The Kite Runner Chapters 8-9

1. What are your thoughts around Amir now? Has he taken steps towards making things with Hassan right? or has he made them worse? Explain.

Amir has taken steps to make his relationship with Hassan worse, his blaming him for his stolen watch and making an ultimatum between the two has just made the situation worse. My thoughts on Amir went from perhaps he can redeem himself, to he does not deserve to have someone like Hassan who cares about him.

2. Obviously Amir is struggling to with his actions. What was the purpose of the scene with the pomegranates? What is Amir searching for from Hassan?
Amir for some reason feels as though when he was not there for Hassan during the encounter with Assef. Amir thinks that the only way to atone for his failure to aid Hassan is to allow Hassan to inflict physical pain on him. But Hassan refuses to throw the pomeranates at him and Amir does not know what to do.

3. Characterization: what do we learn further about Amir, Hassan, and Assef in this section?



Amir cannot handle Hassan getting attention from Baba, which is the most important thing to him, and he becomes jealous and resentful. Hassan is much less bright than he used to be not even showing his face when he did the chores.
Include an image w/explanation that you think embodies these two chapters.

3rd MP reflection & 4th MP preview

1. Theme 6 was actually quite easy for me, because I was able to find something that I was passionate about and just rant about it then, then just refine it to be turned in.
2.The TMD project was a cool project. Though it did require some amount of hard work, overall I found the experience was useful and I was able to put the whole of my thoughts about the book and Che himself, in it.
3. To not do much work, really jut winding down the year and ending with the final.

IR Final Blog Post

 Summary:Kesey appears in court and his lawyers successfully convince the judge to let him post bail. He is still accused of other charges in San Francisco, but the lawyers get him off there, too. Kesey is back on the street after only five days in the criminal justice system. His status of the leader in the LSD world suffers, because people think he has abandoned principles to stay out of jail.
Many of the old Pranksters who drifted away once Babbs took over return to San Francisco to partake in the Graduation. Plans for the Graduation fall apart, but it is held in the Warehouse anyway on Halloween. Kesey expects a power struggle to take place between returning members and himself over who is the leader of the LSD world. Kesey, his family and a Prankster named Ram Rod take the bus to his home town, Springfield, Oregon. The other Pranksters scatter around the country and to Mexico. Kesey gets off easy on a third felony count by pleading no contest to a lesser charge.
Symbols:The court system and the system of leadership in the LSD world, both have similarities in that you are judged by your peers by a certain standard and if they are not met you could very easily lose your place if it holds some form of power.
Events: The graduation, Kesey' trials.
Themes:An alternate reality. The whole book is really in some way a jump between realities for Kesey and the Pranksters. With their experiments with LSD and other hallucinogens, they put themselves in a  euphoric like state a majority of the time and after coming down are forced back into the world which we consider to be the real and have to face the harsh judgment of others.
Connections: I can connect to this through the ideas of alternate realities, I have always thought of the idea of there being some form of different now. There could be many different ways to find it but Kesey and the Pranksters seemed to have found a short cut through LSD.

This is a picture of 9 drawings made through out the time one artist was on LSD. This was done for a government experiment. Its clear to see how the ideas of alternate reality can come up.

IR Blog Post 3 cont.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V5d4wWGK4Ig

This is a video with research on LSD, talking about what it does, and how it affects different human minds

IR Blog Post 3

Some people react very negatively toward Kesey and The Acid Tests. Owsley thinks that Kesey is dangerous and talks as if he is about to cut off the Pranksters' LSD supply. Richard Alpert, a man who had given up his career as an academic psychologist, believes that the actions of Kesey and the Pranksters seriously threaten the movement. Many others in the movement expect the Pranksters to suddenly do something so outrageous that the movement will be killed at any moment. The police watch closely, but because LSD is not yet illegal, they can take no actions against Kesey and crew.
Symbols: Crazy actions by the Pranksters, LSD
Themes: preserving a cause through self sacrifice
Connections: I can see how the Pranksters and Kesey are slowly getting off course and its similar to how many ideals of a group work, once one radical causes an upset an entire movement is finished.

This is a picture of random tabs of LSD, tabs are the way LSD is generally used.

RAFT Peru 3-4-1-2

Role:You
Audience:You
Format:Letter
Topic: T-T T-S T-W

Dear self,

There are a number of things that I could connect this section to. Another text I could connect it to, is The Heights of Machu Picchu by Pablo Neruda. This poem talks about similar themes that Ernesto slowly begins to realize as he travels through South America that the people have to live with the world and each other. A text to self is that I got to go on a much smaller version of this kind of trip but I was not able to gain as much inspiration as Ernesto. A text to world, people have to really get out and travel to really understand what the lower people of the countries go through to survive and that we all have to do our part if we want to help bring about change in the world.

IDR post 2

"Everybody, everybody everywhere, has his own movie going, his own scenario, and everybody is acting his movie out like mad, only most people don’t know that is what they’re trapped by, their little script"

http://celestinechua.com/blog/101-ways-to-live-your-life-to-the-fullest/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Self-worth

The story is continuing in an interesting way as the band goes on with using psychedelic drugs as they play across the country. So far their bus remains the largest symbol in the book, with the drugs playing a role in how the band members slowly have revelations after using LSD and other drugs.

Raft Agentina 6-2-3-5

text-text
text-self
text-world

Well you see, Ernesto's mom, I have a small number of connections with this adventure. I have also had an adventure, that had its share of transportation problems.

In Into the Wild, Chris MaCandless, also went on a journey to find himself, however he ended up dying, which I hope is not the fate of your son.

 Everyone goes on journeys hopefully they really are able to show them all the things that are happening in the area they live in and it helps people decide whether they want to be a part of it.

Raft Intro

Role: You
Audience: Classmates
Format:Poem
Topic: What do you expect to study this marking period

We have to understand a revolution
about the symbol of the revolutionary
to determine how you view this human being
Ernesto, Che, a change choreographed by the suffering of the people
a man, who changed the symbol of evil, to a symbol or freedom, the revolution
a life, that must be seen through the looking glass
deep introspection, of our views of the world
who was the man really?
Was it he he took on the greater evils to help a nation grow
or an inhumane man, judge, jury, executioner
learn about the travels that can change ones mind so much
and a motorcycle, that guides their journey

180 degrees south reflection

"Books are a great start, but there is no substitute for just going there."

1. This quote reflects the film in a important way. It explains that no matter how much you read about the world there is no nothing better than going out and experiencing the wonders of the world.
2. THis quote relates to my life in a very similar way to the film, all through high school we get to see how cool the world looks through all of our books we read. After high school it is many kids first time going pretty far away and its an experience everyone should have.

MP #2 Reflection

Invisible man was a very long and very deep book.  Work ethic was a major problem because of the seemingly insurmountable amount of work we were given. Though understanding the message from the book proved easy for me, actually writing my thoughts down about the book when questioned was more difficult. Nearing the end of the marking period, I realized that I was very tired of Invisible Man, and it began to show with my lack of work.

The first semester was very slow gathering like the going up before being tossed into the restless ocean of Invisible Man many details and ideas.

Have fun but balance it with work and responsibility.

IM Section IV

1. The narrators thoughts of going back to Mary.
It was a major shift in the narrators way of thinking.
2. The narrator and Sybil's interaction.
They're wants from one another.
3. What Sybil and the Narrator want from each other.
To take advantage of each other, because of what they both need.

IR blog post 11 Early ads in battle for the next election

This article talks about how even though the 2012 election is 22 months away, and yet politicians still have ads that are going out.

I find this to be really not needed. With the elections so far off all they are doing is throwing events that matter now at the voters and getting them to be active out of emotion instead of out of logic.

Ir blogpost 10

Strikeforce's brilliant move: Overeem and his belt in heavyweight tour 

Strikeforce is often considered to have the best heavyweight division in mma, however within the last 2 years all of their top contenders have been absent from the octagon for different reasons. But, now Strikeforce is having an 8 man heavyweight tournament, including Fedor Emelianenko(considered to be the best heavyweight in the history of the sport) Alistair Ovreem(current Strikeforce heavyweight champion) and many other notable names. 

My biggest question for this article is that Fedor, has only fought once in the last 2 years and it was a loss via triangle choke to Frabrico Werdum, how will he perform against the top level contenders after such a long time out?

How will Alistair Ovreem handle his first actual test against top contending heavyweights since his ascent to the top of the Strikeforce heavyweight bracket?