Seeing there is nothing really going on today… I’ll just post three odd pictures taken in the last day and a half… Happy Birthday me…
Written around October of 2000
I have been using the Internet for almost ten years now. I have made many friends over the net, and actually do go out with them on a regular basis. I make my money for going to the movies from designing web sites, rather than serving food at the local Chili’s and I am still completely in love with my computer. But are there any negative effects that my long hours spent on the Internet are having on my mental health, and the health of my friends? New studies offer an interesting paradoxical view on the matter. (more…)
Completed somewhere around May 2001 – was published, so don’t copy too closely
T.S. Eliot is one of the most studied poets of today (Murphy 250). His poetry is masterfully planned and executed, filled with clever references and multiple meanings. He was awarded the Nobel Prize for literature in 1948 “for his outstanding, pioneering contribution to present-day poetry.” His “pioneering” works include “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock,” “Preludes,” “Ash Wednesday” and “Four Quartets” but his most widely analyzed, and probably most often misunderstood, work is “The Waste Land.” It is a poem that has baffled critics for its entire existence. It is inherently ambiguous and filled with paradoxical symbolism, but it does carry a message for the reader. “The Waste Land” is an intensely symbolic work, with almost every line up for a different interpretation by a reader. Throughout the poem, Eliot uses a number of reappearing symbols such as death, rats, bones, bells, towers and beds, to name a few, but his most frequently occurring symbol is that of water in all of its forms. Eliot purposefully employs an ambiguous water motif to make points about nature, culture, religion and life in general and about how modern man in his reactions to each has become a “wasteland” and needs to be reborn. (more…)
Written as a planning tool for the paper I’ll post on Monday – Written April 2001
Eliot purposefully employs an ambiguous water motif throughout the poem to make points about nature, culture, religion and life in general and how modern man in his reactions to each has become a “wasteland”, and needs to be reborn. (more…)
Speech Written in June 2002
Introduction
Just before I immigrated to the United States, I saw a headline in the Johannesburg Star which read “Death Rate to Exceed Birth Rate by 2003”. Now for a European country, this might not seem so unusual, but this was Africa. It took a few days for the headline to fully sink in: This was not an announcement of success in birth control programs or positive in any way, but rather the fact that AID’s had finally been able to kill faster than South Africa’s expediential growth had been able to create. It is my experience that people around the world generally do not understand Africa and especially South Africa. They pass off the problems as part of the African experience, but know nothing about the place themselves. So to give you an understanding of country I lived in for 20 years, I will need to explain something of its past, its present and its future. (more…)
Written around October 2000
One of the most popular past times of my peer group is killing each other. Achieved through Tekken 3, Mortal Combat 4 and Quake 3: with all the blood and gore brought to us by the makers of the Sony Playstation and a bunch of networked computers. We play the games with the same passion and fowl language that we lovely give each other on the soccer field. At home we also play screen-based games by ourselves, though more in the genres of strategy, adventure or simulation. But in recent years there have been many critics of the computer/video game phenomenon. The two main accusations are: Video games encourage violence, aggressive behavior and a lack of concern towards society; The games have no intrinsic value and are separating young people from families, friends and more wholesome activities. Are these allegations founded? (more…)
