The Mayan Prophecy has passed by, when is the next doomsday?

The Mayan Prophecy has passed by, when is the next doomsday?

In early days, due to the lack of telecommunication, thoughts and ideas could only travel by word of mouth, which was not only inconvenient, but also took a l  lllp long time to pass on. Today, things have changed; we are living in the Information Age. The invention and advancement of the Internet has helped spreading word of mouth faster and broader. It is easy to know within half an hour what is happening on the other side of the earth; the news is available on social media as soon as it is reported online. As a result, countless amounts of the news articles are stored online and it is sometimes hard to find the origin of the story. The original story of apocalypse is hard to fine, it might start as soon as the history of human being was started, but the fear of the apocalypse may have been started with the Book of the Apocalypse of St. John. The trend of talking about the apocalypse still can be seen around today as a pop culture in the modern society. As a result, the Mayan calendar, the hottest topic of 2012, was the biggest apocalypse that had been discussed globally for a few past decades.

The earliest news on the topic of the end of the world related to the Mayan calendar was published in the American Edition of The Newsweek on August 17^th, 1987. The article starts with some stunning words, “Don’t panic or anything, but this weekend may be the beginning of the apocalypse” (Newsweek), which does not really help people not to panic after reading this, but only evokes people’s interest. The Newsweek has a long history as a national magazine, so it has been read by many readers across the country for a long period of time; however, its information was only limited to its readers in 1980s. The news announced that, according to Dr. Jose Arguelles, obsessed with the Mayans and wrote some books about their culture, the Ma yans’ great cycle is nearing its end. August 16^th and 17^th 2012 are critical dates that are a “cosmic trigger” of our world when the earth can synchronize itself with the rest of the galaxy in 2012 (Newsweek). However, there are not many evidences found on the article that can support his obsessive argument on the topic. The article therefore also includes many scholars’ skeptical viewpoints that this prophecy is only a a “New Age belief”, and claims that “it’s a game that has become popular with amateur archeologist” (Newsweek). The scholars’ arguments are more credible at this moment because they are less biased, and Arguelles’ words are not really directly spoken by Mayans who should know better than him, even though their calendar moves towards its end. Thus, this is the whole beginning of the discussion on the apocalypse related to the Mayan calendar. However, due to lack of information available, they story has not discussed further publically until 21^st century.

After the publication of the first news article on the end of the world, the news of the Mayan calendar did not appear so frequently on media because many people did not find great interest in the topic due to its unguaranteed and unpredicted future of Earth. However, it was slightly mentioned on other news outlets asas a joke or some sort of taste for the Mayan apocalypse arararticles. Nonetheless, this topic again floated on the surface of the wwwwater as time approached the year 2012. Unlike the first news’ information, a new date was given to its readers by the Daily Star: December 21^st of 2012 (Again, the origin of the source of the date is not clear, but I would refer to Daily Star). This date is more “accurate” than the previous one given by Arguelles, because along with the Mayans, the Chinese prophecy also claimed that the world was going to stop on December 22^nd of 2012 (Partasides), which to the west, would be equivalent to the 21^st. Although the Daily Star brings in more “evidence” of nigh apocalypse, it does not provide further references or links in the article. To support his article, he states that many scientists, historians, mystics and religious experts recognizes that “a combination of global warming, nuclear war, earthquakes and supervolcanoes” are the key factors that will wipe out all life on the earth (Daily Star). However, who knows if it is just a series of continuous coincidence, and tricks of human psychology, because people tend to believe what they want to believe unconditionally.

The rumor of the apocalypse related to the Mayan calendar has affected people’s behavior anyways, regardless of the truth of the story. Some people saved canned foods, life necessities in their basements, or created a bunk or “Noah’s Ark” as provision for the catastrophe; some people did not consider this phenomenon important at all. Rather, some used this as an opportunity for its economy. On January 14^th of 2012, The Advertiser of Australia published that Mexico “will spend $8 million promoting tourism to Mexico's “Mayan World”, which takes place on the southeastern region where the Mayan culture thrived (Mexico). Even though they don’t expect the world to end on December 21^st, but “hope the attention will draw tourists” (Mexico), which means that Mexicans do not believe in the prediction, but they are content to use this phenomenon as a marketing strategy for the tourism industry. The article lists the exact number of money that the country would be using to draw readers’ attention to show the dramatic impact on Mexico where there has the most influence of the Mayan culture, and its hyperbole title “MEXICO End of the world tour” sounds like that people get to experience the end of the world by participating the Mexico’s tour. On the other hand, many people think the end of the world is not really news anymore. Because there have been so many failed predictions on the doomsday on Earth for countless years, the news cannot attract these people who already experienced the failure anymore. Brian Palmer, the author of news article with another catchy title “Doomsday? Are you sure? I don't see it here on my calendar”, gives an example of the predictions of doomsday that never happened. He states that the pastor Harold Camping from California predicted that the world would end on May 21^st, which was later revised to October 21^st, but it did not happen on either of days at all (Palmer). By addressing this example, he forecasts that there is a big possibility that the apocalypse would not happen anyway. His title, which contains some sort of joke, also addresses the skeptical view on the apocalypse as the scholars once did in late 1980s. Andy Ho of the article “Too much read into Mayan calendar” forwards the same idea as Palmer, t that it is not too unusual to have an end point on our calendar (Ho), and it should be the same for the Mayan calendar as well. Unlike Palmer, Ho lists some scientific evidence that the end of the Mayan calendar does not indicate the end of the world. He says that there is no evidence that the Mayans knew this complicated galactic system in advance of several thousands of years (Ho), which he simplifies the issue that therefore there is no doomsday on the 21^st of December, 2012.

Not surprisingly, the topic of the end of the world reached the peak on the media sphere in December of 2012. Everyone talked about our world would end or not, and how we should react to the doomsday. On December 21^st of 2012, nothing happened to our world; instead, the Mayan calendar ended. We are still alive in this world, and we will be in the future. However, the discussion on this topic has not ended yet. Martin Bishop states that “if anyone feels disappointed that the world that didn't come to an end, don't despair; there are many more doomsdays to come” which indicates that the rumors of the doomsday raised by the Mayan calendar were not the only ones, but there are certainly more coming up, whether they are ccredible or not. It contains some degree of easiness and joke in this sentence, but he indicates the deeper meaning that the words about the apocalypse has been continued many times, and there should be more coming up in the future, then what is the exciting part about the doomsday.

The reason many people believe in the  the Mayan calendar theory is that “the ancient Mayans got a whole lot right…they were famed for their written language, art, architecture and sophisticated mathematics and astronomy” (Evans), and that is totally true. They have had many contributions to our civilization, but it does not mean that they can predict the future of our world. In fact, there are so many Mayans who are not educated at all, and know nothing about their ancient calendar. Ironically, the Mayan elders once announced that the end of the Mayan calendar does not indicate the end of the world, but not many people listened to this news because they were too busy preparing forffor the apocalypse. They were too much into their own belief to see the truth of the rumor. Therefore, the failure of the Mayan Prophecy of 2012 raised lots of anger of some strong believers of the apocalypse. On December 23^rd of 2012, two days after the D-day, the telegraph of the United Kingdom reported that Mayan Temple, which is one of the UNESCO sites, has been destroyed by tourists. It states that “it was forbidden to climb the stairs at the site and indicated that the damage was irreparable” (Telegraph), and the choices of dictions in this short sentence such as “forbidden” and “irreparable” foreshadow the irrecoverable and unforgiving mistake driven by senseless tourists. It is understandable that they were despaired by the normal day of December 21^st, but the distortion of the temple does not make the rumor come true, it is not okay to vent their anger on a historic site. They have to accept the truth that they will continue to live in 2013, and so on.

The origin of the news, the end of the Mayan calendar, may not sound as attractive as the news of the apocalypse for many people, but after the huge swift of this pop culture, it is clear that the wrong interpretation of any kind of story becomes a problem if it spreads worldwide, especially today, the Information Age. Without any proven evidence, people are fascinated by the topic, but they do not know it would cause bigger and bigger troubles. Nothing happened on December 21^st, and it was just a day like any other. Today, we are living in 2013, in which the Internet affects people’s behavior from time to time, or always. We have to be aware of which information we are following; the news has to contain credible evidence for its readers. However, the journalists should also learn how to attract their readers without mere dry evidence and facts that usually fail to attract them, because we the readers never stop following the trends that fascinate us with some hyperbole titles, and now we already ask, “When is the next doomsday?”

WRIT 1122 reflection

Overall, I read a lot of news after taking this course. At first, I chose to take this course because it seemed very interesting to deal with the media and news for our writing; in fact, it was way harder than I thought, but I still enjoyed it. I did not have any habit reading online before due to its inconvenience that I usually get distracted by other stuff online such as Facebook; however, after learning that Facebook and other websites can be considered as source for our writing methods, I started to look for and read on those websites more carefully to see what people are talking about and how they are different from others. I never thought about the same news can be written in different ways for different audiences, because it seemed so natural to me as a reader, but after this course, I think I will look for more of those.

Ambivalence: Self-Doubting and Suicidal Table

In today’s media news, it is hard to see an article that only contains texts, and it indicates that there is a huge impact of images for an article. Images usually attract readers firsthand at the front page of the news sites, and are used within the articles to emphasize the importance of the subject of the article and to communicate with readers. Those images can be illustrated as graphs or charts that provide readers some detailed information of subject; pictures of the aftermaths of wars or disasters that evoke readers’ pity for victims; abstractions or unclear images that contain hidden meanings, which readers have to think further; and so on. On the Opinion Pages of the New York Times, Phillip Lopate’s article “The Essay, an Exercise in Doubt” can be found as an example of the third case of use of images as a visual rhetoric that uses an interesting image to support the argument.

Why do we write an essay? What is its purpose? How does it affect its writers and readers? An essay is a very familiar tool that people develop since they are young, but old enough to write, and it becomes one of the essential duties as they grow up. Maybe everyone in this world has written an essay at least once for their lives. Or, it becomes a career path for some of them.

Phillip Lopate, an essayist, illustrates that the essay is an exercise in doubt in his article. This article is fairly straight forward and states that even though an essay is not as popular as fictions or poetry, and it has been anticipated to have lower sales, he still values the writing of an essay as a “feast on doubt” or a way of “second-guessing [oneself]”. He keeps questioning himself and taking risks as a “soundtrack” of his life and career in order to improve his writing process. Therefore, he is disappointed by the change of the use of essays that its characteristic of self-doubting or ambivalence is dramatically lost due to the high competition among the colleges, because essays have become a tool of self-advertisement for students to get into good colleges. He stresses that as an essayist, he is always “monitoring [himself] for traces of folly, insensitivity, arrogance, false humility, cruelty, stupidity, immaturity…” to think more critically and write more intelligently. He also believes that this exercise of doubt is what people have to “cultivate on [their] own, in private…in an essay” because it not only impacts one’s writing skills, but also the daily life, which is more complex than writing.  

One unique takeaway from this article, other than further thinking or debates on the topic of this article, is that there is an animation of a table with an axe on one of its legs chopping the other side of its leg off. Unlike other articles containing one or more straight forward, simple pictures of objects that are discussed in the article, a random animation of a table appears as a rhetorical image in the middle of the article, and it is strange and odd enough for the readers to think about for a moment. As a rhetorical image of the article, the animation of a table communicates and expresses its own meaning to readers. The animation is given without any specific caption to readers, and this can lead each reader to different reactions. One may be stunned when one encounters it, or one may be appreciated by its hidden meaning that one has to figure out like a puzzle. In other words, the crazy table hurting itself has more things to say other than its colors or motion. The motion of the animation not only easily attracts readers’ attention immediately, but it also stops readers reading for a moment and takes them into further thought process, such as questioning why the table has an axe on it, or why it is chopping its leg off.

The animation of self-chopping table is well used in this article along with author’s argument of exercise in doubt, but the best place to put the animation down is very vague for this particular article. Because this article is an essay that contains some personal experiences, examples, and argument, it is not ideal to place the image at the top of the article like other articles do, because readers are not yet ready to examine for the suicidal table without any warnings. Thus, depict it is not so perfectly fit for the flow of the article, the placement of the animation is fairly adequate as a division of the article to keep readers’ attention.

If we think simply, it is easy to catch the author’s intention with his all of his argument that is demonstrated previous paragraphs in the animation: the ambivalence. Like the author is self-doubting which can lead him to confusion or disorder, the table holds an axe, a weapon which can destroy itself. However, at the same time, these potential harms can be flipped into the benefits that can sculpt a masterful writing, or an artful table, if they are well organized.

So then, would you want to write an essay or sculpt a status that is commonly found in public area? Or, a masterpiece that is exclusively unique and bore from self-conflicts?

http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/02/16/the-essay-an-exercise-in-doubt/

What do you see in the picture?

“Liar, Liar, Pants on Fire”: such an odd title for this kind of article, and I still do not understand what he means by that (at least for me). Well, anyways, I really enjoyed reading this article because this type of articles makes me reread and think about what I just have read. Yes, I totally agree with Morris that pictures contain thousands of words and meanings in them, and I also believe that people never know what they are telling us, who are the third persons to the picture forever. It can be anything, or just nothing. Maybe a little caption under the picture does not really tell anything about itself. When I first read this article, I thought of these words, “I (only) believe what I see”, which are probably spoken by anyone in this world. I want to add more onto that quote that people only believe what they believe. What I mean by this is that, like everyone thinks differently, she/he would interpret a picture in various ways. Morris in this article tells us that he believes many things in a picture, in his own way of beliefs, and raises some question for his audiences and himself if a picture tells the truth or not. But here, I rather want to ask if there is really truth in our world? Who defines truth or falsity? Or, does truth of a picture really matter for us? I think the relationship between images and beliefs is really about how people interpret the picture; in other words, there is no one proven answer for that. At the end of his article, Morris repeats himself from the introduction but at this time with “answer” that “pictures may be worth a thousand words, but there are two words that you can never apply to them: “true” and “false,”” which I believe it is the “truth”. Morris's article mainly talks about the truth of photograph’s story, but I think it contains more than that. Maybe he is trying to tell us that there is always more meaning or story in anything we face, like I believe he says more than photograph in this article.

Interpreting one picture from different points of views, if I understand this right, I think Kevin Carter’s photo can be a good example for this idea. Carter’s “Vulture stalking a child” is world widely famous photo not only because it won Pulitzer Prize, but also due to what it contains in the picture. This is a pretty simple picture: there is a child lying on the ground and a vulture staring at her. Many people were shocked by this picture when it first appeared, and he came under criticism for not helping the girl. He was described as that ”the man adjusting his lens to take just the right frame of her suffering might just as well be a predator, another vulture on the scene,” but ironically the photo was introduced as “metaphor for Africa’s despair” on the New York Times, and won the prize for it. This one picture contains lots of things even though there are only two figures in it, and it is truly shown differently from people to people. But seriously, there is nothing can be defined as truth or falsity by us. I mean, do any of us have the right to judge?

http://iconicphotos.wordpress.com/2009/08/12/vulture-stalking-a-child/

The Magic Number That Helps Renew Your Life

The original article “Relax! You’ll Be More Productive” is an opinion post written by Tony Schwartz on the New York Times that talks about effects of the amount of time people sleep and take rest on their work efficiency. Tony Schwartz is the president, founder, and CEO of The Energy Project a company that helps individuals organizations perform better and more sustainably. He started his career as a journalist, and published several books about work and productivity. In this short essay, or rewritten article, I am mostly forwarding Schwartz’s idea of the relationship between people’s work efficiency and their lifestyle. His article is mostly written on the manner of professionals, and I tried to rewrite this on the casual level of college students’ lifestyle with some extra personal voice. I used some school related examples so that we easily understand, and are able to aware of the usefulness and importance of the relaxation in our lives. This essay (or blog post) is written to be sounded more casual and relatable to my blog’s audiences such as my classmates, but I also kept and adapted some lines, examples and studies Schwartz used in his article to support the essay more intelligently.  

The Magic Number That Helps Renew Your Life:

By Joo Young Kim

THINK for a moment about your typical school day. Is it hard to get up and go to your 8-am class? Can’t you remember anything after reading 10 pages of text book? Do you drink gallons of coffee and energy drinks every day? Did you fail your mid-term after 10 hours of studying?

Then, you must have done something wrong. You may look diligent and smart when you are studying for hours, but that does not mean you are the most productive. The result would only be burning out. I mean, do you even have time for yourself at all?

In today’s society, we value and emphasize on the ability of multitasking, which means we should be able to achieve more in less time. This kind of mind has been set since we were young, and we always have believed “More is better.” We try to stay awake for a longer time during day and night, and sleep less so that we can work more, study more, and play more. However, this type of lifestyle in fact lowers our work efficiency, and harms our health. In other words, you will fail the test, feel very stressed, and blame everything for it. In contrary, people who work for a short period of time, take rest and play in between work, and sleep more are able to achieve more than other type of people, which sounds unfair for us.

As we grow up, the world requires more and more to make us fit into our society. The amount of work we deal with every day increases constantly. Unlike finishing 10 problems of math homework in your second grade of school, we are working for two majors, one minor, different school organizations, future employers, and so on. We are trying to deal with unlimited work in a limited time. Nonetheless, many studies suggest it is better for both our body and work to shorten work hours and extend rest hours. Professor K. Anders Erisson and his colleagues at Florida State University have studied and found that the best of ELITE performers typically practice in uninterrupted sessions that last no more than 90 minutes, and rarely work for more than four and a half hours in a day. In simple words, they only work about four hours, and eat, play, and sleep for about twenty hours per day. That sounds fantastic. It sounds like if we study for four hours, and eat, play, and sleep for twenty hours per day, then we all would be super geniuses!

However, that is not so true; we should not miss a very scientific, important aspect on this. The only reason these “elite” performers are able to work well is that they are well balancing their ability of body energy. There is such a thing called Basic-Rest Activity Cycle or BRAC named by researchers William Dement and Nathaniel Kleitman in the 1950s. BRAC was initially indicating a cycle of roughly 90 minutes during our sleep, but a decade later, Kleitman discovered that this cycle recapitulates during the waking lives as well. During the day, our body gets physiological fatigue approximately every 90 minutes, and body tells us to take a break within each 90 minutes. See, 90 is a magic number.

Therefore, sitting and staring at your screen on chair for hours and hours do not help your essay done at all. However, you may want to go back to your dorm room and take a nap for a while, because instead of wasting finite time of your life, you are recharging energy of your body for the next set of work. According to a sleep researcher, Sara C. Mednick, a 60- to 90-minute nap improved memory test results as fully as did eight hours of sleep. Again, the magic number. And don’t forget to have a healthy meal, which also recharges your energy. If you see your peers are sitting and eating something so ambitiously, don’t judge them. They are just saving some energy and joy for later the day. Their downtime is not wasted time, and so neither is yours.

Now, stop working on your homework. Go to your room. Take a rest. You will find out you do not have to rely on caffeine anymore, but still achieve more, because “when you’re renewing, you’re truly renewing, so when you’re working, you can really work.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/10/opinion/sunday/relax-youll-be-more-productive.html

Taking an approach

Harris has talked about some types of rewriting techniques so far, and the technique he introduces in this chapter seems pretty different from previous ones. He tells that previous ones are” ways of marking out [our] words and ideas from those of the texts [we] are working with“, and by doing so we create a dialogue shape in our writing. For most academic essay, he says, we are merely applying “the idea of a writer to a certain subjects, with the aim not so much of testing those ideas but if proving their validity”, or providing more examples of what already had been argued by others. However, taking an approach is different. It seemed so similar with forwarding when I first read Harris’s description in this chapter, but he makes clear of his point about it. Simply, whatever he talked in previous chapters are rewriting others’ ideas or arguments while taking an approach is rewriting their style. We need to transform others’ writing into our own, which is not merely replaced or rebutted. He gives the easiest example for us, music. We have seen so many songs were rewritten into different styles by different singers, and they should be creative and original while keeping the same message to their audience. That is the same for films, paintings, and writings. Any types of “text” can be taken an approach and the audiences can decide which is good or bad. Harris gives three ways of taking an approach in this chapter, acknowledging influences, turning an approach on itself, and reflexivity, and these help us, writers to rethink and rewrite others’ work, and make stronger bond between the two. 

Countering: there is no right or wrong answer, but...

I found this chapter really interesting because countering others’ argument in order to make my own better is always the hardest part of writing asserting essays for me. I always found that there are many good argument made by the opponent, and I can hardly be against it. However, Harris here tells his readers that it is okay not to be against their opponents’ rather, there are other ways to counter the arguments. Unlike forwarding, countering is a tool of creating argument in the writing. Harris describes that it is not necessarily to prove who is smarter to make a right argument; rather, it is the process of reviewing what has been there, and therefore, leading to another direction of the conversation. He says that countering is a technique of Yes, but… while forwarding is simply the continuous Yes, and… in conversation. Countering is not exactly pushing down one’s weak argument (because there is no right or wrong in the arguments), but to add other perspective or alternative on opponent’s incomplete and partial argument so that the criticism we have can be seen as useful and fair. He introduces three ways of countering in this chapter: arguing the other side, uncovering values, and dissenting. He shows some examples how effective it is used as countering in others’ work, but also gives some advice that we have to think before we counter the argument. We should not guess at the intent, and should focus on position than phrasing, be careful with modifiers, and stress what we bring to the discussion, because this type of writing is more than just criticizing one’s work, which means we have to have our own idea in the writing. 

Fowarding: creating something new

I guess most people today find this word Forward when they check their emails. We check our emails every minute of every single day; we delete some emails even without reading them, mark some stars to indicate the importance of the emails, respond to make comments on the messages we received, and forward some interesting, important or whatever kind of emails to others. Harris describes forwarding as a tool of creating something new, and extending conversation. He clearly shows that we never win a conversation, but add something onto it to keep the conversation going. This is that simple, but there are many ways to forward something to someone. Harris demonstrates four ways of forwarding in this chapter: illustrating, authorizing, borrowing, and extending. Each has different degrees of extending the “conversation”, and what we have to understand while using forwarding in our writing is that we are not exactly forwarding to the author of what we talk about, but to the third person. In academic writings, our purpose of writing is not necessarily to respond to the authors we use; rather, we want to create new ideas to demonstrate to others, and so on. In the process of forwarding, we have to be aware of the fact that we lose control of its use in public sphere. For example, when you speak one specific word for interview, and it can be understood in different way for the listener, because forward is also the process of one’s thinking, and it is definitely different from people to people.

Press-sphere? What?!

To be honest, I seriously have no idea what Jarvis talks about, or what his main point is on his blog, although there are some charts that he uses to make this easier. The terms he uses and the language he speaks seem so different that nothing really makes sense. I think he is trying to say that the news is not merely published by the press, but anything and anyone today in high-technology age. I think it is true that data or archives are not enough to press news nowadays. It not only cannot attract readers anymore, but also simply it is not enough. News indeed is “story” about our society; if there is no story, so is not the news. The involvement of commenters, companies, and other things makes news more interesting and relatable for readers, as the same as if we are surrounded by various “atoms” (the me-sphere chart). I kind of agree with his point (if my understanding is right) that “story never begins and it never ends.” I mean, the story must have started at least once ever since there was the beginning of living species history, but it just never ends. One story brings another one and on and on and on. I believe it is the same for the news process. It should be a circular figure rather than the linear chart which ends by “followup.” I do agree that the involvement of readers can affect the actual news really bad because I have seen many poor quality articles online, and I think that is why many people sometimes choose particular press instead of reading local small press.

Everything should be pros and cons, and whether Jarvis is for or against this system, I think it is important to accept this new change, because there is no end point here as well as the news and story.

The ways to get news

As the generations keep changing, the way of getting news also gets changed. Many decades ago, people could hear news only from other people after many days of the actual incident happened, or even after it was solved. Later, the development of society and technology brought us convenient ways of getting information such as printed newspaper, radio, etc. However, nowadays those are already considered as old ways of getting news. People, especially young adults, get their news from Internet every single minute. I have noticed that most of people in our class and university use their smartphones to check newest news by using different kinds of apps. We do not even need to go to their websites to check once we subscribe it to emails or apps because the news will be simply “delivered” to us. I found it interesting that many classmates mentioned social networking system as one of the sources that they have, because I never thought of Facebook or Twitter as a source of news. But soon I understood because, for example from last weekend, people were able to know what was happening during the Super Bowl even though they were not watching.

I assume that Carr and Hedges would not be happy with this phenomenon because they think the SNS is constantly decreasing civic literacy. They believe that the more time we spend on Internet, the more stupid we are becoming. However, as a blogger, Sullivan would see this more optimistically because the Internet makes people to spend more time on Internet reading articles or any other words, and interact with others. There are more opportunities opened for people to participate in literacy. 

What am I getting from the NYT

Reading the New York Times is still a hard thing to do for me as an international student, because there are so many hard words that I have to pause for a couple of seconds to understand, and it distracts the flow of reading, which makes me hard to focus on what I was reading just a few seconds ago. Despite of this, I am enjoying reading the articles from NYT because it is one way of looking at the world at one time. As I mentioned before, honestly I do not really care about what is going on in our world, because none of these issues directly affects me, therefore, I ignore mostly. I do not watch TV or listen to the radio anymore, and it does really drive me out of communication. However, since reading the NYT was assigned as daily homework-ish task, now I automatically go to the website at least once a day even if I am just checking the headlines, and get at least some kind of information that has been considered important.

I have noticed that there is a lot of news about politics at the home page, especially about the gun policies recently, and other political issues from all over the world. Many of these are posted as the headlines so once it is easily noticed by and attracts the readers. I like how the titles are in bold so they easily catch people’s attention, but at the same time, I do not like how all the most important news are related to politics, or something unpleasant. I know it is not as important as the political articles, but for many times I like to read other articles about technology, lifestyle, or even small local issues, so these are the ones that I usually miss to read when I am busy. 

Honestly, I do not really care what is going on in today’s society. I know it is important, and I do read news online, but really, I do not care. Only reason I get news is that I think I have to know it anyway in order to communicate with others, and share new ideas to make myself a better thinker. I know this does not really make sense, but that is really what I think.

When i went to high school, the best way to get news was on the way to school every morning, because my uncle loves to hear news, especially sports news, from radio on the way to work. On radio, I could hear lots of news about sports, accidents, or any issues happened the day before, and we could develop discussion based off one topic we just heard. In that way, I could learn more than I thought inside my brain and became more understanding.

Now, I do not ride his car anymore so there is less time I hear from radio; rather, I get news lots from people. I work at the front desk of Driscoll Information Center, therefore, there are many chance that I hear various things from people who just walk by or work together. It is true that I can get just a few segments of news they share, but there are more chance to get much more diverse news about small concert of local band to social justice issues in the Middle East. And if I am interested in the topic I hear by, then I can simply search online. I also read news online from New York Times, or Wall Street Journal. I started to read them only because of class discussion, but it became more habitual reading recently that I go to the websites, and read some top news on my free time, so that I am more aware of what is going on in this world. But it is still kind of hard to follow up with news that I am not that interested, and often times I need longer time to figure out what is really going on for those kinds of topics.

Change in culture; change in literacy

Ability to read and write, that is what literacy has meant, but nowadays its meaning is slightly changing in broad and different ways.

In history, literacy was one of privileges that noble and rich people could hold, and was presented as rights, power, and influence in a society. However, the world has been rapidly changed: there is no specific division on social classes, much more people are educated, and they are able to invest more innovative goods with their knowledge and intelligence.

I should not be too exaggerated to say that the biggest contribution of human ability development is technology. People were able to use technology only since a few decades ago, and its development is getting faster and faster today. Due to its advanced facility, our society could have been working efficiently. Technology not only changed the way of business works, such as many business moves into E-business, and sometimes people do not even need actual physical business to start new business, but it also dramatically affected the way of literacy.

There are some people see this phenomenon of rapid changes in the society negatively. Chris Hedges is one of the well-known journalists who try to deliver this idea to not only his audience, but also the world. He concerns that the increase of attraction of pictures and symbols of competitive brands will turn people illiterate and people will not be able to “differentiate between lies and truth” of the information provided to them (Hedges 1). His point is that because it is too easy to put information online, people should be more secured and aware of what they actually receive from providers. As “knowledge” becomes more plentiful for commoners, it will be harder for us to distinguish what is necessary or not.

Another writer, Nicholas Carr, gives Google as an example to aware people of danger of vast information given to people more easily. Google as a search engine contains countless data called Big Data, and is open to anyone who needs it. Therefore, people can merely search online without deep process of thought, instead of researching on their own in library for hour. This makes huge difference in people’s life. Because Big Data is given to people so naturally that they always seek for more convenient way to deal with problems. As a result, people cannot stand anything that takes long time. Developed technology easily disrupts people from one task to another one, because they are trying to be a “multi-tasker”. It is easy to notice that the process of thoughts becomes like computer (Carr 4). The facility brought by high technology makes people only think about efficiency in a short period of time and seek for best results.

The technology not only changed people’s thinking process, but also the language itself. As an international student, there was one time when I did not know what OMG or lol mean, and I still have much other slang to learn. The slang used online communicating may seem useless and not beneficial, but the reason why I learn these unnecessary words is due “literacy as adaptation” as Scribner mentions in her “Literacy in Three Metaphors” (9). Today, it is almost required to adapt something new every single minute of our life. Literacy does not necessary mean that you have to be able to read and write professionally; rather, it can be defined as if you are able to communicate in newly made language on social networking.

Going back to Carr’s example of Google. It is true that the unlimited data provided to people eventually leave nothing on people’s brain, but it is also true to say Google is one example of cultural changes in literacy. It is so common to say “google it” when someone needs to know unknown information. Google, the name of internet-service Company, has been registered in the Oxford English Dictionary as a verb, which means the way of people interpret this word has been changed. It is not merely a name of company, but the way of people react to certain factors.

Another example of change in literacy is the symbol of Cross. In early years of Roman Empire, cross was a torture device used to the most unforgivable sinners for crucifixion. It was a symbol of brutality during that era. However, after Jesus was crucified, cross became a symbol of God and Christianity. It is hard to imagine that people avoid the present of cross today; rather, there are so many people who admire its present and sometimes even become dependent on it. The word and its meaning were represented something inauspicious in history, but as our culture becomes, its meaning has been changed, which shows that the ability to read and write is not everything today. You have to be able to know how certain people understand certain words.  

Reflecting

Even though this is an academic project that is hard to post on time 24 hours before class, I like blogging so far. I like it because it is more casual than 20-page MLA-style academic writing, and I am able to discuss some contemporary issues of the society. Otherwise, I did not have any problems with this. One of the minor difficulties I faced when I wrote for blog posts was setting a firm opinion on the articles I read recently. I tend to be fascinated by the argument or issues that the authors brings out whenever I read, and for many times it is so difficult to pick and argue for one side, because I see both pros and cons of different articles. On the other hand, I think this type of exercise helps me, as a reader and writer, think more and deeper so that I can develop my idea more thoroughly.  

I think it was a great opportunity that I was able to explore this big issue of literacy that everyone is facing today, and it was something that I did not think deeply about or even realize until I read these articles. Now I automatically pull out the Internet and read news, or at least skim the website to see what important news is there every day. The habit of reading news makes me feel now I am really a part of the society that I live and I naturally care more about social issues.

I am still not getting used to read on the web because I get distracted by other websites and documents I opened, and the screen hurts my eyes. Writing on the computer is not as bad as reading but because I cannot read over and over on the screen, I am still barely able to revise my work on my computer. As Carr mentioned, I am more used to read short passages than longish articles, but I think reading news or blogging would help me develop this weak point. 

What is the definition of literacy?

Unlike in history, the boundary of literacy becomes broader and more blurred; today, this issue isn't merely about if you can read or not, but the degree of literacy. I have read many articles about literacy recently but I still do not have any clear clue about what literacy really means. However, Lunsford’s argument of teenagers’ literacy ability seems more real to me compared to other articles. The topic of Carr and Hedges did not seem like they are focused on literacy itself, rather they tend to talk more about the effects of technology today and then literacy. I agree with some of the arguments that the development of technology makes people blanker and more artificial but like Lunsford argued, not only teenagers, but most people are all able to distinguish their audience and use of language. Slang, fragments, etc. are just one kind of language, trend, or even culture. If Hedges is right that Americans are illiterate, then most people today should not be able to write or read, which also means they do not know what they are doing, therefore, our society would not be able to function, which isn’t happening.

In “Literacy in Three Metaphors”, Scribner tries to explain more easily what literacy is. He divides it into three metaphors: “literacy as adaptation, literacy as power, and literacy as a state of grace.” He does not regard the issue of literacy negatively whether people are illiterate or not, but he explains that it is certainly the way people can communicate, the tool that people have rights and social existence, and the trend that people need to follow as our society changes. Regardless of countries whether they are developed or developing, literacy is important anywhere as a way of communication, and as long as it is used endlessly, different style of literacy should not be defined as illiterate. 

Blankness

As I grow up from age of not so high to super high technology, I have questioned myself many times. Is this okay? Am I safe here? Today, you can call something free on your phone; you can skype with anyone you want who is thousands miles away; you can hold meetings with your partners who works in different countries in different language, and you can “travel” our last frontier, the universe simply by looking at some sorts of websites. At first, it took hundreds of years to invent a giant computer, which barely does things expects for recording words. In tens of years, engineers developed computer in much smaller and lighter size, and it became the tool of searching information in short time. In a short few years, computer becomes a tool that connects people around the world. Literally, people do everything and anything on computer, which is not only a form of giant desktop, but also a form of laptop, tablet, and phone. Countless thoughts and ideas are in people’s hands. High technology truly has been a huge useful tool that everyone can use in daily life, and most people appreciate this phenomenon. However, really? We have to rethink about this.

Chris hedges scornfully questions this phenomenon, furthermore, criticizes the majority of the society lives in a “non-reality-based belief system,” by which means people decides their choice based on simple information such as images and symbols, not based on intellectual, well-educated, word-based, trustworthy information. In his world, we do not know what we know; we are gradually becoming illiterate. It is a shocking fact that many recent debates of presidents are sixth- or seventh-grade level, which tells this high technology society does not really help people be “literate.” Literacy does not mean if one can read abcs, but if one can understand the meaning of words that others speak; if people can’t really constantly in a long period of time and just try to understand by feelings, then there will be a world with only pictures and symbols in near future.

Nicholas Carr answers his question “Is Google Making Us Stupid?” by talking about blind spots that the high technology brings to us. He claims that he and many friends of him have a hard time to read deeply in a long period of time, and easily get distracted by looking for something else to do. I believe this isn’t only his problem. We all always try to do multiple things at the same time, particularly while we are online. We seek convenience, and skim through hundreds of words in a second. We work like a machine. I liked Carr’s use of word “staccato” quality because it perfectly describes our life system. All we do is segmented: read a paragraph of a long article, read only headlines of daily news, chat with friends for a few minutes, etc. I think if we continuously live in this way, then we will be worse than Internet because Internet at least has all these “knowledge” within it but humans don’t. The golden age of intellectual discovery would be only for Internet itself.

The messages from these two authors are clear. Internet (searching machine) is truly helpful but if people only follow that paths, than they will be not only illiterate, but also blank and ignorant. 

Reading & Writing

In my definition, reading does not mean merely read words of others; instead, when you read, you have to look for some hidden meanings of each words presented in the work. Even a comic book or a short journal can contain lots of deeper meanings that we as readers have to think about, or they can foreshadow later stories. Writing is exactly opposite. When you write, you have to know what you are writing about. I think it's similar to math, which you have to know 1+1 is 2. I liked the idea that Harris posed. Writing is reproducing others' writing and making it yours. That is not an easy process but I believe once one can achieve this point, writing would not be hard anymore.

What is rewriting?

In Rewriting, Joseph Harris thoroughly explains what is meant to rewrite something from another writer's work. He easily explains rewriting or responding is more than just summarizing what has been citied. Harris points out that to question what has been said is one of very important aspects of writing because as one questions already written work, one can rethink, reinterpret, and reproduce the work in his or her own word.
At first, it was hard to find any connection between Harris's point of view of (re)writing and Sullivan's writing (blogging) because Harris deals with and the main point of this book is introducing readers what rewriting is for academic writing, which is usually much more formal than blogging. But soon, I found co-purpose from these two writers: writing is the way to show one's perspective on something else. According to Harris, when one rewrites, one “translates the language and ideas of a text into words of [one's] own.” Like blogging, which usually contains personal opinion on a subject, rewriting also needs to be pushed beyond “rewriting” a text.  And I think it was an interesting interpretation when Harris makes point what text is. For him, not only a book is a text, but movies, plays, songs, paintings, sculptures, photographs, cartoons, videos, billboards, advertisements, etc. also are text as well. That is exactly what blogging does. People simply talk about what their topic is at first, and then share their opinions or experiences on the topic in positive or negative way. This process will be repeated from a writer to another one, and so forth, which I believe a network or a community of various subjects depending on how writers bring in another subjects into the work. Even though Harris’s Rewriting and Sullivan’s “Why I Blog” do not share common subject of writing field, the base of their writing process is the same: in order to make good (re)writing, one has to have ability of questioning and rethinking process to already written work.

Blog: Enriching the Writing & Connecting the World

“Why do I blog?” I asked myself. First, I want to write some enjoyable posts for many people so that both I as a blogger and readers can find common interests and feel connected to each other. Then, I asked second question, “What is an enjoyable writing?” Well, I first thought in order to make others interested then I have to write WELL because that’s what I see from other blogs. However, after reading Andrew Sullivan’s “Why I Blog”, I realized my idea wasn't right enough; the reason I felt good and interested is that the bloggers are being real and simple. They simply write what they want to talk about and how they feel about something. And this is where readers feel connected and linked. Sullivan believes that blogs, bloggers, and readers are all connected through link, and broadly it makes a community and culture. Therefore, it is necessary for him to keep blogging in order to keep this culture and interaction because blog is not only about the postings posted by bloggers, but readers’ comments are equally important, which develops ideas in many ways.

As Sullivan mentioned that blogging is similar to diary or journal, but I also think blogging is much simpler than those two. Unlike diary and journal which usually have purposes of writing, blog does not have to have one. Like Sullivan did, blogging can be used when one does not have firm ideas of what to do. These vague ideas of various topics would be collected, and then the blog becomes a “private Wikipedia” where one can create new writing. I really like Sullivan’s idea that his writing (column) becomes “more considered, balanced, and evenhanded” by his blog which serves as a free-form research. Even though blog writing is informal and hardly edited, it certainly helps one become a better writer. Unlike professional writers of actual books, enabled writers progressively improve their writing by writing out loud in blog. That’s why I blog.

Blog, blog, blog

This morning my English teacher from senior year of high school suddenly popped up in my brain. He was (and still is) the most hilarious, intellectual, and popular teacher. And he was the first person who introduced me and my class how to be part of this wonderful world of blogs in the United States. I guess he showed up in my brain to tell me about the blog again. 

Blog, blog, blog. “Not so exciting word to hear on the first day of class.” That’s what I first thought when I heard that I need to be a blogger this quarter. Besides my English teacher’s lesson, the word “blog” was not so strange at all because it has been pretty popular in Korea for many years. I have seen so many great posts about food, fashion, TV series, entertainments, and etc. but seriously? Me, posting to and for public? I couldn't imagine that. Well, to tell the truth, this isn't even my first time to create a blog; I already experienced this several years ago. If I remember it right, after creating a blog, I posted once or twice, and that was it. It didn't take too long to realize that I was more than happy to be a reader, rather than a blogger. So, not to procrastinate in making a blog was the most difficult thing for me today. I don’t worry about posting things here because I have to do it so anyways whether I like it or not. I mean actually I think I am already starting to like it because blog posting does not necessarily need some outlines to follow like other boring academic papers, but yet I am still writing something, and it makes me feel productive. Unlike Facebook where I put a couple of sentences about what I feel like today, here in blog, I feel more free to write as much as I want. I am still worried about being a blogger but now I think this would help me relaxed with all those piles of duties.