Paper 3

Watch my version of the Meringue Recipe (paper 3) in multimedia form!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4KXXkTId0j4

Animacules and Other Little Subjects

When Mark Smith takes his pickle jar down to the pond and fills it will smaller forms of water life to study for the afternoon, there is a calm and less important feel to what he is about to do. Our lives are so bogged down with the worries and conundrums of the larger world that in all of our efforts to save the human species we forget that there is a much more complex ecosystem that includes all species, even ones smaller than a millimeter, trying to survive on this planet as well. "For some reason I often feel calm and reassured afterward, perhaps because I realize how much room remains for more." Smith's feeling of calm is like my own when reading this article, because after all of the worrisome feelings I have for our planet, species, and future it is nice to see the complexity of the smaller creatures and how their lives are being lived.

"As a lifelong devotee of life, I have had my fair share of pets." Smith goes on to tell us about his history of loving animals and studying them under microscopes. His odd pet of paramecium is a sort of declaration of his love of all species for he claims at the time he could only view them as white specs when he looked closely. Paramecium eat bacteria so they keep their habitat very clean. That is genius to me. Self cleaning machines, what a dual relationship they have with the environment. All in all Smith ponders over whether his innate love of microscopic species is "wisdom or lunacy" and it seems that although they are small they must be studied for the mere perfection of how they seamlessly work their way into the ecosystems perfect mess of how living things work together to create life as we know it.

How We Evolve

As humans we are no strangers to evolution. We have come to learn through science and math that the complex creatures we are today was not always so, we came from somewhere and that place was not nearly as intelligent as the one we are in today. Obviously I'm talking about our ancestors that began as apes and worked their way up to homo sapiens through the intense process of natural selection. All of those changes are very obvious and map out our exact creation to just the human eye. Now that we've got to where we were going that whole time, Phelan is questioning whether or not the process that got us here is still occurring and to what extent. On an even larger scale Phelan questions the extinction of our species entirely coming from the same process that evolved us onto the planet extincting us right off of it as well. Scary stuff huh?

Basically we are to understand that yes mutations and natural selection is still occurring to help us adapt to our environment today, but it is much smaller and much more condensed. Phelan claims that today the mutations are happening to help us deal with environmental changes today, "Our numbers swelled, our world changed, and our DNA is still catching up." While technology is the main resource today that helps us to make positive changes in society, it has also harmed our culture in a massive way. Technology has created our fast paced lives to be possible with the creation of transportation and convenience related inventions to help us stay on track however, this is one of our biggest problems. Now that we've started to harm our planet with our technological waste or our greenhouse gas emissions our bodies are struggling to keep up with it. "Erlich fears that evolution will be unable to help us." Usually the changes in our environment occurred naturally so our natural bodies had time to catch up with it, now we are the ones changing the environment and it is happening far too quickly for genetic mutations to be able to help us. "Intelligence builds on top of intelligence." Lahn infers that we can only work with what we know and then we will continue to work on top of that. While we are busy creating the cure, we are also creating what will cause our demise.

The Effects of Climate Change

John Broome makes the very applicable point that it is not so much what can we do to help avoid climate change, but a question of ethics in decided what should we do to prevent it. As a whole, the human population does an infinite number of activities a day that emit gases that harm our planet. The privileged few in our society tend to cause more harm then the impoverished, yet are they to blame? Should a person be forced to change their lifestyle for the good of all man kind? These are the questions Broome poses to his readers, and these are the questions everyone needs to think about if we ever want to start making positive changes for our ecosystem.
The cost of changing our ways of life to begin the process of healing our ozone in the future will be astronomical. Although cost is a huge portion of the decision making process as to what has to happen, sacrifices will need to be made in our day to day lives for the greater good. Major changes will result in new human functions and habits here on earth to work around greenhouse gas emissions. Money means nothing if there is no life to be lived here on earth, then its just paper.

I'm a Blogger

Blogging is a writing experience that I feel is really useful to developing my technique as a writer. I love blogging. I think it is a great way to get grades in our writing class as well as to keep us all on track. Blogging helps me practice and experiment with different ideas and formats to help make meaning as I write. In my blog I have created and developed my voice as a writer because of the informal set up of our blogs. A blog is somewhere to go with all of my thoughts and feelings on each academic topic we cover in class. The relaxed and personal atmosphere of a blog is so free and really enables me to express myself without getting too caught up in the strict grade I am recieving. It allows me to go back and edit, add, and redo any post I may choose. Blogger is a place to really open up to and express my feelings on everything as if it isn't being graded for perfection in grammer and structure. Sometimes blogging is scary because I want to post personal things online, and I am completely aware it is online for everyone to see, yet when I know I might recieve comments and feed back on them it makes me want to eat my words and play it safe. Yuck.

Just Add Water

Observations: a toll booth, "Don't forget to take a mint.", doppy music, "American dream", hot, trailor parks, Trona, desert looking, kids outside, young drug dealer land lord, large gold chain, crazy neighbor, crack pipe, turtle with piece of green lettuce, boring plain house wife, run down store, rite valu, young woman works at store, boy at dinner table, heat and serve, dirty clothes,

Inferences: nice guy, take something extra (mint), improve your day, parking garage attendent, loss of optimism in Trona, lack of life, Ray=sun or king, the turtle is provided for, Nora is thin and pale and unstable, young land lord wears thick gold chain, Drug dealers run the town

Questions: What power do the young kids have over the town? Why doesn't the town have a police force? Where does the stray dog find food and shelter? What traumatized Nora to make her unstable? Is Edward really Ray's child? Are Ray and the girl at the Rite Valu going to hook up? Does she like Ray? How old is Ray/the young woman?

Writer in Progress

A writer is anyone who puts his or her thoughts down in words. The medium is not the issue- whether it be on paper, online, or on a paper napkin. Thoughts about other writing, thoughts about an idea the writer has, all kinds of thoughts and comments. Writers create something new, in words on paper. New can be anything that has been changed, expanded, or created. I am a writer in progress. I am beginning my journey learning to become a writer. In classes here at the university I learn to make concise and meaningful writing in my WCS 002 class- but I am not there just yet. I guess on some level I am a writer, just not a worth while one yet.