This paper was written specifically to fulfill the requirements of English 221, but I figured I would post it anyway.
As I’ve allowed ideas for this paper to bounce through the neuron tangles in my brain, I’ve found that every relevant point ends with the same conclusion. I’ve realized that that entire experience, the past sixteen weeks, all of English 221, can be summed up in a single phrase… “I did not sign up for this”. Read the rest of this entry »
A blog about blogging…sounds about as creative as quazi-rebellious 8th graders who write poems about how much they hate poetry. Sorry. I wrote it anyway.
I’ve found that truly cool people don’t care what other people think about them. Unfortunately, I have never been cool. Therefore, I am exquisitely concerned with the way I am perceived. I can often hide this reality, but my concern undergoes a drastic metastasis when it comes to posting my thoughts online. The heavy weight of these first blogs has a way of aggravating the situation. Look at it this way. If the second blog I write isn’t received well, it doesn’t matter how good the first one was, because suddenly half of my posts are garbage…It’s kind of a bummer. I suppose that’s why these blogs seem to be inherently linked to a stress cycle that leaves me horribly uncomfortable. I’ll elaborate.
Stress state one: I have nothing to write about. Blank. No wit or insight…ever again. I spend several hours watching a cursor bounce on a blank page. Several cups of coffee later, I find that trying to write creatively while in the wrong mindset is like cooking bacon with a cigarette lighter. It takes forever and will never turn out the way you’d like. It also makes you look stupid. Read the rest of this entry »
Today I’m writing a different sort of blog. In a sense it’s a book review, but it’s also a story. It’s a story about a book or rather a story about reading Steven Levitt’s, Freakonomics.
I’ve been re-reading Freakonomics for the same English class that got me started blogging, and the book has remained intriguing the second time around. Even before Freakonomics was required reading, I was enamored by the sheer political incorrectness of it all. Far too often, in today’s ultra sensitive feeling driven culture, we sacrifice truth for political correctness…but not Levitt. That’s not to say he narrates a right wing discourse or that he puts together a left wing oration, in fact Levitt manages to write from a very wingless viewpoint. It’s refreshing, unusually refreshing, to read a piercing and unapologetic opinion without the subtle chant of “Four more years” or “Yes we can”. Read the rest of this entry »
“ Men occasionally stumble over the truth, but most of them pick themselves up and hurry off as if nothing had happened. “
-Winston Churchill–
The day after downtown Bozeman exploded, I was sitting in class when a friend of mine came stumbling into the room. Two thoughts immediately struck me. One: he arrived after I showed up; this meant he was late, remarkably late. Two: He looked goofy. When I say he “stumbled in” I literally mean his gait was unsteady. I think he was trying to limp, but there was no consistency to his step, and the awkward contortions of his body revealed no discernable malady. I was tempted to believe he had contracted a form of mutating injury… but that was irrational. He was probably just possessed. Or, maybe he should have gone to the bathroom before class. No. There it was. This was a deficiency I’d seen before; he was suffering from an acute shortage of attention. Typically I feel this syndrome is best left untreated, but I offered him an opening. An act that deliberate surely had a story behind it.
“Dude, you’re later than I am.”
“Yeah, I got blown up in that explosion yesterday.” Read the rest of this entry »
I didn’t sleep much last week. By Friday I could count the hours of shut eye on one hand. I wouldn’t claim that I actually had less than five hours of sleep, but my vision had begun to betray me, and each hand seemed to exhibit double-digit … digits. My apartment was a mess, and my face looked like it was in the beginning stages of some mild allergic outbreak. I had been here before. I was in a nasty funk. I was stressed out.
This condition of stress should not be confused with the pathetic and overwhelmed state of someone who is simply too lazy to work. Long hours of studying and a heavy investment in the Folgers Company had resulted in a surge of stress hormones and toxic doses of caffeine. It was a familiar blood serum concentration. It was something to be proud of. But it had come at a price… Read the rest of this entry »
