Metacognition

Writing poetry made me understand the power of words. As I began I realized how my choice of words had great impact on the meaning. Even using words with similar definitions, the meanings varied significantly based on connotations. I found myself thinking carefully about every decision I made. I began to think of myself as a politician choosing language and craft skillfully to further my points.

Additionally, I found it fascinating how meaning slipped into my poem. Originally, my poem began as a simple poem about driving as a right of passage but it began to grasp more emotional meaning with each revision  Seeing this transition from junk to something more successful with evident signs of emotions.

Lastly, I never gave enough respect to poetry; I would hear about poetry and think of it jokingly but I now I see the hard work and dedication required for poetry. We went through only a few drafts and it was a long painful process. A poet would have to go through many more drafts to create the masterpieces they create.

Get Organized: A tribute to Aristotle

My task of organization was my room. I organized my desk, bookcase and closet. Before beginning this task, I observed the amount of disorganization. I get quite frustrated when I find things out of place; not because i can’t find them but because it insults me. Additionally, i look at the large task and plan out how long it will take and how long I have to spend on each task (otherwise I get sidetracked). During the project, I slowly start to feel accomplished to be making progress. I like how I find things that I don’t usually look at reminding me of many great memories. After completing the task, I feel relieved. It is always stressful for me to be disorganized and the thought of taking time out just to organize is typically quite difficult.

I wouldn’t quite say I this project brought a significant change in how my mind feels but it does make me feel much more relaxed and able to enjoy life much more. Furthermore, I don’t learn from most simple organization tasks. I could claim that it helped me learn about how I think or how mind organizes objects but in reality I don’t think its quite an accurate depiction of me mentally at all. My thought process is much more systematic than I am organized because I have much more time think than I do to organize or clean.

Metacognition

As I begin a project or an essay it always helps my thought process to relate a topic to what I find interesting and that relates to my interests. When I try to write or think about things that I cannot relate to, my thoughts become bland and boring. The more I am intrigued the more interesting my essay or project will be. I like how my interests drive my thinking on essays and papers. It creates a much more exciting environment for me intellectually. When I am working on a project or essay with a topic I enjoy I can work for long amounts of time on the subject without getting tired or losing focus (which usually happens with boring homework assignments).  I think I could improve my thinking by expanding my interests by trying new things and becoming better educated. This year in English, I learned to respect poetry and somewhat enjoy parts of it now. My thinking has changed allowing me to relate to the meaning of the poem.

Additionally, I find that when I think I start with a general idea and then as I start to work I begin to create a more and more specific idea. I like to analyze as I write with little planning in the beginning because it limits my creativity and thought process. I think concisely and have never been crazy about flowery language. I feel reading Orlando and studying poetry taught me to use better sounding language and sometimes to be more concise, it requires more descriptive language.

Blogging Around

1. This is a comment I left on Sebas's blog post called  "An Inconvenient Truth: Longer School Days". His post discussed the extension of school days and an alternative solutions that he found to be better.

Sebas, I found this blog post very intriguing. I too believe there are plenty of faults in our school system that need to be corrected. I like how you suggested rather than extending the school day, we should improve the quality of our schools and even included some solutions to these problems.

Today I was discussing the education system with someone and we noticed how in our country we test almost all of our students which then counts towards our national average. In foreign countries such as China or India, they test mainly their best people.
Another thing I would suggest which I know is a very unfavorable option but it is to cut down the length of summer vacation. My reason behind this is the average student (including myself) forget lots of material over the summer. Additionally, the idea of more frequent one or two week breaks I would enjoy more than having such a long time off.
One thing I think was left out in this post was the idea that we are receiving way too much homework. It just make no sense. We end up spending hours every night doing homework that wastes so much time and energy. I would maybe like longer school days if it meant almost no homework but as long as we have homework and longer school days it would be unbearable. I heard that in other countries kids receive less homework and do better than us. This shows that maybe homework isn't quite working properly.
Another solution I would have is to have teens in high school maybe chose a subject they would want to focus for their careers. If I want to be a lawyer why do I need to know chemistry and if I want to be a Chemist why do I need to know the emperor of China during the Ming dynasties. I think it would be must more cost and time efficient to have us chose a focus subject before college so we don't waste time and money learning things we forget the next day.

2. This a comment I left on Stephanie's blog post. She discussed the negative portrayal of Islam and how we need to change our views.

Stephanie, I found his blog post fascinating. I completely agree that the media portrays Islam negatively and I understand the absurdity of the claim many sources make that sites Islam as the cause of terrorism.

I think these terrorist attacks have significantly damaged the image of Islam in the United States which will leave an impact spanning for multiple decades. It is hard for Americans to see Islam as a peaceful religion when consistently we see violence and acts of injustice in the Middle East. Additionally, the Israel and Palestine conflict has strengthened this view of Islam due to the United States being so connected to Israel.

We need to try to start to see Islam for the non-radical side. There are Muslims living peacefully all over the world. This new hatred of a religion can have disastrous impacts. An example of mass religious persecution in the modern age would be the Holocaust which left 6 million innocent Jewish victims dead. All hatred leads to is genocide and destruction.

iMedia: Presidential Debates

                In a Presidential debate the words and craft of their speeches are planned out to convey a message. They use succinct language to convey their message using a short and simple way to connect to the listener in a personal way. This is similar to the way poets use words like we are studying in class. The language can also potentially take away from the actual policy issues at hand and convince the voters simply on the language and presentations. This could cause the populous to vote the wrong way in a presidential election. Some people actually will vote against their own interest in elections.

                This problem impacts this country every day. Many of our government leaders are just well liked among their constituents. For instance, I watched an episode of Jon Stewart and he mentioned a congressman that wrote a book proclaiming that the slave trade actually was a positive for the African Americans. That being able to experience the greatness of the United States over Africa was his reasoning behind the claim. Someone with this kind of belief clearly is not qualified to make decisions in Congress that impact our entire country.

                Additionally, the way the candidates present the information has a tremendous impact on how the information is perceived. I watched a clip of a guest on a news network (I think it was Fox but not 100% sure) and he stated that watching the debate on mute clearly shows who won the debate. This completely throws away the entire point of the debate. You cannot just ignore all of the policy and the poetic words and use body language to explain everything. 

An Inconvenient Truth: World Poverty Cannot be Solved

                Every day I am constantly reminded of how privileged we are to live in the United States and to have grown up on the North Shore.  We have received more opportunity than the majority of the global population will ever have, even here in the United States, most of us are better off than the majority of the population. The idea that this problem will most likely never be completely solved (or at least in my lifetime) seems almost tragic.

                80% of people live on less than $10 a day. When I first heard this statistic, I was shocked. This problem of global poverty happens to be much greater than I imagined. When I think of how much that $10 is worth to the majority of the world and I usually could not even be able to buy me a meal at a restaurant for only $10. The national and international income disparity is enormous.

                I know this could be explained using economics saying that these people are less productive than us. That we are so much more educated that we deserve to make so much more. I read a book titled, 20 Things They don’t tell you About Capitalism. It mentioned how a bus driver in India makes 50 times less than a bus driver in Sweden. It questioned whether or not the Swedish bus driver was 50 times more productive. Obviously the answer is no. There is no way that is possible. The reason the book offered was that in Sweden (similar to the United States) there is much more opportunity available. There is access to education, infrastructure such as roads and bridges, a more stable economy and government, and other thing provided in Sweden but not in India. But the education and other things do not justify this extra pay for the bus driver because they do not use them in their daily job. The successful people that use this education and opportunities to earn this high productivity bring up the entire nation. These successful people do more productive things than their counterparts in foreign countries. An example would be Bill Gates who has been at least 50 times more productive than his foreign counterpart. Additionally, it is only because of these opportunities we succeed. Warren Buffet said that if were a poor child in India he would  have never amounted to anything near what he is today and that our countries has helped him earn his success; that it was not him as an individual but as a member of a society working towards a common goal.

                This economic theory above shows that no matter how much we try to help poor countries the only way to truly fix this problem would be equal opportunity globally. With much of the world poor with backward governments this equality will almost never come. The acceptance of this theory and facts makes me want to take advantage of the opportunities I have been given. To acknowledge that the life I am living is a dream to billions of people around the world. I believe that this makes me morally obligated to work; that if I don’t use the resources and opportunities our forefathers worked so hard to create I would become a drain society. Thinking of all the opportunity I have helps me stay motivated and strive for success; knowing that my success will have an impact on society; that my need for success is my debt to society. Think of the poor innocent children in Africa whose only dream would be to live in America and adult who want more than anything to work in America doing jobs I would never be able to get myself to do.  It is just mind blowing to me how we live in a world with so much injustice. 

Best of Week: Gender

                This week in class we discussed the relationship between gender and sex and the differences between them.
                At first I assumed gender and sex were the same thing. Once we looked at the definitions of both words I began to see the significant differences between gender and sex. Sex is more biological; the way you were born. Gender seems to correlate to how one socially defines themselves and how others see them. Basically, if my sex is male but if for some reason I felt I really should be a women I could simply dress like a women and thus redefine my gender in the social stratosphere; yet my sex would still remain the same as I would medically still be a man no matter how much surgery I receive. Gender can change; sex cannot.
                Now that you understand my stance on gender vs. sex I begin my larger point; what defines ones gender excluding the physical differences? What makes a man a man and a woman a woman? The answer I believe is quite complex but could be addressed simply by stating; society sets the standards for peoples gender identities. What I mean by this is that we as a society set standards for common normalcies in our attitudes and behaviors. We then raise new generations according to this standard.
                But how does society set a model for each gender? Do our natural instincts define gender or does society and our interactions shape our gender? I believe we may have been influenced by our natural instincts before but now we as a human race have gone beyond what is natural and created our own standards and instincts. Similar to how we no longer act animalistic; we no longer let nature define us and give us gender specific roles. We as a society have decided the traits for each gender. 

What if?: We had the German Healthcare System

                Here in the United States we have a large problem with socialism. Also, we as a nation believe that we have a free market capitalist economy. However, I have a problem with these two statements. First, we simply do not have a free market economy due to our government regulation and socialist policies such as Social Security and Medicare. But we are far from Socialist; our government does not own any major industries. Additionally, businesses still operate freely and with the market choosing price for most goods and services. Secondly, I agree that Socialism is not a good system due to the inefficiencies it would bring into our market. The only problem I have is that in a free market economy, which most economists will tell you is the most efficient system, the government is not there to protect its citizens. In free market, there is no line between efficiency and human rights such as using child labor but in our country we have laws against that to protect people’s health. I feel having a “socialized medicine” system is no more socialist than we already are.

                Now that I cleared up the common misconceptions with our economy I will begin to discuss my main focus of this post. T.R. Reid’s Healing of America caused me to think about which system has the best fit for this country. Prior to reading the book, I read a few articles on our healthcare system and discovered the huge flaws it possessed. I am ardent supporter of Obama so I already had a general knowledge of what Obamacare encompassed. As I read through the book and we discussed it in class, I came to the conclusion that Obamacare has not really done enough for this country.

                Looking at the other systems I noticed that there was only one system that would really work here in the United States which would be the German system. My most favored part of the German system is much of the system was still private and that some people could opt to have for-profit-insurance. This approach to the system is very capitalistic compared to even the French and Japanese systems. The German system still allows competition between insurance companies and the care facilities even though the insurance policies have more government regulation. Their healthcare system was not even any less capitalistic than our nation. They have less restriction on the insurance companies by allowing more insurance providers to be available thus decreasing costs through competition. Furthermore, the German system allows the wealthy to buy more coverage and seek private care which is highly capitalistic. They also do not have rationed healthcare which completely contradicts the mindset of our great nation.

                I also believe that this system would not be that significant of a transition for this country. Obamacare is a huge step in the direction towards the German system. There are a few stages we have left to complete the transition which requires a more liberal government in power. This coming presidential election decides whether or not we make this change. If Obama loses re-election all this progress towards socialized medicine would have been for nothing due to Romney’s promise to repeal Obamacare on his first day of office. Understanding the importance of this election has actually caused me to become more politically active this year and follow the election intently.