Reading

This is only a quick break from science and the chemistry of cooking. But this month and the end of February has been an extremely tiring and stressful. With the start of Literature Circles, my homework load increased three fold. Literature circles are the newest installment of my English class curriculum. It utilizes small groups of two or three who read a particular text of no less than two hundred pages. The reading is to be completed in three weeks at one week intervals. I chose a partner who is a good friend of mine. Initially, we were undecided upon which book we were going to read. Another friend of ours in the class had no partner, but a book he was interested in reading. Soon the three of us obtained copies of Octavia E. BUTLER’s book Parable of the Talents.

Far beyond high school, I realized that the pace at which I read is far slower than the usual pacing of my peers. I rarely read books in my spare time, not that I truly have any spare time nor do I read for pleasure. At its most basic, the only time I read fiction works are for English-Language Arts class or other education.

Now in my hands, I hold a four hundred page book that I must complete in three weeks. Unfortunately, there was no time to reassign myself to another group or attempt to persuade both partners to switch titles. Four hundred pages – three weeks. My group decided to divide the book into even thirds based on the number of chapters. Luckily there were twenty one chapters and twenty one divides into three seven times evenly. Therefore it reasoned that twenty one chapters should be dispersed in three seven-chapter intervals. And thus it was set, seven chapters were to be read each week (if it isn’t obvious, that roughly can equate to one chapter per day). In Parable of the Talents, BUTLER writes approximately fifteen pages for each chapter…fifteen pages of reading each day. Yuck. I knew I should not have agreed to read this book of four hundred pages. I understand that many avid readers scoff at the idea of ‘only’ fifteen pages, which they could read in ten minutes. I am the complete opposite; I cannot read quickly, possibly five pages in a half-hour at most – depending on how dense the material is presented.

Anyhow, one week passes. I should be starting the second installment of my book. I should be starting chapter eight. I should be at page 135. But what have I accomplished in seven days? Almost nothing, absolutely nothing. The only time I spent reading was during class and lunch. My marker rests at page thirty. One hundred pages behind pace.

I decide it is time for a meeting with my English teacher. My English teacher (whose name shall remain undisclosed) and I shared a valuable conversation. We both learned something new about me and my reading. He told me to take a half-hour of reading time, and take notes on what thoughts are going through my mind, what distractions are around me, and what else is possibly hindering my reading pace. My teacher explains that the issue is less likely a problem with reading itself, but other aspects which may affect my reading. The notes I took gave a framework to build upon…

Genocide

Prompt 03: Human Nature – Who participates in genocide, and why? What does the commonality of genocide lead you to believe about humanity?

The expression genocide did not exist in type prior to 1944. It was not until Polish-Jewish lawyer Raphael Lemkin coined the word to describe Nazi policies of systematic murder. However, genocide describes more than killing of Jews during the Holocaust and it has occurred throughout all periods of human history – far before 1944 and even today in the twenty-first century. Whether it is religious, political, racial, or cultural, genocide is a deliberate and systematic killing of a group associated by some common link. Some of the earliest genocides were recorded around 150 bce during the Third Punic War. And in recent news, the situations of Darfur, Sudan are genocide.

At some point in history, all societies have connection to genocide. What event is usually associated with genocide? Most often the holocaust is linked with genocide. The holocaust was during World War II, where Nazi Germany sponsored the systematic murder of over 11 million people, including 6 million European Jews. Much other genocide has occurred throughout history. In Asia during the thirteenth century, Mongolian Empire founder Genghis Khan had genocidal killings against the territories he conquered. Khan expanded his empire through his violence and killing of his enemies.

The Americas experienced an extensive genocide – most of which is disguised in thousands of social studies textbooks. When Columbus and the other explorers of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries set foot on America, the natives welcomed these conquistadors with honor – as the Native Americans thought the explorers were gods returning to their sacred lands. However, these explorers were in for a different motive – power. Back then, for a country to be powerful, it had at least one of three mechanisms: land, spices, or money. With the Spanish in Central America, Hernán Cortés found the Aztec capital Tenochtitlan with plenty of gold. Eventually, he brought down the capital to take the gold –and did so by killing millions of Aztecs.

With the Spanish in Central America, the Aztec capital Tenōchtitlan was taken and overthrown in 1521 by Hernán Cortés. A similar set of events happened north of Tenōchtitlan in present-day Eastern United States. After Columbus set foot in the Americas in 1492, explorers from many countries in Europe traveled to the East Coast. Soon, they began to colonize and claim territory for their motherland – and started to force Native American tribes out of the region. More people arrived in the Americas and colonies were densely populated. Seeking more land, and more adventurous opportunity, individuals headed to the Wild West (American Old West) to see what the earth had to offer. To no surprise, the English pushed out, and in the process they had to ‘inconvenience’ thousands of Native American tribes. Some wars amongst the indigenous people and the colonizing English broke out because the Native Americans wished not to be forced into small reserves while watching the ‘foreigners’ take over their land, resources, and homes. Records of Indian wars are available from the mid-1500s to the early 1900s – and the summation of all these mini-war battles result in the Indian massacre.

Genocidal killings murder millions of people – and millions of homicides need people to participate. During the holocaust, Adolf Hitler was able to control the information outputted by media and use propaganda to persuade the common people of Germany to enlist in the military and kill off the European Jewish population. On the contrary, in the Rwandan genocide, two divisions – Hutu and Tutsi - did not choose to kill. Neighbors and friends were sometimes told to kill each other. People of all ages participated in genocide. Children as young as 12 years of age were able to pursue direct combat – whether voluntarily or involuntarily, depending on the situation. However, International Human Rights law mandates that the military use of children no younger than 18 years of age take part in direct hostilities - and those of who are between the ages of 15 to 18 years may be enrolled in the military.

What does this mean about humanity?
People will always find ways to differentiate themselves from other people. As mentioned in the Race Video, humans have always divided themselves into groups which they see have a commonality. This relates to a more primitive tribal society and is the basis of genocide-based killings. The killing of others may be just another sign of our primitive past. So have humans, the “most evolved” and sophisticated animals truly surpassed our chimp ancestors? And are our civilizations actually “civil”…?

Semester 01 Final

Writer’s Block:
Writing has never been one of my strong points and I have always experienced writer’s block. A major cause for this is the assignment of writing on a particular topic or using styles which I am uncomfortable. With blog posts, I am able to write about any subject without limit. This eliminates one of the factors writer’s block, but there are still other contributors.

An issue I have had for many years is taking ideas and molding them onto paper. I become greatly distracted and sometimes attempt to evade the assignment. Either that or I try to manipulate my writing to avoid answer the question and changing the initial topic. Sometimes, I may even take the topic and provide an extensive amount of research and background information.

For example, in the quick-write “I do, I have, I am,” the question is what do you think Steinberg is getting across? Instead of analyzing the meaning of the art, I described the painting in great detail. I explained the use of laws of perspective, the use of certain colors and textures, the positioning of specific aspects. But in the end, I failed to mention any thought of Steinberg’s message.

How did I overcome writer’s block? Simple: I wrote about topics that appealed to me and used a linear method of writing. With the exclusion of mandatory posts, most of my blogs are about science.

Once I began talking about science, the thread of science-related blogs continued. Thereafter, I had limited issues with writer’s block on my blog; of course I still had issues with other writing assignments. Because of the volume of research available for topics of my blog, many times I would continue my post from previous weeks by adding more information. I would always have an available topic in which I was interested to explore in my blog without the need to brainstorm for new ideas. This is not to say that writer’s block was cured.

There was still the issue of putting ideas into text. Sometimes this task is as easy as taking a resource and paraphrasing its text in a way which is non-plagiaristic and/or simplifying the text such that it is easier to read and understand.

In The Basics of Science, I dedicated a half-hour of research searching through old textbooks, notes, and the internet to find the most accurate and precise information to educate the views. I also spent additional time ensuring several words from the Academic Vocabulary List were incorporated to fulfill that week’s blog post requirement. Although not exactly writer’s block, it is a level in which thoughts are transcribed or ‘translations’ of the texts decelerate the momentum.

There are other occasions when I need to compose some aspects of the blog – like the analogies.

One analogy is a favorite of my English teacher. It compares the difference of mass in large marbles and small marbles to the mass of kosher salt and standard table salt.

… Cooking with kosher salts can cause a slight problem.[…]Consider the
following: Two jars of equal volume are filled with marbles of similar density
[…]. The first jar is filled to the rim with small marbles, the latter with
large marbles. […] would you expect them to be equal in weight? No. Because the
second jar is filled with larger marbles there is more room between the marbles,
and therefore less weight compared to the more compact smaller marbles.The same
principle can be applied to kosher salt and plain table salt. Because there is
more room between the grains of kosher compared to grains of plain table salt in
1 unit, there is technically less salt mass in 1 cup of kosher.

In the end, writing with comfortable styles and knowledgeable topics (and also subjects you take interest) are the best defenses against writer’s block. The patterns I notice associated with writer’s block involve the lack in motivation and sometimes background knowledge required in some styles of writing.

Blog Post Analysis: The Thin
My most recent blog post The Thin featured a question I posted on a previous post. On “Cooking – More than fun” from 2009 October, one of the questions is: “How do variations in the proportions of ingredients affect a final product of food? “ I answered this question by using science – mainly chemistry. In order to modify a chocolate chip cookie recipe, I would need to acquire a recipe. I used the “Magna Carta” of American cookie recipes – the Original NESTLÉ® TOLL HOUSE® Chocolate Chip Cookies.

The initial creator of the recipe was Ruth Graves Wakefield – and she sold her secret to NESTLÉ® for a life-time supply of chocolate. The recipe had become so popular with Americans; NESTLÉ® began to manufacture NESTLÉ® TOLL HOUSE® Semi-Sweet Morsels.

Hundreds of cookie types exist. There is the sugar cookie, Nabisco’s OREO™, triple chocolate cookie, M&M’s® cookie, chocolate chip, oatmeal and oatmeal raisin, snicker doodle, peanut butter, amongst many others. To further add to classifying cookies, the chocolate chip cookie can be classified into three variations. These variations are defined by the texture or appearance of the cookie.

The Thin cookie, as the name suggests, is flat. Its texture is usually crisp around the edges, and depending on the baking time, the center may be crisp or soft. For such a cookie to bake properly, the batter (which is dropped onto the baking sheet) must spread prior to setting. This requires the better to have a fat which melts at a sharp and low temperature. The less moisture that can accumulate during the mixing or baking process will reduce the amount of steam needed for batters to rise.

The Puffy cookie is light and airy. The consistency is more related to a cake than any of the other variations. The cookies produced using puffy recipes are usually small in diameter and tall in height. Contrary to The Thin, puffy cookies require steam build up in order to acquire the aerated texture. The proteins of egg whites tend to puff when agitated, similar to the foam produced when whipping egg whites for meringues, soufflés, mousses, and chiffon.

The Chewy is obviously chewy in texture. Usually flat, the chewy cookies have a texture that gives the true American chocolate chip cookie. It is the texture imagined when biting into the warm, fresh baked delights grandmother makes. This method requires a lot of moisture in a wet batter, which does not set like that of its puffy counterpart. Adding more brown sugar to the batter is the best way to yield high moisture content, as it absorbs water from the air even after the baking process.