Presidential Campaigning

So, the 2008 Presidential campaign alone has cost $1400 Million to date. That could feed 92 million people for a year, ending more than 10% of world hunger, and going a long way to preventing the 80 million deaths each year from starvation/malnourishment. Thats the equivalent to feeding nearly 1/3 of all Americans.

Oh, but that money is better spent on two egotistical liars.

(And all elections nationwide costs more than double the above. Yeah thats alot of hungry people. But its easy to stand back and point fingers, hooray Planet Earth-)

Backwards Outline

- Intros the joy of flying
- The reasons for pursuing a license (freedoms)
- First fears, fiscal costs
- Elaborated fiscal costs
- Why it is worth the fiscal cost
- More reasons to fly (joys)
- How to find community in aviation
- The good peculiarities of the flying community
- Data on pilots (Don't you want to be one?)
- Summarizing the costs/benefits and why it is all worth it

Response to Peer Review

The purpose of the essay is clear, but the grammatical details of the essay need to be worked on. The wording is also awkward at times, and there needs to be better transitions. Overall, the essay is sound though. The transitions are weakest around the topic of Oshkosh, which will need to be strengthened to better serve the purpose of the essay.

Question of the Day

What is:

the nothing that is?

Draft

Hey. Just finished up working on the draft for tomorrow (wow, I guess its finally after midnight, so we will be working on it later this morning. Thats a scary thought!). It is coming along nicely, just moving paragraphs around and trying to capture the incapturable essance of an essay. Whatever that ends up looking like. Oh well, at least it was a beautiful day and the best thing is that tomorrow is Friday! I like being alive.

A Good Essay?

First, lets look at my essay. Its not all that bad, but it needs alot of work. There are several misplaced paragraphs and one paragraph that should probably just be deleted. Also, the wording within the paragraphs is simply weird at times. It is rife with grammatical errors, not to mention the need for clarity of the extended metaphor. Also, my views of flying changed in the last hour, so that might make it into the essay. Its hard to support flying when you know someone who survived a fatal plane crash.

"Professional Essays" (is there such a thing?) are obviously different from mine in several ways, so I need to look to see what the fundamental differences are. I think it is easier to swim across the English channel than define an essay, but most essays share some common themes. Essays are not poems for starters, and they often tell a story or illustrate a point. It is simply a well constructed and illustrated opinion/observation. "Good essays" are compelling to the reader and convey an experience or idea effectively and neatly. Sometimes it is easier to spot what an essay isn't, and then steer clear of that. Poor essays seem impersonal and erratic, fake and incomplete, and simply painful to read. A good essay is enjoying to read and enlightening, whether that be about an experience or idea.

Airplane Crash

It really hits home when you know someone in a fatal homebuilt airplane crash. The person who taught my best friend was in the plane and survived (air lifted to hospital), but he is pretty beat up. I remember flying off that same grass runway 3 months ago, and talking to the instructor for half an hour. The pilot died on impact after the engine failed.

The instructor was in another crash about 2 months ago after a similar plane's engine died, but he walked away luckily. Even the most experienced pilots can't guard against total engine failure.

Finished :54 mins

1561 words, 4 full pages. Yay-

38 mins in

1084 words. took a FB break, back to the grindstone. 3 pages

19 mins in

564 words. or 1.8 pages. :)

Oh, and...

I saw was confronted by a black bear while sitting in the woods of Asheville this weekend. It was epic. The bear ran up to like 20 feet from me, took a few steps towards me, and when i stood to challenge it to a duel, it backed away in fear. Too bad, I was hoping for a fight.

And 20 feet away is not a lie by the way.

Intro

Looking into the autumn skies will surely result in spotting some form of animal in the seaming suspended animation of flight. Soaring high into the clouds, gracefully floating in the breeze, and never seeming to take a break. Too often I have looked at the birds of the sky in wonder and amazement, longing for the freedom to explore the third dimension of not being bound to the ground. Occasionally one can spot a commercial plane high overhead, but not very often does one get to marvel at a small two seat airplane, seemingly capable of every aerobatic move that even the most graceful swallows can achieve, yet with the power of the mighty eagle. The road to obtaining a pilot's license is long and hard, much like a swallow learning to fly, but the freedom it brings is far worth any effort or expense.

Rough Draft

So, the HW is to write an awful rough draft. So, lets set the stage for an awful rough draft. 11PM, check. Facebook chat on, Check. Weekend retreat the last few days, check. Country music, check.

Let's Roll!

Essay Purpose/Audience

So, I need to choose a purpose for the essay, but the Facebook chat beep is getting annoying. Maybe I should focus. So here goes focus. More like there goes focus. Oh well. For a purpose. My purpose will to explain the process of getting a pilots license, including the highs and lows along the way. The audience will be for new and prospective students so that they can catch a glimpse into what it means to be a pilot. Sounds like the makings for a boring essay though. We can spruce it up though!

Probably no one got the pun, but thats not surprising. Oh well, maybe someone can figure it out.

Leaves!

Wow, can you believe the colors of the leaves? Isn't that simply amazing? And to think that they don't gain anything by being that beautiful, its like the artwork of God. Ha, it's crazy to believe that a cosmic explosion could result with that!

Research Proposal Feedback

Wow, so apparently my research proposal was better than I had thought. Maybe writing is getting easier for me, but I felt like I had put alot of time into it but was unsure of the format since it was my first research proposal. And after looking at the comments, I see how there are several places where it could be worded better. Also, I did not clearly state what I was asking for, which I plan to better incorporate when I revise it again. I am excited though that there are only minor revisions needed. Hmmm, maybe I just overworried about it since there wasn't any big problems I saw (or little ones for that matter)-

Whats an essay? Take these for example....

When I think of an essay, it is hard for me to look past the essays due in class, the 2-3 page papers, 5 paragraph, double-spaced, 12 pt Times New Roman struggles in English. It is still hard to look past these, but as I have gotten older, the papers have become longer and more and more polished works of 'art'. What makes an "essay" and "essay"? Lets look at "Silent Dancing", "The Stunt Pilot" and "Ali in Havana" to base our ideas of an essay off of.

As I began to read Silent Dancing, I remember previous "essays" I had read in High School. These essays shared a similar component with this one, that of personal story/recollection of the past. In Silent Dancing the author recalls the experiences in tenement housing after relocating from Puerto Rico. The essay is full of descriptive language, which helps form a visual image of the very room the author lived in with words like "upholestered in bright colors (blue and yellow in this instance, and covered in the transparent plastic)....dime sized indentation...". She also incorporates other sensory words to paint an entire image for the reader including smells and the feel of objects.

In the essay, The Stunt Pilot, we see again that an essay is a personal recollection. This essay again utilizes visual imagery to convey a scene and a mood to the reader. I really enjoyed the imagery in this poem as the author used several metaphors, such as comparing the biplane to a "Steiberg fantasy" or a "klee line". The author instilled a sense of awe in the reader, which is a tribute to his skills as a writer and it points to what an effective essay should look like. This essay captured me somehow, I managed to connect with it in a way that very few other pieces of literature can do for me. Is this how English majors feel about all writing? Wow, because it is really awesome!

In the final essay, Ali in Havana, the words are dripping with description. It seems as if each and every word portrays a new and different facet of the story or setting, it is almost hard to take in because it paints such a descriptive story. The imagery she uses shows us how an essay ought to look like, a descriptive conveying of a scene, putting an image into words.

The Church

The Obvious

"You stare and stare at the obvious, but can't see the forest for the trees."

Common Sense?

So, what is common sense? I might not be able to define it, but I can sure say it is lacking the majority of the time. Do we each define common sense by placing the invisible bar on par with our own level of thinking? In doing this do we elevate ourselves above the rest of society by mentally placing our intellectual standards on others? I think that common sense is simply another way to say, "Thats obvious to me". Too often we use the mindframe of "common sense"ing those around us to discriminate others. Far too often I see people lacking "common sense", but is that simply me subconsciously saying they are inferior? What do you think?....

Palin Presidency?

So, watching the debate, I must say it is quite refreshing not to see those two numskulls up there bickering over details and not answering questions. It absolutely kills me how much money is wasted on ego this election year. Moving on though, I am quite impressed with Palin. No, she is not perfect, she does not have the experience foreign or domestic that Biden or McCain does. But she is smart enough to listen to people and compromise. Sure, she is not perfectly right on every topic, but she has more common sense than Biden/Obama about Iraq, she has common sense about gay marriage and about oil. I am afraid that she will not actively enough embrace new forms of energy, but I agree with her that we need to use the energy we have at hand instead of pumping money through dangerous global regions. Is there alot that needs to be changed? Yes. Will Palin fix them all? No. Is she better than Biden? Yes. Obama? Yes. McCain? Sadly, I think so. Give her the chance, and she will be a g
reat leader.

Aris?!!

Oh my gosh, Aris is killing me. And if you don't know what Aris is, consider yourself blessed. This online Chemistry HW system is driving me insane.... oh well, too bad I can no longer access the site since the "Apache" server died. Hmmmm....wonder what that means....

Research Proposal Wrap-up

Well, the proposal is coming along nicely, just doing some final reviews. I added a Works Cited Section and added citations within the text as part of preparation for the conference tomorrow. I am pretty confident that my proposal will fall within the guidelines, but after tomorrow I will know for sure. Too bad the weekend is almost over-

Research Proposal

Here is my research proposal thus far. If anyone would like to comment, that would be appreciated. Its a start, and I will try and keep it updated as I make changes.