Serena's Reflection

 The most valuable thing I learned this semester was not to hold back anything when writing. I tend to always hold back with fear of blabbering, which then leads me struggling to meet the word minimum.

I am quite happy I was given the opportunity to be able to take English 150 online this semester. At first, I found it a little overwhelming because you constantly had to check the discussion board. Once I got used to the set dates for everything, it became easier to remember to check D2L. On the downside, I found I a little hard understanding some concepts, I feel as if face-to-face would be easier to learn for myself. I appreciate how quick Laurie and the other students responded to everyone’s questions, it made it a lot easier to start the work.

I also learned that being in an online class is much different from thinking of taking an online course. You have to be self-motivated to get all the work done. Also I found taking a class online makes me do all the readings versus class, where sometimes I would forget and get behind.

My favourite reading in this course was Yuki Tanaka’s Japan’s Kamikaze Pilots, because it explained why people commit themselves on suicide missions. I was glad to read why the people felt they needed to become suicide bombers/pilots. I think this is an important reading for people to understand what goes through their mind before immediately jumping to conclusions as to why they do it.

My least favourite read would have to be James Green Winter because I had a hard time deciphering it.  It was well done and definitely put into a creative format, which I quite enjoyed but I felt that there were too many ways to interpret the information.

Thank you Laurie for letting me join this class!

A Splash Of Your Personality

In Kurt Vonnegut’s How to Write with Style, the author gives his insight on how to enhance the quality of your writing, and attract readers. Vonnegut was asked by an international paper to explain how to put your style and personality into everything you write.

The purpose of this article is to give tips on how to write with your own style. Writing is easy enough for some, but many people do not know how to add their own touch to the piece they are writing.

He gave good tips on how to make your writing your own. A good example of this is, “2. Do not ramble, though. I won’t ramble on about that” (Vonnegut 66). This was a great example because most authors tend to explain why they had given a certain tip. The tip given to try not ramble, does not require the author to explain why we should not ramble, his explanation for that tip was perfect.

The main idea was to make people aware that what you write gets more attention if you had your personal touch on it. Vonnegut states that news reports, people writing for papers etc. Do not reveal anything about them in their articles. Generally, every other writer gives the audience a peak as to who they are and what they like, just by writing articles.

Vonnegut did not target a specific audience, it was meant for budding writers and even people with a career in writing. This article was meant to help everyone improve on the quality of his or her writing.

Do you think that you would consider his tips the next time you are to do a writing piece?

kamikaze or kami-crazy ?

In Yuki Tanaka’s Japan’s Kamikaze Pilots and Contemporary Suicide Bombers: War and Terror, touches on the use of suicide bombers in the war between United States of American and Japan. Typically, when I have read articles on suicide bombers, it never talks about why the people felt they needed to do that, more so about the causalities.

The main idea of this article is to clarify that kamikaze differentiate from one of a suicide bomber. “Kamikaze attacks were implemented and legitimized by the military regime of a nation-state, while “terrorist suicide bombing” is a generally planned and authorized by organization outside a state structure” (Tanaka 298).

I found this article give helpful insight as to why people sign up for suicide missions.. Tanaka explains that the Japanese Imperial Navy and Army forces had recruited voluntary university and college students. The reason these young adults take their own lives to them was simple, for their country and their people. To die for one’s country showed your commitment and that it was not a total waste. The purpose of this essay is to enhance everyone knowledge on their perspectives on what drives people to participate in suicide missions. A good example of this is, “The announcement of their death as kamikaze pilots in the national press brought raise and honour to their parents, in a particular praise by residents of their local community” (Tanaka 296)

Do you feel that in order to stand for your country and people, in war, the right thing to do is to take aprt in a suicide mission?

Outsourced

In Thomas Friedman’s, “30 Little Turtles”, he talks about the benefits from out-sourcing jobs in one country  and hiring people in places like India to do that job.

Friedman starts by sharing how he got a standing ovation from a room full of 20-year old Indians, after perfectly reading, “A bottle of bottled water held 30 little turtles. It did not matter that each turtle had to rattle a metal ladle in order to get a little bit of noodles, a total turtle delicacy. The problem was that there were many turtle battles for less than oodles of noodles” (Friedman 176). He was to show them how the phrase sounded with a Canadian accent, as they were to suppress there native accent and try to pronounce words of one from the country the call came from.

The purpose of this essay is to show how outsourcing can lead to positive things for people across seas. Outsourcing has lead to many people who did not have prior jobs, to get a job and gain work experience. These types of jobs in Canada or America are low paying jobs but translate to high paying jobs in places like India. I think the intended audience for this article is the working class Canadians and Americans because it shows how fortunate we are that it is not too difficult to find a job. Also that we should not be taking advantage of our jobs because people in India are grateful for our “low end jobs”.

A strong example of this is, “Watching these incredibly enthusiastic young Indians preparing for their call center jobs—earnestly trying to soften there t’s and roll their r’s—is an uplifting experience, especially when you hear from their friends already working these jobs how they have transformed their lives” (Friedman 176).

Do you think that people in North America would try as hard at this job versus people in India?

Genius in diguise

In Jim Holt’s, “Code-Breaker”, he talks of a man named Alan Turing and his many accomplishments. The first paragraph was definitely was an attention grabber, “Before getting into bed the night before, he had taken a few bites out of an apple that was, apparently, laced with cyanide” (Holt 337).

The purpose of this essay was to elaborate on how no matter how smart of creative you are; people will remember or recognize you as the person you are inside and what you believe. The intended audience was meant for slightly younger adults to show them it does not matter what you achieve; it is the person who you are that people will always remember you by. In addition, it shows how Turing had a big part during the war.

He took steps toward building a life-like computer, even making some of the relays himself. Unfortunately he was never credited for this particular achievement, “In addition to his studies with Church, he also had dealings with the formidable john von Neumann, who would later be credited with the innovations in computer architecture that Turing himself had pioneered” (Holt 341).

Alan had created the computer and helped crack the German codes during war, which only two people thought it could’ve been done. Because cracking the code was a major part of the war, that could have landed a target on Turning’s back. This could be a leading factor in his death.

Do you think that knowing he may have been a target, could have imposed on his daily life activites, feeling the need to commit suicide?

Who Is To Blame?

In Gary Kleck’s essay, “There Are No Lessons to Be Learned from Littleton”, Kleck has it all said out in the name. By the media covering the shooting in Littleton, school shootings have escaladed since the media exposure. He goes onto explain how unintentionally kids react after hearing about shootings in the media. He is putting a lot of blame on the media for encouraging violence.

The purpose of this essay is to make people aware that watching the media coverage on violence, doesn’t teach kids to not be violent rather increases the likeliness of school violence.

He believes if the medias main stories weren’t always to do with violence, the violence rate would decrease, “A tragedy that has already occurred obviously cannot be prevented by any actions taken now. Therefore, actions will prevent harm only to the extent that the events they can effectively head off are likely to be repeated in the future” (212). The media should put a little “warning” phrase before any exposure to violence, as the news broadcast is just not watched by adults, teens too.

Kleck does a great job of showing how the media coverage could lead kids to becoming violent, “Mississippi responded to the Pearl shootings by making murder on school property a capital offense, even though premeditated murder, regardless of location, was already a capital offense in Mississippi. The killers in this incident, moreover, were ineligible for the death penalty because of their ages, eleven and thirteen: minimum age for death penalty was left unchanged” (213). Where could an eleven year old and a thirteen year old get such ideas?

Also the media doesn’t help by saying the kids were not charged because they were not of age to be considered an adult, could give more reason for younger kids to be violent.

My question to you is what should the punishment be for a non-adult who killed someone?

Monkey See, Monkey Do

In, “Aggression: The Impact of Media Violence”, Sissela Bok addresses the ever rising issue of media violence and it is affect on crime rates across the globe. She also says that violent shows and violent crimes have a high correlation rate.

Bok is really trying to get the attention of the people who create such violent shows, as she believes they should have taken some blame as to why the violent crime rate has increased over the years. Sissela states that the amount of violent programming being aired correlates to the amount of violent crime amongst viewers; therefore why shouldn’t the makers of such violent programs be held responsible?

She even discusses the affect of viewing violent pornography among males. Referencing a report, which led to the conclusion that violent pornography affects “the attitudes of adolescents about rape and violence towards women” It also says, “when it comes to viewing violent pornography, levels of aggression toward women have been shown to go up among male subjects who view sexualized violence against women.” 

The purpose of this essay is to make people aware of how watching violent shows influences bad behaviour on them, “The rates of injury suffered by small children are skyrocketing, with the number of seriously injured children nearly quadrupling from 1986 to 1993; and a proportion of these injuries are inflicted by children upon one another”. Sissela states those who watch violent programming, are more likely to find aggressive or violent acts towards another permissible and an acceptable way of dealing with conflict. She finds that “media violence has been found to have stronger effects of this kind when carried out by heroic characters…when they are rewarded not punished for what they do.”

So I ask you this, why do you think the media is so focused on showing us violence in the news cast?

My Beloved Africa

In Stephen Lewis, “Pandemic: My Country Is On Its Knees”, he addresses the appalling gap between vision and current reality of Africa, regarding the HIV/AIDS situation. The purpose of his article was to make the world aware of how HIV/AIDS has affected Africa. This was meant to be seen by anyone and everyone, in hopes of helping the crisis that is decimating Africa.
When reading this article I found that Lewis' conversational style makes for quick and light reading about topics that are quite heavy, as some parts were written so well, I felt as if I had experienced it.  I felt he achieved his purpose through detailed examples, “The wards rumbled with low, almost-inaudible moans, as though those who were ill could not summon the strength to give voice to the pain”, and, “The smell was awful: a room of rotting feces and stale urine. And the eyes, so sunken and glazed and pleading”. After reading this, I felt so sad to hear about Stephens personal experience over in Africa. Although, I know that was his not his intended reaction, he just wants to educate people on the reality of what is happening to the people. I found the most effective phrase in this article was when Stephen talked to the PLWA (people living with aids) group and they said how the profit money goes towards coffins because they are in high demand. I found his personal experiences to be quite informative as I have never knew the how families were impacted by the HIV/AIDS crisis. It breaks my heart to read about how 14-year olds have to be in charge because their parents have passed away.

My question to you is, how much higher does the death toll have to increase, before everyone comes together and actually tried to resolve the crisis?

Back In the Day When I Was Young..

In Margaret Atwood's "Letter To America", it seems as if she was painting us
a picture of comparison of how America used to be when she was growing up,
to what the changes have made America become now.

I think the author was trying to express the confusion and dissapointment with
how America has turned out to be through the speedy changes. The author did
a great job showing this by her remarks and opinions, "I think your recent Iraqi
adventures have been-taking the long view-an ill-advised tactical error. by the
time you read this, Baghdad may or may not be a pancake". I think the intended
audience are those of Americans, as she wants them to see how the changes
have impacted there once great nation. America has made some shocking
decisions towards war and protecting their country. What ever happened to
make peace not war?

I feel that the author was very effective in getting people to realize how much
America has changed through the little phrases she wrote. I feel the most effective
phrase she wrote was, "Let's talk, then, nto about what you're doing to other
people but about what you're doing to yourself", because it shows how America
is more focused on what they can do to other people, rather than focusing
on fixing there nation.

This letter should have been addressed to past leaders as they had great power in
decision making for America as They have had a big part in creating the present
day America. As for the leaders now, they're stuck cleaning up the mess the
others have left behind.

In conclusion, I feel Margaret did a fantastic job expressing how she feels about
the changes America has undergone. By learning about America all through school
I agree that our country's neighbour has certainly developed.  Hopefully this has
 caught the attention of Americans and they can start to become the nation they
once were.


How do you think the past great leaders would think of the present day American?