QQC #3

We all remember having to take those long, dull history classes- what is the point? Where will this knowledge ever truly affect our lives? I present to you here a concrete reason: we cannot prevent that which we do not know. Oft said is the phrase "history repeats itself," but is this true?

In Three Cups of Tea, the bombing of the World Trade Center sparked a terrible influx of hate-mail to Greg Mortenson because, in the majority of the public's eyes, he was aiding terrorism. "The terrorists were Muslim, so all Muslims are terrorists," their flawed logic concluded.

An elderly woman mailed Mortenson with a very different opinion. "I'm old enough to remember this nonsense from World War II," she wrote, referring to the downright racist hatred many Americans felt for the Middle East, "when we turned on all the Japanese..." Through a parallel she drew between World War II and the War on Terror, it is made apparent that history does indeed repeat itself, and that if people do not take the time to learn it, to realize the cause and effect of this long chain of dominoes calle Life, then we will suffer the repercussions.

My humanities teacher told me that she was on the bus and heard the ignorant solution of someone who was either clueless or truly racist. One man to his friend suggested that any and every Muslim be put into concentration camps as a solution to terrorism. As a student fresh out of a World War I and II unit, my immediate reaction was "Wouldn't that be just as bad as what Hitler did to the Jews?"

Her solemn response was "Exactly."

QQC #2

As I continued reading Three Cups of Tea, a book that, for the most part, highlights how the religion of Islam is not an evil thing as most Americans believe, I found it odd that, on page 110, there was a quote that clearly delineated one of the major differences between our cultures. Mortenson is being described a religious pardon that allows a married man to be temporarily "married" to a different woman, and thus be sanctioned by Allah to do certain things that are usually reserved for spouses only. "Mortenson asked if Balti women... could also be granted muthaa.
"No, of course not," Changazi said, waggling his head at the naivete of Mortenson's question..." At first I wondered why this was in the book at all- was it not rather counter-productive to the positive image the author had worked so hard to portray of the Muslim world? As I thought it through, I realized that it was honest. Because this small snippet was included, the book became that much more credible in my eyes. Instead of preaching all of what we Americans know as false and biased, it showed a grain of truth in the disparity between men and women in Muslim culture.

QQC: Chapters 1-3

Quote: "When it is dark enough, you can see the stars."

Question: How does this apply to the story?

Comment:
In all of this section of the book, the portions that really stand out to me are the quotes used to introduce each chapter. The very first one invoked vivid imagery in my mind, brought back memories of truly seeing the stars for the first time. "When it is dark enough, you can see the stars." I was walking to the bathroom late one night on a camping trip, picking my way carefully across a prickly field of rocks and weeds, for I had foolishly forgotten to slip on a pair of shoes. Cursing myself under my breath, I shook my hair out of my face. As I looked upwards, I was struck dumb by the sight before me: the sky was so swollen with stars that it was not the deep, velvety black that I was accustomed to, but blue. There were so many stars that it was almost an artificial twilight, sans sun. To this day, it remains one of the most beautiful things I have ever seen.

The quote also applies to the storyline of the book- a destitute village, conceivably in its darkest hour, finds hope in the form of a scruffy mountaineer on his last legs. Even when things seem terrible, good can happen.

CHARACTER: Dr. Polo

We're doing a video project in school, and we had to use an organization-chart to develop our main character...

CHARATER: Dr. Polo

AGE: middle of successful career as psychologist

MAIN TRAIT: eager, NERD

HUMANIZING TRAIT: Naive, passionate

PROFESSION: psychologist

ADDRESS: messy middle-class home (papers strewn about EVERYWHERE), has an old '62 convertible beatle

VALUES: work, bettering mankind

FOIL: his colleague/supervisor

OBSESSION: bettering the world (picks up litter, donates to charities, gives bums money)

GOAL: to perfect his brainwashing technique to make criminals good

IDOL: Albert Einstein

EPITAPH: "for the greater good" changes to "Preserving mankind"

INTERNAL CONFLICTS: wants to leave an achievement behind to be remembered by; is afraid of fading into the history books, but is shy & hasn't managed it yet

INTERPERSONAL CONFLICTS: is jealous of his fellow proffessor, who has the fame and fortune he desires, but Dr. Polo is shy and lets the outgoing man walk all over him

SOCIETAL & ENVIRONMENTAL CONFLICTS: lets his colleague take advantage of him, doesn't actually like him, but doesn't want to say anything because he's insecure of himself

BEST THING THAT COULD HAPPEN (but is actually bad): perfects his method and becomes famous (but brings about a dystopia)

WORST THING THAT COULD HAPPEN (but is actually good): destroys his work (and saves the world!)

WHY IS HE LIKEABLE: has a strong moral code he adheres to, he's a bumbling, naive, clueless genius and he saves the world :)

Blade Runner Review

For Humanities, Kay had us watch a movie about a utopian society and focus on the question:
What went wrong with this idea of perfection?

In the movie Blade Runner, which is set in 2019, Earth is in the grips of a nuclear winter. The premise is that man figured how to create androids that looked exactly like people and were as intelligent as people, but stronger. They also had a limited lifespan of four years. Replicants were used as slaves, especially on colony worlds.
What went wrong is that the robots- replicants, as they're called- went rouge and killed lots of people, proving that artificial intelligence can be more than just a little scary. A nuance of the movie that I noticed is that they had an experimental replicant who was created with a flase set of memories of life- a childhood and whatnot. She was human- the only thing setting her apart from other women being her inevitable short lifespan.

Interesting. According to the movie, what makes us 'human' is what we experience, how he are brought up.

world hunger: a problem.

PERSPECTIVE WRITING:

IF I WERE SUFFERING FROM STARVATION...

I wake up.
Wait- lemme rephrase that:

The sun rose.
I had been laying awake for a while, belly burning as I feigned sleep, knowing breakfast wouldn't come for a while.
Come ever.

'Cuz we have a problem, here in Haiti. In the world.
They call it...
"World Hunger."
Oh, sure- there's always someone in the world who's hungry, always someone who could do with a little less, but over the past year, it seems to have escalated. People are dying- my people are dying. With scarcity, prices rise, and now we are starving, cut off from the outside world by a paranoid government and cut off from food by a lack in our pocketbooks.

So we assess our options:
Sit idle and watch our lives decay, wither, die.

Or

Attempt to overthrow our useless government, try and get the one thing everyone in this world shares a need of- food.

In the meantime...
We cinch our belts a notch tighter
Ignore the churn in our gut
And pray for release from this living hell.

The Life and Times of a Hunter/Gatherer...

...I have the biggest urge to be really sarcastic and make cave-paintings to express this assignment (a journal entry of a day in the life of a hunter/gatherer...), for I've never like these fake-journal things... but ANYWAY...

~Day 12 of the Seventh Moon Cycle~

The great move has started. As the prey move and flee the cold, so do we of the Tribe.

We pack up our few worldly posessions and follow in their tracks along ancient paths.
So is the order of things, so has it always been, so it shall always be.

On a more personal note, the shaman has finally accepted me as a pupil. My parents are quite proud of me- as their only child, and eldest daughter, there was not much hope in me amounting to anything of great worth... Although I have finally proved them wrong.
As the new apprentice, many things were taught to me today as we trekked along, such as which herb does what, and where to find them... I hope I can remember them all! the shaman is not one to be dealing with the rambling mind of a young girl. I can only hope that I don't dissapoint too badly...