Atwood Outline

Methods of totalitarian thought control will be the question that will guide me through my paper.  I want to research more on the Nazi mind control that they used.  See if there is a similarity to the book and the Nazi time brainwashing.  I chose this topic partly due to the book spending so much time about the brainwashing.  I think that understanding the brainwash will allow me to understand more of how these woman surrenderer  into the brainwash and into their fate. 

*http://www.biblio.com/margaret-atwood~98565~author

*http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Margaret_Atwood

The link that I added is great information on Margaret Atwood.  Its more about where she is from and how her life came about.  

Mid-Session Blog

Dear Mrs. Cline:

           

This semester has had many challenges for and many of them have to do with the essays.  I am not completely comfortable with writing about things that aren’t particularly in my comfort zone.  Poetry and war are things that don’t catch my attention like other things in my life.  I enjoy read about love stories I must say “The Things They Carried” had a great love scene and that’s why I wrote about it more frequently.  It grabbed my attention and I felt like I could read it over and over again.  Becoming more comfortable and broadening my horizons with poetry is my biggest success so far in this class.  I have learned that not all poetry is confusing and boring.  It can be emotional and uplifting. 

The readings so far have been very educational and interesting.  I have learned more about the war from reading Tim O’Brien’s “The Things They Carried” and Sean Huze’s The Sand Storm” than I have from any movie or class I have ever seen/heard.  These readings have made me feel emotion that I haven’t been able to relate to before.  We all hear of soldiers dying but who really understand the emotion that the soldiers go through.  I do hope that the readings to come will be as emotional and educational as the firsts. 

            Literary analysis is very difficult for me.  It’s taking the whole piece and breaking it down to something smaller than writing three pages about it.  The length is the hardest task for me to complete.  I do hope that with feedback and practice I will get closer to being better. 

            For the second half of the semester I do hope to spend more time on my papers.  I have been dealing with a full schedule and two kids and it has made it difficult to put time into my papers.  I have dropped a class and I am hoping that will free up more time. 

Sincerely

Karie Lake 

Sean Huze

Sean Huze

         Sean Huze is the author of the play "The Sandstorm."  It was a well written play with so much emotion.  When I first read the play I was very over whelmed with all the action and graphics.  To read that a soldier killed a child is sad.  If it were me and I has deployed to war, then forced to kill everything and everyone I would be scared for life.  These soldiers and people with lives and children just like more of the U.S. is filled with.  When they are deployed they have to do things that they aren't comfortable doing just to keep us safe.  Is it even worth going to war and fighting?  These soldiers are doing anything that they are told when they themselves don't even believe in what they are doing.  

     There is this one scene that I can't seem to shake.  Soldiers were told to go collect the mail trucks.   On the way  they were ambushed having numerous truck blown up.  One soldier was forced to make a decision and he did.  He called in the order to have mortors sent in to help and that ment to have hundreds of innocent victims murdered.  I do agree fully with his decision.  I don't feel as if he had any other choice.  It was either him or his team or everyone else.  

       After the mortors hit and all the fighting had stopped one soldier went to look for survivors.  While looking for survivors he picked up a foot and couldn't stop wondering until he found the body it belonged to.  While a soldier was trying to get his attention he showed him the shoe and continued searching for the "Log" it belonged to.  After being slapped out it he realized that there was no way for him to find the "Log" the foot belonged to.  These are just some of the things that our armed forced face everytime there is a war.  

http://jonathanrick.com/tag/iraq-war/

http://www.lacitycollege.edu/public/news/huze.htm

Here a power point to overview Tim O'Brien's "The Things They Carried":

Tim O’Brien

The Things They Carried

Soldiers who fight together become close in many ways.

Lieutenant Jimmy Cross was the leader of the pack.  He was so distracted by the love of his life, Martha.  The problem…he hasn’t told her that he loves her and she hasn’t told him that she loves him.  He is in the middle of a war with thoughts of her and not knowing if he’ll ever be able to tell her.  He keeps her letters neatly folded in his pocket so he can reread them anytime.  She sends him a pebble that he keeps in his mouth.  His love for her is deep and serial. 

Their journeys together are tireless

Walking aimlessly for miles with the weight of all their gear can weigh a person down.  They walk because it’s an order.  Up and down and then again up and down. 

 

Ted Lavender was shot in the head and died instantly.  He was a friend of Jimmy Cross.  He Cried which to the other men thought he was faking.  The lose of Ted Lavender hit Jimmy Cross so hard because he blamed himself.  He was thinking about Martha and that’s why he wasn’t on his game.  In reality there was nothing that Jimmy could have done to help Ted.  Ted was shot in the head from over ten feet away. 

 

The men would wrap Ted’s body in his poncho and wait for the next resupply helicopter to come.  The resupply helicopter came by every two weeks.  They carried various supplies for the soldiers.  Tobacco, hot chow, grenades and gun supplies.

The Pictures were taken from the Following sites:

*http://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://www.army-technology.com/projects/uh_1y/images/UH-1Yhuey_10.jpg&imgrefurl=http://www.army-technology.com/projects/uh_1y/uh_1y10.html&usg=__WpIelaUgu7SOn23n6iRMRpQcmTQ=&h=379&w=580&sz=45&hl=en&start=76&zoom=1&tbnid=AmMfKG6RfYEPWM:&tbnh=125&tbnw=192&ei=lNthTYzWJoqCsQOz_azDCA&prev=/images%3Fq%3Dwar%2Bhelicopter%26hl%3Den%26biw%3D1199%26bih%3D639%26gbv%3D2%26tbs%3Disch:10,2399&itbs=1&iact=hc&vpx=885&vpy=264&dur=2415&hovh=181&hovw=278&tx=118&ty=119&oei=jdthTdeuK4--sAOC58TECA&page=6&ndsp=15&ved=1t:429,r:4,s:76&biw=1199&bih=639

*http://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://messengerandadvocate.files.wordpress.com/2007/03/iraq-war.jpg&imgrefurl=http://messengerandadvocate.wordpress.com/2007/03/&usg=__ARJTx0UNR1tusBcXwoZGkTKjHJo=&h=400&w=321&sz=23&hl=en&start=0&zoom=1&tbnid=0iWC_A68djopXM:&tbnh=154&tbnw=124&ei=rdthTczAFor6sAOu2a3UCA&prev=/images%3Fq%3Dwar%26hl%3Den%26biw%3D1199%26bih%3D639%26gbv%3D2%26tbs%3Disch:1&itbs=1&iact=rc&dur=283&oei=rdthTczAFor6sAOu2a3UCA&page=1&ndsp=17&ved=1t:429,r:3,s:0&tx=82&ty=119

*http://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://www.defenselink.mil/dodcmsshare/photoessay/2009-11/hires_110917-N-5145S-002a.jpg&imgrefurl=http://www.defenselink.mil/PhotoEssays/PhotoEssaySS.aspx%3FID%3D1494&usg=__skuKWdETuMRZBJBChSK-rLoN2tk=&h=2761&w=4142&sz=8686&hl=en&start=989&zoom=1&tbnid=peokaTmq7u9XxM:&tbnh=157&tbnw=209&ei=PdxhTdz5DoissAOyoYDVCA&prev=/images%3Fq%3Dwar%26start%3D247%26hl%3Den%26biw%3D1199%26bih%3D639%26gbv%3D2%26output%3Dimages_json%26tbs%3Disch:11,29847&chk=sbg&itbs=1&iact=rc&dur=727&oei=9dthTfGgKo_6swPPgrS6CA&page=60&ndsp=12&ved=1t:429,r:11,s:989&tx=152&ty=102&biw=1199&bih=639
LINK:http://www.illyria.com/tobsites.html

Responding to a Poem

Karie Lake

11 Feb 2011

Laura Cline

Eng 102

Responding to a Poem

There are two poems that intrigued me.  In Joy Harjo’s “The Woman Hanging from the Thirteenth Floor Window.”I think from just the title that she is going to be talking about a woman hanging from a window.  The poem starts off with a woman hanging from the thirteenth window and it’s not until the end of the poem that I realized she wasn’t just talking about a woman hanging from a window.  The poem has much more meaning than just a woman hanging from a window.  “She thinks she will be set free”(Harjo line 7) is where is starting to think more about the woman’s feelings and less about a woman hanging from a window on the thirteenth floor.  To me Harjo was talking about this woman’s feelings.  “She thinks she remembers listening to her own life break loose, as she falls from the 13th floor window on the east side of Chicago, or as she climbs back up to claim herself again”(Harjo lines 64-66).  This is the last sentence in the poem and it moved me that the whole poem is about a woman that has lost someone and is having a hard time dealing with it.  I think that the person she lost was her husband.  It’s very and moving.  This was a great poem. 

“Letter Composed During a Lull in the fighting” by Kevin Powers was also a very moving a well written piece.  “I tell her I love her like not killing”(Powers line 1) is the first line and in that line he has said more than I think I was expecting.  Going through the poem there are many analogies of love and war.  I was moved by this poem, he was writing to the love of his while deployed for war.  The last line said more about war than I think a lot of us could put into logical words.  “I tell her how Pvt. Bartle says, offhand, that war is just us making little pieces of metal pass through each other”(Powers lines 9-12).  This is a poem gives the reader both a feel of war and love and to me it was a great way for Powers to tell his love to his significant other. 

Work Cited

Harjo, Joy. “The Woman Hanging From the Thirteenth Floor Window.” Poetry      Foundation.2006.11 Feb.2011.Web.

Powers, Kevin C. “Letter Composed During a Lull in the Fighting.” Poetry Foundation.11 Feb.               2011. Web.           

http://www.google.com/imgres?

imgurl=http://www.louderbacks.com/home/images/POETRY.jpg&imgrefurl=http://www.louderbacks.com/&usg=__T-PdU1qgSB3jdKAO2ZLoSNiwSck=&h=558&w=534&sz=65&hl=en&start=4&zoom=1&tbnid=ATqbG8HZAXRbjM:&tbnh=133&tbnw=127&ei=qhZYTf3xHonmsQOVgrWxBQ&prev=/images%3Fq%3Dpoetry%26hl%3Den%26biw%3D1199%26bih%3D675%26gbv%3D2%26tbs%3Disch:1&itbs=1

 To find more poetry please check out the following:

http://www.poetryfoundation.org/

Sam Hamill "The Necessity to Speak"

Karie Lake

Mrs. Cline

Eng 102

6 February 2011

Sam Hamill

            The poem “The Necessity to Speak” was an eye opening poem.  It was full of information that I had never heard of before or even given that much thought to.  Occasionally when watching the news it is brought to our attention that woman and children are battered.  Nothing can prepare us for what really goes on; Sam gives us a look into that life and what can happen.  The poem was so full of information it seemed to jump around a lot.  It was very education for me while reading that it didn’t bother me that it seemed to jump around. 

            Sam expresses his own life experience while he was in prison and it just makes me sick that people actually could gang rape and beat a fourteen year old little boy.  Just think about when you were a fourteen your old and you thought you knew everything.  You did anything to fit and it seems like Sam did things to fit but they were not good choices.  He was a little boy who was battered by his parents.  To be thrown in Prison doesn’t seem like the right thing, I don’t know what he did to get into prison.  Sam later goes into talking about the woman that came to the creative writing class and it moved me.  It was amazing how many lives were touched.  It’s truly amazing the live that was changed by attending the class.  This woman that managed to take what Sam tout her and get out of a battered situation should be news headlines. 

            The time of the poem that was spent talking about the war and innocents that sign up to fight our battles was an eye opener.  We hear about the war and soldiers that die fighting but the details of how the sign up and they are so innocent is just disgusting.  How at the age of eighteen is younger is a man or woman capable of knowing what they are getting themselves into by signing up for that armed forces.  These men and woman are promised the world and most give their lives to something that we can’t understand.  Do they even understand what and why they are fighting? 

            Overall this poem is another example why I have changed my outlook on poetry.  Poetry can be so complicated and confusing.  It makes it boring; I tend to shut down with that kind of poetry.  Sam moved me and opened my eyes to the realness of poetry.  It doesn’t have to rhyme or use fancy big words.  The poetry that she wrote was simple and gave great knowledge for those who are blind to the world.  The poetry that she wrote was simple and gave great knowledge for those who are blind to the world. 

The link below is a great place to go to learn more about Sam Hamill: 

http://www.poets.org/poet.php/prmPID/733
The link for the Picture:
http://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://www.enduringamerica.com/storage/blog-post-images/IRAN%2520PRISON.jpg%3F__SQUARESPACE_CACHEVERSION%3D1293012367983&imgrefurl=http://www.enduringamerica.com/home/tag/sakineh-mohammadi-ashtiani&usg=__yEc0lAm1rFeG4b1Lo6INWZ5Sv4k=&h=361&w=519&sz=52&hl=en&start=0&zoom=1&tbnid=tKxp47kwsw3WcM:&tbnh=168&tbnw=232&ei=M-5OTd2QG4zCsAOE3_mWCg&prev=/images%3Fq%3Dprison%2Bbars%26um%3D1%26hl%3Den%26sa%3DN%26biw%3D1199%26bih%3D675%26tbs%3Disch:1&um=1&itbs=1&iact=hc&vpx=536&vpy=399&dur=1119&hovh=187&hovw=269&tx=174&ty=155&oei=M-5OTd2QG4zCsAOE3_mWCg&esq=1&page=1&ndsp=15&ved=1t:429,r:12,s:0

Good Readers and Good Writers

Karie Lake
1/25/2011
Good Readers and Good Writers
There were many elements that Nabokov expressed in the article. Imagination, some artistic sense, a dictionary and memory were the key points in what makes a good reader. I think for that memory is the most important. I sometimes find myself forgetting what happened earlier in the book especially if it’s a book that I have to read for a class. Books that I don’t get a choice in choosing tend to bore me before I even open it for the simple fact that I didn’t get to pick it out. I think a good readers needs to be able to read the book all the while watching the book play out in their mind like a movie. I don’t believe that a good reader has to have dictionary. When reading a book sometimes you come along a word that you don’t know but can easily figure out by reading the sentence as a whole. I consider myself a good reader if the book keeps my attention. If it is something that is interesting, if it is something that puts me to sleep I tend to be a bad reader. I don’t always use the tools that he mentioned to keep me into the book.


Here is a link so you may look back at the reading as a whole.
https://lbblackboard.yc.edu/webapps/portal/frameset.jsp?tab_tab_group_id=_2_1&url=/webapps/blackboard/execute/launcher%3Ftype%3DCourse%26id%3D_14907_1%26url%3D

The picture was taken from the following web site:
http://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://library.wustl.edu/units/westcampus/images/books.jpg&imgrefurl=http://library.wustl.edu/units/westcampus/booksale.html&usg=___j2TVMGnHNiESl118MPSACafJg8=&h=354&w=336&sz=28&hl=en&start=0&zoom=1&tbnid=SkYi-ZlRe_2LEM:&tbnh=166&tbnw=145&ei=ImJATa2dPI6usAOXpo2wCA&prev=/images%3Fq%3Dpictures%2Bof%2Bbooks%26um%3D1%26hl%3Den%26sa%3DX%26rlz%3D1C1CHNV_enUS397US397%26biw%3D1199%26bih%3D675%26tbs%3Disch:1&um=1&itbs=1&iact=hc&vpx=425&vpy=283&dur=2&hovh=230&hovw=219&tx=109&ty=65&oei=ImJATa2dPI6usAOXpo2wCA&esq=1&page=1&ndsp=16&ved=1t:429,r:7,s:0