So as you might have noticed, i have posted a few homework articles up. I will continue doing this, and hopefully it benefits some people. My explication received a 6, so im assuming thats its a pretty decent explication. I have been lagging behind on blogging lately, as it seems that i have once again become introduced into the world of video games, namely, Battlefield 2. But i have promised myself to restrict it to only weeks, unless it is a weekday where i have no homework.
Todays interesting topic:
"Every week, an average of 88 children are expelled from American schools for bringing a gun to class. Nearly one in three American households with children have a gun in them. In a study of 37 school shooting incidents between 1974 and 2000, two thirds of the students involved had taken their guns from their own home or that of a relative. Death rate from guns in the US is by far the highest in the developed world. Of the 639 million small arms worldwide, nearly 200 million are in the homes of Americans."
I dont know how reliable the source on this info is, but it seems pretty scary. It seems that our neighbouring "friends" are quite the trigger-happy bunch. Violence in our world is ever increasing, and it brings forth images from the book "A Clockwork Orange" by Anthony Burgess. Everyday as we live in this sheltered microcosm, the world erupts in violence. I dont think that violence will ever be rid of, but perhaps there is a way to end it. There are always controversial issues pertaining to video games and violence, but i have always considered that just a scapegoat for the violence. When people do not know something, it is always easier to just blame it on something else. In most American states, people may keep guns without licenses, and that i think is what really is the issue. Guns in themselves are not dangerous, but when adults buy them, then leave them lying around, it is just trouble waiting to happen. So i shall end this with the cliche, guns dont kill people, people kill people.
Tuesday, April 8, 2008
Billy Fung
English 12
Ms. Ignacio
Block F
April 2nd, 2008
Dover Beach
The poem “Dover Beach” is a lyric poem written by an English poet Matthew Arnold during the Victorian Era. The poem is separated into 4 stanzas of unequal length. The rhyme is irregular in the poem, and no set meter is used. The poem is written by Arnold on his honeymoon, presumably on Dover Beach. The poem shows the author’s loss of faith, and shows Arnold concern over the English culture.
In the first stanza, Arnold starts by creating images of confidence and beauty. The speaker starts the poem saying “the sea is calm tonight.” The speaker is looking towards the sea, which gives him a sense of calmness. The speaker continues to illustrate the great beauty he sees, seeing the “cliffs or England stand glimmering and vast, out in the tranquil bay.” Arnold uses the first few lines of the poem to draw the audience into the wonders of the beach, conveying its beauty. Although the euphonious sounds of the first lines make the beach sound wonderful, the audience is lulled into a sense of sadness and dullness. The speaker calls out to his “love” to observe with him the “long line of spray.” As they stand by the window, the boundaries hold them in. Within the window, it seems that everything is serene and tranquil. But the “grating roar of pebbles” shatters the illusion of tranquility. Arnold uses the dissonant sounds of the grating to pull the reader out the beautiful moonlit beach. The waves begin to bring the “eternal note of sadness in.”
The second stanza brings in the literary allusion of Sophocles, and how he also heard the eternal note of sadness “on the Aegean.” The speaker also knows that Sophocles has experienced the “turbid ebb and flow of human misery.” The speaker begins to show that he is truly miserable, and yet the reader does not know for what reason.
The third stanza begins with a metaphorical “Sea of Faith,” that was “once, too, at the full and round earth’s shore.” The speaker uses the metaphor to show that he once had faith, but now the faith is receding, like the waves of the sea. The speaker compares his faith to the tides of the sea, and now he only hears its “melancholy, long withdrawing roars.” All alone, the loss of faith leaves the speaker naked, and hopeless.
The final stanza ends the poem with the speaker calling out to his love. Without his faith to rely on, the speaker makes a final attempt at love, telling it to “be true to one another!” The speaker has no more hope left in the world, seeing the faith of everybody begin and cease. The speaker acknowledges the world as a “land of dreams, so various, so beautiful, so new.” Yet the speaker knows the world has “neither joy, nor love, nor light, nor certitude, nor peace, nor help for pain.” Everything is devoid in the world, and the loss of faith is further expressed as the speaker feels truly hopeless. The poem ends with the speaker being “swept with confused alarms of struggle and flight, here ignorant armies clash by night.” The couplet that ends the poem offers a little bit of relief from the harsh sounds of the poem. But the rhyme and juxtaposition of the couplet is not enough to compensate for the chaos of the poem. The speaker acknowledges the world that he is in, and that he too will be swept away into the tides of ignorance.
Do not go before you turn off that light
Poor men should burn and rave at close of day
Rage, rage energy wasting through the night
Wise men should know that going green is right
Because their noble actions always say,
Do not go before you turn off that light.
Leave them on and you think it is alright.
The electric bill arrives in dismay
Rage, rage energy wasting through the night
Your wallet weeps at the ongoing plight
Up the stairs you already know the way.
Do not go before you turn off that light
So you, I hope resist this ending blight
Sitting in this dark room alone I pray,
Do not go before you turn off that light
Rage, rage energy wasting through the night
Friday, April 4, 2008
Science One
As part of completing the Application Form for the Science One Program you must provide a 600-word essay addressing the following two questions:
1. What are your goals and expectations of your university experience and why to you want to participate in a rigorous broad-based program like Science One?
2. What makes you passionate about studying Science?
So I have to write an essay talking about my goals and expectations of taking the science one program at UBC. For those who dont know, the science one program is a broad-based program, in that it incorporates all the sciences and math. The first year program unifies all the sciences, and it is very challenging. Although I feel that my marks are not good enough to get in, it never hurts to try. The only thing left for my application is my essay.
This post will be sort of a brainstorm for me, and somewhat of an open discussion for you guys who read my not very well known blog.
My goal of the program is to get a deeper understand of how the world works, and hopefully while going through that process, i will also be able to know what i really want to do in the world. It is truly evident that science will certainly play a major role in the shaping of the world. As of this moment, i feel that by taking a broad-based program, it will allow me to see what my strengths are in, and it will also help me understand that beauty of the world.
1. What are your goals and expectations of your university experience and why to you want to participate in a rigorous broad-based program like Science One?
2. What makes you passionate about studying Science?
So I have to write an essay talking about my goals and expectations of taking the science one program at UBC. For those who dont know, the science one program is a broad-based program, in that it incorporates all the sciences and math. The first year program unifies all the sciences, and it is very challenging. Although I feel that my marks are not good enough to get in, it never hurts to try. The only thing left for my application is my essay.
This post will be sort of a brainstorm for me, and somewhat of an open discussion for you guys who read my not very well known blog.
My goal of the program is to get a deeper understand of how the world works, and hopefully while going through that process, i will also be able to know what i really want to do in the world. It is truly evident that science will certainly play a major role in the shaping of the world. As of this moment, i feel that by taking a broad-based program, it will allow me to see what my strengths are in, and it will also help me understand that beauty of the world.
Tuesday, April 1, 2008
Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus
MRSA as it is most commonly referred to, is beginning to rise in numbers within Canada. Many of you have heard of this bacterium as it is commonly known, the "superbug." Methicillin was introduced in the 1950s to treat infections caused by a penicillin-resistant staph. Within a few years, reports came in that the penicillin staph was starting to show signs of methicillin resistant. It seems that humans are just creating more and more problems for themselves.
As MRSA enters your body, first signs may be of infections in several different parts of the body. Pimples or boils are the simplest of the symptoms, with death being the most severe. Ironically, most people are infected with MRSA within hospitals, and any contact will do. Most of the time, the bacteria will enter the body through an open wound, and only then will the real problems begin.
Most staph infections can be easily treated by antibiotics, but what happens when you try to fool it too many times? It begins to learn and adapt. The bacteria is able to multiply rapidly, and while some antibiotics may work, most will not. MRSA has become resistant to almost all antibiotics used in the past. As more and more antibiotics are used to try and stabilize MRSA, the bacteria just adapts and becomes immune.
Although MRSA does not cause serious deadly infections, it is the fact that it has become immune to almost all antibiotics that worries doctors. I feel that this approach to combating the bacteria will just lead to more and more resistant strains of bacteria. Although action just be taken, I think that there is a better way. The bacteria acts as if it had a brain, if we keep hitting it with the same stick, soon it will know how to avoid or block the stick. I think the solution to this, and many problems should be to either take away the antibiotics and let the bacteria run its course, or to try and completely destroy the infection, rather than to try and avoid it.
Sadly the only real way of avoiding getting infected is to wash your hands, avoid contact with sick people, and cover up all open wounds. The superbug has become a true problem in Canada, so watch out people.
As MRSA enters your body, first signs may be of infections in several different parts of the body. Pimples or boils are the simplest of the symptoms, with death being the most severe. Ironically, most people are infected with MRSA within hospitals, and any contact will do. Most of the time, the bacteria will enter the body through an open wound, and only then will the real problems begin.
Most staph infections can be easily treated by antibiotics, but what happens when you try to fool it too many times? It begins to learn and adapt. The bacteria is able to multiply rapidly, and while some antibiotics may work, most will not. MRSA has become resistant to almost all antibiotics used in the past. As more and more antibiotics are used to try and stabilize MRSA, the bacteria just adapts and becomes immune.
Although MRSA does not cause serious deadly infections, it is the fact that it has become immune to almost all antibiotics that worries doctors. I feel that this approach to combating the bacteria will just lead to more and more resistant strains of bacteria. Although action just be taken, I think that there is a better way. The bacteria acts as if it had a brain, if we keep hitting it with the same stick, soon it will know how to avoid or block the stick. I think the solution to this, and many problems should be to either take away the antibiotics and let the bacteria run its course, or to try and completely destroy the infection, rather than to try and avoid it.
Sadly the only real way of avoiding getting infected is to wash your hands, avoid contact with sick people, and cover up all open wounds. The superbug has become a true problem in Canada, so watch out people.
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