actually benefits us because it enhances our understanding of the world we are in and we can keep track of changes. If we don't have a past, how would we know the people we see every day or know our own family?
          From the novels of "Beloved" and "A Piano Lesson," the past holds an important value for both women as they suffer from it. The ability to remember the past in their case allows them to be who they are in the present: how they act now, decide now, and think now. Their way of living changes every time a significant experience in the past is brought upon them and their brain reacts to this. However, it’s important to have a history of ourselves but even for good/bad experiences in our past, we must acknowledge them and appreciate the lessons that shape our personality. We must also let go of those pasts and seek for better ones, better for the ones that was already good.
          For an example, not a dramatic one, but I once had two goldfish that made me happy by having it and seeing it "alive" every day I come in my room. However, when it died, I felt bad for it but I still continue to buy and own a "better" one. I understand that the past was pretty depressing but I learn from that mistake and find a best alternative choice in buying a fish. Thus, a betta fish was born.

Something to blog about...

          I believe what made question 4 difficult was the word "vilely." The word gives off a negative meaning and we try to find words or descriptions in the answers that do this and E was probably the closest that can be made. However, what didn't make sense was how D was the answer and how "vilely phrased" was used to make a claim of something of an importance. Question 7 is probably tricky at first glance because we may think that he is providing readers with an example to support his point but it was actually a drift from the topic. Question 9 makes us have to go back to the passage and find out what Vivian had stated before and what he stated on the second speech. What was difficult of this problem was how each answer choice was what Vivan had stated in the passage, but we had to find out which came first. Question 13 asked for the comedy present in the passage and for us to identify it and what I thought was the simplicity of the answer choice that would be the answer. However, it was more formal than I thought it would be. Question 21 was probably hard because we had to actually know what Plumes were referring to and the tricky part was how the poem pointed out that "I, my childish Plumes" could be mistaken for the appositive of I. Question 24 had to make us think of the words that are conventional and idiosyncratic, but we had to make sure if its most conventional and least idiosyncratic. However, if we know what conventional mean but not idiosyncratic then there's your answer. I didn't have time for Question 54 but what I can deduce from the given answers are words that best describe. But we had to see know the definition for some of the words and see which one that reveals the way Dagget made the speech. From what I can see, the best answer choice would be E because of how Dagget approach the situation with Louisa and how he ended it quickly without thinking it through.
          I'm quite satisfied with my progress at the moment, but I know that I can reach my full potential in doing the benchmark and essays better than I do now. However, much of the fault lies on me because I know that I'm not actually trying in the class such as studying or improving ways to approach certain topics or what to concentrate on when I write. I basically come to class, do what I need to do and have no advancement on the subject. I know it's a bad habit but I guess it’s time for me to care and get better in the essays and benchmarks. I will focus on ways to approach prompts by having different interpretations outside of the most obvious ones. Also, I really need to do some practice problems for the benchmark to get my familiarity with future benchmarks. And there is probably more room for other improvements as well, but these are the important ones that come in mind.

The Debate

          To be truly honest about my thoughts of the debate, I think either side has won the debate. First, I believe that a class against a teacher is pretty unfair since a teacher has more knowledge in the topic then the students. We may have put up a good fight in class but there have been a few flaws in doing this. It is totally unorganized. Everyone in the class was talking among each other while we try to tell the speaker things they need to mention when presenting it. You should know darn well that certain people in the class will probably focus more in winning the debate then actually focusing in the main ideas in defending "Should Huck Finn Be Taught in School?" Most of the points were brilliant but it’s just random thoughts pouring out from everyone and the speaker is not getting what our group said. They focus too much in presenting "their" ideas rather than the group's and refuse to listen to other people's ideas. What is the point of grading the class by who's speaking or who's giving ideas to the speaker when everyone is just hogging over giving their own idea rather than acknowledging others. 

Toni Morrison

          One of the things that Toni Morrison mentioned in her article is that she specifically focused on individuality within a society, especially in Huck's. What she pointed out is how society influences people's viewpoints, but in the society of Huckleberry Finn, they seem to set people like Huck. A child like Huck who has been wronged by society will result in him not embracing those ways. And we can see in Huckleberry Finn that Huck hates the society because it is so corrupt and everyone has to believe in only one viewpoint. However, I believe that total conformity to society is negative for Huck and for anyone else. Each individual needs to have their own thought and opinion. For people to have freedom of their own, they must have their own perspective. A child like Huck would feel uneasy and troubled when he sees a society like that without any actual parent that teaches him about life. He goes on his own journey with moral conflicts within himself and having distrust in society. What Toni Morrison stated, “His deepest, uncomic feelings about his status as an outside, someone “dead” to society, are murmuring interludes of despair, soleness , isolation and unlove," is how Huck is isolated and not loved by society and so he ends at on a raft traveling along a river. The river seems to me that it’s an unclear thought about both sides for Huck to actually set foot on and make it his home. The river symbolizes a train of thought for Huck while he searches for an answer to his internal chaos.

          As it is true that Twain focuses deeply in slavery in his novel, the N-word was used to emphasize the whole idea of it, not to make a joke out of it. As said before, it is original for people to conclude that the novel may have some offending points, but how does that make the novel bad? Do they think Twain would write such a thing and ruin his reputation or career as a writer? Behind this, Twain also proofs a point that by criticizing his novel, it shows that the criticisms are all original and people are entitled to have different interpretations. Toni Morrison also had trouble reading Twain's novel because all the ideas that he has brought up. However, she rests the case by praising his message when she read his novel again. By my perspective, the novel has main points that reveal historical context and that people from the future should keep in mind history was made. Thus, confirming whether the novel is good or bad would not change anything because the novel has already been written and published and is read by people throughout the world.