Home

I find it strange that no matter how far and wide one can travel, there is still no place like home. As a child you spend the majority of your time at home, and then as a teenager you go out and spend time at other people's homes. Then you graduate from high school and find yourself leaving your real home. You must go to a new city and create a home of your own, even though there is no place like your home. When you come back and visit you realize how much you miss your own bed and your own shower. The ones that you've had since forever, well at least I have. I have lived in my same house all nineteen years of my life. I have never moved and I can't imagine what it would be like to move out of the house that I grew up in. Not much has changed in my house in all the years that I have lived here and that makes me feel comfortable, of course I do not find myself afraid of change. I like change alot, I just like to come back to th same house that I grew up in as a child. It has always served as the concept of home in my mind and if it were to change, I don't know if I would like that. My home has a distinct smell. It smells fresh and clean. I always think of all the windows we have and how the sun comes beaming through on sunny days. It's a usually a comfortable 65 degrees in my house, which is a nice temperature that I have grown used to. What is your concept of home like?

Fire and Ice

I think Robert Frost was an interesting poet and it wasn't until today that I fully began to understand some of his poems. I especially find the poem, "Fire and Ice", very interesting. It catches my attention because fire and ice are two humanly characteristics. The fire would represent our burning desire for material wants, while the ice represents how cold and uncaring we can be towards one another. Usually his poems connect in some way to his life, maybe this poem was meant for his wife. He had a burning desire for her while she was alive, and now feels cold and lonely with her gone. Course it could also mean in a historical context, the battle between religion and science. Religion sees the world ending in a great war with fire and brimstone, while science contends that a great ice age will come and slowly freeze us over again.

Fire and Ice

Some say the world will end in fire,

Some say in ice.

From what I've tasted of desire

I hold with those who favor fire.

But if I had to perish twice,

I think I know enough of hate

To say that for destruction ice

Is also great

And would suffice.

Frost is one of America's greatest poets. One thing that really stuck out to me, was that he got to speak at Kennedy's inauguration. I can not imagine having the President want me to speak at his inauguration in front of millions of people. He must have been real nervous! His poems are quite unique, you can catch glimpses of his life through his poetry but they can also be related to a much larger context. I think his poems were meant for the reader to decide what they think about it. Some of them it even depends upon what mood you are in to how you will feel about the poem.

Here is a website containing Robert Frost's biography and works of poetry.

Music and Stereotypes

When someone tells me they like country music, I'll be honest, it surprises me when they look like someone that has their own rock band. On the same level, if someone says they prefer heavy metal music, I have a hard time believing them if they are the CEO of a huge oil company. Music preferences is one of the most common "icebreakers" for a conversation. We have our iPods that can carry whole musical libraries and our MySpaces that display information about us while also allowing us to put up music we like at the time. We use music as an "icebreaker" because we think we can key in on certain personality traits or preferences that a person might have. It's something to think about. Another interesting concept with music and stereotypes is have you ever noticed that when someone says they like music from the '50s or '60s, we don't picture someone our own age, we picture someone who was young during that time period? At some point during our lives, we stop listening to the trend-setting music and keep listening to the music that was hip during our adolescent years. There has been some studies done on this topic by Peter Rentfrow and Samuel Gosling. They have found that certain music preferences do correlate with certain personality traits. They did these tests on random college students and then on fans of the actual genre of music. So do you think that by knowing what kind of music a person listens to, you will be able to form an identity for that person without even knowing them personally?

Censorship

Today I was thinking about censorship and banned books. As far as I am concerned, I think any kind of censorship or act of banning people (of all ages) from knowlege is wrong. First of all, when people ban books, movies, music, certain behaviors, etc---it does nothing but make the person to whom you are banning these things from make them want to do it or learn more. Instead of "banning" it from them, why not be open and tell them the truth about wordly things that happen everyday, instead of letting them find them out themselves in ways that may not be true?
Also, who says who gets to decide what people should know about what they should not know about? For instance, perhaps there is a committee who decides which books shall be banned and which books children are eligibile to read. Or, in the situation where the government decides not to tell the public or media what is actually happening in the war or even the world! I mean, maybe I'm being ridiculous but I do not think anybody has a right to decide if certain people are allowed to be knowledgable of things whether it's regarding books or what's actually happening in the world we live in. Why not tell us the truth and let us decide how to handle the knowledge that's being handed to us? I believe any human being that shares their part of the earth has the right to acquire as much knowledge as they see fit and no one has the right to tell them otherwise. As far as I know, knowledge is power and I think it's a shame to deny anyone that right in the world we live in today where it seems getting an education and learning is essential for survival.

Blogging

The two blogs I chose to look at were:

themovieblog.com
freakonomics.blogs.nytimes.com

The movie blog wasa blog mainly about new and upcoming movies or plots of movies revealed. It is for anyone to write and put their own opinion on. Most of it is updates or secrets that are leaked out about TV series or new movies and even people have put their opinions on certain movies about whether it was worth watching or not. My other blog I found quite interesting. It is a blog by the New York Times on various subjects. It's about the other side of things, giving people another perspective on certain subjects. They have all sorts of topics such as Guitar Hero and even politics. One person writes a blog on certain subjects and then people are allowed to comment underneath their reactions or feelings on that topic. With these two blogs, I learned a good deal about blogging and how it sort of works, of course I am still learning and with me starting my own blog, I am sure I will learn even more.