Same- Sex Marriage

Thesis: As our culture and species adapt and time lapses, adjustments are nade to the constitution to compensate. I believe that same- sex marriage is a legitimate proposal from the LGBT; referring collectively to the lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transsexual community.

-I speak on this controversial issue as a lesbian. I believe that when the time comes i should have the choice to be married and have the same marital rights of the heterosexual community.

-I am aware that I imply that homosexuals, and heterosexuals are of seperate communities but that is not in fact the case. Random House Dictionary defines community as follows; a social group of any size whose members reside in a specific locality, share government, and often have a common cultural and historical heritage.

-neighbors gay/straight

- why aren’t me and my partner eligible to the marital benefits as a "straight" couple. What makes us any different as the next two heterosexuals in love? Just because we are of the same gender does not mean or normal human emotions of love, affection, and care for someone differs.

- " to have and to hold in sickness and in health till death do us part"

- marriage ceremony

- define commitment

- family

-same sex couples desire a family as well

- conclusion ?

Mask on the Face of Death

This piece of writing is significantly different from what we have been reading lately. The way he adresses his topic of AIDS is very interesting. he focuses on how its spread and it seems to be his main concern. its interesting though because he projected AIDS in Haiti as a hush hush epidemic and that it was a secret where or why it was spreading and what the sources were which is weid to me because we know alot more about the disease now a days i just had to keep reminding myself that this was not written recently.
Out of the entire piece his language and discription stood out to me the most. i really like how he would descripe things that so strongly apealed to my sense of sight. he painted such a beautiful picture with color and movement. i felt i could really see what he was seeing. a few examples include...
"together they seem to be riding the back of the music as it gallops to a precisely sexual beat."
"how they eat us with their eyes as we pass"
"...like a groggy boxer who has let down his arms and is waiting for the last punch"
he often compares what he is seeing to something the common man has seen so the picture is that much more vivid. his sentence structure is extremely effective in what i believe he is trying to tell us as readers.
i also like how in one sensence he used a french word with the english.
"how is it that you hotiliers, resturant owners and the ministry of tourism did not kow what tout Haiti knew?"
i thought it was really creative.

Unspeakable conversation

when i was reading this i honestly took my time reading it im not exactly sure why but it captivated my. maybe it is because i live in princeton just 5 min from the univerity or how interseting the debated issues was. i felt like i was really in her head. i felt like she put me in her thaught and gave me a very clear understanding of what she was thinking. i also was enlightened by how she put th elives of disabled people. how medical professionals think that if you are disabled then you need medical training for assistance and then she goes and gives a perfect example involving her opposer showing that indeed that it not the case that no medical training is needed for most assistance a disabled person requires.

" a little while later, my right elbow slips out from under my. this is awkward. normally i get whoever is on my right to do this sort of thing. why not now? i gesture to Singer. he leans over, and i whisper. grap this wrist and pull forward one inch, without lifting. he follows my instructions to the letter. he sees that now i can again reach my food with my fork. and he may now understand what i was saying a minute ago. that most the assistance disabled people need does not demand medical training."

i also thaught it was extremely interesting how her perception on Singer changes at first before she spent time at this convention with him she thought of him as a monster then she realized that he was no monster. and she rethinks how analysis of his views not in the sense that she agrees with them by any means but where he is coming from . i like how it progressed and i could gradually notice her opinons on him changing the way she talked about him and their conversation. he treated her with such respect which is surprising because she starts out with saying Singer is the man who "wants her dead". out of all the essays we have read so far this was the most interesting to me i really enjoyed reading it. i didnt feel like i wanted to rugh through it i was actually interested on hearing more on the topic. it was my favorite reading so far.

What did you do in the war, grandma?

it was interesting to read while also thinking about Laurence reflection of the bombings to end the war, she was making the crafts and working with the blueprints and he was in the aircrafts waiting for the signal to drop the bombs, she was waiting to find out if the war was over if i had happened and he was up there watching it all come to an end. all the destruction she is conflicted about in the end was what he was witnessing first hand up in the sky. i was confused though about a few things. i thaught the whole reason she went to where she did to work becuase she wanted to be apart in ending the war. she wanted to do something. but then in the end when she says

"if he had asked me whether i would work very hard to help bring this horror into being, knowing it would shorten the war but put the world into jeopardy for all time, how would i have answered? i would have said no. with all due respect, sir how could such a things make a just end to our cause. and that is actually something i thought about when i was reading Laurence so that got my mind thinking more about the ethics of what happened.

i also liked how earlier she emphasized how amazing it would be for the war to be over and how life changing it would be to all Americans.

" i went to bed early and lay listening to the crickets and thinking about everyone coming home.... putting a balance in our lives that we hadn't known in years.

after reading the entire thing her conflict became clear in the end

i also like how in this piece it had a little bit of humor and how her and her friends interactions were included which definitely put me more in the "back at home" state of mind unlike in Laurence when i could sense the milital tone and the in the middle of the action theme appropriate obviously for Laurence writings.

i liked reading one after the other. gave me both sides of the situation. in the air and back at home perspectives.

Before reading this reflection i asked by brother for some background information on the bombing of first Hiroshima and then Nagasaki. I knew very little about the subject. While reading i got the sense the report was composed of journal entries which mated the background given on Laurence. It definitely set an appropriate tone to the writing. As i was reading his detailed descriptions of the events leading up to the actual bombing it painted a clear picture for my imagination. i just could not believe that everyone involved was so nonchalant about the events to come. i could not help but think of all the innocents whose lives are about to be obliterated. i weighing the pros and cons in my head. i knew that the bomb ended the war but hundreds of thousands of lives lost. it was so devastating. it destroyed everything in its path. though tragic my favorite part of the report was when he was describing the moment of the bombing and how he described the mushroom to the petals, all the colors and its monstrosity.

"as the first mushroom floated off into the blue it changes its shape into a flower like form, its giant petals curving downward, creamy white outside, rose-colored inside. it still retained that shape when we last gazed at it from a distance of about to hundred miles..."

something that also interested me was how they called the high altitudes "space how he said the bomb was like a "new species". the picture at the end really confirmed my constructed image of the disaster.

Graduation

graduation, hierarchy, new begining. this piece was interesting to read. the language that she used at times was new to me . "... anxious to help with preperations as a kind of dry run." and the sentence structure was very detailed. she did alot of showing and telling . "his voice rose ib tides of promise and fell on waves of warning" it was a good balance of the 2 . she did a really good job of setting up the scene for me when i was reading i had a picture of the setting before she explained the situation of the people. for expample on page 44 paragraph 2 when she explained the school it was very detailed and gave md a good picture what the school was and i could sense through her writing and how she explained it that the school was different from the other white school. i also thaught it was interesting how she talked about the 2 white men when they came to speak at the graduation. i thaught that they were giving priase to the african american students but then she goes onto say (during the time of the to be or not to be speach) " hadnt e got the message? there was no ' noble int he mind' for the begros because the world didnt think we had minds, and they let us know it. i like also how she gave a bit on how she felt to be a "negro" "it was awful to be a negro and have no control over my life" she made many bold statements liekt hat throughout the book. very opinionated .

Shooting and Elephant

reading this piece was at first a mistery. but as the story progressed it all became much clearer. i enjoyed being lost in the beginig because it only made me want to read on. the old language of english was captivating and different that what i am used to reading in present day. they descriptive writing allowed me to understand the culture. as i read on i understood more and more the atmosphere that this second teir police officer functioned in. personally torn between his beliefes and duties that came along with his profession. at first read not understanding what i was reading then understanding much more than the story. a cultural lesson in the subconsious of the writting. durring the time of the killing of the elephant i felt the mood of the story chage drastically i could feel the painstaking pain of the event leading to the death of the elephant and the mear pain of the elephant itself. to kill a large animal indeed does seem more serous compared to one taking the life of a rat. an elephant of all beautiful creatures lay in the mud suffereing. i could never do such a thing. i dont understand why it was a must for the elephant to be put to death. i could feel the officers internal conflict. i personally would not want to do such a thing nor b put in such a situation to preform such a horrendous task. the part of the tale of the dieing elephant so short but felt never ending as i was reading through. i felt as if i couldnt bare to read any longer. i could too feel the pressure of the following community hovering behind him. the air becoming thicker and thicker. as the elephant lost its breath i felt the story did to. it was well written in the sense that the text connected to the atmosphere of the surrounding, the conditions and atmosphere to which this man lived, and to the emotion and personal conflict was clearly showed not only told throughout the text. though bothered by the death of the elephant i enjoyed reading it through.