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.