The SATs will now have an essay component. Back in the day when I was writing entrance exams all you had to do was be able to fill in a bubble sheet. The instructions were pretty simple. They even included examples of how not to fill in a bubble: partially filled bubbles, pencils marks outside the bubble, etc. According to a news story on the subject, some educators are concerned that today’s students don’t know how to write. Young folk are so used to sending cryptic emails and text messages loaded with emoticons and other symbols that it may be difficult for them to put together two or three coherent sentences, the kind that professors like to see in papers. It seems that technology has caused the devolution of human communication from forms that require highly abstract skills such as writing whole sentences to those forms which mimic the most simple of speech skills. Many emails move more like speech than writing. Emoticons, for example, do nothing more than replace facial expressions.
The beauty of writing is in the capacity of written words alone to capture, non-verbally, all the irony and figurative qualities of language, all the winks, smiles, grimaces, and eyerolls that would otherwise be seen if you were talking to someone face to face. As a matter of fact, I’m rolling my eyes right now.
Tuesday, September 28, 2004
full moon
There’s a full moon. They say that the moon can make people do strange things. This seems a rather peculiar notion. Perhaps it’s the gravitational influence on the earth’s inhabitants. Maybe some of our neurons get pulled toward the heavens, making us somewhat light-headed and loopy. Perhaps it’s the fact that there, right in the middle of a dark sky, is a bright eye looking down on us. We usually regard darkness to be prime time for hidden agendas. But if someone is watching us, perhaps a little bit of the performance artist in us comes out. The moon is watching, a celestial sentinel.
Is there, regardless of time of day, someone truly watching us? And can this someone see not only our actions but also our motives, our thoughts, our desires? Is this watcher benign or hostile? Will he make us do things we don’t want? Or does he simply watch our pathetic lives and laugh at our arrogant folly? What will all of human achievement be worth when, in a number of billion years, the universe is nothing but a lifeless mass of cold particles?
Is there, regardless of time of day, someone truly watching us? And can this someone see not only our actions but also our motives, our thoughts, our desires? Is this watcher benign or hostile? Will he make us do things we don’t want? Or does he simply watch our pathetic lives and laugh at our arrogant folly? What will all of human achievement be worth when, in a number of billion years, the universe is nothing but a lifeless mass of cold particles?
Monday, September 06, 2004
Intro
Intro
I feel like I’ve finally crossed that bridge to the 21st Century. Let’s just say I’m a late adopter. I don’t even own a CD player. But it seems that everyone and her grandmother has a blog. It’s free, so I figured I’d blog too (I’m assuming blog can be used as both a noun and a verb). Not that there’s anything interesting that I have to say.
Notwithstanding the label "new", this century doesn’t seem all that different from
the last one. No amount of high-tech toys can eradicate the same ol’ human nature that plagues us. High-definition only shows our flaws even more clearly.
The way to correct the excesses of modern life is, I believe, to read (and since there is much in my life that needs correcting, I read as much as possible). Books, old and new, can tell us things about life, love, happiness, and truth that we would have a hard time figuring out on our own. It seems that the human race has been endowed with intelligence and insights as a whole with no single person having all the answers. This reminds me of St. Paul’s claim that the church is like a body with each member doing its part. Of course, there are also those who are paragons of poor thinking (your truly included). There are even those who dispense large doses of intellectual silliness under the guise of intelligence (me again). However, maybe we can all learn a little something from each other if we keep an open mind (I may not be able to learn much since I’ve been accused of having a closed mind).
So, I don’t really know what I’m going to be writing here; maybe a book review now and then (acknowledging that "review" is probably the wrong term. When I think of reviews I think of those 20000 word essays found in the the Atlantic Monthly (yes, you Christopher Hitchens) or the New York Review of Books). Maybe some really bad poetry (and when I say bad this is no exaggeration), or maybe just some, er, random rambings of a poor…well, you know.
P.S. errors in spelling, grammar, syntax, and punctuation are a regular occurrence for me. My apologies in advance.
I feel like I’ve finally crossed that bridge to the 21st Century. Let’s just say I’m a late adopter. I don’t even own a CD player. But it seems that everyone and her grandmother has a blog. It’s free, so I figured I’d blog too (I’m assuming blog can be used as both a noun and a verb). Not that there’s anything interesting that I have to say.
Notwithstanding the label "new", this century doesn’t seem all that different from
the last one. No amount of high-tech toys can eradicate the same ol’ human nature that plagues us. High-definition only shows our flaws even more clearly.
The way to correct the excesses of modern life is, I believe, to read (and since there is much in my life that needs correcting, I read as much as possible). Books, old and new, can tell us things about life, love, happiness, and truth that we would have a hard time figuring out on our own. It seems that the human race has been endowed with intelligence and insights as a whole with no single person having all the answers. This reminds me of St. Paul’s claim that the church is like a body with each member doing its part. Of course, there are also those who are paragons of poor thinking (your truly included). There are even those who dispense large doses of intellectual silliness under the guise of intelligence (me again). However, maybe we can all learn a little something from each other if we keep an open mind (I may not be able to learn much since I’ve been accused of having a closed mind).
So, I don’t really know what I’m going to be writing here; maybe a book review now and then (acknowledging that "review" is probably the wrong term. When I think of reviews I think of those 20000 word essays found in the the Atlantic Monthly (yes, you Christopher Hitchens) or the New York Review of Books). Maybe some really bad poetry (and when I say bad this is no exaggeration), or maybe just some, er, random rambings of a poor…well, you know.
P.S. errors in spelling, grammar, syntax, and punctuation are a regular occurrence for me. My apologies in advance.
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