The Power of Anger

I am responding to this quote:

"Anger is an acid that can do more harm to the vessel in which it is stored
than to anything on which it is poured."

-Mark Twain

To me this quote means that someone being angry is more harmful than acid being poures onto something. It reminded me of our discussion in class on Tuesday about the short essay "Tourist, Stay Home." The author was so angry about tourists coming to her homeland. It made me angry when at the end of the essay she told us to stay home if we care at all about preserving the culture. I was offended by this because I went to Maui two years ago and was in awe of how beautiful it was. I didn't cause any harm to the culture like she thinks every American does. In fact I probably benefited the Hawaiian people by spending money while on vacation there.

I even noticed in class some of us were not too happy with what she had to say. She doesn't have the right to say who can and can't visit Hawaii. She is taking out the anger she has about the destruction of her culture on us. The state of Hawaii probably could not survive on it's own if it wasn't apart of the United States. I don't think it's very fair for her to blame Americans on the mainland when we're only trying to help Hawaii's economy. How does everyone feel about this? Does she have the right to place the blame on us?

A Day Made of Glass

I couldn't get the video to show up on the blog, so here's the link:
http://youtu.be/6Cf7IL_eZ38

So, my grandmother is one of those who sends me so many e-mails to the point where I almost want change my e-mail address. But today, when I logged on, I saw only one. The subject line read "The Future in Glass." Of course, I just checked the box next to it and scrolled my mouse up to the delete button, but someting stopped me before I had the chance to click. I was curious. There are so many people who come up with concepts of what the future may be like. Hell, every time there's a new technologial advancement, it's seems like people jump on it and assume that it will be necessary for living in the future. So of course when I started watching this video, I was skeptical.

The video suggests that upcoming generations will be taking advantage of the integration of technology into our everyday lives. Virtually every surface has the potential to become a touchscreen, with the ability to push and retrieve vital data in order to assist us with tedious tasks. This has the potetnial to make all of our iPads, tablets, desktops, and laptops obsolete. Quite frankly I think it's fascinating to see what we may be able to do very soon. Mind you, this is purely conceptual as it stands right now. However more recent breakthroughs suggest that this portrayal is not pure fantasy, it's possibility.

All of this leaves me wondering though: Are we too concerned with the future that we neglect the present? Do we dwindle on what the next big thing is so much that we soon forget the last? It just worries me to see that all of our "specialists" are too busy speculating on how the world will be rather than how it is. How do you all feel about this?

Cheese

So in the last class, for the attendance question, we went around and stated our favorite and least favorite words. I did not have a favorite word at the moment but my least favorite is c***. I hate that word because for one, I'm a girl (in case you didn't notice) and second, I HATE what it stands for.

Some of you like me, did not like a word because of its meaning. While others hated a word because it is annoying. Some of you said that a certain word was your favorite simply because it sounded cool. That kind of got me thinking. Maybe half the reason that we despise a word is simply because of the way it sounds. Kind of like taste buds. We all have different taste buds, I hate cheese. Yes, I know you probably think I'm crazy. But I kind of think the way a word sounds either repels or intrigues us.

Like our varying tastebuds our brains vary and therefore love or hate certain things. This following example may sound crazy but it is the honest truth. ......

I speak spanish. For those of you who don't know you can pretty much add the ending "-ita" or "-ito" to any word. Adding either ending to a word (-ita if its a feminine word and -ito if its masculine) indicates affection to the word and can make it less harsh. Dog is "perro" but you can say "perrito" to add more affection. My point to this spanish lesson is that I ABSOLUTELY HATE/LOATHE/DESPISE when a spanish speaker adds these endings. It makes me want to puke and makes me want to punch something. I can't stand the way it sounds, i literally cringe whenever I hear my mother use them. It used to make me cry when I was little! I know this example is kinda psychotic but do any of you have words that you literally cannot stand because the sound of it gets under your skin?!

Tourist, Stay Home.

The reading for this week by HAUNANI-KAY TRASK was very interesting. Reading this article made me realize how great amounts of tourism can affect native people in a negative way.

In the beginning, the author talks about how a wave of tourism has dishonored the Hawaiian culture over the years. Ancient culture of Hawaiian people has been used to attract tourists and advertise their land around the world. Basically, she says that tourism has brought up serious problems such as population densities, crime rate etc. Tourism is not the only complain the author gives, she also talks about the loss of precious land to american military bases.

 Personally, i believe tourism can be both beneficial and detrimental. Tourism helps the economy and creates millions of jobs for the natives of these key destinations. It can also have negative effects because when a place becomes extremely popular, millions of people will want to go, eventually abusing it. Tourism should definitively be controlled and tourists should be educated about the responsibilities of preserving the beautiful places they travel. Locals play a big role is this too, they shouldn't discourage tourism because after all it helps economically and it allows the rest of the world to enjoy the place where they live.

what do you think about this situation? Do you agree with the frustration of the native Hawaiians? How do you feel about tourism?

Lunatics/Lunartics

After Reading Lunatics/Lunartics I thought that woman could be anyone. I'm not saying that we are all crazy and bipolar but we all have our moments. I think that she made herself sound crazier then she was by calling herself "me" and "psycho". I know when I was writing my first draft of this last paper I felt like a crazy person. I was rambling on about nothing because I thought that this topic was so hard. I wanted to rip my hair out. I want to apologize ahead of time to my workshop group who is grading my paper.
I think that at any time we can all have high or low moments that make us come off as crazy. We are not bipolar but we can relate to the situation. Some things just push you over the edge and it makes people react. Your family and friends are always there to love you, but is there a breaking point where you can push them away for good? I think that anyone who has been in a relationship before can relate to this situation. You burst out into loud fights where completely irrational thing are said. Eventually you forgive each other but sometimes too much is said. There may be no turning back. I liked how the author ended her paper this way. She made herself relatable, whether you are a crazy person or not.

Creativity and Its Many Manifestations

While growing up, I always thought I wasn't a very creative person. I couldn't paint, draw, or do things in a unique way. I always did things by the book. I used to love playing with LEGOs or the more obscure K'NEX when I was a kid. I would build huge replicas of things, and whatnot. However, I always followed the books piece by piece. It would bother me more than anything when somebody would ignore the instructions and build something different.

Many people would look at my way of doing things and say I was not a creative child. I believe that creativity is a word that has a very broad definition. A musician who composes a musical masterpiece is most certainly creative. But is the artist who takes parts of those masterpieces and converts them into something different and unique to them not creative as well?

Lately I have invested much of my time playing a computer game called Minecraft with my friends. If you've never heard of it, starting a game creates a randomly generated, infinitely large world composed of billions of blocks. You can collect these blocks, mine to get more rare metals and minerals, and even craft tools out of them. With the blocks you collect, you can create almost anything you and your friends can come up with. I have built a castle with a lava mote, a house on stilts in the sky with a trapdoor that drops you into the lake below, and even a sky scraping lighthouse made entirely of glass.

Playing Minecraft has revealed hidden creative talents in millions of people. I believe that many people are extremely creative, but they have no idea because of the generalized definitions of the word "creative". Creativity is extremely important for writing, and I think that everyone in our class is creative just because of the many examples of papers I have read.

What do you think?

How to start this paper!

Well i don't know about anyone else in the class, but i am having trouble figuring out how to start this paper. I know what my topic is and have some really good sources but do i start with my story on the topic, or do i jump straight into what research i've done? Is anyone else having trouble starting their papers off in the right direction and feeling good about where they've started? I am going to introduce my topic and give a slight background on it and how i can relate before i go into my research. This will give the reader some background so i don't just jump right into the research part of the paper.

What do you all think about this idea? And if you don't like it how do you suggest i start my paper? How are you starting yours?