How about a PowerPoint?

When I first started reading this I wasn't exactly why. Even as the reading was drawing to a close I was fighting to stay awake. I do have to say that the story of how PowerPoint came about was kinda interesting, but not enough to keep me awake. I have to say that the whole idea has come a long way through the years. From Overheads and transparency sheets to the program that can put an organized project presentation together within a good twenty minutes.

The only thing that really caught my attention was what some people think about it. The whole experiment about the "fake high school student under consideration for a university football scholarship"(Parker) makes the truth appear out in the open. The three groups were given different visuals about the student, but each time they preferred the PowerPoint. It could be that it has something to do with PowerPoint being a piece of technology. I mean now days we have millions of technological advances that distract us and are made to do so. Though PowerPoint is a useful tool when it is needed. Many times it is not what is needed and what is might not interest the audience. For example, like the essay states, many students what to see how a professor or teacher thinks. PowerPoint makes this easy to do, but it is not the actual flow of thought. It is to organized to be so. When Clifford Nass brings up when he tells of his rant about "The Wizard of Oz" is that his students were able to see what he was thinking and possibly understand why he was thinking it. In many cases PowerPoint helps students more than harms them. As Nass says "What PowerPoint does is very efficiently deliver content... What students gain is a lot more information-not just facts but rules, ways of thinking, examples"(Parker).

To sum things up:
   PowerPoint has made everything easier in many cases. Especially in learning, work, discussion, and meetings. There are always exceptions, and those exceptions can also be helpful to students or to people in general.

"sometimes right, sometimes wrong, and sometimes illiterate" (Schiff 10)

     I was unsure about how to take what I was reading. I was always told that Wikipedia was "evil" so to speak. I've never used wiki due to this repetition of negative views of it. Yes I have looked at something to find a name or something small and unimportant, but not for a paper or anything of that scale. I've had multiple friends saying that it's ok to use wiki as long as you use their citation and find the information on that source. To me that was the same as using wiki. Why not look for a better source?
     Like the essay says, wiki can be edited by anyone. If someone has a computer and internet access, plus the will and time to do so, they can make a post, or edit someone else's post. This causes more problems than what I read in the essay. I can see things being changed that are not caught by the admins or sweeper bots. Not everything is going to be caught, but with so many Wikipedians how is it possible to revert something at the same time that it is being changed by hundreds or thousands of people? I would get so annoyed. Every time the page is refreshed something would be different and have to be reverted again. What if the revert somehow gets messed up and is wrong after it is fixed? is there a way to fix the fix with another revert? It just seems to complicated.
     There is no way to tell if someones publication is truth of false until someone else or thousands more agree or make change it out with the correct information. The checks and citations are helpful, but if they are trashy citations then the information is shot as well. Everything is hand in hand. If one is wrong then most likely the other is too. Plus if false information is left alone and built upon by others nothing is solved. The information becomes invalid, even if some of it was correct. With that it would have to be completely changed, replaced, or extremely edited to a correct state.
     When things are right on the page the idea of Wikipedia works perfectly. Though I would still be a little hesitant to use wiki, I would be a little more likely to do so. I know wiki is not supposed to be an Encyclopedia (in the idea of correct-ness) but if there was a way to go and verify each post I'm sure many would not be so against using it. I guess I should rephrase what i said. If there was an easy way to verify the information in the posts. Since it is edited added to by anyone at anytime, this can not be. Even if the one who posts the information is a professor, who is knowledgeable in the topic, there will be those who think they are right and you are wrong and that their opinion or knowledge has the merit to destroy what was already fine and dandy. If things are right.... LEAVE THEM ALONE. Kinda like if your car isn't broke there is no reason to fix it, or no need to break it so you can fix it. That is just idiocy.
     On the topic of Wikipedia and literacy, I am not sure where I should start. It is not something that can be solved in one night. Since people will not use spell check. (I am even at fault of this on these blogs) The way the topics are posted on make no sense, at least not if the person did not read what they were editing or adding to. The sentences will be jumbled, the information will repeat itself, and there is no real way to solve this. Unless those doing the posts will stop and read the topic and those posted before, re-read their posts, and make sure not to repeat or dismantle the whole freaking sentence. I for one do not like being discombobulated because of something that makes no sense when I read it.
     So in my opinion, there are to many faults for wiki to be used as a source. For it being a way to find a source... maybe. As I use it to find names, places, names of events, etc... It works perfectly, and if someone can tell me a better way to do this please let me know. It's just that in my mind Wikipedia is like a subway with forty or more trains, and about two hundred thousand to many people trying to get on the trans. To many people in one place doing the same exact thing. Then of course there are issues like Wiki leaks that causes more problems around the world. How do we know the information is not being used against the US as it is leaked out to the public, or to anyone in the world that has an internet connection? Oh well that is just my ideas and opinion.

What is true about life

As I read each Act and the sequel I was starting to wonder how the play could seem possible and what seemed to be fake. I looked at how each character was acting in each scene and decided that it was actually kinda normal. They were not doing certain things that are not unnatural so to speak, but there were times where I wondered if that was even possible. I mean when Liza runs to Mrs. Higgins it was a little confusing to why. I mean, why would you run to the mother of the man you are running from? That really makes no sense to me what so ever. Yes I can understand why she ran, and that she really had no where to run to, but why there? Oh well. Then of all things Albert Doolittle shows up... in a fancy suit... yea... I really don't know what to to say to that. I mean it doesn't seem logical that a guy would go and search this drunken man just to use him as an Ideal of sorts to show that he became part of the middle class. When he is part of the lower class and wanted nothing to do with the upper class.

Another idea that struck me was the conversation between Liza and Higgins in the last act. It was all kinda confusing. I mean I know they both respect Mrs. Higgins, but they were in a full fledged fight and then oh sudden stop! That really doesn't happen I don't think. Then as they are leaving for the wedding (at least Mrs. Higgins and Liza) Liza and Higgins seem all hunky-dory. So much confusion. Anyone else confused or struck by that?

A mysterious man with a notebook finds a friend.

     I have to say. I have actually enjoyed Pygmalion so far. I find it entertaining, i guess. I also wish I had the ability to tell where people were from just from the way they talk. I have to say that would be pretty cool. I really didn't get what would happen from the beginning of the first act. I never expected that Higgins was really a Professor. I just thought that he was some guy writing in a notebook. I really thought that the main characters would be the mother and daughter, but surprise it's not! Who knew. Plus the fact that while reading, it is storming outside so the rain at the beginning fit. Anyway, back to Pygmalion.
     In the encounter in the church, during the rain storm, the fact that it ended up that the two men that were looking for each other were both there and brought together by Eliza. I can't help to find that a coincidence that one man is back from India to see another and the other about to leave for India to see him, when Wham! Here they both are after the previous events they are just like "Hey, here you are I was coming to see you." "Really me too." Yea like that really happens.. Anyway off my rant about legit and logical reasoning. I really could not make any sense of what Liza said while in the church, it just seemed like babbling. I guess that is what Bernard Shaw was going for. Liza, indeed, does need speech and grammar coaching or tutoring. Higgins and Pickering really have there work cut out for them. Earlier in Act 2 did Pickering say that Higgins could beat his 24 vowel sounds with 130? ARE YOU KIDDING ME? That is a lot of vowels. Just thought that I should point that out.
     I was laughing so hard when Alfred Doolittle showed up. Just after they get done asking Liza about her parents or her being married he comes out of no where. That and the fact that Liza told them that she was thrown out and she had to find a way to make her own living. Doolittles' character is what made me laugh the most. Not only is he a slacker and doesn't do his own trade, but his name fits him. Doolittle.. Do little... makes perfect sense to me especially sense he does little to get by. When he finally comes out and offers to "sell" his daughter, he goes about it in a strange way. He says that she is worth five pounds, but won't take ten for her when he is offered. Higgins and Pickering both know that the money will be a waste, but Doolittle says "Don't you be afraid that I'll save it and spare it and live idle on it. There wont be a penny left by Monday"(Shaw 48). This was funny because the first time I read it I read that he would save it and spare it and live idle on it, but turned around stating that it would all be gone by Monday. Of course after re reading it i read it right but I still found it funny.

Love love love love.... and vegetables.... yea I have no idea about the vegetables.

   I have always been fascinated by poetry. Even trying my own hand at it time and again. Though I can't say that I have written many that have a rhyme scheme like "To his Coy Mistress." In school I was taught how to break down poetry, but unfortunately some of those skills elude me now. I can still pull out a general idea from a poem and see the imagery that is used. I believe that Marvell is the speaker of this poem. In my mind I'm thinking that this was his way of telling how he felt to his "mistress," if there was one I have no idea.
   Somehow as I was reading "To his Coy Mistress" I found that there were parts that confused me. Especially the part about "vegetable love." I have no idea what to say about this. Even more so to the explanation in the notes, "11] vegetable love: that of his "vegetable" soul. Um... that is all I can really say to this. I mean the only thing that is popping into my head after reading this so line so many times is a rabbit eating a carrot. I'm pretty sure that has nothing to do with the poem. Unless of course this guy loved rabbits, but enough non-sense.
   What I can see from this poem is that these two are in love. Like all love there is never enough time, but this love reaches into a heaven like state of "eternity" full with "winged chariots." Of course time is there to ruin everything again. (CURSE YOU FATHER TIME or whomever)
    In the end it seems to me that the two lovers know their fate against time. Giving their love away and putting everything they have for each other together and throwing it out of "the iron gates of life." Both knowing that they cannot stop time. The sun will still pass over again and again and the two lovers keep living their lives.
   Maybe I'm completely wrong. I'm pretty sure that I am actually, but I'm a little rusty against poetry. Then I think a poem can be read many different ways. Each reading can uncover something different, while covering up what was read the time before.

Catherine in the Mirror

When I first started reading these essays I wasn't sure what I would write this blog about. The more I read, the more I found things that I had not realized. On page 468 Lyn Pykett brings up the variations of Catherine on the ledge where Lockwood is sleeping, or at least trying to. On the next page, "Catherine begins her life as Catherine Earnshaw and ends it as Catherine Linton. Catherine Heathcliff remains an unfulfilled possibility, a route not taken, although some would argue that this unoccupied term in fact names Catherine's true identity."(469) This being read made me think about the fact that Catherine even stated that "Heathcliff is 'more myself than I am.'"(86) Even though Catherine was married to Heathcliff, she still saw herself as his.

In connection to Catherine is Cathy. My blog title is not meaning that Cathy is a mirror image of Catherine, as the essay and novel clearly tell us, but that Cathy's life or actions were a mirror image to Catherine's. On page 474 Pykeet points out that Catherine's puberty is reached when she goes to Thrushcross Grange. Becoming more civilized, in some ways, than when she was young at Wuthering Heights. Cathy on the other hand mirrors her mother and goes from the Grange and her civilized life, to Wuthering Heights and a more savage lifestyle.

Another point that I saw was the fact that where Catherine was unable to complete the cycle of Earnshaw to Linton to Heathcliff. Cathy was able to complete this cycle. She started as a Linton then married Linton and became a Heathcliff. After Linton dies Cathy marries Hareton and becomes an Earnshaw. This of course is in a mirrored way to Catherine's life. Where she went from Earnshaw to wanting to be with Heathcliff, but ended up a Linton, Cathy just went through them all in the opposite order.

I hadn't thought about the two Catherines as mirror images (in life choices) of each other, but now that I see it things seem a lot more interesting.

On your left you see Communism... We will be arriving at Wuthering Heights shortly...

     So I have to say that at first I was really confused about why we were reading about Communism. Well that was the first thing that pooped into my mind when I say Marx. After reading more about I found that the Marxist criticism was an easy way to look at Wuthering Heights. Plus the fact that one of the back stories that jumps out in Wuthering Heights of the "power struggle" between the characters, is like that of the "power struggle" in Communism, where each is pushing their idea as the correct one and fighting others' ideas down at the same time. 

      

     I can not say, or at least will not say that there was much that struck me about the reading itself other than the breakdown of Wuthering Heights. In all truth after reading the essays I was brought back to page 382 again and again just to re-read where Marx and Engels argue that economics provides the "'base' or 'infrastructure' of society." This one passage made me think of where each character is placed in the hierarchy that is touched on paged 398. Heathcliff is said to be a gypsy, but he is the only one in the character that seems to make a complete round about with his monetary situation. He comes into the Earnshaw house hold poor, leaves, and comes back as rich as can be. 

     

     Another passage on the 382 stuck with me as well. 

          "Marx later admitted that the relationship between base and superstructure may be

            indirect and fluid: every change in economics may not be reflected by an immediate 

            change in ethics or literature."

When I read this I was trying to place this in a fitting context within Wuthering Heights, but I was at a loss. I kept reading and when I read the definition of "homology" it hit me. This fits Heathcliff perfectly. Heathcliff is "sometimes unbalanced, often delayed, and always loose correspondence between base and superstructure. After everything that Heathcliff is forced to put up with from Hindley, he leaves. Coming back he is a changed man, his revenge plot is delayed by three years, and more so with the time for everything to proceed as planned. He is unbalanced in the way he acts, especially toward many of the characters. More so Catherine, who is treated with love one moment and contempt the next. Going back up to the quote above I want to point out that my observation does have its' flaws. Where it says that "economics may not be reflected by an immediate change in ethics or literature," fits Heathcliff as well. Though it is a more immediate change he has his moments where his "savagery" come out. Heathcliff was unruly as a child and did what he pleased most of the time, but when he comes back after those three years he is a different person. It is as if the fact he has money has changed him. I guess it does not completely change him since he does act unruly in some instances, but I will back those moment up with the "fluid[ity]" of the relationship between base and superstructure.   

Revenge, Incest, and all the ghosts you could neede

     I have to say that while reading Wuthering Heights I found that it was easy to get lost. Switching from the Nelly's story to the present, made me feel like I was wondering around the Moors myself. More like lost within them anyway. By the time I got done reading I was glad it was over, but at the same timed I wanted to start over and read it again just to understand more about it.
  
     Looking at the revenge plot that Heathcliff had put together boggled my mind. I mean I understand that he was treated like nothing as a child and then some how made tons of money, but how did he put such an extensive plot together? I wouldn't be able to do it. I would have started then got confused by my own revenge scheme and gave up. Of course Heathcliff somehow plotted what he would do, acted on his plot as soon as he returned, but then succeeds. The only fall back was he didn't cover his back and send Hareton away. If he had done that his plan would have been complete. I guess, in the end, Heathcliff got his last wish and was burried next to Catherine. In fact, it seems Heathcliff got his wish to be with Catherine. Even if they are both ghosts running around the moor, Wuthering Heights, and the churchyard.

     I've came up with a reason to why everyone is on the verge of insanity. I'm pretty sure that most of the characters are related in some form or fashion, well except Heathcliff. Looking at their family tree would be like looking at a braided rope. Ends meeting up with other ends, those ends meeting up farther down on other ends (I'm pretty sure there would be a knot somewhere in there.). So, Catherine and Edgar, Heathcliff and Isabella, Hindly and Frances. Catherine and Edgar have little Catherine. Heathcliff and Isabella have Linton. Hindley and Frances have Hareton. Linton marries little Catherine, then later little Catherine marries Hareton. Incest!?! I think so. Why should everyone not be crazy when they marry their cousins, and seem happy about it.

Just another episode of dysfunctional people and their issues.

     Was it just me, or did this seem to be like a show of "Jerry Springer" or "Dr. Phil?" I just kept seeing these kids fighting with each other, plotting the demise of another, and getting what they want no matter what. All I could think was that the young Catherine, Hindley, and Heathcliff are just plain Brats. (putting it nicely) I mean Hindley and Cathy didn't seem to care at all about the young boy their father had just brought home or that their father had been nearly killed (Bronte, 51), but listened quietly waiting until everything was done. Only to go search "their father's pockets for the presents he had promised."(52) Then on page 53 Heathcliff blackmails Hindley into giving him his colt when his turns lame. This is just what I saw. Mr. Earnshaw was no better. He played favorites it seemed, but when his health started to fail he went on to play the children. He would praise Hindley, then turn around and say "Hindly was naught, and would never thrive as where he wandered."(55) With Heathcliff, Mr. Earnshaw stopped to playing favorites as he did when Heathcliff was young, and would "grumble out a long string of tales against Heathcliff and Catherine."(55)

      On top of everything else Hindley, taking his role as Mr. Earnshaw was not any better. Treating Heathcliff as a servant instead of part of the family, as his father had done. Then I guess it was a way of revenge. So now this "wonderful" family is added to by the Linton family, and we are given more issues. (At this point I'm sure Dr. Phil would have given up.) We have a drunken and crazed Mr. Hindley Earnshaw. The two-faced Catherine, playing the spoiled Edgar Linton and the field boy Heathcliff. Then of course there is Joseph. (I'm not even sure what to say about him. I really need subtitles or a translator for him.) The only one who seems in their right mind is Ellen Dean, aka Nelly, who seems to be rational and tries to keep everyone from going completely insane.

     The fact that everyone introduced, so far, seems to be disturbed or dysfunctional, especially the Earnshaw family, is not what hit me the hardest. What I kept looking at was how each character behaved ans what they were called. Mr Earnshaw went from being a caring man and turned into a grumpy man. Hindley started out as a hate-filled boy, growing into a even more hate-filled young man, except for his love of his wife Frances. Then later Hindley turns for the worse and becomes a drunk and goes mad after Frances dies. Forcing those around him to avoid him as much as they can. Edgar changes very little and only wants to make Catherine happy, even if it makes him unhappy. Isabella seems jealous of Catherine when Heathcliff returns. Just because she has "fallen in love" with Heathcliff and the only person Heathcliff shows interest is Catherine. With Catherine it seems that she doesn't really change, but just puts up a false image of herself. Though she matures, she still seems to be that opinionated little girl from the beginning. Of course the "Catherine" she decides to be depends on who is around her. She is two-faced in her love for Edgar and her love for Heathcliff, and has no issue putting either of them down to prove a point. It's the fact that she sees herself doing the right thing and stating on page 102 "I'm an angel," when we clearly know that she definitely is not. More so, I would categorize her as the opposite.
    
     Heathcliff seems to be the most challenging. He doesn't really change through out the story except his appearance and the fact that he gets money from some where. We meet him as a "gypsy" child, left out by himself starving to death, but soon he is part of this dysfunctional family. He was called : "dog" by Hindley (52), "little Lascar, or an American or Spanish castaway" by Mr. Linton (62), "vagabond" by Hindley, after his fathers death (68), and then in Nelly's description on page 99 he has "a half-civilized ferocity... and eyes of black fire." All of these seem to be negative, and they are, but Heathcliff seems to live up to them in a way. No one knows of where he got his money or where he has been. He looks as if he was in the army from his "upright carriage." (99) He keeps being described as an animal or some unwanted wanderer, at least by most of the characters. Even being described as an animal that would "absolutely seize and devour [Isabella] up" if they were allowed to be together. (108) The main connection to Heathcliff being an animal comes from Nelly herself. In her history/story to Mr. Lockwood, Nelly says, "I felt that God had forsaken the stray sheep there to its own wicked wanderings, and an evil beast prowled between it and the fold, waiting his time to spring and destroy."(108) I took this again as Heathcliff being an animal, more precisely the "evil beast" spoke of. Who the sheep is, I am not sure, but from the reading I can tell that he is still  planning his revenge against Hindley Earnshaw.

     Like I said above this is like something that would be seen on "Jerry Springer" or "Dr. Phil." Such a dysfunctional family trying to destroy each other. A young lady in love with two men. One of those men planning the down fall of the love interests older brother. Then to add to it all the young ladies sister-in-law falling in love with one of the men. Of course I have to throw the crazed Joseph in there somewhere, and the servant, Nelly, so that she could explain everything. All in all that would be an interesting episode. Either that or both Jerry and Dr. Phil would leave the stage and give up on them completely.

Rules, Rules, Rules,.... Break the Rules?

First of all I just want to point out, I really do not know how to respond to this.

   While I was reading I felt like I was being told that I was stupid since I know that I do the things George Orwell was talking about. At some points I even felt as if i was being hit with an literary brick, but I do not see myself as a failure. The five examples he used at the beginning weren't that bad. At least not to me. I meant yes I could see where they needed work, made no sense, or just rambled on about something, but they were not terrible. Just because the selections didn't look exactly right doesn't mean anything. In my view it's more of a personal opinion. I'm sure that if Orwell saw our writing now or even the way many of us text with all the short-hands, he would have more to say than what was in the article.

   Something else that bothered me as I read was the fact that Orwell seemed to put down the use of Latin based words. I can't say that the Saxon vocabulary is less valuable than the Latin vocabulary, but there is no reason to be, or seem to be, putting it down. There are many words that we have in our vocabulary that came from Latin as well as Saxon that I can't think of not existing. As Orwell states in the sixteenth (i think anyway) paragraph "A mass of Latin words falls upon the facts like soft snow, blurring the outside and covering up the details." I don't see this as true. Yes, some of the words are complicated, but a word on its own does not "cover up" anything. A word can be read by its surrounding words. I can usually find what a word means by using the context of the sentence.

   In response to Orwell's six rules, This is where I got confused and asked myself what the point was. All of these rules have their own flaws, especially the last one. He goes through and puts all these rules that he uses then the last rule says, in my understanding, "break the rules sooner than say anything against them." So basically follow the rules, but break them when you need to? Is this what he meant? Looking at them, the rules are not that horrendous (and yes I just broke rule 2), but what is written depends on what is needed to be said and the occasion. If you are reporting on something knowledgeable, you don't want to sound like your vocabulary only consists of small words or non-scientific words. Then again, if you are trying to explain something to someone that has no idea what you are talking about, you'd want to use small, everyday English words. This is where it depends on the occasion, setting, or overall need.

   In the end, I do agree with most of what Orwell says. Given that there are reasons to break the rules and situations that are excluded from his rules. The English language is crumbling around us. Many, including myself, put to many words or don't organize sentences correctly. That and there are just to many words that I can possible use for any given idea. I do believe what Orwell says about the English language being "full of bad habits... which can be avoided if one is willing to take the necessary trouble." I know that there is more to what I can learn about writing and the best way to do so. The example about "failure" at the beginning of the article was one of the few things that hit right off. For writing, and anything else for that matter, it fits just the same. If you consider yourself a failure at writing, then later when you try to write again you will only fail more. This is what I believe. More so since if you give up, it becomes harder to get back into something that you feel that you will only fail at again. So that's why I don't consider myself a failure when I don't finish one of my stories, I just keep pushing forward and come back to it later.

A Book is as UNIQUE as the person reading it.

    To start off, everything that I read hit me like a freight train. At first I found that I was just doing an assigned reading, but soon found that I was realizing or finding things that I had noticed (in some cases that is). Alberto Manguel was able to open my point of view, in the area of books and such, to where I was not just looking at a page covered in letters, sentences, paragraphs and many cases of punctuation. I was finding that books are one of a kind to our own minds. If we enjoy reading, then we read. If we enjoy writing, then we write. In this case it showed me that many writers were also readers and vice versa.
  
    The first thing that struck me was the fact that we do not read just a book. What we read is "a certain edition, a specific copy, recognized by the roughness or smoothness of its paper, by its scent, by a slight tear on page 72 and a coffee ring on the right-hand corner of the back cover." (Manguel, 15) The book is specific to each single person, whether we notice or not. If you check out a book from a library, and go back to check out that book again you will look for the exact one that you had before. Another book is not the same, it doesn't feel the same, it weighs different. Even though it is the same text, it is not the same. To feel comfortable, I have actually waited for the exact one I had before to be returned.

    Maybe it is the way I make reading that book, or any book in that case, comfortable and unique. When I read I try to keep myself from falling into a brain-dead state or reading myself to sleep. So I try and set up ways to keep this from happening. I set up my office chair and foot-stool and relax and read, set up my bed table and sit against the wall, or if I know that I will be there reading for a while I might pile in on the couch in the music room. In all these cases, I am alone and away, tucked into a room where I wont be interrupted, or sitting somewhere where it is quiet enough for me to sit and think and process what I am reading. Apparently, I am not alone in this reasoning. "Emerson believed that reading a book was a private and solitary business." (53) Even Edith Wharton was known for making her bed into an area where she could read, write, and sometimes ate. (160) Not only these but there are cases like the Greek kline (154), the Roman bed for reading and writing (154), and even the monk reading in his cell. (155-156) All of these spreading over centuries or decades, but showing reading as I do it now, in my own home.

    One thing that surprised me was about reading silently. In some cases it was looked down upon, but in others, or in later years it was built upon. I do understand that is would be looked down upon in certain cases, since "reading out loud is not a private act, [so] the choice of reading material should be socially acceptable to both the reader and the audience."(122) I for one, would not be able to stand it if everyone read out loud today. I have enough issues with distractions while i am reading now, and that it is in the quietest environment i can achieve.

    The favorite part that I read was something that stayed with me after I finished, and I had to go back and read it again. I, myself, have never been to a huge library. The only ones I have been to were at the schools I've been at, or the one at the other University, but I have always wanted to go to one of the big world known libraries. This getting farther from what I am wanting to put, I will come back. The last paragraph on page 199, struck me in a way that I did not expect. I pictured this library of books, rooms, shelves, and computer catalouges just as it was depicting. When I reached the last part of the paragraph I wasn't sure what to think. I had to go back and read it a couple of times to drive into my comprehension what I was thinking. It wasn't that "the reader" has to "rescue the book from the category where it was condemned," but the fact that every time I go to the library I know exactly what I am searching for (if not exactly I have an idea). I would be doing research for something, but the idea of rescuing seemed odd to me. In my mind "rescue" goes hand in hand with a dangerous situation or something that is lost. Here It seemed to mean that it didn't belong where it had been placed, but it could also mean to rescue the books that we passed looking for a certain book.

A little about Me

   I guess I should have done this first, but I didn't want to forget anything, so here it is now. My name is Blake Covington. I'm an English major and hope one day to be an author. I live one day at a time and hope for the best results.

Twilight Of The Books. By: Caleb Crain (my view)

     As I read the the article I understood that reading was falling to television. Reading doesn't give the imagery that we receive from watching T.V. Giving the fact that I am not an avid reader or t.v watcher, I would still rather sit down and read than sit and watch a program. I can usually figure out what is going to happen next during a show, but reading, unless you already know the ending, seems to keep its secrecy. In the lines of reading dropping, if we could just pick up a list of the type of literature that each person prefers then we could stay away from the t.v more. As children we like literature that entertains us or that is in an area of our interest, but after we grow into teens and adults what do we like? We are not going to like the same things we read as children, it might be in the same area of interest, but our understanding of things change. For me it's not that i don't like reading, it is the fact that if I start reading something and it doesn't interest me I am going to put it down. It has to catch my attention. If it does then I usually don't put the literature down until I have to or I'm done. The question is why is it so hard to find literature that catches our interests?