Doubt

As I sit in my room in my new house rockin' to some Coldplay, I began wondering if in the play "Doubt", if the Sister James wasn't involved, would the plot turn out any different. She represents both literaly the easily swayed people in life as well as the pacifists in life. Maybe its me, but I felt that if she hadn't been involved, Father Flynn-- well, for one thing, the "problem" would never have arisen in the first place since it was Sister James who brought up the situation to Sister Aloysius. But say that Sister Alyosius some how saw what happened, I think Father Flynn's side would be more substantial since it was Sister Aloysius who planted the seeds of havoc in Sister James' head. It appears to me that Sister James was the catalyst/weapon that Sister Aloysius was waiting for to come along to aid her in her tyrant rule over a school of children.

Father Fynn

While reading Doubt, I began to wonder how much of an influence suspicions of character have on decisions. However, in the case of Father Flynn, Sister Aloysius bases her accusations of wrong-doing about him on suspicions or "gut feelings". Many might say this is considered irrational and stupid, but if there was some information in Father Flynn's past that he had done this before, Sister Aloysius would be doing a great deed. Unfortunately, she'sd be just passing on the problem to someone else. Back during this time, the Sisters of the Church didn't have nearly the power or authority to openly confront a Father or even really consult a Monsignor. Really, with no physical or even any at all, the Sister was able to have a priest step down from his position. I'm still wondering what caused all of this to conspire; perhaps the Father did something at the beginning of his term at the school. It might even be a problem with men in general since she always seems to think that Monsignor is useless with everything especially with discipline. Well, that's all for now, more to come after class today.

Internet friends?

Is it possible to be friends with someone you know only on-line? How much has to be known about someone (and they about you) in order for you to be friends?
It is my belief from personal experience that such a feat is probable and possible. I own a Playstation 3 and have an online ID that I use every time I play. Therefore I meet new players in every game I play. However, if you join a "clan", the term used in the online gaming realm meaning "team", you have to be able to give up some sort of information to the other members such as your time zone, name, and favorite color (hahahaha that part is a joke). Anyways, going back to online friends, this past year I decided to make a clan of my own for a game called Warhawk which has become the largest PS3 multiplayer game with over 400,000 players worldwide all involved in over 1000 major clans. Well, I hoped on the bandwagon, and opened an online recruitment room where I gauged the talent of various players. After 3 hours of wasted time yielding only one possible prospect, I was about to turn off my PS3 when I saw that three players (SuperJam79, Grizzla90, and IngaNarf) on my Friend’s List who I had sent messages back and forth casually were playing Warhawk too. I sent them messages asking if they would be interested in joining my clan. About a week later I received replies from all of them saying that they were interested. I arranged a chatroom and they joined. It was quite an interesting experience to say the least not knowing what to expect at all. It turned out that they were all my age, so it made it easy to figure out when we had tests so we couldn’t schedule battles on those nights. We got a rigorous and ambitious battle schedule set up, and started practicing. Well, after about three months we had a 1-1-10 record, and so we said we’d take a break for awhile work on our skills. However, we were on first name basis by then, so myself, Chris, Jamar, and Tristan all knew each other pretty well just from playing video games. For about 2 hours a day. As crazy and as anti-social as it sounds, I looked forward to talking with them every day. On the weekends, I would help Jamar with Spanish in a chatroom, Tristan and I would swap the latest gaming news, and Chris and I, being the oldest, would talk about literally everything, nothing was off limits. Sometimes his girlfriend would get on with us and we’d just chill out on Saturday nights when nothing was going on. Eventually, we added each other on Facebook, so now we can stay in touch at anytime. From what Chris had described, he lives fairly close to Shields, and since my high school choir toured NYC this year, Tristan came to one of our concerts. I think that overall, you have to be careful online, but I personally don’t have any problems with having online-only friends.

Intelligence and Communication

I just want to start out by saying "yes, I know this is really late." Anyways, the past few classes on my schedule in general have really questioned my views on the relationship between communication and intelligence. We are all smart in our own way, but in the past two or three weeks, I realize that many intelligent people seem to overlook the whole communication thing in general. I know I've done it too many times, but I try to limit it. For instance, in Human Geography the other day we had our first test, but the professor told us the test would include non-specific questions that would not as for hard facts. Well, the test was everything but non-specific and included questions like what is the exact population density of this certain district that was in remote Bangladesh. Miscommunication I assume was the issue there between intelligent minds. I guess the issue is whether intelligence ignores the communication gap between them and the unintelligent. However, failure to communicate one's ideas doesn't necesarily make the one they are trying to convey their message to unintelligent. For example, I try and fail all th time to tell my overweight basset hound that every time she eats it doesn't help the matter, but that doesn't stop her from wanting to eat. Bad example, so going back to the Human Geo example, the professor argued that we should have studied better and more in depth, and should not have only taken his word. Dabateable but maybe his intelligence on the matter made him think that the question as well as others were no brainers taken from the text. The fact of the matter is that we as humans need to maybe use our intelligence when are trying to convey our message.

Plato Part 1

Socrates and Gorgias are taking sides on the meaning and importance of Rhetoric in ones' life as well as the .

Since I am not really understanding the correlation between a shoe maker and a doctor, I will argue initially on the side of Gorgias because he isn't quite as secretive of his ideas as Socrates.

Polus is logical with his thinking when it comes to rhetoric. For instance, at the beginning, Chaerephon mentions that if a doctor's son becomes a painter, what does that make him, an Polus' answer was, "a painter, obviously," (Polus 5, C). However, Polus eventually grew tired of Socrates’ arguments.

Finally, Polus believes in a strong government with no regard to the citizen because the citizen doesn’t have the power and command that the politician has. Gorgias believes similarly, but puts more emphasis on divine right and duty of those who are not elected.
Honestly, I don’t think that Gorgias or Polus could have bettered their argument since they already had flawed ideas because Socrates spotted them and went after them.

"To be of use"

At first when I started reading the poem, it sounded somewhat hopeful with references to the people around you. The author seems to like the work ethic of those around her, because she goes into great description by using metaphors. She then elaborates on what she considers to be a great models of work ethic and what she believes to be usefulness in life. I agree with her that work ethic is a factor that goes into the measure of usefulness, but I don’t think it is the main factor that goes into play when figuring one’s use in the world. Sure, someone may not have the most important job in the world, but does that necessarily mean that they are any less useful than the person with the most important job in the world? I don’t believe so, since I’m only a student right now, but I am just as adept at completing tasks as others who are older than I am. Also, Piercy talks at the beginning about those around her and how she feels that they are important no matter the usefulness they possess. However, she does appear to be a little bias, by saying at the end how others are less important because they have no apparent value

Homework 9-11-2008

I think that the decision to go to college is being made more often than ever before due to a larger demand from skilled professions. However, that still doesn't stop the average high school senior from only wanting to go to college for the parties or fat paced life, but for the most part, its for a college degree.

I hope that my time here at Drake is filled with exciting challenges tha will better prepare me for life outside of college. Also, I'd like to have enough knwledge to start out well for my first job.

I think the people here at Drake have a certain charisma that radiates a level of excellence that is not seen in other educational facilities.