"Abstracts"

I guess we could apply this section on abstracts, from the Rhetoric of Inquiry, to our conclusions for this iSearch paper.  I have a hard time visualizing or planning out my conclusion before I write it, but I guess we could either write a conclusion based off of the problem that we researched, our research findings, what we conclude from our research, and how the topic is applicable or how it effects our world and everyone in it.  Or, we could write a conclusion based on the central argument, then the main supporting arguments without reporting the specific data, and end with how the topic is applicable or how it effects our world.  We would also add in if there needs to be more research done on this topic at the end and include the main sources that we used in the paper.
I am not so sure how this is helpful to us right now.  I would understand more if we were publishing this paper, but I do not have any intentions of doing any such thing, so I am not quite sure I see the point.  I am guessing it is good practice for maybe something else we will be doing in the future...I am sure Mr. Bevill will answer all of my questions in class on Friday.

More of The Road

On page 131, it caught my attention that the boy mentioned the little boy that he saw/ thought he saw a while ago in the book.  Do you think that the boy actually saw a little boy, or do you think that the little boy was delirious and imagined seeing a little boy?  What do you think that this little boy represented?  In my opinion, the little boy represented the old world, before the apocalyptic event, but the little boy disappeared.  I am curious if that means that there is no chance that the world will return to order and be anything like the world before the apocalypse. 
On that same page, the father flashes back to remembering the mother, and then thinks "each memory recalled must do some violence to its origins...so be sparing.  What you alter in the remembering has yet a reality, known or not."  At the beginning of the paragraph he says, "Rich dreams now which he was loathe to wake from.  Things no longer known in the world."  I cannot help but think that he had dreamt of the mother, and hates dreams like those because maybe he is afraid of romanticizing their relationship in his head, which might catch him off guard.  Catching him off guard will not allow him to be as aware as he needs to be in order to continue protecting himself and the boy and to keep them both alive until they finish their journey to the South.  These  memories or dreams make him very jumpy, so jumpy that on the next page, "he almost raised his pistol" at the reflection of themselves in a mirror.  It has obviously been a very long time since they have looked at themselves, so long that he probably had forgotten what they looked like.  This world has definitely taken its toll on the father, but amazingly not so much on the son just yet.

My definition of "apcalypse"

I have been thinking about what Mr. Bevill said this morning in class about defining apocalypse.  The first definition of "apocalypse" from Merriam-Webster is "one of the Jewish and Christian writings of 200 b.c. to a.d. 150 marked by pseudonymity, symbolic imagery, and the expectation of an imminent cosmic cataclysm in which God destroys the ruling powers of evil and raises the righteous to life in a messianic kingdom."  I do not think this definition is fitting for this class or assignment, so I am going to mix this with the more common meaning that almost everyone mentioned in their presentations- "the end of this world."  My basic definition of the "apocalypse" for this assignment and class is "the events that bring about the end of this world as we know it that God uses to destroy the evil authorities and take His children to His kingdom that He has prepared" (Erika Blalock and the Merriam-Webster dictionary).  This definition will shape my paper and affect how I look at the War between the Arab countries and Israel.  Did anyone else mix and match definitions to create their own?
So, I am really wrestling with this concept of defining my argument now. I do not really understand what I am supposed to do about that in this stage of research. Does anyone know exactly what to do and how to do it? Is our thesis just supposed to be if we think that our topic could be apocalyptic and how our event would affect the world?

The Apocalypse

   I was interested in these 5 topics from the Slate magazine:
       1. Diet (more people become obese and contract heart disease and die)       
       2. Rapture
       3. Big Brother (a supercomputer that takes over the government)
       4. Wealth gap (a gap grows between the wealthy and poor, so the desperate poor attacks the wealthy)
       5. Israel and Arab War
I was able to throw out the first one because I did not think it was very likely that heart disease would be the end of the world. I do not know anyone that believes that this would cause an apocalyptic event. Now to the Rapture. I had planned on making this my topic, but then I could not think of much research that I could do other than the Bible. I also did not want to bias my paper due to my strong religious beliefs. So, I decided to do something that I did not have any strong notions about. On to Big Brother, this was my number two choice, but I threw it out because I thought it would be very difficult to find many hard facts for this topic. The wealth gap also seemed a little out there and very unlikely, so I threw it out. That leaves the Israel and Arab War.

   The war between Israel and the Arab countries have been going on for many years. I know that they have been fighting over the land that they both claim is theirs. I read a book in high school about it, and the book really peaked my interest over this matter. It is important because what happens in one part of the world affects all parts of the globe, especially when nuclear weapons enters the picture. Also, our country has been an ally of Israel for a long time, but I know that President Obama has taken a different stand and declared our country otherwise. So this is a current problem that now directly affects our country because of President Obama's speech on that war.
   My research plan is to:
     1.  Research the background of this War
     2.  Research what our country's position in the war was up until Obama
     3.  Research what exactly Obama changed our position to now
     4.  Research how this war threatens the whole world, via nuclear weapons
     5.  Either interviewing a history or political science professor or surveying students to see what they think about this war and if it could possibly become an apocalyptic event.

The Road

While I was reading The Road by Cormac McCarthy, I really noticed how the format of the book has really affected my reading. At times it makes it more difficult to read and understand, but after reading the passage a couple more times, it becomes clear. McCarthy's abandonment of quotations and sometimes grammar coupled with his imagery compliments the book. It puts this apocalyptic society in order, that grammar is not what is important in this world or time anymore, that rules (grammar and society's laws) are no longer functioning or vital. The father and son are fighting for their lives in almost every way possible. They are on the road to the south to where they might have a chance of survival, if they can survive their trip there. One scene's imagery really burned itself into my mind. It demonstrates the effectiveness of McCarthy's imagery. The father and son had just slept in an abandoned truck and now are continuing on their journey to the south (46). They come upon a trailer in page 47, and the father decides to go in and see if he can find anything useful inside the trailer for them. He finds a skylight on the roof and climbs in. What he finds is horrifying- dead bodies "sprawled in every attitude." He describes the bodies as "dried and shrunken in their rotted clothes." The book up until this point has always been direct to the point of harshness in describing the conditions of the world, but this scene really puts it into context. It is a scene that is extremely hard to ignore and makes it almost impossible to continue seeing glimmers of hope that the boy and his father have a chance to survive. When the father entered the trailer, he lit some magazine papers on fire so he could see around him. When the flames start to die out, they are described as "leaving a faint pattern for just a moment in the incandescence like the shape of a flower, a molten rose." A rose was a symbol of hope and romanticism and love, but these papers took the shape of a "molten rose", signifying that hope, romanticism, and love have no place in this world anymore. The last sentence of the passage seals the feeling of impending doom with simply stating, "Then all was dark again." This statement is straight to the point, leaving no room for doubt. McCarthy utilizes imagery to instill the conditions of the world in the reader's mind and plays with the idea if the father and son actually have a chance for survival by inserting little glimmers of hope and then diminshing that hope by accenting a mostly desperate world all throughout the book.

The Uglies

I was looking at the optional books while I was in the book store buying my text books.  I chose The Uglies by Scott Westerfield because I have heard really good things about it last semester in my English 101 class.  The summary of the book from what I read online and on the back of the book really caught my eye and made me actually want to read it; not many books can catch my eye and actually make me want to read them.  Every website that I looked at to research the book pretty much gave the same summary and showed the series' popularity.   
All of the optional reading books for this class seemed interesting, but this book seemed more girly to me.  The underlying concept of teen's underlying desire for beauty is something that is not farfetched.  It is something that will be able to relate to more easily because of how driven our culture is to be the most beautiful girl or most attractive guy in town.

Security

Today's discussion in class really stuck in my head, especially the parts about the airport.  My family flies a lot because we love to travel, and it seems that every single time we go somewhere else there are different security rules and measures, for example the one quart size bag that each passenger can put their liquids in for their carry-on (and of course the liquids have a specific size that they can be too).  Security does not bother me personally, and I think that twenty extra minutes out of my time is not going to kill me if it will prevent someone dangerous boarding the plane.  The metal detectors have never bothered me very much, but I am not a fan of the pat-downs, or frisking.  I got this special treatment in Brazil by a very large, mean woman.  I did not enjoy this at all, and I do not think that they should be allowed to treat or touch me or anyone else more than the police is even allowed to with suspects.  People that are flyng somewhere should not be treated as suspects.  I think these very thorough pat-downs are across the line.  I have not decided how I feel about the X-ray machine if these pictures are saved somewhere and can be identified, but if they cannot be identified, then I do not think it is that big of a deal because it should not be that different from the old metal detectors.  But, I do know I am against these pat-downs.  This is way more than just an inconvenience.