wiki 5 20/20 great speech, thant's for sharing the link!

11/6/09- Speech on being a hero... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KYtm8uEo5vU

     This guy started off the speech wonderfully, he caught everyones attention by putting on a superman cape and symbol on his chest.  He spoke with  good speed, not too fast and not too slow.  He sped up nd slowed down at appropriate times like when he wanted to emphasize a point.  His volume was kept at a good level, he didn't yell or speak so softly we couldn't hear him.  His inflection and pitch were good for emphasis moments.  He stumbled on his words at times and accidentally said the wrong things, but caught himself and didn't let it ruin his speech.

     His choice of wardrobe fit the speech perfectly becase he spoke about how everyone should be a hero.  He stood a little slouched over from what I could see, but it seemed like it didn't really matter.  He started off with great eye contact, but then towards the end (when his nervousness peaked) he lost it and started to read his notes more than say them.  He swayed a little bit, but not in a distracting manner.  His gestures were excellent and not over the top.  Overall, his speech was great and it truely persuaded me to try harder to be a hero.

 

wiki 4 - 18/20 - I am not sure what you looked at beause this link didn't connect to it! I would question the value of even WATCHING a speech given by a ONE year old... not exactly a "professional speaker" or a "real speech" stiuation! Try to go for better speakers so you can LEARN from them!

10/29/09-  Political speech by a one year old.... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o0FiCxZKuv8

     This child did not seem to understand the topic she was talking about, but she was very passionate about it.  She was dressed inappropriately for the occasion but certainly got the audiences' attention.  Her hand gestures were very eratic, but went with the manner of the speech well.  I enjoyed how she addressed the listeners saying they don't care because well, it's probably true.  Most people wouldn't listen to a baby when they are trying to give a speech because they think the kiddo doesn't know what they are talking about.  She remained good eye contact during the entire speech, never looking down but literally looking all around.

     At times I couldn't understand what she was saying, but her emotions showed through, which showed what she was saying.  She didn't stand still and she wobbled, which showed that she was nervous.  If she would have pronounced things a little bit better, i'm sure that what she said would be inspiring because of her emotion.  She referenced Roland the Rat, I don't Know who that is but he must be important because she was veryupset about what ever he did.  Her tone and gestures showed that.  She spoke a little fast, which showed passion, but was distracting and not understandable.  Her voice was inspiring, which is very good when you are trying to catch the attention of your audience.

 

wiki 3 - 20/20 - Good post,  Rachel!

10/21/09- Chapel by Coach Chris of Cross Country

     When Chris led chapel monday, I had to watch because I could tell this would be a good speech.  First of all, I have to say that his not-so-manly hand gestures were extremely distracting and annoying.  Sometimes he would control them and put one arm down, but the majority of the time both arms were up waving around.  He spoke too quickly, even jumbled words a few times to where I had no clue what he was saying.  He referenced Steve Irwin's death and called a sting ray a stung ray without even noticing.  However it wasn't all bad because he had good volume and pitch.  His tone was also good.

     He didn't appear as dressed up as I suppose he could have been, being that he was leading chapel.  He held good posture but I think I may have caught some slight slouching, no big deal.  His facial expression did go with what he was saying usually. Though he would sometimes get caught up in his nervousness so much so that he would forget the audience was there listening to him.  This brings me to his eye contact which was generally kept at all times, unless he was trying to remember things.  He moved around also which was good, but perhaps if he would have left his small comfort zone it would have been more natural.

 

wiki 2 - 20/20 - good post... good observations.. I hadn't mentioned the skill needed to "hold for laughter or applause" but it's an important one if you're speaking where the audience is likely to respond in some sort of way! Thanks for the link....

10/15/09- Barack Obama's yes we can speech... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fe751kMBwms

 

     In President Obama’s most powerful speech, he speaks powerfully and with authority.  He isn’t dictatorial about it, but more presidential.  He dressed well for the occasion in a suit and tie, which is expected from the Commander in Chief.  He uses the crowd’s energy to his advantage, though he doesn’t feed off of their responses very well.  However, he did a nice job of waiting for the crowd to stop clapping before he began speaking again.  The crowd also seemed to adore him so it is obvious his speaking appeals to his audience.

        He made good eye contact with the people in front of him, but neglected to look behind him.  This is reasonable because the cameras were in front of him, but those behind him didn’t get to see his facial expressions.  He randomly got too close to the microphone at times, which made it seem like he was yelling.  He did an excellent job of connecting to the audience with his catch phrase:  Yes we can.  He ended his speech powerfully with the “One Nation” statement Americans hold so highly, which gave everyone leaving with the feeling of unity.

 

 

 

wiki 1 20/20 - great response work! Glad to see someone do something interesting on their own!

 

10/8/09- Martin Luther King Jr.'s last speech... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o0FiCxZKuv8

 

     In Doctor King's final speech to the public, which took place the day before his assassination, he keeps a steady rate of speed throughout the entirety of the speech.  He often sped up, but that gets the crowd excited.  His pauses were timed correctly for when the crowd was cheering, which I found to be helpful in showing his main points.  His volume was perfect, he often came to the point of yelling in order to get the crowd pumped up about his topic.  He used a lot of inflection, but not an excessive amount, in order to accentuate his excitement.  His voice is empowering, which is a very good quality to have when giving important speeches and influencing the public to listen to you.  He pronounced everything clearly and never stumbled on words, though his speed was a little too fast to understand small parts.

     For his speech, Dr. King was dressed in a suit, which was all he wore and it was appropriate.  He didn't sway too much during the speech, though he did a little which is expected.  His facial expression was angry, though he wasn't angry but fired up about the topic.  His eye contact was perfect, he was looking at the crowd the entire time and never looked down.  He could have moved a little more during the speech to keep eyes on him, but his hand gestures were great when they accompanied his yelling.  Overall, the speech was short, sweet, and to the point.

 

 

Foxtrot E-86

            The year is 2525.  My name is Erin Rawley and I was drafted into the World Marine Corp (WMC) a month after I turned eighteen.  I never wanted to be drafted, I signed up as a last resort in case my life didn’t go as planned.  Things were fine, I had a normal life.  It wasn’t the greatest thing that I still lived with my parents, but I was making it work.  That all changed when the WMC was running low on reinforcements.

            The world had finally united back in 2450 when everyone discovered that there were bigger enemies out there than our own kind.  The government made a nice effort to assure everyone on earth that this “small alien threat” could easily be eradicated.  Well big surprise, once again they were wrong.  The WMC is more than just a bunch of marines stationed on earth, they run things in space too.  So when they found a blip on their radars of a foreign mass, the news traveled.

            Earth’s government immediately responded by commanding that the WMC send out forces to identify and possibly destroy the threat.  Reluctantly following orders, they sent out two small fleets to follow this ship out of the galaxy; keeping their distance of course.  For three years they researched and investigated this alien species, losing approximately 3,280 men and women in the process (It turns out aliens don’t like being stalked and studied).  All of our losses were not even close to being worth the small amount of information obtained.  All we got out of those three years and thousands of lives spent was that these aliens were looking for something very important to them in the galaxy next to ours.

            Due to the heavy losses, the WMC started recruiting literally everyone who had enlisted.  I had no military training, no history of being in uniform, yet they still drafted me.  I was in training for only five months; five brutal months is a very short time to train as a marine.  All that time I knew I was going to be sent into space, but I tried to ignore it.  I didn’t want to fight aliens for the rest of my life, but I had no choice.

            That was five years ago.  Now I’m stuck on some planet in the middle of some random galaxy with four men.  All of them are from my company, Foxtrot, but they’re still men.  They never really acted like they were in a squad with a woman, even since we were teamed up two years ago.

            We got ourselves stuck on this planet on our way to a docking station to fuel up.  Unfortunately, the E-86 space combat vessel wasn’t designed with a reserve fuel source because it “weighed the ship down.”  It was designed to safely and comfortably transport and protect five marines, but not to get them where they needed to go…  We had just narrowly escaped an alien controlled planet in this unfamiliar galaxy after completing our mission of obtaining more information.  We ran out of fuel almost immediately, but had enough time to make an emergency landing on the closest planet that seemed un-inhabited.

            “Computer reads that the air is clear for us to breathe, no immediate signs of life.  We’re all alone on our own little earth.”

            That’s Ryan Gattling, always trying to find the good in the worst situations.  I like that about him, it gives me hope when I see his enthusiasm.  Shane O’Hare was not as hopeful, but more sarcastic.  He always had some quick-witted thing to say to lighten the mood, and we needed that.

            William Lindquist (Will for short) was Foxtrot’s leader; he was older and more experienced than the rest of us.  Whenever anyone needed anything or any advice, he was always there to help us.  Then there’s Han Lee.  Han is short for some crazy Japanese name no one can pronounce, so we just call him Han.  He’s the quiet one of the group, maybe he’s scarred from battle, no one knows.

            Shane replied to Ryan, “Don’t be so sure man, think about where we’re at.”

            “I don’t know where we’re at, that’s what worries me about this.  I don’t know what’s out there.”

            Will tried to calm us down.  “We’ll set up camp for the night and lay low.  If we stay together, we should be perfectly fine.  We can look around tomorrow for something that might connect us to the WMC again.”

            I said, “If they would’ve just made these stupid little ships more high-tech, our radios would work in strange places.  We also wouldn’t be here in the first place because we would have fuel supplies to get around on.”

            The morning came and I got a look around at this place.  The trees were huge; all of them at least double the size of the biggest trees on earth.  All of the colors were brilliant, brighter than anything I had ever seen.  Any animals looked weird, I couldn’t tell what they were but they were just as colorful as everything else.  I wasn’t going to try to eat anything from here; it’s all stuff that doesn’t look edible.

            “Want some breakfast?”  Ryan was up before me, with a breakfast of instant eggs and sausage in hand.

            “I guess so. It’s from the ship right?”

            “Yep.  I’m not gonna try to find stuff to eat out here, we’ll make radio contact with the WMC soon and get some real food.”

            “Those radios aren’t connecting to anything anytime soon, but I like your optimism.”

            He smiled and I realized that I liked him as more than just a partner now.  This is not good.

            “Shaaaaane!  Wake your Irish ass up boy, we got hikin to do!”  Will always had the nicest ways of waking us up.  He was kind of a father figure to all of us.

            “Ahh I’m up I’m up!  Where’s breakfast chief?”

            “On the road son. Or whatever this ground is.”

            Ryan had his eggs at the ready, “I got your breakfast right here bud.”

            “Good, there’s your food, now get ready kids cuz we’re goin on a little trip.”

            I was ready to go already so I just sat and waited for the boys.  I didn’t know where Han had disappeared to.  “Hey have you guys seen Han?”

            Ryan said, “He said he was going to look around for some place where our radios had a connection…”

            Right away with movie-like precision, my radio started to buzz with static.

            “Czz…  Found somet—zzz-eresting, you g-bzzz-should defin-zzz-ee this-zz-over.”

            I grabbed the radio right away, “Han?  Come in Han, do you copy?  Over.”

            “Czzt-Sorry the transmission isn’t very cl—zzt—I need you all to meet me and see this.  Over.”

            “Alright just give us directions and we’ll be on our way, over.”

            He gave us directions so we stocked up on power bars and other things for the day.  Plenty of water also, because the suits and helmets got really hot.  When we set out we were all hoping this journey was worth it.  It definitely was because he led us to some command center that seemed to be abandoned by the aliens.  But once again we couldn’t find Han, so we looked around the place and searched for him.

            Ryan seemed upset by what he found, “Oh no, God no.  Please be alive!”

            The three of us ran over to help.  I checked his pulse.  “No pulse.  We’re too late.”

            Shane was angry, “But we just left twenty minutes ago!  What the hell happened?”

            Will was the wisest of all of us, and doubled as our medic.  “He was shot several times by some weird gun.  Looks like the shells are pure gold, and the fragments are lodged all over in his suit.  This is completely unheard of…”

            “And completely sickening.  It was those aliens right?  I should’ve known they would be here.”

            “Yes, it was them.  We have to find them.  They can’t be far, so stay on your toes.  They might still be here waiting to ambush.”

            We all listened to Will and held our guns at the ready.  I quickly scanned the room for any movement and saw none.  This was the communications room, so Ryan got to work on connecting with the WMC.  Shane and I watched over Ryan and Will while he was dressing Han’s fatal wounds.  We were going to bring him back to camp at the E-86 to bury him.

            Ryan was actually making progress; he had been studying the alien technology so that he would be ready for anything.  “I think I’ve got something.  I’m sending out a standard issue distress call to all WMC ships within range.  They always have someone monitoring the radios in case something like this happens.”

            “Nice work you geek.  You’re sure it’s gonna work?  Cuz I know this alien crap can’t be any better than ours.”  Shane couldn’t believe it.

            “Oh it’ll work, there’s a stable connection so we’re online.  I just hope they don’t think it’s a trap.”

            “Well honestly, it could be and we just don’t know about it yet.  For all we know we’re leading our allies into an alien ambush.”

            He had a good point, but I wanted to stay positive.  “Hey don’t push our luck, today has already been bad enough.”

            After a few minutes Will had Han all ready to go.  Ryan got a reply on the radio.  “I got a response.  Patching it through.”

“Echo 20-12 to Foxtrot—we have received your distress call.  Please verify your identity with your pass code.”

             Ryan punched in the code:  Foxtrot E-86.

            “Pass code confirmed, we are on our way to your location Foxtrot.  Are reinforcements required?”

            “Foxtrot to Echo 20-12—Reinforcements are advised, alien activity is imminent.”

            “Alright, ETA is approximately Forty-Eight hours.  Hold tight at your location at least an hour before arrival.  Good luck Foxtrot, Echo 20-12 out.”

            “Understood.  Foxtrot out.”

            Shane sighed, “That’s two days.  A lot can happen in that much time.”

            “Yes but at least someone is coming for us.  Otherwise we would be all alone for however long it would take us to die.  Or worse, be killed.”

            Will wanted us to get back to safety for just that reason.  “Exactly, we need to get back to camp.  So you boys carry Han and Erin lead the way, I’ll bring up the rear.  Keep your eyes peeled; they are probably already following us.  They must be waiting for something so they aren’t attacking yet.”

            “Well that’s reassuring, thanks for the confidence boost chief!”  Shane looks up to Will like he is chief, and Will thinks of Shane as a son.  They have a close but not obvious bond that I envy.  I don’t know if one could live without the other.

            When we got back to the ship we buried Han.  We felt disrespectful keeping our helmets on, but it was a necessary precaution.  We took his helmet off and used it as a grave marker. The face mask was cracked because of the golden bullets, so we knew that the shots he took to the heart were the ones that killed him.  I never really knew Han, but his loss brought tears to our eyes.  He died saving us, and that’s what hurt the most.

            When I woke up in the morning, I was dreading the next two days.  I could feel that they followed us last night.  Now all there was left to do was wait; wait and hope they wouldn’t attack us.  It was a beautiful day, and I wanted to go on a walk, but I didn’t want to go alone.

            “You planning on going somewhere?”  It seemed like Ryan was always there when I needed him.

            “I wanted to go on a walk, it’s a beautiful day and it shouldn’t be wasted.”

            “Well you aren’t going alone, I’m coming with you.”

            On this twenty minute walk, Ryan and I talked about our lives back home.  Things like our family and friends, jobs we used to have and schools we used to go to.  We also discovered that we were both single.  Then we started talking about the future; what would happen when we finally got home.  Knowing he is two years older than me doesn’t matter.  We grew closer than we should have, but we couldn’t help it.

            When we got back to camp, Shane and Will were both awake and sharpening their field knives.  They both seemed suspicious of our whereabouts, but I knew it was Shane who would say something.

            “Well, well, well, what do we have here?  The lovebirds have finally returned to their nest!  What were you two up to all alone out there?”

            Ryan replied, “We went on a walk.  We used the buddy system just in case.”

            “You would use the bud—“

            Will cut in, “Let ‘em be Shane, if half of the squad is happy then everyone is happy.”

            We left it at that and sat around our small fire talking about what we would do if the aliens attacked.  Basically we decided we would shoot at them and hope they would go away.  Pretty bad plan, but if all else fails we still have our suits and helmets.  The suits are composed of a lot of Kevlar and a gel membrane that separates the Kevlar from our bodies.  We could take cover in the E-86, but trapping ourselves isn’t the greatest idea.  Shane suggested that we just play dead, but that would probably only work for three or four seconds (If we were lucky).

            Before we knew it, the day was over and we were surrounded by darkness.  It seems like the days we need to go on forever blow by, and the days we need to blow by drag on.  There was no way our last day on this planet would go without an alien attack, and we were ready for it.  We packed up everything we needed for the next day before we went to bed.  We took shifts of who would stay awake and watch for any possible threats while the rest of us slept.

            When we woke up, we realized that Shane had fallen asleep during his shift when we saw what happened to our camp.  It was literally torched; whoever or whatever had come through used our own fire against us.  Luckily we had already packed up all of the things we needed and stashed them in the E-86’s storage compartment.  Our camp being trashed was just a sign of what was coming to us today.

            Shane was mad at himself, “Why did I pass out?  Sorry I screwed up big time guys.  This means today I will get revenge on those alien freaks, if it’s the last thing I do.”

            Will tried to calm him down, “Son, everyone screws up every once in awhile, it’s only human.  Getting yourself angry won’t fix anything so just calm down and we’ll think of a way to give these guys what they asked for.”

            “I think of that as revenge, so sounds good to me.”

            Ryan said, “How bout we get on our way, the ship’s gonna be here in an hour and a half and we don’t wanna miss it.”

            Will continued, “Sounds like a good plan.  Grab all your things and make sure you have plenty of ammo on you; they are going to attack so we will need it.”

            When we were halfway to the alien command center, I started seeing blurs all around us, but before I could target them they were gone.  The guys saw them too, and we knew it was them.  We started moving faster and looking in all directions at all times, all while trying to take cover when we could.  We were five minutes from the landing zone when I heard a gunshot that sounded distorted and a bullet buzz by my face not a millisecond after the shot.

            I immediately warned the others, “Take cover!  They just fired the first shot!”

            Will yelled over the sound of bullets flying and aliens dropping, “We need to keep moving, but stay under cover when it’s available and stay close!”

            When I got a clear look at one of them it was huge, at least seven feet tall, it had on armor that gleamed with every ray of sun that hit it, and a large and elaborate helmet protected his human sized head.  I could see his head was more elongated than a humans, and his skin color was slate grey.  It was obvious he was the leader; the other ones were much less decorated and wearing armor that was a dull black but still looked strong.  They were almost human-like but had more animal features, like a bear only trimmer and with longer legs and arms.  I have seen these guys before, but not with a leader, so this was going to be tougher than usual.

            I didn’t want to fire at the leader yet because he wasn’t shooting, so I aimed at one near him and fired three shots into his head.  He dropped to the ground in a heap of flesh and armor with a blood curdling cry that hurt my ears.  After killing a few more I checked on the boys and they were all keeping up and literally dodging bullets.  I told them to go back to back and lay low while moving quickly.  We did that until we got to the command center, then saw that they had taken it over.

            Shane was thinking quickly, “Let’s just get in there and flush ‘em out so we have cover.  It’s pretty small so there can’t be too many, and it doesn’t have windows so we’ll only need to watch the doors.”

            We listened and charged in, we only found six of them but they were big so we took them out by surprise.  When we turned to watch the doors, we saw Will was down and bleeding a lot.  Shane pulled him away from the door and tried to help him.

            “What happened chief?  Are you alright?”

            Will was gasping for air and holding his chest, “I’m fine son, you need to watch your back.”

            “I’m more worried about you.  Let me see this cut.”

            Will was shot right under his heart and his lung was punctured, his blood was just draining.  There was no way to stop it, Will was going to die and Shane had to watch it happen.

            “Oh man chief, I don’t know how to patch that up, what do I do?”

            “There’s nothing anyone can do son…  We just have to let it happen, but a shot of morphine might dull the pain.”

            He gave him the shot and watched Wills face relax.  While all of this was happening, Ryan and I were holding off the aliens at the door and wondering where our rescuers were at.  Time had flown by since that first shot was fired, and Echo 20-12 was supposed to be here any minute.  Just then we heard something on the radio next to Ryan, “Echo 20-12 to Foxtrot—are you at the LZ?  We’re sending an A-86 attack vessel to your location, over.”

            Ryan quickly replied, “Foxtrot to Echo 20-12—we are at the LZ, use caution because we are under alien attack, over.”

            “Understood, we’re sending a few ships as reinforcements.  ETA five minutes, when they arrive you must board immediately, over.”

            “Understood.  Thank you Echo 20-12, over.”

            I looked over to Shane and Will and saw Shane rest Will’s head against the wall.  His eyes were closed and I couldn’t see any sign of breathing.  I knew he had passed on when Shane got up with his assault rifle, stepped out the door, and began shooting the aliens non-stop.  In one clip he killed about twenty aliens, leaving them confused.  We heard the A-86’s flying in, they sounded like super charged Black Hawks from over five hundred years ago, but I liked it.  Shane had just cleared the LZ so one of them flew in and hovered about three feet above the ground, turrets blazing.

            “I have to get Will; I can’t just leave him here.”

            The intercom of the A-86 came on, “We don’t have time, you’re going to have to leave him.  I’m sorry but please hurry, we’re under heavy fire.”

            Shane hesitated but ran to the ship anyways with Ryan and I by his side, firing a few last times at the aliens who had taken two of our closest friends.  He didn’t say anything once we got in and took off, he just stared blankly at the floor.  I might have seen a tear, or maybe just a bead of sweat.  I guess even the strongest of us have to break down sometime.  Then he said something I’ll never forget, “A lot can happen in two days, enough to turn your life around.  Don’t waste a single day of your life because it could be over before you even see it coming.”

            Those were Will’s last words.

 

 

wiki 5 - Great job on your posts both this week and last. You have a lot of interesting ideas and I enjoy hearing them. I enjoyed reading your list... you had some interesting things on it.. the restaurant idea was fascinating... what sort of food would you feature?  My mom would barbecue and my grandma would bake, they've always wanted to do that.

Week Five

 

9/18/09-My Bucket List

1)Travel all around the world, visiting major cities and landmarks.

2)Build my own race car and drive it at any racetrack that I can.

3)Skydive from the highest height I possibly could.

4)Learn how to fly a plane and fly to Hawaii.

5)Get a Bachelor's degree in mechanical engineering.

6)Design a car for a major car company.

7)Have one or maybe two kids.

8)Make a six figure salary on average.

9)Start a restaurant with my mom and grandma.

10)Go to the moon.

 

9/18/09-

So is it always true that "what goes around comes around"? Or is there a lot more than meets the eye in this interesting little tale?

In this case, it isn't always true.  I think Marty beat up the new kid in hopes that the gang of "friends" would accept him.  I can tell though that the kids still don't accept him, and marty's actions are going to come back to bite him in the butt.  So in Marty's case, what goes around does come around for him.  The kids coaxed Marty into continuing beating on the new kid, so that's what made him feel like they were beginning to accept him. But after this incident they're going to push him away once more, so what goes around comes around.

 

Week Four

 

9/10/09-

2. Can a 14 yr old school dropout reasonably expect success much less the respect of those around him?

Reasonably, no. However at the time an african american school dropout wasn't a rare thing to be seen.  I doubt he expected that he would be successful when he dropped out.  He probably did it as a spur of the moment thing without thinking a lot about it(as most 14 year old boys do).  Also, he must not have been worried about other peoples' respect for him as they probably didn't have much for him in the first place.  Living in Little Africa didn't get him very far in his lifetime of living there considering it was looked down upon by the upper-class folk. No one really respected him to begin with, so he had nothing to lose.

 

9/10/09-

2. How about the ending? Could it have REALISTICALLY ended any other way?

The only other realistic way the story could have ended was for Joe's dad to leave the army and go somewhere else far away with him.  I thought the ending was good though, it was more real-life than fantasy but sometimes realism adds a nice touch to a story.  I thought it was so sweet when the army guys all pitched in on giving Joe cool things.  Then the fact that his dad promised he would come back to see him was also cool.  In all honesty, there's no other realistic way for the story to end.

 

Week Three

 

9/3/09-How's the project coming along?  

Well I've really just been brainstorming lately for good ideas that I think I could write a short story on.  So my favorite idea is that there is a squadron of five marines and they are lost on a planet they know nothing about.  The year is 2525 and they're spaceship crash landed here when they ran out of fuel on their way to a docking station in a galaxy far away from ours(I haven't thought of a clever name yet but I will).  The ship is very small and it has minimal resources on board for the marines to use.  They found a source of water but they aren't quite sure if it is actually water yet.  Anything that looks like food probably isn't so they steer clear of the apples that look like monkeys.  They have lost contact with any human life and are all alone...As far as they know.  

What do you think about it so far?  - sounds interesting! keep going! Hope you have already decided if they live or die... it will make it easier on you later.

 

9/3/09-Does this story fall more into the category of horror... or into the category of sci-fi? How do you think it stacks up compared to the original by Poe? Is it better or not as good? Why?

Well in my opinion, Usher II is more of a mix of a horror and science fiction, rather than one of these two.  Most of the descriptions of the setting were futuristic, such as the fact that the house is located on mars.  Basically all of the house was made robotically, including its different props and characters.  The story even featured life-like robots that looked exactly like the people at the so called "party" (I think of it as more of a mass-murder but that's just my opinion...).  It is also a horror because it includes many references to Poe's creepy stories, and these references are used to kill the people who came to this party.  This story is less detailed than Poe's original, but it is much easier to understand and get into. I thought it was much easier to read than the original house of usher, so I would consider it to be better.  I prefer easier and more thrilling reads though, because if i don't know what the author is saying I can't understand the story.

 

Week Two

 

8/26/09-

On a deeper level, is there more to say about what's happening in this story besides the futility of a girl's crush on an obviously unattainable guy? Why do girls DO this to themselves??

It's obvious in the story that the girl is lonely.  When she decided to go to the ice rink and skate, she probably wasn't even thinking about whether or not this boy would be there.  All she wanted was to be able to do something away from the lonliness of home. She let the boy flirt with her and lead her on because it made her feel like he legitimately liked her.  It also made her feel important, like someone cared about her other than just family.  Girls let guys do this because we believe there is some good in all guys, and we hope they don't let us down.  Most girls hope to find their Prince Charming, and they will give a lot of guys an easy opportunity to become him.  Even though guys continuously let girls down and hurt us, we still put our hearts out there in hopes that the perfect guy will come along and love us like we've always dreamed of.

  

8/26/09-

Your thoughts? Is it right or wrong for Mike to do what he does to (for?) his grandma?

I believe that when Mike accepted the fact that his grandmother thought he was her late husband, it was right for him to play along.  His grandmother was obviously on her death bed and she had a guilty conscience that she needed to get rid of.  It was also good for Mike to realize that his grandmother is a person too, and she has problems she has to deal with just like everyone else.  If I were on my death bed and I had a guilty conscience, I would want to clear it before I passed on (Regardless of who I think my husband/grandson is...).

Good work on wiki 2! I liked how your took time to really analyze each question. How's the project coming along?

 

Week One

8/21/09-

Does defending someone to someone else only "matter" or "count" if the person you defend appreciates it or knows you did it?

 

Well I know that if I were defending someone it would usually be someone i either care about or agree with.  If the person doesn't appreciate my efforts, then oh well. There are other people in the world who would care about my struggles.  However, defending someone who doesn't realize it still counts as a good deed to the person defending.  If you defend someone you don't know, chances are they won't appreciate it or they might not even notice it.  In the case of Sammy in the story, the girls knew he defended them but they didn't appreciate it or even care. He lost his job over it though, and I would assume that matters.

 

 

8/20/09- 

Was Sammy a "winner" or a "loser" for making the choice he made in the story?

I believe Sammy was a loser for quitting his job in the story.  First of all, three girls who are too concerned about themselves to even notice a checker would never pay attention to his whereabouts.  They did not care about him quitting as it didn't effect their lives at all.  Secondly, girls aren't going to be impressed by a guy who can quit his job.  These particular girls seem like the type that would only consider dating a guy if he had money, if he's lucky.  Also, it was absolutely pointless for him to quit his job because a co-worker simply told some girls (that he didn't know) who were dressed inappropriately that they need to put clothes on next time.  There's no reason to call Sammy a winner for his spur-of-the-moment decision.

 

Good job on wk.1 - I enjoyed your comments!