Whale Rider

The movie “Whale Rider” to me is both sad and happy. It is sad because we see throughout the movie how Paikea is being treated by her grandfather Paka. I think that Koro was trying to keep his old traditions but he did it strictly. Koro did not permit Paikea to train to become a whale rider. At the same time the story is happy because we see how there is change. For instance, at the end of the story we see how Paikea proves to her grandfather that she is the whale rider and that she was willing to take her tribe from darkness to light. Also, another good change that we see in the movie is that Rawiri, Paikea’s uncle changes his lifestyle. At the beginning we see how he didn’t really have a purpose in life, but after he teacher Paikea to use the taiahia, the stick, he changes dramatically. In contrast with the essay “Territorial Behavior” there are many things that we see the movie relates to. The essay talks about three forms of territory, tribe, family and personal. Both throughout the essay and the movie we see that the tribe territory is distinguished by its flags, banners, chants and dances. The family territory is differentiated by artwork, gardens or the breeding grounds. Finally, the personal territory is notable by how any one person handles their space.

Sex, Drugs, Disasters and the Extinction of Dinosaurs

This essay on “Sex, Drugs, Disasters, and the Extinction of Dinosaurs” written by Stephen Jay Gould is very peculiar. This author was trying to bring together three different factors that are very important in the world we live in today. Sex, Drugs and Disasters are all things that we face in our everyday routine as we live our lives. Jay was trying to attach the extinction of Dinosaurs to notions that are evident in our culture. To begin with “Sex” could have not been the reason as to why there was an extinction of Dinosaurs, nor could it have been “Drugs”. The only theory that can be proved as to how Dinosaurs were extinct is “Disasters.” The fact that there is no evident proof that demonstrated that sex and drugs could have been the reasons as to why Dinosaurs were extinct is proof that scientists base their ideas on things that can be proved. Though I don’t believe that the reason Dinosaurs were extinct was due to a meteor I do feel confident that scientists base all their thoughts on proof and only proof.

Cultural Baggage

“The race of none.” This is what Barbara’s essay “Cultural Baggage” relies on. The essay basically explains how she began to notice that she had no real values and traditions from her ancestors. We notice that the author believes that just because something was done in the past it doesn’t mean it should be carried on; instead new generations bring new things. Personally, I don’t agree with Barbara because I think that it is important for everyone to know where they came from, their roots. It is true that as time passes and new generation rise old traditions are forgotten. We shouldn’t forget what our previous generation has taught us; instead we can change it slightly so that it fits to our lifestyle today. Our values and our customs come from what we have learned from our ancestors, we should keep them close to our heart so that we never forget where we came from.

A Fable for Tomorrow

“A Fable for Tomorrow”, by Rachel Carson was a story that brought many controversial topics among people. In her essay, Rachel describes a perfect American town that seems to be at peace. In this town everything is in harmony and everything is prosperous. The story mentions that after some time everything changes. An evil spirit had overcome the town and horrible things were happening. Rachel ends her essay by saying that all the catastrophes that she had mentioned had not happened in that city, but that it was a combination of disasters that were occurring in different cities all over the world. This essay can be related to the world we live in today, and how we live in it. We are responsible for awful events that have happened in the world. We are the cause for millions of deaths due to illnesses. Thousand of people die daily due to the fact that they have nothing to eat. In a way we are causing this beautiful and prosperous world we live in to disintegrate. We should all try to keep our world in peace like that perfect town that Rachel Carson describes in her essay.

Sexism In English: A 1990's Update

By far the essay “Sexism in English: A 1990’s Update” by Alleen Pace Nilsen is my favorite essay in the entire book. Reading this essay really opened up my eyes to the English language and society in general. This is because I can not believe that even today in the 21’st century there are people that believe that woman are worth “less” then men. I was aware that in Afghanistan woman are looked at as inferiors, thus there is a proverb that says “If you see an old man sit down and take a lesson; if you see an old woman, throw a stone.” This statement is sexist to all women.

Alleen found three general statements that she concluded show that the English language is sexist. Her first was, “Woman Are Sexy; Men Are Successful.” All through my life I have heard of women being valued by what they look like, instead of by what they bring to the table. Also, I have heard of cases were women get jobs because of what they look like. It is true that woman have acquired sexual connotations rather then acquiring businesslike connotations. For instance, as Alleen mentions a callboy is someone that calls actors up on stage, on the other hand a call girl is another word for a prostitute.

Another point that Alleen found that demonstrates that the English language is sexist is that, “Woman Are Passive, Men Are Active.” I do not agree with this statement because now a days woman can do anything that men can do. Names play an important role in this factor because, for instance, names like Stella and Esther mean “star” while names like Rex mean “king” and Neil means “champion.” This is proof that not only English language degrades women but that also the world and people have a tendency to belittle women.

The third and last point that Nilsen pointed out was that, “Women Are Connected with Negative Connotations; Men with Positive Connotations.” This I would say is one of the strongest points that Alleen pointed out because it is true that men are associated with positive connotations. For example, this is true in the army. Men that go to the army find themselves doing work that they believe woman should do, but to try and pay the men extra, titles of jobs change. For instance, a waitress who’s a man is known as an orderly. A nurse who is a man is known as a medic, and like this there are many names that change to try and make the men feel better.

It is clear that the English language is sexist, but not only is language sexist, rather people are sexist too. English language is the way it is today because no one has done anything to change it, it is true that it is easier to come up with new words rather then changing the old ones, but I believe that we can do anything, and if language hasn’t changed it’ because we haven’t really done anything to change it. Woman shouldn’t let themselves be degraded nor should they feel less then men, we are equal to them and anything that they can accomplish we can get done too.

Why We Crave Horror Movies

Stephen King’s cause and effect essay answers a question that at one point or another of our lives we have pondered about. King mentions a number of reasons as to why people enjoy this type of genre of movies. As Stephen mentions everybody is crazy in someway or another. I agree with this type of reasoning because it is true that people have rhetorical conversations at times, or because at times when no one is looking we make funny faces. The peculiar thing is that as King mentions later on in the essay there is a border in between the type of insanity that gets one taken away to an asylum or the type of insanity that gets one looked at as being weird or funny. King is trying to say that as long as our type of insanity does not hurt anyone then we are left alone to proceed being insane.

Stephen King’s first argument is something that I would say everyone has to agree with. When we go to horror movies we are proving people and ourselves that we can bear the horrific events that we will watch; it is as King says like “riding a roller coaster.” Another reason we go to the movies is to have fun. The movies are a type of entertainment that keeps us away from the outer world. Just with the 2 hours that the movie takes we relax and concentrate on what we are watching rather then problems that we are having in the outer world.

I agree with King’s mentality that we are exercising a muscle when we watch these horror movies. The human being has a set of emotions that we all feel should be exercised. For instance, we all love, we all hate and at times we feel sad. The only emotion that we don’t exercise is the feeling of hurting someone else, because as I stated that crosses the border from sanity to insanity. When we go to the movie theatres and we watch these horror movies, and we watch people being menaced we enjoy it. We enjoy it because our sick fantasies are being realized, and as one of the viewers our instincts are being set free.

Lennon and McCartney’s slogan for, “all we need is love” is one that I am sure everyone agrees with, but as King says “the gators must be fed.”

Neat People vs. Sloppy People

The comparison and contrast essay, “Neat People vs. Sloppy People” written by Suzanne Britt is amusing. Suzanne describes neat people as mean and uncaring human beings; on the other hand according to Suzanne sloppy people are too caring and sentimental. It is obvious that her way of writing was made to amuse readers, to make a comical remark. My understanding of this essay is that Suzanne Britt herself is sloppy, and that is why she resorts to talking well about sloppy people rather than neat people.

Though the purpose of this essay was to entertain readers I do not agree with what she thinks about both classes of people; in my belief it is the other way around. The peculiar thing is that though I do not agree completely, I would have to say that to an extent some of the things that the author says about both forms of people are true. For instance, I myself am a neat person, almost safe to say perfectionist. I find pleasure when everything is organized and put in place. Suzanne makes some comments about neat people that are somewhat true. For example, I agree when she says that neat people like results. Also, just like Suzanne mentions I sometimes find myself dealing with the two unvarying principles: never handle anything more then once, and throw everything away. On the contrary, I don’t believe that neat people are bums and clods at heart. Personally, I grow great sentimental value to the things that surround me. Also, I pay attention to micro and macro details.

Sloppy people on the other hand, according to the author, are great human beings that can’t dare to part with anything because they have grown attached to it. When Suzanne says that sloppy people live in Never-Never land, I agree with her. Sloppy people in my opinion are lazy, but some sloppy people have such a perfect plan designed that they believe can never be reached, thus this give up and don’t try. I do not agree with Suzanne when she mentions that sloppy people give attention to every little detail. I can’t believe that someone who is sloppy can give attention to one thing at a time when their kitchen cabinets, for example, are filled with receipts and mail and a bunch of “junk.”

To conclude with, Suzanne’s Britt essay comparing both sloppy and messy people is an essay that merely entertains the reader. The essay is somewhat reversed in a way, because sloppy people are bums at heart, while neat people are caring and moral. Both forms of customs are completely different but neither is a wrongful way of acting. Nobody can change someone to better suit them. If a person is sloppy they will keep being sloppy forever unless they internally decide they have to change. In the same manner, if a person is neat they will always be neat.

How to Give Orders Like a Man

In my opinion Deborah Tannen outdid herself when she wrote the essay, “How to Give Orders Like a Man.” This particular story brings up a topic that to my understanding is very important. The essay is based upon two forms of speaking to people, the indirect way or the direct way. At the begging we see an executive woman that tells her secretary to run some chores for her in an indirect way, then the story goes on by explaining that the board of trustees tells the executive that she should talk to her secretary in a more direct way, not implying things, but instead barking orders at her. I completely agree with Deborah when she said that men are more direct towards others then woman disregarding backgrounds, customs or ethnics. In my own case I have seen that men do not “sugar coat” things instead they tell you specifically what they want without thinking about the consequences to what is being said.

At first I personally thought that Tannen was heading towards gender issues when she was writing this essay, but as I kept reading on I realized that she was saying that though direct conversation in some cases is bad we need both forms of speaking. For instance, she puts the example of a pilot and a co-pilot on board, and because the co-pilot was not direct, rather he was indirect when speaking to someone with a higher level then him the results were catastrophic because the plane crashed and some people died. In my opinion it is true that elders or someone with more experience then us has earned respect, but that does not mean that we should always talk to them in an indirect way because there are cases when we need to say something to save someone or to stop a terrible event from happening. Also, I do not believe that anyone is higher then I nor anyone else because no one is better then anyone, so in my opinion if someone talks to me directly I will give them the same thing back whether they have more power than me or not.

In my case this topic is quiet controversial because I find myself battling with both forms of communication. I believe just like Tannen that we do need both, indirect and direct communication, because if people would ask for things all the time in an indirect way many would not accomplish the task. People need a little push sometimes to get something done. For example, we cannot expect a boss to be asking us for things in an indirect way all the time because he would just be reminding us about something that we know we have to do but we are too lazy to do it, so for this reason bosses have to talk to some employees in a direct way so that they only have to mention it once and that’s it. To conclude with, I believe that this essay is very interesting for anybody to read whether it be someone with power or a subordinate.

Why Don't We Complain?

The narrative essay written by William F. Buckley Jr, “Why Don’t We Complain?” in my opinion is very realistic to a point. The author begins by setting the reader in a train where it is very hot though the temperature outside is freezing; the author then proceeds to tell us that he notices that everyone else in the train is hot too, but no one has complained. When he finally gets the courage to ask the conductor something he feels as if everyone is looking at him and he does not want to start a commotion. This story can be related to many people with different customs. For instance, in Miami if something is bothering a person the most likely thing that he or she will do is let it be known, whether it be in a sugar coated way or directly. On the contrary, someone with more high class in another part of the world may not complain because they don’t want to be seen as if something is bothering them, they don’t want people to murmur things about them.

The same thing can occur when we are at a restaurant. For example, if you are eating and you’ve asked the waiter for your drink a couple of times and they haven’t brought it the most likely thing to do is to tell the person in a bad way, maybe then they will get what you are asking for. The tricky part to asking someone for something more than once or twice is that the people that surround us at times want to be like the passengers in the train, unheard or unseen, they don’t want to make a spectacle, even when the truth of the matter is that we are in our every right to complain, because if we didn’t our voices wouldn’t be heard.

When the peak of the story arose I began to contemplate on what the author was saying. The truth is that he was stating something that was very true. The author says that because we live in an era where everything gets done for us with a flick of a finger we don’t pay much attention to the things that we are suppose to do, our voices become unheard. Before this age of technology if something was wrong with, for say, the air conditioner we had to do something about it, everyone had to be a little of everything, a plumber an electrician maybe even a mechanic, but because today we have people that specialize in those fields we fall back and we stoop learning, we stop complaining about things. Everyone should let their voices be heard and when something is wrong we should complain because there is going to come a point that we will become unheard of unseen and the things we want will not matter.

The Death of the Moth

The Death of the Moth, in my opinion, is a fine but rare descriptive essay. As I was reading the passage I was contemplating on many of the things the author says. For instance, I have found myself in several occasions pondering on the idea of what life would be like for me if I was not human, if I was an animal or an insect, such as the moth of the story. The idea of imaging oneself being something else rather then what we are is silly.

Like the passage described this moth can be compared to a simple bead of life because it is insignificant, but as the story progresses we realize that though the moth is just a minor insect it too has life, and it wants to live. The moth keeps fluttering from one windowpane to the other because it wants to be free it feels trapped inside, and at the end of the essay we see that it dies because it feels as though it wasted all of its energy and got nowhere. Also, we see that the moth tried to the very last second to stay alive, he struggled to live, but death was stronger then he was.

The Death of the Moth serves as an example to today’s world. It is true that there is a beginning and an ending to life, everyone that lives has to die, but though every human being knows that, they don’t give up in life. As humans we are given the ability to fight for our lives to strive to get what we want, but the clue to that is to never give up, and to always try to the very last moment, to have faith and to believe that we can accomplish anything we desire. As I already stated the moth struggled to live and even when it knew that his time was over it kept fighting for his life, we should do the same.

A Hanging

This narration begins by setting the reader in a jail yard in Burma; the author then describes the cells, and continues by saying that the condemned men pertained to them. Outside of a cell was a Hindu, a man that soldiers were preparing to hang; I was astonished at how the story says that the man acted when the soldiers were handcuffing him, he did not resist, instead he yielded to them. As the story develops we see the insensible feelings of the soldiers towards the poor man that’s going to be hanged; personally I believe that they do it as a routine as something ordinary that has to be done, and the faster they get the job done the better it is.

What I found to be the point of the story, or the peak is that the author notices that the man steps aside as to not step on a puddle, and that’s when he begins to think about the fact that that man was as alive as he was. Truthfully, this narration shows that the human mind can be triggered by anything, and that we can either do something about it or ignore it; in this case the author though feeling bad because he realized that it is an unfair act to cut someone’s like short when its at its tide, he didn't speak up nor do anything, he simply went along with it.

If I was asked to think of a way that this essay influenced me in my life I would say that it shows us something important which is that sometimes though were conscious about things that happen around us we never really show much attention to it, and if we do we don’t take care of it with actions. Also, through the reading I sensed hypocrisy because even though he was aware that it is a cruel act to cut someone’s life short he then proceeded to laugh and make jokes and drink whiskey with the other soldiers as if the event that had just occurred didn’t mean anything to him. The author by not doing anything was just as insensitive as the soldiers that wanted to get the job done quickly so that they could have the rest of the day for themselves.

Borges and I

In my opinion, I found Borges story to be perplexing. When I read it the first time I didn’t grasp the concept that Borges was trying to portray, only after the second time did I notice that Borges was referring to an internal conflict that he finds himself dealing with. Though puzzling, I found the story to be distinctive because the way that Borges conveys his use of words makes it unique from other stories. Also, what makes this story fascinating is that when you think that you finally realize what Borges was trying to express through his reading he closes off the story with a bewildering statement such as, “I do not know which of us has written this page;” phrases like that are found threw the whole story and truthfully they threw me off completely.