TWN and JAW

Twelfth Night has Viola in a disguise, underplaying her natural actions, thoughts, and emotions to everyone in Ilyria. Ray is veiled in the same way. He binds himself in the beginning of the movie with his lack of enthusiasm and apathetic tone. Viola cannot reveal who she is because she must stay in the dukes graces as his male companion, even though she is in love with him. Ray and Viola both have something more going on in their heads that each character keeps hidden at first; their love desires. Both characters experience change in their environment and directly cause the people around them to change. Viola causes love triangles and rectangles when she makes Olivia fall in love with her by mistake. Once she shows who she is (a woman) the result is the entire cast coupling off except for Malvolio. In Trona, Ray finds inner peace and outer success whe he gets the girl and saves his hometown. Both stories exhibit insanity with a conjured return to normality.

Carlin

George Carlin is not concerned. He's not fumingly angry, hes just a little oissed about the tree huggers. Phaelen is talking about evolution here on Earth, and both authors mention change. While Carlin says it will all be forgotten, Phaelen says humanity is self-extincting. Technology is actually going to be our downfall because maybe we are not going through evolution anymore- we have become lazy and are making technology do it for us. Its true, take it from me I'm in astronomy; as Carlin says, the Earth in the long run will not be directly effected by us because like us, it too will come to its end. Yes, there are black holes in every solar system, and although the Milky Ways seems to be inactive right now- our sun will eventually supernova, swalowing us. So in a sense nothing really matters. but if we as human beings took this general attitude we would not better ourselves but actually sacrifice ourselves. As Carlin stresses, it is the people that are messed up, not the planet.

Phaelen Predicament

Ok, I can see how when the earleist human life forms were around that evolution was prosperous. I mean monkeys to caveman, Darwinism has been easily integrated into most school biology classes. In the present, however I have a slight problem believing that humans today are actually evolving themselves. I think we have become lazy. I think we are letting technology become our outward form of being and mind, and it has nothing to do with our natural human construction. Robot vacumes, Genius playlists on iPods, and various inventions have acredited to much of our knowledge and easy-going life today. Come on, our cars can parallel park for us now and you can even watch TV in them! This concept leads my mind to beleive that we have actually slowed down evolution by creating so many technological items that do anything and everything for us.

The Effects of Climate Change

I remember the first time I heard the word global warming. I was in middle school, sitting in Mr. Whaleys class trying to learn about the Earth. Global warming was explained to me as the result of too many Styrofoam cups and hairspray invading our ozone layer, so all of the ice caps are beginning to melt. I pictured little bits of cups and hairspray shooting up towards the sky and then bursting through the atmosphere allowing the hot sun to penetrate the North and South pole and polar bears falling into the water because all of their icebergs were gone. This isn't exactly how John Broome is thinking. He is straight to the point, and confident that the economy will lead the world to a greener path on the subject of harmful gases and emissions into the environment. Climate change is our responsibility, stresses Broome; and according to him most of the responsibility rests on the shoulders of the rich. I guess one could suppose that the richer person has a bigger house, therefore using more oil to heat it. The person may also have a huge gas guzzling Range Rover but at the same time that Range Rover may be the only nice possession a poor person has. It seems easy to lump people into different groups like that but in the end all people, rich or poor, are responsible for this planet and the only way to make a difference is to come together to make changes that will aid earthly preservation. Give a man a fish, feed him for a day; teach a man to fish, feed him for life. You can give the poor money to make themselves eco friendly, but the only real way to achieve results is to educate everyone as a whole on more eco friendly habits.

The Writing Center

I walked in there with a couple ideas. Sat down at the desk and came up with a plethora of information and some great insights on how I was supposed to connect all those themes in the Twelfth Night/Sonnet/Strand paper. All I kept thinking to myself is, ok this job pays really well. I could probably do this, or at least I would like to try. I think the reason I thought this is because honestly the WC person is really only there to guide you, they don't tell you what to say or how to write it. You say something they'll say half of a sentence and you're expected to finish it. This is a productive way of constructing an essay because I didn't feel lost when I got home to my laptop. I had already started turning the mental gears in my brain and the essay cranked itself out right through my finger tips. A+ writing center, A+.

The Reality Tests

"Do we create what we observe through the act of our observations?" says Joshua Roebke. There are certain laws and properties that define our world. We live in a world that requires us to use our observations to explain it. Without any observation there would be no mental thought process. No outstanding comment or belief. When human beings make an observation they are conciously connecting something to something else, or recording it to remember something for later. This is the creation of observation. The human body posses a tremendous quality to interpret information. Quantum theories are the direct reasoning behind our logic because it is the scientifical explanation for our world.
When I was in Astronomy last week, my professor stated that you only feel the force of gravity when you fight it. I had never thought of it that way, gravity is a constant pull, its not as though we are going to float away from the Earth. The force of it, however it does not actually grab us until we try to fly, jump, or catapult ourselves into the world. Without experience and conclusion we woul not believe anything we are told as human beings.

Big Foot

Michael Specter concluded that "food miles" are just another wasteful solution that is being used for the people, but is directly destroying the people because of the harm done on the environment. How many trucks do you see everyday when you drive on the freeway? How many of those are food trucks: think about it. There is already pollution from the factories that produce this food. "We are in an era of creative destruction" says John Elkington. We just keep creating "bigger and BETTER!" ideas without even the slightest thought to anything but our own profit, as in money. What should be considered is the profit from our natural resources rather than making up new ones that only cause damage from chemicals and production waste. One topic discussed in this essay was the development of more energy efficient potato chip bags. The other day I was at Dutch Treats and my friend picked up a bag of Lays potato chips. When he grabbed the bag he was startled at the loud crinkle that came from the space-blanket-like material used as a replacement to the normal plastic which does less harm in the long run. It's true; companies with large markets are trying extremely hard to make their products healtheir so that their consumers will continue to purchase and not be effected by greenhouse gas criticisms.
Personally, I feel responsible because my most favorite activity in the world is driving my car. Although it is a little 95 Ford Escort Station wagon, with not automatic features except seat belts, I don't feel as though I am at a huge fault since I dont drive an SUV. I could definitely drive less though. We all need to think about our energy consumption because it went unconsidered by anyone for so long. Now, stresses Specter, it will be almost impossible for our society to switch over to more efficient energy use. Like todays societal addiction to ciggarettes, we are a world addicted to fuel, and most have no attention of slowing down soon.