ELA general post

1. My presentation on Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. It was a lot of fun going through the jokes I had written out and It was a very interesting book to analyze.

2. The most challenging thing for me was remembering the blog posts every week, especially when we had the gap week where there was no blog post. It was difficult getting through that part of the school year because I wasn't remembering to do all of the posts.

3. Hitchhiker's Guide. If you want a book we read together as opposed to my book of choice, my pick would be Much Ado About Nothing. MAAN was something that I had not read already, so the element of freshness made me enjoy it more than 1984 or Persepolis. It was also a lot of fun acting out the scenes and analyzing the language Shakespeare used.

4. All the Light We Cannot See. It suffered from what I am dubbing "Bel Canto syndrome" where it was either extremely predictable or completely and unnecessarily erratic. There was relatively little to keep my interest after the exposition and, while I am a sucker for tragic endings, Werner's death came off as forced and unnecessary. There was no buildup nor was there any reason for it to happen.

5. I think the vocabulary assignments should be teaching more challenging words. In addition, it should also teach us more about how to break down words and decipher their meaning through roots. While we did do this, I think that only two questions per practice exercise and ten questions on the final was a little minuscule.

6. The response projects are something I'd like to keep as they are. 

7. Identifying faulty logic was something I had no idea how to do before the debate. As for something more along the lines of the language arts part of the class. I can now actually dissect and understand works of fiction.

Hitchhiker's Guide 2

The main point of Douglas Adams' Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy is that you shouldn't think about anything too much and just live life. The ridiculously illogical nature of the Galaxy and the characters' indifference to it shows this very well. Things that just don't make sense like planet-building planets, time travel, the end of the universe, the state of the Altairian dollar and engines that run on improbability are met with nothing but indifference to most of the characters besides Arthur, who can usually be found trying to wrap his head around these concepts and objects. This is the main difference between Arthur and everyone else. If somebody said that a rock concert disrupted the weather patterns of a planet so that the surface was perpetually at that perfect temperature to go to the beach, the other characters would accept the fact and move on, Arthur, however, would spend  good chunk of time afterwards trying to understand how that happened. As evidenced by Slartibartfast, who said: "...I always think that the chances of finding out what really is going on are so absurdly remote that the only thing to do is to say hang the sense of it and just keep yourself occupied", People would be much happier just accepting how things are and living life rather than wondering why something is some way or thinking about the state of things. In many ways, he is right, not thinking about deeper meanings and just living life to the best of your ability would probably increase the overall happiness level in the world, but I would definitely not be satisfied with myself if I didn't feed my curiosity regularly.

Hitchhiker's Guide 1

Arthur Dent is an average human, so when he is faced with the reality of aliens and advanced technology combined with the fact that his planet was destroyed to make a highway, he is just a little bit in shock. He has no frame of reference for anything in the rest of the Galaxy, so he spends a large chunk of his time being completely dumbfounded. All he really wants is to do is to relax and have some tea, something that he just can't seem to do. 

Ford Prefect is a friend of Arthur's from Earth. He is actually not an Earthling, but a Betelgusean who has come to Earth to write entries for The Guide. In his many years of research, he has expanded Earth's entry from "Harmless" to "Mostly harmless". He has traveled far in his life and understands most everything about the Galaxy that the average individual from a space-faring civilization does, so he spends considerably less time being gobsmacked than Arthur. 

Zaphod Beeblebrox, Ford's cousin and new galactic president, is an arrogant, fun loving person whose actions are about as illogical as the 113th congress. It is unknown whether he is actually extremely unintelligent, or simply acts like an ignoramus for attention or to escape from reality. 

Trillian is an old aquaintance of Arthur and that's it. She is quite possibly the least important and least memorable character in the book. She is introduced and left to be a backdrop for the rest of Hitchhiker's Guide. 

Marvin the Paranoid Android is a robot with the brain the size of a planet. In a matter of seconds, he can solve any and every problem in the universe many times over, except his own. He would be a lot more useful if he weren't so depressed and cynical. His overall unhelpfulness stems from his creators giving him a "Real People Personalities" personality, causing him to be thoroughly depressed and thoroughly depressing.

1984 final

 1984 shows us a totalitarian government that has apparently succeded in subduing and indoctrinizing it's populace. However, after some thought, I have come to believe otherwise. Fear is likely the leading factor in the outer party's obedience. In a society where most people have learned basic logic, most everything The Party does would be considered lunacy, so the rise to power of such a nation seems ridiculous. Though it seems insane, this government has risen to power and has either indoctrinized or dominated its populace. Either way, the results would be the same. A good example of this would be raising children. An indoctrinized person would either leave it to The Party to raise their child for them because they respect it or thei would reinforce The Party's rhetoric to help create a truly orthodox child. A fearful person would do the same thing, but for different reasons. They would not want to teach their child the morals of the past for fear of being accused of attempting to poison the future generations, likely leading to imprisonment.