roman’s blog

In the past chapters Jonah visits the Hobby Shop where Frank used to work and the owner tells him how great a genius Frank really was. Jonah later learns through a paper that Frank is actually alive and lives in San Lorenzoand so Jonah sets out to do another story on that island where he recalls he first learned of a man named ‘bokonon.’ While in the plane on his way to the island he reads the an ambassadors book about the island which is his first real glimpse about how the life of Bokonon and some of the his philosophies. Jonah is intrigued and finds out that Frank is getting married the beautiful woman from the Times.

1. Nihilism- belief that all values are baseless and that nothing can be known or communicated
2. Pompadour- a combed hairstyle that takes its name from Madame de Pompadour
3. Hoosier-official demonym for a resident of the U.S. State of Indiana

1. Was is just a coincidence that Newt and his sister happened to be on the plane?
2. Why was Bokonon outlawed?
3. Is Frank a Bokononist?

In the book Conrad makes only a few references to women and but shares his overall attitude about them and his view of what ‘European’ men think or ought to think of women.  Marlow himself runs in to five different women throughout the book the most significant being the native woman and Kurtz’s “intended.” The native woman is described as wearing ” barbarous ornaments” made of brass and “carried her head high… she must have had the value of several elephant tusks upon her.” Basically this woman was rich, beautiful, but was also carrying ” a tragic and fierce aspect of wild sorrow and of dumb pain mingled with the fear of some struggling, half-shaped resolve” (p.136-137).

 Both women share the underlining attitudes expressed by Kurtz toward females and both seem to be living at the top of their social classes. Not to mention both seem to be in a sort of chaotic state of emotions that Marlow has to deal with especially with his encounter with the ‘intended’ back in Europe who was in an emotional wreck over the death of her fiancé. Her character seems to have no idea of what is actually going on and is only focused on Kurtz’s ‘greatness.’ At this point in the book after Marlow barely makes it out alive out of Africa witnessing both the brutal horrors of European expansion and Kurtz’s unsound methods, the women insists that she ‘’knew him best’’ and that when Marlow lies to her about Kurtz’s last words she is gullible and naïve enough to imply she knew it… (p.154-157). She thought Kurtz was the most lovable figure to ever grace Africa. The general attitudes about women being expressed are that women are living in an illusions which suggesting that women cling to simple interpretations of complex events and live simple lives that deny reality and instead focus on trivial things that don’t matter. 

So what is plagiarism? Plagiarism is using someone else’s ideas or work in your own work without giving credit to the original author (citing). It is considered stealing and has high consequences especially in professional settings and it doesn’t matter whether plagiarism is intentional or not. I am personally guilty of a specific type I of plagiarism I wasn’t aware of until now and that is failing to in text cite an author while paraphrasing his ideas. At least now I have clear strategies in avoiding probably all future accidents. The easiest way to avoid plagiarism is to simply put the idea in quotes followed by an in-text source citation which should also be found in correct form on the ‘works cited’ page. It is important to properly cite all sources on this page so if doubts or interests come up about your sources then they can be looked up. Easy strategies to avoid plagiarism are:

Cite everything in a works cited page.

In-text cite something even when idea’s are paraphrased.

If you doubt the common knowledge of a fact, cite it.

I didn’t realize the entire picture about bias until we’ve learned that everything written has a bias of some form or another. The written work we went over in class this past week has had some clear and obvious example of bias especially from first story from the ‘Old Favorites of the McGuffey Readers.’ Summed up, the author in it insists that he/she knows the exact definition of an ‘honest’ boy and a ‘thief’ and also the punishments and rewards for both. Obviously through the context of all the other stories and some of the occasional biblical parallels make it pretty obvious that the author is writing from a form of Christian perspective. When talking about the thief who stole an orange and got kicked by a horse, the author describes the publics reaction to situation as him having been “… rightly served’ (104). But was it really a fair punishment or does the author just think that? Maybe this is stemming from what the author has been taught in his lifetime about specific rewards for good deeds aka, something from the bible or other religious teachings. It is also interesting to look for the settle biases because they seem to sometimes say more about the author than other ones. I’ve also noticed that bias can be easily spotted in the form of an adjective and in how which words an author chooses describe a person or an event.

So it seems my thesis will be something like… ‘The future of video-gaming is likely to see players using devices that allow their brain to control and interact with objects in virtual environments and simulated situations that involve other people just like them.’ I think mind-video control is the prevalent topic when it comes to video gaming so I will be writing about that. I’ve got some cool information from the Game Developers Conference that was just held in San Francisco this year and I will be working with the latest information.

So I’m researching the ‘future of video games’ and for the first time I really feel like this is a cool topic to do research on. Although my thesis is still in development, I hope it will come out clear and still be arguable because it is hard to be certain about the ‘future’ of something, especially technology. I’m finding a lot of interesting sources that are written by gamers themselves who are involved in the gaming-industry. It also seems like I won’t be able to right this paper without mentioning the recent game ‘Spore’ as almost every source I read also talks about it and it ground breaking achievements. I’m also finding there are many ways to write this paper because all I have to do it find a possible direction video games could be headed towards, which is many right now, and then argue it.

I am finding that my question is better fitted to time area in which India was directly under the British Crown as an official part of the British Empire, all of which is post East India Company rule. It is interesting because outside of Proquest I am finding two distinct opinions concerning British rule. Some argue that the positive benefits of colonial rule far out-weigh the negative and others argue the opposite. I think that this division might account for my troubles with Proquest as they are largely an unbiased collected of writings containing little about the negative effects of British colonization. I have noted that under the direct rule is when things really got sour and a common distaint for the British developed on all cultural sides. A significant event is when in 1919 Sir Sydney Rowlatt as head of the a commission,  passed legislation that gave permission to British colonial government to arrest, imprison, and try anyone without a Jury who was thought to be planning a revolt or organizing rebellion against British rule. These acts played a significant role in following events that lead up to the late colonial period.

So as I further probe into the research question I am surprised about how useless proquest is in providing useful sources. I normally find decent articles on it but since my question is quite general I am not seeing anything that would directly apply to my question. The articles I can find are either addressing economic or gender and religious associations of the time period and not necessarily about how they were influenced by the British Raj. But I have found a few and they address the events leading up the independence in India from Britain in 1947.  One specifically addresses and includes Gandhi and the ‘Great Salt March’ in which Gandhi and 78 followers walked 240 miles to the Arabian Sea to make salt which was illegal to make or sell without an outrageous taxes. This was all done in protest against the British Empire, which at this time had full control of India and was funding its own interests by over-taxing basically everything sold to the Indians, and all the goods they made as skilled workers such as silk. But its was under direct British rule that that India benefited as well, and we see the installation of the first railroads as a means of transporting goods and ‘beefing up’ the economy. Not the mention, the introduction of western social rights and legal systems. But I have been careful in observing that while there were railroads and such built, very little was gained by the Indians themselves as their was no trickle-down-effect. Thus making huge profits for the English traders, but nothing for the Indians.

As I’ve begun to research into my question of the ‘effects of British colonization in India’ I feel like it would be better and more specific if I focus on the negative ones as there are both positive and negative ones. The positive ones are pretty clear, which are: the modernization of the country, introduction of western technologies and medicines, western education opportunities and ties to the outside world, which most colonized territories thereafter experience. But in this case there’s even unity (not necessarily friendly but unity nonetheless) because at one point India was an official colony under the crown which forced all of its diverse peoples from Buddhists, Islamists, to Hindus to work together, both politically and economically. But my research process is very challenging and I’ve beginning to figure that out because I can’t find any general information on Proquest as it is all specific and is hardly understandable for someone who doesn’t can’t summaries what took place in the first place. So although I will be using sources from Proquest, I am reading up on the topic as much as I can on Google and various dedicated web sites to learn dates, events, and names of important people and places.    

Whew, what a crazy ending! I never saw it coming. Its funny how at first I really didn’t like Okonkwo because of his over-masculinity, which dictated how he treated everyone, but now and especially towards the end, I really began to sympathize with him. Even as Achebe began to give him less and less personal attention, which I felt was to broaden the other conflicts in the book and lay the ground-work for the conflict with the missionaries, I still felt like his concerns about his village were very understandable. From my perspective, I was in agreement with Okonkwos woes in ‘no one will fight.’ I also think his character does act as a foil against the rest of the village in exposing their lack of spirit to take immediate action, or perhaps the common, ‘lack of understanding’ of the entire situation. But also, he highlights the importance of identity among these ‘white men’ that is, to preserve their culture. To him this meant: worshipping their ancestor’s gods and maintaining their own traditions. It also seems like Okonkwo had better insight into the future and broader understanding of the intentions of the colonizing forces, compared to the villagers around him who only heard of the ‘rumors’ of massacre, but where skeptical.  All in all, I really wish Okonkwo didn’t kill himself, but I can understand his position because he saw no hope in sight and this was his last resort. I do wish he went on a personal killing spree aside from the one man he killed, which would have been entertaining and comforting, but probably wouldn’t have left the reader with an attachment to the main character, as it did in the end.