Bias Article

http://news.yahoo.com/colorado-suspect-brilliant-science-student-230349806.html

James Holmes, the predator and perpetrator behind the movie theatre shooting at a screening of Dark Knight Rises, hailed from San Diego, California.

His university success by graduating at UC Riverside later turned into a down point in his life and he turned his life into a living mess.

Holmes enrolled last year at University of Denver in a PHD program. The sadistic man ended up withdrawing from the program without any given reason.

Despite his academic achievement, Holmes life was heading nowhere and he never fulfilled his potential. He may have been at the "top of the top" in university but that resulted in no good cause when he entered the real world.

The man ultimately reached his breaking point and effectively wasted his potential by entering into the movie theater under a gas mask, painting his hair red to emulate "The Joker" as the film played in the cinema was Dark Knight Rises and he wore all black.

There is no reason as to why he may have done this as no evidence from social media usage was traced with Holmes but it can be possibly due to depression with his own life.

Runaway IOC practice

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TttrnSfLILg

Munro Practice IOC

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7ixwft89aEA

Hope you enjoy it. Feedback would be nice.

This is Water Analysis

"This is Water" is an essay written by David Foster Wallace. The main point of Wallace's essay is to make us the audience be more aware in general of our surroundings and have more compassion and empathy towards the people who we pass by everyday. He encourages his audience to make decisions on what to focus on and he wants his target audience to focus on life before death.

Throughout his essay/speech, Wallace integrates several real life/realistic examples in order to be able to make that connection between him and his audience. As an example, in the beginning of the story he talks about 3 fish which confuses the audience as throughout the story we struggle to find what Wallace truly means with the example of the fish. I think he tries to show an interaction between 2 average people in life and illustrate to the audience what that average mentality is like. He develops his thesis by characterizing us as being ignorant to our surroundings at times.

Throughout the rest of his essay, he consistently speaks to the audience about how we humans tend to ignore the most basic things in life and how we always tend to brush off some of the most obvious sightings in our everyday lives. I really liked the way Wallace describe the normal everyday settings and the ordinary situations we find ourselves in always and I certainly agree with the point he makes about being unable to look at these situations critically and realize what exactly is going on even though we may be thinking about what is going on around us. He portrays us as always wanting to be in the center of attention and ignoring all the moving parts that surround the "centerpiece" which in this case is us. 

Literature here is able to develop empathy overall because as an example even I started to realize about some of the common everyday situations I've been through and all that has actually been going on opposed to what I think has been going on. Wallace's example of standing in a queue and being ignorant to the lady who tells us to have a nice day after we purchase is an example of our ignorance as we don't know the subtext behind that woman and we just look at these types of situations superficially. It develops emotional intelligence mainly because of being aware of what is around us and also being able to connect with other people's situations as Wallace talks in the story about assuming what that woman working at the supermarket would actually be like. 

Literature Reflection

We read literature to explore more about what the world is like and also be open to endless different interpretations of different works. We read literature to help ourselves create a better understanding of literature. Women's literature is basically a tool used by women themselves to express on how they feel and write about what they have experienced throughout their lives. Women will write about the social issues they have faced in society as they have been consistently been subjected to problems and been on the receiving end of sexism and before things such as having rights to do certain things or even so just having rights in general.

Alice Munro uses a lot of elements in her work which represent the common lives of women. She isn't necessarily a feminist but she does write about the realistic experiences that are very common to women such as being a housewife and living the everyday life of a woman. She doesn't exactly write about all the struggles of women but she does make the character similar in real life to other women. She puts a lot of thought and depth behind her characters and it's of the things that I like about her work. She represents her characters in good detail along with a good plot like Runaway or Family Furnishings. She starts off her stories in the middle of an issue and then lets the story progress which is something unique.

Reading Munro's work continues to make me realize more about the gender divide in society and see the difference between the roles of both women and men. I see how women have always been the ones who have been doing the dishes of the household and when a man does that part, it seems a bit ''awkward''. This is definitely due to the gender divide and some other things I learnt was how literature can make you realize about things like these. I have not read so much literature so therefore by reading her stories I have been more exposed to how people deliver the messages they want to send and why people read literature to a great extent.

Changes is one of the best written songs of the century

Changes by Tupac Shakur is considered to be one of the greatest and well written rap songs ever. Tupac chases a lot of major issues in this topic, he really raps from his heart about the oppression of African Americans in the United States, how they are always depicted to be criminals and how they are always abused by the police for drug use. Tupac does also talk about the hatred and lack of unity among the African American community and it's residents. He talks about how many African Americans are just forced to go into drugs to get by in life and that there is no other choice.

In the beginning of the song, the first verse. Tupac talks about how he sees no changes in his African American community. He sets the stage of the African American community as being one that is filled with poverty and corruption. He notes that being an African American that there is no choice but to go into criminal like habits such as stealing and drug dealing.First ship 'em dope and let 'em deal to brothers. This line signifies how he takes the stance of an African American being forced into dealing. Tupac also talks about how African Americans must see each other as "brothers" and not some "distant strangers" since the community is completely split apart and no one looks out for one another. He continually repeats that there are no "changes" and wants people to change for their own good. He repeats "I see no changes" twice which displays the use of an anaphora. The anaphora helps 2pac try to get into his black target audience on the fact that he doesn't see them moving further from what they are and that they have to change their lives and habits. He also uses an allusion as he refers to a man named Huey and he uses him in the first verse as an example of the disparity among the people in the African American community as he refers to Huey being dead again. The bridge of the song is portrayed as a sort of inner voice as the inner voice states that what Tupac wants to change will not and that we African Americans can't control the disparity in the community.

In the 2nd verse, Tupac brings White Americans into his song and he compares them to African Americans. 'Cause both black and white are smokin' crack tonight he Tupac here shows that white and black Americans are the same and no ethnicity is particularly superior to the other. He continues to bring up that African Americans are really doing things the wrong way and he brings up how the "penitiary" is packed and it is "filled with blacks" which shows that it is the ultimate sign on how they have suffered and what the causes of their actions have resulted into. Tupac also says that the onlt time "we chill is when we kill eachother". This takes into account the negative part of his community and shows how violent it is because people are being shot on the streets in African American neighborhoods everyday. Tupac does have a realistic view as he realizes that some things may not change as a lot of African Americans are into drugs and not even the slightest bit close to realizing their flaws.

The 3rd verse is a sort of motivation as Tupac is constantly reminding his fellow African Americans that our current lifestyle is not acceptable and if we continue to live this way, bad things will keep on piling up. He wants them to really change because he knows that on this path, they will continue to be oppressed, hated on and in the news for all the wrong reasons. The 4th verse, Tupac talks about the government focusing more on drugs than on the poverty in the African American community. He tells the members of the community to stay independent as they are clearly not in safe hands and that white people will continue to oppress them as being the drug deals of society. Rat-ta-ta-ta! is an onomatopoeia in the song that he uses in the end to signify the violence in the community with the simple sound of a gun shot. Overall I believe that Changes is one of the best songs ever written because Tupac speaks out about his own neighbourhood and where he came from and he explains the truth on how his community really has a lot of corruption. He is very realistic as he sees that some of their oppression is a bit overstated but at the same time Tupac realizes how his community is far from perfect and has many issues which need to resolved or else everything could be going downhill. I respect the way Tupac comes out and admits the truth on all that has gone wrong with this community and it is one of the few rap songs that I genuinely like. Tupac really calls out his community for a change and he tackles one of the biggest issues in America.

Losing his identity

Overall, it has been a good summer break for me aside from how fast it went, which annoys me. I went to New York City in July and spent a whole month there. I really enjoyed it there as I did all the usual things like go to Central Park, Rockefeller, Empire State Building, see a play on Broadway and then yeah so many other things as well.

In New York, I was able to see many ads on billboards especially in Times Square where women were being objectified. There I could remember about the objectification of women discussion we were having in class. I was able to see so much cultural diversity in New York as I met people working at different places who emigrated to New York City from India, China, Italy, Zimbabwe etc. This really got me thinking on the cultural emigration of people coming from less developed countries and going to more developed countries and starting a completely new generation and life in a more developed place. I was in a taxi with my family and we were talking to these taxi driver who emigrated from Ghana to United States and how he goes 6 months every year back there to meet his wife and kids living in Ghana. He was explaining how much of a struggle it is for people migrating from one place to another and how he himself has left his culture behind when living in New York. I remember that he stated he is losing his cultural identity of being Ghanaian and how he doesn't like that matter.

New York City really took the cultural diversity I saw too another level and this was really linkable to the first few things I learned in IB language and literature.