Jim Neilson

This article gave a lot of different insight to the book "The Things They Carried". One of the quotes that Neilson brings a great since of how the men felt about the war and when they were going into battle. For instance, "That little field," he writes, had swallowed so much. My best friend. My pride. My belief in myself as a man of some small dignity and courage. Still, it was hard to find any real emotion. . . . After that long night in the rain, I'd seemed to grow cold inside, all the illusions gone, all the old ambitions and hopes for myself sucked away into the mud. (210) War is a very harsh environment. A lot of people do not realize the impact it can make on someone’s life. We see war as a little thing if someone dies. However, if that was you that died, or it was someone close to you, you realize that one death can mean a lot more than just a short article in the newspaper. A life can also be something that people take for granite. Everyone thinks that they are going to live another day and so on, but in reality someone’s life can be taken away just as quick as it was given to them. This quote also talks about how “I'd seemed to grow cold inside, all the illusions gone, all the old ambitions and hopes for myself sucked away into the mud.” When someone in the war loses someone around them, their mind becomes engulfed on what is happening around them and they forget their orders and they lose track of what is going on. Suddenly they fight for one another and bleed for one another for they never know which day will be their last.

The Things They Carried

The short stories made up to what is known as, "The Things They Carried", has captured my attention more than any of the previous novels. This one actually has some historical events and tells stories from the pas, whereas all the other books we have read have a kind of "demon like" reference from my views and i cannot relate to them at all. O'Brien begins to tell different stories he tries to portray why a soldier should be teling their stories. For instance, “And then afterward, when you go to tell about it, there is always that surreal seemingness, which makes the story seem untrue, but which in fact represents the hard and exact truth as it seemed”. “In other cases you can’t even tell a true war story. Sometimes it’s just beyond telling”. Everybody becomes so wrapped up in the adventure and how the stories can show a very positive outlook, they often can misinterpret what the author from the short story is trying to tell to his audience. The soldiers often want to persuade their readers to be happy and tell them the victories they had or the lives they have saved, however, it may be hard for them to get into depth for to the reality of war and how you witness death everyday and how you see your fellow soldiers fighting side by side dying. "If at the end of a war story you feel uplifted, or if you feel that some small bit of rectitude has been salvaged from the larger waste, then you have been made the victim of a very old and terrible lie." This demonstrates how everyone is deceived by the war stories which we are told rather than seeing the reality of what goes on “behind enemy lines”. The end!

The Center Focus for Postmodernism

When you look atthe word “postmodernism,” if you were to decipher it in english terms it would mean anhything that is going to be in the future…since post mean after and modern means now. “…however, postmodernism seems to offer some alternatives to joining the global culture of consumption, where commodities and forms of knowledge are offered by forces far beyond any individual's control. These alternatives focus on thinking of any and all action (or social struggle) as necessarily local, limited, and partial--but nonetheless effective. By discarding "grand narratives" (like the liberation of the entire working class) and focusing on specific local goals (such as improved day care centers for working mothers in your own community), postmodernist politics offers a way to theorize local situations as fluid and unpredictable, though influenced by global trends. Hence the motto for postmodern politics might well be "think globally, act locally"--and don't worry about any grand scheme or master plan.” People tend to get start getting sidetracked by what they believe to be a metanarrative, as according to the book Postmodernism, “big stories, stories of mythic proportions—that claim to be able to account for, explain, and subordinate all lesser, little, local narratives.” These “metanarratives” tend to have someone look at the bigger picture rather than having them be able to focus on something of a smaller porportion. It should be brought about by the ideas that we all share and it brings forth a new beginning to everything that occurs. Postmodernism claims that postmodernism is “the failure of the Enlightenment.” The Enlightenment was was “a period during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries when European philosophers stressed the use of reason as the best method for learning the truth.” What the philosophers did not know was that even if they were to find the truth in reasoning, it was always going to be based off of an opinion rather than something that has factual evidence. So therefore, I believe that the central perspective of what postmodernism is, is the funadamentals to life and the procedures that take place while focusing on the things that are here and now and on a smaller scale, rather than something that may actually possess some impossibilties.

Alright well I’m going to be straight up and say that I have not read the entire book. Actually, to be entirely honest, I have only read a few pages. So if I were to make up a thesis for this it would be a total lie and most likely not be on point with the book at all. From the pictures I have seen and the subjects we have covered on certain topics in class give me a good understanding of what the book is going to be about. I am looking forward to writing this essay over break and I will redeem myself and try to make this the best essay I have ever written. I feel bad for letting down my peers and I know that I will not let them down. I tend to get really lazy and I also seem to put others things in my life before reading. I am pretty sure it is cause I have ADD (well at least I think I do) but I cannot sit down for even 15 minutes and focus! However, I will make it a priority over break. I know with all of this free time I will get the task at hand done and I will have an amazing thesis that is ready to be argued through evidence from the text and everyday life. Once again I apologize for my laziness and I hope that you will all be able to accept my apology and I hope it is not on your mind all break knowing that RYAN let you down. Well, I love all of you and I hope we can have a super cool potluck tomorrow and everyone make sure to bring your food!!!

PS:

{[LAZINESS]}

Laziness can be a common foe
Makes you unwilling to want to get up and go
It something that makes you want to lie on the ground
It is something that will make your teacher frown
It’s something associated with procrastination
When work should be done with no hesitation
Laziness to me has become a habit
I want to break this spell and become the Energizer rabbit
But as for now I have not read the book
And all I can do is sit and look
Everyone write about their thesis on this blog
When all I am doing is being lazy like a fat hog

The Internet and Laziness

Laziness and instant gratification. These are the two things that I believe makes no one want to go out into the cold morning and grab the newspaper. I mean why would you when you can have your lop top sitting in front of you with the internet and all the information you can ever need on your lap?

“Thanks to the ubiquity of text on the Internet, not to mention the popularity of text-messaging on cell phones, we may well be reading more today than we did in the 1970s or 1980s, when television was our medium of choice.” Although they state the fact that we must be reading more than in the 70’s and 80’s, I highly doubt that this is true. People have begun to take advantage of the things that they have in front of them and they rely on other people or media to just open up their mouths and feed them the information. And who needs to go to the gym anymore? People are able to send text messages going 100 words per minute!! Now how about that finger workout! So maybe I kind of contradicted myself on how people are becoming lazy…hahaha! I’m totally kidding there are a bunch of fat people in this world that need to get some real exercise and get out of the routine of rolling over in bed grabbing their laptop with a cup of coffee in one hand and a donut in the other getting the information that they need about their city and the world around them.

So that is what I believe about the media today and how lazy people are in this world. We as “Americans” think that we have everything going for us in our life and we believe that everything should be handed to us. There are becoming fewer and fewer hard workers in the working society and they are all getting away with it. So I’ll say it again, take the few extra steps in the morning and go rip that newspaper off the frozen concrete. Not to mention, it will also support your local newspapers and give some people more jobs.

My View On The End Of The Postmodern Era

Well first of all I’m sorry this is late! I decided to procrastinate and then Sunday night got a little busy for me!

I don’t really understand what this article is really trying to say. It states that postmodernism is contemporary which mean right now. It all just seems really weird to me. When I think of postmodernism I think of the future and new ideas or technologies, rather than weird literature and things that don’t make since. The only way that I can see that is would make since is when they say that postmodernism is dead and that it is now contemporary is that our technology and ideas are so advanced that when people thought of what a postmodernism would be they didn’t think it would evolve to this as fast as it did. So therefore I am very confused!

Our technology is so far beyond what people thought it was going to be. The way our technology has brought about new inventions and that people have no idea what can be “postmodern” in our future. The literature is very weird in the book Postmodernism for Beginners. They talk about very weird subjects and tend to look at the postmodern world through a one way lens. The way I see the way that postmodern would be is when the return of Jesus Christ comes to earth and takes the ones who followed him in their life to Heaven, or for me to die and go to Heaven and live a life eternally. That is the postmodern area where I would like to focus on and live my life and ideas thinking in a holy and a life pleasing to God and giving Him all of the glory. So that is the way that I see the postmodern future and I think my thoughts and ideas will always stay that way.

Cat's Craddle Intro

Cat’s Cradle starts of as a book that is very weird just as Postmodernism is super weird also. I states that John. The narrator started writing this book the day that the atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima and that it changed his religious view. He turned to the religion of Bokononism. Now this sounds like the strangest religion I have ever heard. The basic way that they view the world tends to make sense by the fact that they believe that the world works in groups to their way of survival. For instance, there are many different social groups I this world, otherwise known as “discourses”, that join as one in business and in other means as a family. The thing I show some discomfort to in their belief system not directing everything back to God. And it kind of makes me a little upset when they say that John converted from Christianity to being a Bokononists. But I guess it does say in the prelude of this book that “none of this is true.” That made me feel a little more comfortable when I went to start reading the book and I think that it will be very humorous and I will not take them the wrong way.
In the book of the Bokonon it states that everything was “meant to happen.” So therefore, they believe that they are living for the “will” of God rather than surrendering their life to him and pleasing him in every way, shape, or form. They have the wrong mindset going into it and I believe that nothing will ever be accomplished if they do things the same way that they are. The way that the Bokononists view life is confusing and it seems like it will always keep the reader occupied and thinking just like the book Postmodernism does. It creates illusions to the reader and there is never a dull moment that would cause the reader to slip away from the real purpose the authors or narrators are trying to persuade.