amithystblade's blog

John Donne. One cannot go out of an English class without studying at least one of his pieces… most influential and popular of all is “The Flea”. I would have to say, even though most times authors do not take the form of the narrator… in this case, I am going to assume he is taking form of the narrator, because he seems like a lady’s man/jerk to me. It is interesting how he is the only one of his family to leave the Catholic faith. His father was a very prominent Catholic and his mother as well. His sister on the other hand died for her faith, leaving her known as a martyr. John fought along side with Sir Walter Raleigh and the Earl of Essex against the Spanish at Cadiz. It is not surprising however, that Donne suffered from depression. I believe all this, the political pressure, the religious pressure, the fact his sister died for her faith, and he fought in a war is no doubt the reason of his depression and falling out of the Catholic faith. As in his poem “The Flea” the theme that dominates the piece is live today like it is your last for tomorrow may never come, and we are all pretty much the same thing, so why not do what is forbidden (the flea has sucked your blood and now mine, our blood is already mingled so whatever we do, sexually, it will not be the first). He had the power of persuasion; the kind where one starts off knowing that he has no clue what he is talking about, but then he sounds like he is making sense, but really is contradicting himself, but you don’t notice cause of his particular words he has chosen and thus you are persuaded.

One of the most astounding pieces of poetry could not have achieved its popularity and fame without its counterpart, written some years after the first. In my opinion, Christopher Marlow’s “The Passionate Shepherd to His Love” is not by far his best work ever. In fact, it is only because Sir Walter Raleigh wrote his parody sequel, not really titled but never the less known as “The Nymph’s Reply to the Shepard.” The response is by far one of the wittiest things I’ve ever read. What makes these two poems work so well, is that it is from the man’s point of view, and the second is from a woman’s point of view. Raleigh really had something going for him, because this was completely out of the ordinary from other things I’ve read from at the time. Mocking the fanciful and unrealistic quality of Marlow’s piece, Raleigh not only takes the approach through the eyes of a woman, but replies using more realistic tones; letting Marlow know how utterly ridiculous and idiotic his words mean. Everything in Marlow’s poem is nothing extraordinary from work of the time. In fact, he writes pretty much like others would have, making insane comparisons and descriptions of the woman’s body. Raleigh on the other hand points out every inconsistent truth that Marlow has marked in his poem. Raleigh’s theme is that life is not happily ever after; nothing is perfect and peachy and you can never promise that to be. There will be bad times, hard times, and even times when you’ll fight. We are not creatures of perfection, but of habit and imperfection. Spring will never stay forever, and eventually winter will come. Face the reality, and there you’ll find happiness in life. You cannot ignore the obvious.

 “Supernatural Messages and Mental States: Studying the Ghost and Hamlet’s Sanity” by Ashleymarie Sey DeBondt (me)

“Thou com’st in such a questionable shape… horridly to shake our disposition with thoughts beyond the reaches of our souls? Say, why this? Wherefore? What should we do?” Possibly one of the lesser known quotes from Shakespeare’s Hamlet, yet one incredibly saturated with ghostly appeal. One of Shakespeare’s motifs often over looked is the presence of ghosts. Within his most popular plays Macbeth, Julius Caesar, and now Hamlet, the most important topic which has been debated is that of the ghost. M. D. Faber, of the University of Victoria in British Columbia, deals with this very issue in her article obviously titled “Shakespeare’s Ghosts.” Specifically, Faber focuses the issue of whether the ghost is real or a figment of Hamlet’s imagination. Faber notes that ghosts and Elizabethan perspective of the paranormal is vastly different to that of the present day skeptic.

In response to Dr. Darwin by Lori Oliwenstein

            Lori Oliwenstein does a good analysis looking at natural selection and the reasons why we get sick and why, in the past, what we are sick of now helped save our ancestors before. She notes, diseases happen randomly and pop up, but before you know it they will smolder and then the outbreak will end on its own. Example of this is the Ebola outbreak. However, during one such outbreak, there are certain individuals who are not affected by the fatal disease. For one reason or another, their genes, whither they mutated before the outbreak occurred or during we do not know, but are different in the way it prevents the bad disease that is affecting everyone around them. Later on in life, however, historical evidence of documenting what our ancestors have had, tells us other problems may occur later on in life, or in our line. Lori points out the classic case of sickle cell anemia. “Some years ago, researchers discovered that people with one copy of the sickle-cell gene are better able to resist the protozoans that cause malaria than people wiuth no copies of the gene. People with two copies of the gene may die, but in the malaria-plagued regions such as tropical Africa, their numbers will be more than make up for by the offspring left by the disease-resistant kin.” Further studies have show that in present day, those whose ancestors obtained this gene, their offspring are prone to have hypertension. There are many factors that may have caused such to occur, however the drastic difference in lifestyle; what once was a mutation that helped save lives of those in the past, is now affecting their children’s children. My speculation would be because their lifestyles and way of living are so extremely different today compared to what their relations had to go through in the past. Not only are we not living in a malaria prone society, but we are less active than we were not hundreds of years, but decades ago. Our lack of physical exerction is relatively new to our gene pools and because of this, problems are bound to arise. Our ancestors were most defiantly more active than we are today. They fought and worked hard for what they needed to survive. Today, we sit on our butts and earn money for food to survive. Instead of making fresh foods, we go to fast food restaurants and eat food that only stresses our body because it holds no nutritional value. No wonder so many people today are dying of heart disease, diabetes and being overweight. Though we may be finding new research to ‘fix’ problems in our life, maybe the one thing we need to fix is the way we live our lives. Maybe the best answer, instead of looking for the next pill or surgery, is to eat right and exercise.

Personally, I find Gulliver's Travels one of the most boring books ever written. Don't get me wrong. Swift is a wonderful essay writer, but his style does not captivate my attention for long periods of reading, such as his novel. I prefer his satirical works such as A Modest Proposal. Hilarious because he is not serious, Swift takes satire and makes it his own world.

After a certain age, women are told to get annual mammograms to help detect early signs of breast cancer. However, how effective is this?

I've never liked the thought or idea of a machine squishing one of my boobs so it can get a good X-ray to read if I have any abnormal calcium deposits, fatal or not... but it is not just about the few minutes of discomfort. It is more.

Today I found out that mammograms don't have great readings of detecting breast cancer. I've read everywhere, besides doing a self test, mammograms are the second thing to go to. This is false information. Doctors at UCLA told a friend of mine that she had breast cancer. Her mother died of breast cancer and her sister has had it. So she would go to get her annual mammogram, telling the doctors that her breast felt harder than normal. They found nothing and sent her to UCLA and told her that she needed to get a catscan. She asked why and they told her because mammograms do not detect breast cancer. That is what they told her! The catscan revealed she has had breast cancer for at least 5 years! 5 years!

One of the worst ideas I have heard in a while. I've heard this before, and the concept is not a new one. The helath care in America is not the best it can be, but it is pretty good. What we need to do is rework and get rid those damn insurance agencies... between them and doctors who are doctors for money and not saving lives.

The cons of Universal Health Care:

Canada has universal health care and nothing good has become of it. I have not only heard stories, but some of my own family members have been victims of maltreatment of the healthcare system in Canada. My great aunt has had some hip trouble, being that she is getting older that is known. Well going in they told her that she had to wait till it got worse for them to operate on it. So they made her wait a couple years... only to tell her "it's too late, we can't operate because it is so bad."

The other evening I went over to my friend, Amanda Lis' home, and we made sweets with her family. I had so much fun!

One the way home though, was a different story. Once I left the front door, and got into my car, I swore I saw that black figure to my left, just outside the passanger door. It was only for a second and I felt shivers down my spine. I looked again and he wasn't there, but I could feel him. I got in my car clumsily and drove off... dialing someone, anyone on my phone to try to ignore what might have been with me again.