Mayuri’s AP Eng Blog

When most people think of politics, world leaders, debates, lies, hope and democracy come to mind. Politics is something of great influence in society as
it allows it to move forward, and discuss what should be changed in a way that is organized, allowing everyone to have a voice. In it’s purest form, politics can be the most influential way to benefit the lives of a large amount of people,
However, due to its lack of ethics, the belief in the power of politics has been greatly tarnished and doubted for the past few decades. Politics is no longer seen as a way to create constructive improvements. Nowadays, it is seen simply as game that only the most ruthless and cunning can beat. Politicians are no longer out elected leaders but the people that can manipulate their followers the best.
When it comes to an election year such as this, less is heard about the different candidates’ policies, and more on their bickering. Because the candidates and the media don’t focus on the issues, the people don’t care about the issues. And even if they did, it has become increasingly hard to watch the news or read the paper without hearing about the candidates dislike towards one another instead. This has caused the current rift between Republicans and Democrats, because instead of actually dealing with the issues, politicians have been caught up with their differences. In reality, the only thing they should all be focusing on is their one similarity, a desire to better the country. Without any compromise, they’ll continue to think their idea is the best and only idea.
What worries me is that this is the time that my teenage peers are just starting to grasp the complexities of politics, and figuring out what their opinions and beliefs are. While it is uplifting to see my generation take an interest in politics, I feel like because we’re only getting a superficial understanding of it all, that the power of politics is being lost. This is partly due to the fact that the issues aren’t nearly as talked about as which celebrity is supporting whom. When my peers support a candidate, not all of the even know why.
I first noticed this after attending a Barack Obama rally last month, where I was one of 21,000 that lined up to see the Senator speak. I saw him in June of last year, before all the hype and before I knew he would become such a viable contender. I thought he was an amazing public speaker and had an amazing energy about him that actually made me believe that change was could happen in America. In my personal opinion, a great politician is someone who not only gets people to agree with them, but inspires them to take an active role in the future of the country. When I saw him recently, the immense amount of support for him blew me away. However, I couldn’t help but wonder how many of the teenagers sitting in the audience were familiar with his take on abortion or view on Social Security. Though they sat in the audience chanting, “Yes We Can” many of them were actually unaware of what Obama wanted to do for the country besides “create change”.
Though I found the support for Obama great, it made me wonder whether or not politics can really be taken seriously or if supporting Obama is just a fad like those “Stop Genocide in Sudan” t-shirts everyone bought without knowing what genocide was.
For my sake, and the sake of future generations, I hope the initial “jumping on the wagon” actually did stir up some interest in politics and what’s going on in the world.
However, politics shouldn’t be something we “hope” people get involved with or excited about, it should be something everyone is excited about. With such a low voter turnout, it’s clear encouraging public involvement is still important.
When people are able to speak their mind, and vote for candidates they want, the country will be a better and happier place for us live. Leaders will represent the values and goals of the people, and the idea that everyone has a voice is what politics is all about.

One thing I’ve changed my mind about this year is what I want to do for a future career. For the longest time, I limited myself to having a future in the sciences. Since sophmore year, I’ve wanted to major in Biology. But after the concert I planned in March, I found myself considering other possible career choices. Business is now something I’d also like to major in, however I’d also like to continue learning about Biology, because I have a sincere interest in the subject. This change has sort of opened my eyes into what I could believe, to the point at which I have almost no idea what I want to be! But I’m glad that I’m looking at all my options now, instead of limiting myself.

This quote is discussing the importance of opinion, and the disadvantage of silencing it. If an opinion is known, it allows those who oppose it to have a stronger agreement for their point of view and more clarity into why they believe what they do. It also allows for false ideas to be replaced by truths, if the opinion is in fact thought to be true. When you silence an opinion, you lose both of these advantages. In the first sentence “mankind would be no more justified in silencing that one person, than he, if he had the power, would be justified in silencing mankind” uses parallelism. He also is creating a persona of an individual who is sympathetic to those who’s opinion is not widely agreed upon, but also is showing the advantages for those who disagree.

Never have allegations been so wrong. since when have politics been messy and decietful? This is an era of truth. My campaign is about speaking the truth, the truth speaking for itself. I have no part in my campaign manager’s partakings, he is just my employee. I am deepy hurt, but also feel very sorry and am here to support him through whatever emotional help he needs. I hope only the best happens to him and that he eventually can live with the truth of his life

This peice is not simply addressing the importance in life, but also a way to go about it that may change our perception of it. He discusses how often times we trick ourselves with “shams” and dig our holes deeper and deeper with things that aren’t even true. He says that the importance of being true, and having teh ability to recognize what is true and important with help us live happier and more “fairy tale” like lives because we will know the truth and reality of our lives and be able to accept it. He discusses how we believe we know everything, and yet those who “know” the least - like children - are more realistic and true to themselves and therefore live better and happier lives.

Teh beginning shows that he’s kind of trying to start a new phase of life. He assumes that the area in the woods is more like “real life” while the area outside is less “living”. He uses repitition with “simplicity, simplicity, simplicity”. He also paints the persona of an individual who is really is just interestsed in what he is saying, but also that he just wants to make sure the info gets out.

In both articles, the authors discuss how what the future holds in terms of the advancement of technology. Kurtzweil and McKibben are very different in their explanation of the future. For Kurtzweil, the explanation focuses on how the future is going to be progressing and an exponential growth. He also focuses on the Singularity which the idea/concept that in the future, the advancement of technology will be so great and rapid that “human existence will be irreversibly changed”. his peice is intresting because it presents a view of the future we generally don’t think about or hear.

I think that McKibben’s essay was really interesting. It was clearly persuasive, but I felt that what the author was trying to explaing to me was easy to understand. I felt like he was

In the synthetic essay it’s really important to try and make the evidence you present fit well together. Although you are given several sources, you don’t need to use information from all of them. Evidence should only be used if it fits the thesis of your papaer and supports your argument. The Synthetic essay is asking us to use our writing skills to prove that we can write “anything” despite the subject matter. It proves that as long as we have information needed, we have the ability to decide what is needed and create a great a put-together paper.

i think that technology and science have really been a great asset tp modern civilzation. We are now able to live longer lives thanks to breakthroughs and scientific discoveries and technology makes life more convineint. only few decades ago the idea of laptops, computers and the internet were unfathomable, but now they are just a few of the things many of us have grown up using and utilizing for education.

I don’t believe the scientific method is the best way to look at the world. I feel that it’s the most accurate way to go about and experiement, but i don’t think it can be applied to real life and our emotions. I mean, can you think about going into a relationship and hypothesizing on how long your relationship will last? there are some things in life that need to be lived and not calculated, and feel that for things, technology and science need to be left out.

though technology and science should be left out of some areas of our lives, there are places where I feel they can be more implimented in my life. I really wish that I could have a more technologically advanced music player (ipod) and I do wish I had a more gas efficient car. i don’t really wish to change my “relationship” withe technology, but I hope that over time it grows and maintains progress. In the science perspective, I wish I could get a better understanding of my health and the things I need to focus on now to maintain I have a long life. I think that the world would be better if it were more scientific in some ways, but not in others. I feel like it can help make the lives around the world much better, but too much could also be bad. Science gives us an understanding of teh world, and I feel like too much may make us thing we control it. For example, it may tell us that a certain area of the world would be a great place for farming, but an entire town of people live there. Who’s to say that if times get desperate that the town wouldn’t be uprooted for the financial gain? there are some things that we shouldn’t know and although science is very important, some aspects I’d hope would be a mystery.

and blog a rhetorical analysis. Use metaphor, metonymy, synecdoche, irony, and syntax to comment on Woolfe’s strategies, purposes, and style.

The intial ideas on what the author is trying to say about a moth is that he thinks daytime moths really have no purpose. he says “[they are] neither gay like butterflies, nor sombre like their own species”. What this says is that he feels they are out of place and can’t really evoke anything for humans. In his opinion, butterflies make people happy, while moths are make people feel sad or gloomy. By being in this in between of happiness and sadness, the moths evoke no emotion that’s really expected except that they are pitiful. I believe that the purpose of this is to show that he feels the moth doesn’t have a purpose, but I feel that what this does for the over all piece is show his change of thought from when he sees the moth, till it’s death. In the beginning he does pity it, and does not think it really needs nor deserves the time of day. But by the end, he wants to help it, and reach out to save it’s life. He begins to understand that it’s just trying to live life to the fullest.

The author also uses metonymy as well. One example, in the beginning says “the plough was already scoring the field” reffering to the farmer who opperated the field, as well as the machine. The Author is also very active in his choice of words decribing the movemeng of the moth. He’s not moving from side to side, he’s “dancing and zig–zagging to show us the true nature of life” and describes how the moth can “move with the greatest circumspection and dignity”. This choice of words and his substituition of people as an object give great focus to the moth. By not saying teh farmer, the only living thing in this piece is the moth. our focus is on the moth, an it’s life not the farmer and his/her ploughing. Same with the animated word choice. The author is trying to illustrate that this moth is lively, and therefore needs very “active” words to do so.

The Irony of this piece is that the Moth, dies because of how badly he wants to live. He tries so hard to move and stay active, buthe actually exhausts himself leading to probably and earlier death if he had been less active. I feel that the main purpose of this is, and the piece, is to really illustrate how fragile life is. one minute you can be happy and carefree and soon, things can change. I feel that the irony of this piece is what makes it really important and profound. When I read it, I felt as though the writer was trying to teach me a life lesson about life. Although the moth dies, he died doing something, not because he just sat at a window sill. He died because he tried to live, which is the nature of life.

In Haslett’s “The Pleasure of Hating”, there are many rhetorical devices used. Haslett main point of his essay is to try and paint a spider as a creature that is helpless and vulnerable. However, he also brings out he’s attitude that he’s way of thinking is superior to those around him. The writing tries to prove that although other individuals are petty in their ways (reffereing to their killing of spiders), he is not. Haslet tries to prove that he’s fair and merciful to the spiders, not because he likes them, but because it’s a stupid act.
One of the things that Haslet does to try and put himself above others is talk about what he wants to do, but doesn’t because he knows better. For example he says “A child, a woman, a clown, or a moralist a century ago, would have crushed the little reptile to death-my philosophy has got beyond that — I bear the creature no ill-will, but still I hate the very sight of it.” When he says this, he makes a direct reference to the woman, child, clown and moralist, saying that he knows much better than they ever would. However the statement also makes an insult, because although we may expect a child to not know right from wrong, we wouldn’t expect a woman clown or moralist to be. By saying what he says, he’s directly implying that he’s better than the others. He’s also saying that unlike the others who have the urge to kill the spider, and do so, he keeps self control and resists temptation to actually kill the spider because he knows it’s not right.