"Skunk Dreams" Louise Erdrich

     This past June my family and I went on an amazing camping trip. We packed all our necessary items -- clothes, food, equipment, and the like -- and took off across the mid-west in search of a higher elevation and scenery that isn't so flat and corn-filled. Traveling through the mid-west via Nebraska sure wasn't going to provide us with the altitude and terrain we desired so we plowed straight on through to Colorado. Whilst in Colorado we hiked through the mountains and camped in the wilderness. We saw everything from mountain streams to porcupines and marmots. As Ms. Erdrich would call it, we got outside. Not just to the urbanized fields, or to a remote city park, we ventured out into the middle of America's backyard and simply lived. 

     Though the experience and the trip was real enough, the whole thing seemed oddly dream-like. It's too surreal and spectacular that I just can't believe I'm actually there. Camping makes me feel free, everything is as it should be, nature and I are working as one. It is my paradise, the only place I feel I really, truly belong.

     I completely and totally understand Louise's feeling of longing for something as simple as a horizon, or of her love for the sound of the trees, or even her esoteric fascination with skunks and the content of their dreams. She simply has found the thing in life that makes her feel at home and even at peace, no matter what form of animal has crawled on to you to get a good night's sleep.

--A_Walk

"Talk of the Town" John Updike & Susan Sontag

These essays, written by John Updike and Susan Sontag, were both in response to the tragic happenings of September 11th, 2001. The essays themselves were both very well written, but the Updike essay and the Sontag essay had complete opposite messages.

The Updike essay talked about how it felt to experience such a horrendous event. He explains how the whole event doesn't ever seem quite real, that television clouds the truth and dulls the senses. "... there persisted the notion that, as on television, this was not quite real; it could be fixed" I think this is typical human behavior, something tremendously bad happens and our brain fails to wrap around the occurrence, so we imagine it wasn't as bad as it seems and that we can all sleep peacefully and in the morning everything will be right as rain. In my opinion, his essay is very childish and immature. Instead of face the reality of the World Trade Center collapsing, killing thousands, he'd rather remark on how there seems to be a lack of planes in the air. How can such an event slip right through his mind and not even strike any chord of thought more than, "we have only the mundane duties of survivors -- to pick up the pieces, to bury the dead, to take more precautions, to go on living." It infuriates me to think that we can witness such a catastrophe and move on saying, 'Well, I guess no one is traveling by plane any time soon... let's go have lunch.' The notion that it will all be just peachy if we just get back to normal is naive and shouldn't be tolerated by anyone older than seven.

Susan Sontag's essay, on the other hand, makes complete and total sense to me. The American populous can't just be herded around like a bunch of blind mules. Calling our enemies "cowards"  and throwing out propaganda like "Our country is strong", "America is not afraid. Our spirit is unbroken." over and over isn't going to fix what happened. People need to be able to see for themselves and not be shrouded by the government's swaddling. She makes some excellent points, we need to not dwell on what happened, but rather find the problem and fix it. She states, " Let's by all means grieve together. But let's not be stupid together." There is a time and a place for grieving, and there is a time and a place to buckle down and fix our country. Ms. Sontag is right, the time for grieving and morale boosting is over. Now is the time to fix our country.

--A_Walk

Me, myself, and I. A slight intro of A_Walk

Hey fellow bloggers! Welcome to my blog, I'm A_Walk (aka Alex Walker) and I'll be your resident blogger for this url. I'm a senior in high school at McFarland High School and I'm blogging for my AP Composition class. I'll be posting about various essays, articles, books, and other fun literary topics.

I plan on going to college to become a mechanical engineer, I love math and science, but a little writing on the side never hurt anyone. I've taken/will be taking all the standard science and math classes that are offered and I can't wait to use my knowledge to solve some problems to improve machinery. As an engineer/mathematician, I love to solve problems (Sudoku, Ken Ken, Slither Link, crosswords, logic puzzles, lateral thinking puzzles, you name it I'll probably want to solve it) I have a talent for looking at things in a different way and seeing problems or solutions others do not.

Another activity I enjoy is soccer. I've been playing soccer since I was six and I've been reffing soccer for three years. I play for my high school team and I also play indoor and pick-up games in the off season. Soccer is such a beautiful game, it is a moving, continuous chess match, every player is important and every pass of the ball and minute of the game has purpose. Never does the clock stop, and rarely does the action stop for more than 10 seconds. sure you might not score many goals, but soccer isn't about the goals, it's about how you score those goals. I love soccer for it's dynamic nature and complexity of play.

Music is also a large part of my life. I am always listening to some form of tunes, whether it's Pandora Radio, my own playlists, or just general radio stations. Not only am I listening, I am also singing. I am in A-Capella Choir at school and I perform with the Blue Notes and the Kittens Mittens (locally famous jazz choirs). My favorite kind of music ranges from techno, Daft Punk and Blue Man Group, to alternative rock, BnL and Ok Go, to jazz, Frank Sinatra and Jack Johnson. If you ever need a new band to listen to just let me know, I'll give you some ideas.

As a member of AP Composition, I plan on improving my writing skills, forming better sentence structure, and expanding my voluptuous vocabulary. I've taken a couple of English classes in my high school career I might not be an English die-hard, but I still want to be a contributing, literate member of society, I hope this blog and my class can help me achieve these goals.

--A_Walk