Nick

    In On the Roller Coaster of Life, the most powerful symbols were the eggs and the rabbit which she had to smuggle under her clothes in order to get it home. They both represent the difficult situation that the narrator has been placed in. They both serve as visible representations of the uncomfortable conditions, and the problems with which she is being forced to deal with.
    In Still Waters, the girl's trunk is the most apparent symbol presented in the story. She describes it as being very heavy, mirroring the experiences she has been forced to go through. She also paints a very powerful image of her Grandfather being unable to lift the trunk, as if she is the only one who is able to deal with what she has been through, that it would be too much for even her kind and wise grandfather. Furthermore, in it is held all of her belongings, as if a sort of physical version of her own memories.

    The Writing the Memoir article covered many of the basics in both writing and understanding the background of a memoir. It covered the differences between an autobiography and a memoir, with a bit of history on the subject. It stated that the major distinction between the two was a matter of tone and context. An autobiography is typically written with the feel more akin to that of an essay rather than a fictional or entertainment piece, while a memoir is written to allow the audience to understand an author's interactions with a much more specific occurrence or setting.
    While the autobiography aims at helping to describe every part of the author's life, analyzing not only what has happened, but the emotions involved. A memoir, on the other hand, selects a specific amount of themes with which the piece of writing is guided, and makes every attempt to keep the stories told during the memoir to these specific themes, reflecting on each one separately, while keeping one overall idea, with which the reader can relate to, and thus understand with at least some minimal amount of personal experience.

    In regards to the latest Comp I project in which we must write a literary analysis concerning the topic of dystopian literature, we must brainstorm potential thesis statements for the essay. I specifically am doing the project on "Those Who Walk Away frrom Omelas" and "The Lottery."

    The main themes I wish to cover in my paper are the problems of indoctrination to causing others pain and discomfort at a very young age, and those who oppose the idea and the various reasons for which they do so.

    The first rough thesis statement I came up with was: "A mob mentality can lead people to participate in acts normally assumed to be 'evil,' especially if convinced it is done in order to attain happiness." This statement effectively encompasses the reasons for which the people depicted in the stoiries and the reasons for which people can justify their actions after doing them. Unfortunately this does not encompass all of the ideas which I hope to cover in the essay, as the following thesis succeeds in doing.

    The thesis I have chosen (thus far) to use in my paper is: "Those who blindly follow an ideal can be led to commit great acts of evil in the pursuit of their own falsified version of happiness, especially when the ideal has been introduced at a particularly young age. It is necessary to continually evaluate our environment as we develop in order to avoid being trapped by our own indoctrinated principles and ethics."  This effectively encompasses many, if not all, of the ideas I wish to express in my paper. I will be able to use evidence from World War II and the Holocaust to support my ideas, along with analyses provided from others on the subject and/or literature involved.

    The three Literary Elements I found to be most important and prevalent in "Those Who Walked Away from Omelas" and "The Lottery" were the conflict, the symbolism, and the main themes.


    The conflict of both stories were the ways in which the people of the towns were trying to cope with unhappiness. They both believed that by regularly causing one person pain, it would then allow them to be happy. This makes the conflict both one of Man vs. Man, and Man vs. Himself. It is a very obvious forced disagreement between the people of the towns and the one who was chosen to take all of their pain, pitting them against each other, resulting in the eventual realization of futility with regards to the one person's escape from their horrible fate.

There was also a large amount of symbolism found in these stories. The oppressed people in each respective story was a symbol of twisted hope for the rest of the people, who in turn represented the evil that passively resides in every human being.

Finally, the main themes of the stories lied in the way in which the author caused a string of emotions to be felt by the reader of the stories. Both begin depicted a relatively peaceful environment, slowly deteriorating our feelings about the towns into eventual horror. The societies are depicted as being either happy, or at least content to be living in the place they are in, despite the pain they are regularly causing their fellow townsfolk or even friends.

Once upon a time in middle school I had a teacher that could wake the dead with the cold stare of his fear-inducing visage. He had the power to keep us quiet enough to hear a pin drop during class just with his presence, pure and simple. Should anyone make the horrendous mistake of talking, he would let loose the dogs of war faster than two shakes of a lamb's tail. We would all keep our nose to the grindstone as he preached about Geography, taking notes before he had the chance to make any heads roll. Sooner or later, due to the subtle humor he had in his lectures, we saw a moment of truth in realizing he wasn't such a terrible teacher in the grand scheme of things. By the end of the year, we had buried the hatchet between student and teacher, finally learning not to judge a book by the cover.

PS - In one fell swoop, I've written quite possibly the worst thing in the history of the world, so I should probably quit while I'm ahead. And the clichés just won't stop....

    For the Comp I project we are required to do on dystopian societies, I have chosen to read "Those Who Walk Away from Omelas" by Ursula Le Guin and "The Lottery" by Shirley Jackson. Both of these short stories present a scenario describing two societies that have both convinced themselves that certain atrocities must be carried out in order to retain the sense of "happiness" that they possess, and if these acts are stopped, their societies will immediately fall into ruin.

    I chose these two stories because they both follow the same general motifs and ideas behind a failed society, which is a mixture between superstition and misinformation. They are also creating an extremely visible and open scapegoat with which to focus all of their insecurities and misunderstandings upon. I believe that this (to a lesser extent) is also prevalent in our own society, with the masses finding groups of people with which to focus all of their troubles. It is with this mindset that such problems as prejudice are bred in ignorance.

I was reminded of this little bit of my past by several friends who have been dealing with rather tough times, mentioning both depression and suicide. All I have to say as a prelude is that nothing is worth giving everything up for. Time never stands still, whether you notice it or not, and will bring on new hardships, bad memories, and, if you look for it, more joy and happiness than you can possibly imagine. The simple act of living each day is usually enough to see the beauty that exists within this world, and within other people.

The following is a piece I wrote a year or so ago, the second I've written on this topic.

Second Closure
Another normal day.
Not much to say,
Until I get a call from my mom.
Joe has just died,
The verdict: Suicide.
And all my thoughts just go numb.

This cannot be true.
What would cause him to do
Something so horribly violent?
I try to imagine
Your death hasn't happened,
But I can hear the all-too-late siren.

Together we shared laughs
As crossed 'came our paths,
But it seems that was doomed to end.
You took hold of the handle;
Lead burned like a candle,
And depression took away my friend.

You can't take back that decision,
Your unspoken mission
To make everyone who loves you cry.
What was your problem?
Why didn't you solve it?
Why did you have to die?

You broke all our hearts,
Ripped them apart,
Shattered them all without caring.
You're in a better world,
Your pain's been unfurled.
But the scars on my soul aren't repairing.

Your pain wasn't erased
It has just been displaced
And it now resides inside us.
People willing to help -
You weren't by yourself,
You had a thousand people to trust.

What of our feelings?
These deep wounds need healing,
But there's no doctor for that around...
As I stand on my feet
I drop to my knees
As my tears slowly fall to the ground...

This has been dedicated to Joseph, a friend, who killed himself on August 8, 2004 at the all-too-young age of 21. My deepest condolences go out to anyone who has ever had to face anything like this.

Computer science was definitely not a childhood dream of mine. I can easily remember the days when I had absolutely no idea how to use a computer, let alone use one well. I'm sure there are very few people that kept the same career in mind for their entire life. I began to really think about programming as a career when I started seriously delving into it during my sophomore year in high school. I've always had a love for computers, even when I knew next to nothing about them. Looking back, I suppose I always was a rather methodical and mathematical person, and programming directly appealed to this side of me.

I would love to be able to go into a software designing career, and since it's such a large field covering anything from video games to medical software to operating systems like Windows, there are a myriad of things I can do with it. Even if software doesn't quite work out for me, I've been toying with the idea of designing security systems/software. Either way, I'm pretty much 100% sure I will stick with this particular major throughout my college career and beyond.

Article - Link

    This article describes both sides of the debate between teaching intelligent design and evolution in school. The main point of the debate is whether or not both ideas should be taught in public school science classes, or if the current system should be maintained. Arguments for teaching intelligent design say to simply allow the students the choice to either decide which idea they associate most with, or at least realize that there is more than just one idea on the matter of the beginning of life.

    Ignoring my own opinions on intelligent design/creationism and evolution, I believe that the current system should be retained. To introduce both ideas could create very strained relationships involving potential religious views that are even worse that what exists now. Also, I find it rather interesting that earlier in the last century, the same debate was going on, with the exact opposite views. The common belief was that only creationism should be taught, and the new Darwin theory should be left out of the curriculum.

I'm sure everyone, at least once in their life, has experienced the surge of adrenaline felt when they turn over in their nice, comfy bed, look at the alarm clock, and take the time to rattle off several choice expletives while the blood drains from their face. You just woke up late.

While most of you have woken up, say, 10 minutes before class starts, I was not so lucky. Realizing that class has already been in session for 10 minutes while you're still dreaming about a land created entirely out of Jelly Beans is quite a different experience. While this usually just sucks, the fact that in this class I had a major paper due, and not being there in class would result in an immediate loss of *two* full letter grades, the suck factor was taken to proportions only seen by the world's most obese man, and I may have even succeeded in humbling him. Suckiness is not a force to be reckoned with.

I popped out of bed, having exactly two goals in mind, no more, no less:
1) Make sure you have the paper.
2) Don't be naked.

I accomplished these goals fast enough to warrant smoke trails under my feet, and ran out the door, shortly after realizing that, although I was in a hurry, I was still obligated to OPEN doors prior to goiing through them.

I then thanked my cross country training as I sprinted across the hot campus with a backpack and enough crap in my pockets to make it appear that a small furry mammal was attempting to escape from my shorts each time I took a step. Crazy squirrels.

I ran up the stairs, and calmly walked through the classroom doors with hair that may very well have rivaled Conan O'Brien's, and attempted to greet everyone with a warm "Hello." I succeeded in wheezing slightly.

Luckily, the TA was willing to take pity on my still-panting soul, and allowed me the courtesy of not failing the paper. Which is probably a good thing, because I may very well have feebly slapped him with my essay that was printed in pink. Yes, my essay that I had slaved over came out in the most disgusting color possible. It has left me reason to believe that my printer is the first known homosexual device ever created.

And that is my story. An epic battle between sleep, class, and a lack of color-coordination. I barely survived.

I felt as though both of these articles were rather useful for those new to the blogging experience. The first article gave a very in-depth rundown of how blogging works, and how to go about getting started on your own. It also provided a healthy amount of advice for those that already own and maintain a blog, as well, including a bit of general information on what the second article covered about people getting in trouble, specifically in the workplace, due to information they had innocently placed on their public blog that was discovered by their employers. Both articles also stressed that while blogs can be an excellent source of information, for both professionals in a particular field and for the common person writing about their daily life, one must be very careful about what they go about placing in the blog, including personal information that may attract stalkers, and information that may be defamatory to people that know them.

The two articles referred to in this entry can be found here:
1) Guide to the Blogosphere

2) From blog to out of job can be a posting away

    My name is Nick Clark, and I'm currently enrolled as a freshman at the University of South Florida as a Computer Science major. I was born and raised in Florida, and despite what you may think, I am not used to, and never will get used to the horrendous heat and humidity that plagues the state every summer.
    I'm deeply interested in philosophy, and honestly any form of intellectual discussion on quite nearly any topic. I like to think of myself as a rather open-minded person, and love talking to new types of people with different ideas about things I might not have ever thought about before. I also love computers and programming, hence my major. I became interested in this after I started toying around with programming on my own, and I loved being able to create things from scratch that can serve any range of purposes from the entertaining to the practical. I also truly enjoy writing, mostly of the creative sort, including poetry in which I often write about some of the multitude of ideas floating around in my head. Finally, I love to travel, even though I've had few chances to do so in my life, and plan on participating in the study abroad program and going to Japan during my Junior or Senior year at USF.

Hello world.