"Across the Universe" The Beatles

1. I saw a field of tall, wavy grass. I saw a man laying on a hammock on the back porch of a large, white farm house on the top of a hill in a field of tall, wavy grass. The sky above the field is bright and perfectly blue with large, white clouds that dominate the heavens and add to the brightness of the day. The green of the grass is always changing and flowing as the grass waves in the soft wind and the sun reflects and creates shadows in different parts of the field.

2. I did not pay much attention to the lyrics of the song, but from the class discussion I gathered that it was about the constant flow of ideas that the singer has and how he cannot keep all of those ideas into his head at one time. Despite the fact that my image is based on the singer's accompaniment, I think I can relate my image to the lyrics. The man in the hammock is contemplating the field of grass outside his house. He realizes that the field is constantly changing and that he could never take in the entire scene every time it changes. This means that, with each passing moment, he is missing some beauty that will never return. However, he also realizes that despite the field's constant change, it still maintains a fundamental beauty that never goes away. This means that regardless of the fact that he can not examine the beauty of every shift in the field of grass, he can be content with the beauty of the field as a whole, which is something that he can enjoy at any time.

3. A symbol in my life would be Saint Dismas. Not many people know the story of Saint Dismas, so I will summarize it. When Jesus was crucified, he was not alone. There was a man on his left and right who were also being crucified, but since they were common thieves, their punishment was not as severe and they were only tied to their crosses. One of the men next to Jesus confronted him and said that if he was the son of God, he should free them from their punishment. The other man, Dismas, defended Jesus by saying that Jesus was being punished worse than them even though he was innocent. Because Dismas defended Jesus in his hour of need, he made Dismas a saint, but since Dismas spent his life as a thief, Jesus said that Saint Dismas must help all those who prayed to him the find the things that they are looking for. We have a large family and we lose many things on our house, so my father bought himself, my mother, my sister, and me a chain with Saint Dismas on it to help us find the things that we have lost.   Everybody is looking for something, and if you pray to Saint Dismas, he will help you find it.

"Inspiration Information" by Shuggie Otis

1. This song made me feel very chill and relaxed.
2. The artists used a slow beat and heavily synthesized instruments.
3. There was nothing that was remotely loud or fast in the song, and the vocals were difficult to understand, which added to the calming effect.

"Semeadores" by Diego Rivera

1.
S- two farmers working in a field
O- time- early 20th century; place- Mexico
A- higher class people
P- to show how difficult and grueling farm labor is
S- Mexican communist
T- the tone is very dull and lifeless, with the farmers looking like they are part of the field

2. The main theme of the painting is to show the higher class people how hard the lower class works to sustain them. The farmers have no faces and look like they are becoming part of the land in order to show how much farm labor consumes most of these workers' lives.  

Creative Process

1. They took a song and deconstructed it to see if there were more exiting ways to approach it.
2. The biggest aspect of my creative process for writing is creating a thesis. Once I have my thesis, I can sit down and write any paper.
3. I look at the prompt and look at all the things that it is asking me to do. I base my thesis off of that.

Nostalgia Blog

1. Nostalgia in the longing for something that once was
2. The first song was very festive and made me think of an old fashioned party. The second song made me think of a high school prom night from on old movie.
3. Every time I smell chlorine, I get an small adrenaline rush because usually when I smell chlorine I am about to swim in a race.

Poverty Painting Questions

1.     A major contributing factor to a person’s economic status is what type of family they are born into. Impoverished people are usually born into poor families.

2.     The artist definitely portrays poverty in an unfavorable light.

3.     The artist’s message about poverty is that it is a terrible situation to be in and it is very difficult to get out of it, but there is still hope.

4.     The dark colors in the painting help give a sad and gloomy tone, and the bars behind that family symbolizes the difficulty of escaping poverty.

First Reading Response Blog - Poverty

            The two essays that we read, “Live Free and Starve” by Chitra Divakaruni and “The Singer Solution to World Poverty” by Peter Skinner, have contrasting views on how to deal with children in need in third world countries. Divakaruni argues that it would be better to leave the children where they are now because they will not be able to survive in the harsh world of the streets of a third world country. Singer, on the other hand, argues that we should give every penny we can to these children in need because it would be incredibly immoral for us to live is luxury while others are in mortal peril. While Divakaruni does make an interesting point, I must agree with Singer because it is wrong for us to squander our money that others desperately need.

            I definitely had some reader bias while reading these essays that pulled me toward Singer’s side of the argument. Singer’s side agreed with my beliefs and everything that I had been taught about compassion and sympathy. However, I also believe that without this reader bias I still would have agreed with Singer because his argument was more compelling and more morally sound. Divakaruni’s argument was an undeniably unique and interesting look at a mostly one-sided issue, but it is difficult to imagine following through with the idea that children are better off in their factories and not with their families. Not only Singer’s argument better presented than Divakaruni’s, but also it is more morally sound. It is obvious that the right course of action in the scenario that he presented is to save the child’s life, no matter the cost. Not to do so is completely immoral and, whether you have reader bias or not, should be opposed.

"Round & Round"

            The facts I used for this song were the use of synthetic sounds and the two distinct vocal patterns that were happening simultaneously throughout the song. These facts influenced my opinion of the song because my opinion was based off of my interpretation of these facts. I thought that those two aspects of the song were strange and unusual and unappealing. I chose these aspects of the song for my facts because those were the two that stood out for me the most and seemed the most unusual. I did not enjoy the song because I did not enjoy the components of the song that I chose for my facts. I believe that I had a bias against this song when I heard it because it was unlike many of the songs that I normally listen to. However, I believe that without this bias that my opinion would remain similar because I do not think that I would enjoy that song or that type of music, even if I were exposed to it on a regular basis.