March post reading

1. Write a blog post that answers the following question: Which "Utopian" world should be more feared; one in which government's control is so oppressive that people have no choice for themselves, or one in which people are so falsely happy that they do NOT realize the oppression of their government's control?   Be sure to explain your answer with specific examples.

If I had to choose which of these societies should be more feared I would choose the society that didn’t know they were oppressed because they were so brainwashed. This is because they are completely oblivious to the fact that the way they’re living isn’t good. They have no knowledge of the bad things that are happening to them like in Anthem. I believe this is more dangerous. The people are not able to rebel. They don’t want to rebel, and they most likely never will. In the event that they do there will not be many people. They believe they’re living the good life. But in reality they’re oppressed and deprived of their freedom.

If the situation was like in 1984 it would be better. Some people are aware that they’re oppressed. If this is the case then they have the opportunity to rebel. They are at least able to. Maybe it won’t succeed but they could try.

Another point is that the people that are so oppressed they have no choice for themselves are very afraid. You would think they would be the ones who would rebel because they have the knowledge that they are oppressed in reality they probably wouldn’t. You would have to have a very strong government/country to make every person pretty much bow down to you. So if you think that if you were part of this society and you would rebel I doubt you would. I feel like if I was in that position I probably wouldn’t. I feel as if I would sit aside and live my life like everyone else. This is because the government scares you into submission. They make it so that you are afraid to rebel because you know there will be a punishment. So you will just stay under the control of the government. You might even be so scared that you would sell out your own family/friends if they had plans of rebelling because you were afraid that they would get you in trouble. Maybe you would try to convince them to just live life as it is and try to make them think life isn’t that bad.

But in the end the society that would be worse in my opinion is the society that is hypnotized.

March Pre Reading.

In my utopian society there would be nothing but happiness. People would have everything they ever wanted. Mansions, cars, anything. Everyone would be happy. Pain would not exist in my utopian society. There would never be any threats to the society. Nothing could ever tear it apart.

Crime would either be at an all time low or non existent. There would not be any prisons. There would be a man made island that is like paradise for the prisoners. They would be rehabilitated there.

We would have super advanced technology and stuff like that. We wouldn’t need any more medicine because we will have cured every disease, disorder, and every single medical problems anyone had. We would find a way to make everyone immortal and invincible. That way no one would ever die and there would not be any people mourning over the dead.

We would vote on the president and governors and all the stuff like that still. There would be no corruption. These people would be fair to everyone. They would also have to be liked by everyone.

Speaking of liking people, everyone has the freedom to like and dislike people. They do not have to think highly of everyone like in Anthem. They would be allowed to favor people over each other and things like that. You would be allowed to have bestfriends, relationships, marriages, all of that. There would be no restrictions unlike Anthem.

Another freedom that people would have is the freedom to believe in whatever religion they wish. They’re allowed to worship whatever god and have churches and stuff. As long as they do not try to force it onto people and turn into some crazy religious fanatics.

People would also be able to choose what they would do for a living. They would get their dream jobs. Nobody would waste their doing something they hated. Nobody would be slaving away all day doing drudgery. We would have machines for that.

In this society every single thing would be perfected. Everyone in it would be happy. It wouldn’t be some sort of false belief system, or a fear based government. They would be genuinely happy. There might be a few ups and downs but it would be good in the end.

February Post Reading

3. "I think it is worst if you don't know whether it is a good thing or a bad thing which is going to happen."

This quote is very relevant to the book. It sort of symbolizes how in the beginning everything was fine. He knew what was going to happen everyday. He had it all planned out. He had his system. His system where a certain amount of red cars in a row is a good day while a certain amount of yellow cars is a “black day”. He knew what would happen during his day because he controlled what would happen. If it was a good day he would go about his day and experience good things. But, if it was a black day he would not eat, he would not talk to people, he would not do anything. He also had a sort of schedule. He knew everyday he would do nothing new. He wouldn’t have to go anywhere, talk to strangers, or do things he didn’t like. Life was good because because he knew whether a good thing or a bad thing was going to happen. 

Near the end of the book where everything goes down, he loses track. This is because things become very different. He is being sneaky, and doing more detective work. One he finds the letters it all goes downhill. He finds out that his mother is in fact not dead like he had been told. His father had made up such a horrible lie. After this Christopher didn’t know what to do. He began to feel sick. This began to kick in. He didn’t know whether or not things were going to be good or bad. Especially once his father admitted to killing Wellington. He had to get out of there. He went to live with his mother. But he had to go on a long adventure all the way to London. He saw no cars that allowed him to decide if was a good day or a bad day. This was already a bad start. But when he had to navigate around London it was worse. It was very crowded and he was panicking very bad. He was very unsure about everything. He did not know what he was doing and he had no guarantee he would succeed. He didn’t know what would happen. He just knew he had to get to his mother.

To me this quote is somewhat relevant. I don’t particularly mind knowing whether or not my day is going to be good or bad / knowing if a good thing or a bad thing is going to happen on a certain day. It would be nice ahead of time so you could either be excited or prepare yourself for the bad thing that will happen. In the end, to me it does not matter whether or not I know, but to Christopher it was very important.

February Pre Reading

   2. Think of a time when someone close to you lied to you.  Write a blog post that describes what happened; what did they lie about, why did they lie, how did it make you feel, how did the action affect your relationship with that person.

When I look back there is only one major lie in my life that I can recall. This is when my parents lied to me about Santa Claus being real. Now looking back on this it was not that large of a deal, it was a trivial thing. But back then Santa Claus was like part of the family. I believed in him with all of my heart. I wrote letters to him and all of that kid stuff. When I found out that he wasn’t real I was heartbroken. I was torn between my emotions. One part of me wished to keep on believing in him despite what my parents said. Then the other part knew that in my mind I knew deep down all along that Santa was just a silly thing for children to believe in, and that an old man creeping into your house at night and leaving presents was just accepted was crazy. But it was like my whole life, my entire childhood was over. But in reality it didn’t matter. Nothing changed even remotely. I was still receiving and experiencing the same things. All that happened was that my probably ten year old self felt as if I was lied to, and betrayed by my parents for maybe a week or two but after that I was fine. I was just completely over it. My Christmas went back to normal. The only thing different is that I knew I was getting gifts from my parents and not Santa. This wasn’t really a lie, as much as it was a white lie. It was made to make kids happy. There was nothing wrong with that. This didn’t change the way I felt about my parents or anyone who had previously backed up their claims about Santa’s existence. This did not change anything with them. I knew they were only trying to make me happy. So I accepted it and forgave them. In the end nothing really changed and I got over the lie.

December Post Reading

December Post Reading

3. "Do I dare disturb the universe?"

“Do I dare disturb the universe” this is the quote from the poster Jerry Renault keeps in his locker. It applies throughout the entire book. This quote means do you dare disturb the way everything is. Do you dare change your routine and go your own way in life. Jerry decided to do this. He broke very many routines in his life. He became an individual. He let himself be moved by the hippie who spoke to him about how his whole life will be a routine. He decided not to sell the chocolates. At first he was just following another routine, listening to the vigils. But he was still breaking a routine by not selling the chocolates. But it wasn’t until he kept refusing to sell the chocolates after his assignment from the vigils was over he really made an impact to the school. He decided to change his life that day. He risked his school life as he knew it to be different from the others. He resisted against the vigils, which is not a thing you would normally do if you went to Trinity. He influenced others to do the same when he refused to sell the chocolates. Everyone else began to stop selling the chocolates as well. This messed up how the vigils were. It turns out that for Jerry disturbing the universe was not very good. He was persecuted very heavily by the vigils and people Archie recruited like Emile. For Jerry it was very bad. He was constantly harassed by the vigils. His project for a class was even stolen. It was worth a large amount of points towards his grade and the loss of it threatened to make Jerry fail in that class. But the harassment did not stop there. They would call his phone at any time and just laugh creepily. It was a sort of stereotypical movie harassment. He was also abused by Emile and his goons. Emile both physically and verbally assaulted Jerry at any time. He even had Jerry jumped. Jerry would still not back down. After the jumping of Jerry there was a boxing match arranged by Archie. It was Jerry versus Emile. At this point you might begin to think Jerry would begin to follow the routine. You would think that Jerry wouldn’t accept the offer and back out. But nope, you would be wrong. HE accepts the offer and shows up at the fight. He participates in it and gets destroyed. Jerry very much so regretted making the choice to break the routine.     This quote does not really apply to my life at all. I haven’t got a routine I am allowed to break. The only routine that would be easily broken would be not going to school. But of course, that isn’t allowed so I’ll refrain from doing that.

Pre-Reading January 2016

Pre-Reading

3. Write a blog about your opinions on school fundraisers.  Discuss personal experiences within your blog.

In my opinion School fundraisers are completely fine, unless of course they are mandatory or thought of as something you have to do even when you don’t want to. Though sometimes I feel as if they are totally useless. If a there is just a random fundraiser for no reason that doesn’t have any sort of reward other than like a trip to sweet frog for selling 20 cookies it’s sort of useless. Though I do like going on trips just for doing something as easy as selling some merchandise. But I suppose they do benefit the school. It seems to me that in the book the fundraiser is a bit pressured onto them. I feel as if in the book it is expected that you would participate, it seems like a sort of social pressure. I’ve never really experienced this in my life but I’m sure it happens somewhere. I feel like this is wrong. I don’t think you should be pressured by classmates and the school to sell some random thing for a prize if you don’t want to. Some people feel as if there is no need to do it and that it is useless to do it. They could just do the same thing as they would have been able to do if they had sold the things any day of the week, so why should they make an effort to do something useless.

I have participated in school fundraisers before. In the past I would try to sell as much as I possibly could in hopes to win the grand prize. It would be like an ipad or something like that. Then they would take us to skateland or out to sweet frog in a limo. I didn’t mind that, and I still don’t. I would probably participate in a  school fundraiser if we had one this year if i’m being completely honest. In the end it’s completely up to the person who is participating or not participating.

Pre-Reading

3. Write a blog about your opinions on school fundraisers.  Discuss personal experiences within your blog.

In my opinion School fundraisers are completely fine, unless of course they are mandatory or thought of as something you have to do even when you don’t want to. Though sometimes I feel as if they are totally useless. If a there is just a random fundraiser for no reason that doesn’t have any sort of reward other than like a trip to sweet frog for selling 20 cookies it’s sort of useless. Though I do like going on trips just for doing something as easy as selling some merchandise. But I suppose they do benefit the school. It seems to me that in the book the fundraiser is a bit pressured onto them. I feel as if in the book it is expected that you would participate, it seems like a sort of social pressure. I’ve never really experienced this in my life but I’m sure it happens somewhere. I feel like this is wrong. I don’t think you should be pressured by classmates and the school to sell some random thing for a prize if you don’t want to. Some people feel as if there is no need to do it and that it is useless to do it. They could just do the same thing as they would have been able to do if they had sold the things any day of the week, so why should they make an effort to do something useless.

I have participated in school fundraisers before. In the past I would try to sell as much as I possibly could in hopes to win the grand prize. It would be like an ipad or something like that. Then they would take us to skateland or out to sweet frog in a limo. I didn’t mind that, and I still don’t. I would probably participate in a  school fundraiser if we had one this year if i’m being completely honest. In the end it’s completely up to the person who is participating or not participating.