The Pura Principle

So I just read The Pura Principle by Junot Diaz and really enjoyed it. The slang language (English and Spanish) was really engaging for me. For someone who has not studied Spanish may not understand the story line when the author quotes the characters in the Spanish language. For me, who has studied Spanish throughout all four years of high school, I knew exactly what English fun words could be used instead of the Spanish slang, like "Pura Mierda".
I thought the story was great because it gave a perspective of illness from a younger teenager who didn't seem to give a "mierda" about anything, referring to his mom friends as the four horse faces. This is different from the traditional autobiographical form of cancer narratives.

Waltz with Bashir Scene

One of the scenes that stood out to me the most was the last few minutes of the movie where it undergoes a transition from animated to real video images. This moment stood out to me because it was at this point that I understood the turmoils in the Lebanon War.
I thought it was interesting that I couldn't understand the premise of the movie until the last half. All I knew was that a "massacre" had occurred and that it was the central theme that moved the main character in the movie in his search for what had happened. I liked the technique of animation used here because its use of dark tones and overshadowing represented the emotional aspects of the war at the time.
The transition was effective in that it dawned on me the reality of the horrors of the Lebanon war. I see the back of the crowd of mourning Palestinian women heading towards the main character thinking animated figures he is seeing. Then the switch to real life images of the faces of the crowd drastically changed my perception of the war as if saying, "The horrors are real."

Five Annotations

Lunau, Kate. "Man Enough to Laugh at Cancer." Maclean's 124.2 (2011): 50-50. MasterFILE Premier. Web. 2 Apr. 2011.
This source describes how the Canadian Testicular Cancer Association uses humor in its fund raising campaigns by designating the month of January as "Manuary." This source discusses the how humor is used on the male side of cancer awareness. This is useful because it expands my topic to both genders.

Wold, Kimberly, et al. "What Do Cancer Survivors Believe Causes Cancer? (United States)." Cancer Causes & Control 16.2 (2005): 115-23. JSTOR. Web. 2 Apr. 2011.
This source describes a survey that was taken of cancer patients in Colorado that found that their ideas for the causes of cancer contrast with those of experts in oncology. The source calls for expanse in educational opportunities that would aid people in preventing cancer. This source is useful because it addresses and supports the issue of prevention as the main cure.

Gardner, Kirsten. "Disruption and Cancer Narratives: From Awareness to Advocacy." Literature and Medicine 28.2 (2009) 333-350.
This article discusses the inefficiencies of modern day cancer awareness strategies in comparison with cancer narratives in the 1970s that illustrated the cancer experience. This article is useful in that it calls the readers to reconsider the impacts of those narratives and how they may affect awareness today.

"Night of Illuminationand Celebration of Life Promotes Early Breast Cancer Detection." New York Amsterdam News. 102.9 (2011) 32-32. MasterFILE Premier. Web. 2 Apr. 2011.
This source describes another event that promotes early detection, a topic that is argued against by Kirsten Gardener in her article, "Disruption and Cancer Narratives: From Awareness to Advocacy." This source may be useful in exemplifying Gardner's arguments.

King, Samantha. Pink Ribbon, Inc. : Breast Cancer and the Politics of Philanthropy. Minneapolois: U of Minnesota P, 2006.
This source is useful because it challenges the marketing initiatives incorporated in cancer awareness events. This source explores the actual effects of marketing sponsorships that actually deviate from the true purpose of fighting cancer. This source is useful in that King and Gardner have similar arguments.

Busy Week

So these weeks in March have been starting to be hectic for me. I think this past week in particular. I had a test in Biology Friday( I got a 97!), wrote a paper for my American Lit class for Thursday and the draft for this class on Thursday as well. (Did I mention I turned 19 this past Tuesday?) I became so busy that I postponed celebrating my birthday to some other relaxing day(probably during spring break).

Now this weekend I have had to fit in homework after working at least 8 hours on Saturday and 6 hours on Sunday.

I hope I'm not sounding like a whiner, but I found this blogging assignment a way to mentally vent and reorganize myself.

John Q: Loading the bullet

Unlike Philadelphia, which I've seen and enjoyed before many times, I have never heard of John Q before the assignment. I enjoyed every second of it and I'm glad we watched this film. Since I enjoyed the movie as a whole, it was difficult to pick a specific scene to talk about. One of the many scenes that I find worth discussing is the scene where John loads his gun with one sole bullet after deciding to donate his heart to his son.

There is a lot of use of rhetorical appeals at play here. The major ones are pathos and ethos. Pathos because John Q's willingness to commit suicide in order to give his son a heart makes an emotional appeal to the audience and a few of the characters in the movie. Ethos is at play because John Q establishes his credibility of his purpose to save his son for his son, not for himself. At first glance, I thought after losing a car and on the verge of losing his home, John Q wanted to save his son for himself and his wife. Instead, by saying "I only intended to kill myself", John Q shows he never intended to kill the "hostages", rather he wanted his son to live.

2 MLA Citations for Intended Sources

1. Enestevedt, C.K., et al. "Trends in the management of esophageal carcinoma based on provider volume: treatment practices of 618 surgeons". Dieseases of the Esophagus 23.2 (2010): n. pag. Academic Search Premier. Web. 1 Mar. 2011.

This source is useful because it explores the variety of methods in treating esophageal cancer. These methods will give insight to the extremes of esophageal cancer.

2. Dugdale, III, David C., et al. "Esophageal Cancer." A.D.A.M. 2011. Web. 1 Mar. 2011.

This is source is useful because it gives the rough information about esophageal cancer, such as its symptoms, causes, and survival rate. I can compare this information to my experience with my grandfather.

Oscars Night

So I'm starting to watch the Oscars tonight and they showed top three acceptance speeches. Number two happened to be Tom Hanks accepting an Oscar for Best Actor for his performance as Andrew Beckett in Philadelphia.
You should check it out on youtube.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bBuDMEpUc8k

Philadelphia-The Opera Moment

One of the scenes in Philadelphia that stood out for me was the scene where Denzel Washington tries to go over the q&a with Tom Hanks and Hanks gives his stunning performance in interpreting the opera. I have read some comments on YouTube stating that they "could have done without the opera." I think it brought out the human quality of Beckett's character. The movie replays the opera as background music in the scenes afterwards, as if the singer's words were playing in Washington's head. I think this scene showed Miller, and the audience, that Beckett has an aesthetic aspect to his character that everyone can relate to.

Blogging Prompt #4: Experience and Other Evidence Final Topic Choices

For my Experience and Other Evidence paper, I plan to research the habits of an average person that can cause cancer. In my personal experience, cancer was the first disease that took an important person from my life ten years ago. The first question my paper will cover is "What is cancer?" The purpose of this question is to teach others what cancer is and how it comes about. Learning the process of cancer leads to the two other questions, "What are the causes that instigate cancer?" and "What are the effects of cancer?" When the paper is completed, these two questions will be combined in order to understand that certain behaviors cause the effects of cancer.
These questions will be answered in the paper by my personal experiences with my grandfather during his last year and researched evidence in other sources.

Blog won't upload

For some strange reason, I cannot access my blog's homepage. I am testing to see if I can still publish posts.

Blogging Prompt #3: The Experience and Other Evidence Memo

1. The first topic that I can think of offhand is lowering one's risk of cancer. My grandfather, a science teacher, died from esophageal cancer when I was eight years old. His death was my first experience of losing some one close to me. A question that I can ask regarding cancer is "What did my grandfather do in his life that may have caused the cells in his esophagus to become cancerous?" An academic audience that would be interested in this question may consist of general science students or, more specifically, oncologists(doctors who specialize in cancer).

2. Another topic that I have personal experience with is symptoms of disturbed residents of assisted living homes. When I was in middle school, my class would take monthly trips to a local assisted living home and interact with the elderly through games and conversations. There were a few who enjoyed our visits, but there were many who either slept, stayed quiet, or verbally abused my classmates. A question I can ask is "What aspects of the home may affect the residents to feel miserable?" An academic audience that would be interested in this question may consist of psychologists or students who volunteer at an assisted living home.

3.Another topic that I can consider is diabetes. Most of my family(including my grandfather) on my mother's side has diabetes and have to watch their eating habits in their later years. A question I can ask is "What can someone do to live a healthy life style in facing the realization that he or she is very likely to have diabetes based on the health of his or her diabetic family members?" an academic audience that would be interested in this question would be students in the School of Public Health at the University of Maryland that focus on active lifestyles.

Blogging Prompt #3: Reflection of Sontag

I will admit, that it was confusing at first reading this article, however, after Thursday's class, I have a better understanding. I liked and understood why Sontag used cancer and TB to explain the use of such diseases as a metaphor. She brings up a good point that "there is nothing shameful about a heart attack." This point that both heart disease and cancer may result in the same situation, death, one is viewed differently from the other.
As I said in class, I liked the war metaphors because they stuck out to me. War type games have always been fun for me (you know, Risk, Battleship, the card game War!). The idea of fighting the disease like fighting an enemy is appealing. Sontag's use of war metaphors to explain their usage showed me how people have viewed diseases throughout history.

Blogging Prompt #2: On Confessions

One of the issues we addressed in class was the difference between a confession and an apology. Wear and Jones say that an apology is simply a recognition of feeling, whereas a confession is a recognition of fault. Think about it. Every time we mess up, respond with an apology, which is usually interpreted as "I understand that you are feeling (insert negative emotion), so I will say "I'm sorry". Usually we appreciate an apology(confession) that shows the one who apologizes understands his/her fault.
I believe the ability to confess something in my own writing is a huge aid in writing skills because my confession is made up of my own experiences and thoughts. My confession would give me the ability to formulate my own words and descriptions. I could then apply this skill toward other writing projects in my other classes. So yeah, I believe writing a personal experience or confessions can be a huge help in a person's writing skills.

Blogging Prompt #1: The Writing Autobiography

Hey guys!

So I'm David, and I have had several different experiences with writing in my academic life. Before sophomore year of high school, I would procrastinate until the last few days before deadlines to complete papers and had my parents check for mistakes the night before they were due. Ever since then, I have improved to the point where I don't fret about writing papers anymore. This doesn't mean I enjoy writing papers for school (who in their right mind would?). I'm at a point where I'm comfortable with my writing skills, but I can see room for improvement. I just hope to adopt the skill of fluidity in my writing in order to better convey my ideas.

First Post

Hello everyone!