Dogot HW

After watching the "Power of Ten" video, I saw an instant connection with what the video discussed and the play. Didi and Gogo are like the person who is watching the distance of either increasing or decreasing. They have reached a certain degree or distance of understanding of who God is, what he would want, or when he will come but not entirely, which is why the narrator in the videos said we reached "the edge of present understanding". This means like Gogo and Didi and like Us, we have reached a certain degree of what the truth is but if we try to speculate or dig deeper, we will be presented obstacles or knowledge that probably overwhelm us or we won't have a way to describe it. Gogo and Didi can ask all the questions about Godot and answer most of them with their own rational answers but like in the video, there will come a point where they ask a question that they will find hard or be unable to answer. They know that Godot is coming but they aren't sure when exactly or they know somewhat where Godot will arrive but they aren't 100% sure about it or question if they are in the accurate place. The video states that certain levels of understanding can be reached and conclusions can be drawn up from them but there will be a line or wall that'll be reached where finding a satisfactory answer will be difficult. I feel like Pozo is a manifestation of a man trying to be God and lucky is the man who believes that or was probably forced to believe that. They symbolize the issues of men trying to make themselves like God by claiming vast miles of land to being theirs and the unfortunate individuals who confuse their wealth and power for something godlike. Pozo's claim could be made when he first confused for Godot and then questions angrily Didi and Gogo for not hearing of him before. This symbolizes the concept that man tries to be more well known than God or some other entity. Didi is more of a control freak that seem to play the big brother or motherly individual. He is very consistent with his memories and a bit more realistic or logical. When I claim his is more of a big brother, it's because he claims that Gogo depends on him, signifying that he is more responsible. Gogo is indepth with his emotions and his partner's. He backs up this assumption when he claims that Didi would far off alone than dead, signifying that he understands him at deep emotional level and knows him very well. These two are mostly talking, in my opinion, about death. Maybe they are talking about their deaths and Godot being a sugar coated version of their final minuets. Their uncertainty of where, how and when Godot is too become is problem their paranoia of death since it could come at any minuet and maybe they hide that by being confused on the date of when Godot is to arrive. Maybe they are two men who just trying to figure the answers of death and what comes after but they are afraid of the methods they have to take in order to find the answer. This could be about spiritual enlightenment, the whole time they are trying find the correct time and place of where to meet Godot, is like trying to find the perfect zen place to discover the truth. It could also be about enslavement of man by those with power, where Pozzo could play the anarchs and power hungry indivduals of those times back then, possibly today, and how they abuse the weak and poor, or in this case Lucky. I feel like my life is like those two in way questioning life in both logical and philosophical terms. I want to believe that I die and wake up in a giant machine ran warehouse full of every person in the world like in the Matrix or that I ascend to a higher existence. However I'm constantly debating and arguing with myself about what makes sense and what doesn't. I don't think this book is cynnical. If it was, it would have a plot of trying to convey that God is one certain thing or value and to not question it. It actually does the opposite in my opinion. I believe what makes us insecure is when we aren't rewarded for being ourselves or being rewarded in the way we want to be for being ourselves or just not receiving a certain gesture from others when we act honest and true. People tend to act out of their insecurities because of fear of being used or hurt by others, not knowing that is what everyone else is probably doing too. The flip side to insecurity, in my opinion and understanding is trust, peace and understanding. If we allow others to see who we really are and convey to them they are someone of value to see something as important which is our true vulnerable self, that makes them secure about their self worth and they return the favor because they see they can trust you too. This can lead to universal understanding and ultimately peace. Maybe I'm getting to ahead of myself but I believe in good ol' peace and prosperity and the road to acheiving it.It pains me to see that someone decided to give up on that concept and made you all believe that no one is trustworthy and that you should keep your circle close or closed entirely, which actually makes your problems worse rather than better but I'm not going to get into it because I need sleep.

Life and Times Of A Chronic Masterbator

Jose Munoz

Prof. DeWitt

Eng. 102

2/27/14

I, Arnold

In “The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian” by Sherman Alexie, Arnold, the main character, is a Spokane Indian living on the reservation. Although he has come to term of how things are run there and has a witty way of looking at them, he is soon faced with the realization that he must leave the suppressive reservation, in order to pursue a more meaningful and benefiting life elsewhere. However, once he moves to his new school, he finds out the way the system works in Reardan high school, is far different from the reservation and it ultimately force him question who he is when question this new world to him.

When Arnold starts his first day in high school in the reservation, he expects a good enough quality education despite this being a reservation school. As he enters his class with content he receives his first textbook, “I grabbed my book and opened it up. I wanted to smell it. Heck, I wanted to kiss it” (30). At this point, Arnold is full of anxiety of receiving his math book because he see’s it as source of hope and knowledge, something not common where he lives. However, all good thing come to end, when He see’s something deeply devastating, “But my lips and I stopped short when I saw this written on the inside of the front cover: This Book Belongs To Agnes Adams...Agnes Adams is my mother. MY MOTHER!” (31), Arnold’s follows this sad revelation by venting how he feels, “My school and tribe are so poor and sad that we have to study from the same dang books our parents studied from. That is absolutely the saddest thing in the world” (31). Arnold is completely heart broken by this that he feels like the “world has declared nuclear war” (31) on his hopes and dreams of trying to learn and be happy. By seeing how much of a heavy burden the reservation is, it pushed Arnold by making him throw his book in shame, disgust and anger that it ended up hitting Mr. P.

After the incident with the book being thrown, Arnold is confronted by Mr. P, which leads into a life-changing conversation between the two. As the two converse, Mr. P lets Arnold know that, despite what happened between the two, he still holds him in high regards, “And you’re a bright and shining star, too...’You’re the smartest kid in the school. And I don’t want you to fade away. You deserve better” (40), Mr. P praises Arnold on his intellect and being something too precious to go to waste. Although a reluctant Arnold refuses to believe that and the fact that he deserve to shine, he soon shines up to the idea once Mr. P starts giving him more compelling evidence, “You’ve been fighting since you were born’, ‘You fought off that brain surgery. You fought off those seizures. You fought off all the drunks and drug addicts. You kept your hope. And now, you have to take your hope and go somewhere where other people have hope” (43). It is with that Arnold soon understands what his instructor was trying to convey to him,which was he had to add his hope to the hope of another individual if he wanted to reach goal that wouldn’t be possible if he stayed in current location, which comes to the final choice of Arnold deciding to leave the reservation.  

Once Arnold arrived at his new school ,Reardan High School, he was confronted with complete alienation from his new classmates, as states what he witnessed, “They stared at me, the Indian boy..they stared at me like I was Bigfoot or UFO” (56) Arnold comes face to face with the issue that he will be facing while at Reardan which will be complete adversity from his white classmates and the new customs he will have to get used to. This will come into clearer sense when he is “fights” Roger,“So I punched Roger in the face…I struck some fake karate pose because I figured Roger’s gang was going to attack me for bloodying their leader. But they just stared at me” (65) Arnold is confronted with a whole new behavior of defending one’s self when he punches  Roger, as he expects the rest to join but when they refuse to, they leave Arnold puzzled, which leads him to see what Roger does, “You meet me after school right here, ‘ I said. ‘Why’ He asked. I couldn‘t believe he was so stupid…He got to his feet and walked away... I was absolutely confused”(65). It is after this incident that Arnold starts to he is confused by the sudden rules of confrontation, he doesn’t go into a crazed confused state of mind, he merely addresses that this new environment makes him feel like a “freaky alien” where he had no way of getting back home, back to where everything made sense to him. As a result, now Arnold must endure this new school year at his new school and must painfully get accustom to the new ways while still retaining his Indian heritage.

Despite the altercations that Arnold has been having at his new school, he did witness some traits that resembled something about his home or his heritage. After the death of  Eugene, his and his dad’s best friend, Arnold returns to school, only to be mocked by his teacher with has an interesting result, ‘If I’d been stronger, I would have stood up to her. I would have called her names..But I was too broken. Instead, it was Gordy who defended me. He stood with his textbook and dropped it” (175). Astonished by what Gordy, Arnold can’t help but look in awe as how his friend looks, “He looked so strong. He looked like a warrior. He was protecting me like Rowdy used to protect me” (175), then he is more surprised by what his other classmates did, “Penelope stood and dropped her textbook...And the Roger stood and dropped his textbook...The the other basketball players did the same” (175). It was with this act of defiance and compassion that Arnold comes to a realization, “I used to think the world was broken down by tribes’...‘ By black and white. By Indian and white But I know that isn’t true. The world is only broken into two tribes: The people who are assholes and the people who are not” (176), Arnold addresses this to his teacher because he realized that because by seeing what his classmates did, that he wasn't an outsider, that his classmates weren't going to treat any different because they cared about him which made him feel like he was part of tribe with them. This signified that Arnold still holds his heritage strong because he doesn't call it two groups or family but two tribes, which implies that Arnold was not lost to his way, he was experienced kindness in an place where he didn't expect it.

Towards the end of the school year, Arnold reflects on the events that have occurred since he started at Reardan, such as the death of Eugene, his Grandmother, his sister Mary,and contemplates on what he what he has left to call his own tribe since his original shunned him for leaving the reservation. It the comes to him that he really isn't alone, “I realize that, sure I was a Spokane Indian..But I also belonged to the tribe of American immigrants. And to the tribe of basketball players. And to the Tribe of bookworms...And to the tribe of poverty. And to the tribe of funeral goers. And to the tribe beloved sons” (217), as he addresses all the tribes that he belongs too, he soon realizes that he still is who he is when he left, it’s just that he came back being part of something bigger, something more meaningful and important to him. Arnold would then be reassured of his Indian heritage by his friend Rowdy, “You’re an old-time nomad,’ ‘You’re going to keep moving all over the world in search of food and water and grazing land. That’s pretty cool” (230). After Rowdy tells Arnold this, it implicates that he is calling Arnold a true and noble Indian, because of what true Indians did back years ago.

Arnold was confronted by the shame of his heritage, due to the economic troubles they had in the reservation, but once he was given the strength to move on in order to pursue a better education faced many trial ahead. Dealing with a whole new world of customs, Arnold was not sure he’d be able to keep sane while trying to achieve his goal while trying to stay true to himself. When faced with adversity and alienation, any individual may find it hard to fit, especially with background like Arnolds. It is because of the will power that he mustered up did he overcome those obstacles, find a new sense of pride of who he is and discover a whole new set of friends and values that he will cherish forever and address with himself.

Stupid Critique of the Stupid Horse :P

 In the sample essay "The 'Stupid Horse" I found many interesting portions of it that grasped my attention. What i found was a great tool was how the writer would bring up the story of the horse, in order to ensure the relevance between the events in Arnold's life and how he confronts them to the theme of the story. Each certain event in Arnold's life correlated with a part in the story. They weren't any random event either, they were carefully chosen part that had similar plot to that of the horse story. The essay isn't a bunch of random events from the Arnold's life with sections from the story put throughout the story, it has a chronological flow to it so the reader isn't confused why the horse was nothing but bones before it even drowned and why Arnold was in Reardan before he had the talk with his math teacher. The work in this paper is very convincing because it has a well-organized structure to it with a very stern thesis that can be proven easily. The evidence that is grabbed from the book is great. It isn't portions of a quote on adds any unnecessary extra information to it. It might have some grammar or punctuation errors here and there but they aren't too major that it disrupts the flow of the essay.

Obama Care For Native Americans

Since entering in office, Barack Obama had met with many tribal cheifs in order to disscuss disputes and issues and has dealt with most of them. He has signed many new laws and executive orders in order to improve the living conditions and education for Native Americans. Many land disputes hve been resolved and new educational benefits have been granted to tribes across the U.S.




http://www.whitehouse.gov/sites/default/files/docs/american_indians_and_alaska_natives_community_record.pdf

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2013/07/02/1220684/-White-House-Council-on-Native-American-Affairs#

During the presidents State of the Union Adress, there was a subject the President spoke about that caught my interest. The part when he spoke about new, cleaner energy sources was a great relieve to hear. When the president mentioned that he would put more money and attention towards businesses that were into finding new cleaner energy sources. I was intesrested about this because despite the fact that space probes have found other planets with some form of habitable surface, it will be still decades or centuries before we find another planet that is 100% or so identical to Earth, and tons more years before we are able to colonize it. So with that in note, right now focusing on cleaning and helping the planet we currently live on should be a major priority.Obama was right about taking the money, that would've been given to oil companines, and giving to industries that are focusing on solar, water and wind energy. Also adding that, when Obama stated that it be better to pass a patent reform bill so there would less time and resources wasted on getting the, on what I'm guessing, paperwork and fees and have more those getting the work done. "Climate change is a fact", Obama stated this, so with that in mind if we want our summers to be considered warm and sunny then we must work on our climate.

http://www.bizpacreview.com/2014/01/30/black-activists-scathing-response-to-obamas-speech-were-better-off-without-you-just-quit-97555

http://www.brookings.edu/blogs/fixgov/posts/2014/01/28-state-of-the-union-galston

I am here to improve as writer. I want to improve on writing because I want to be able to express what i feel and think completely into words so that I could be understood more clearly. 
With the education that I recieve here, I want to gain a job that i can then afford lifestyle that isn't to luxurious nor too straining. I want to have a life where I am able to put my fufture children, I hope, through the same fruitful and memorable experiences I went through in school. 
I'm very passionate about music, espicially EDM, electro dance music because it helps calm my mind and it helps me think clearly and I am able to feel whole sorts of ideas and opinions that with the help of this class, I'll be able to put into paper.