Response to Ryan Lawson- Writers Block

I completely agree that this demon called writers block does exist and can torment everyone in a creative field. Writer's block isn't limited to writers as Ryan had detailed in his post. Ryan detailed the struggles of a manga creator dealing with the terrors of writers block and not having use for things he has created or not being ale to create something he does need. Clearly as in manga, (like a comic novel) if the story progresses without the artwork, than there is no way to continue. Likewise if the artwork continues without the story line, then the entire story may be compromised to flow with the artwork that has already been created.
I also have felt the struggle of dealing with writers block but not like Ryan in manga creation. A few years ago I attempted to write a book and  create artwork for the book. However, after many attempts and many days spent writing I hit a wall. I was able to get rough sketches done and I wrote nearly five short chapters for the novel. Then the writer's block hit both parts of the novel head on. I was unable to finish any drawings the way that I imagined them in my head. All of the drawings looked as though a four yea old could have drawn them. Also after five chapters, I had no more ideas on how to transition the story to where I wanted it to go.
However, this terrible disease does not only apply to the writing of literature. I have also hit this block in many other aspects of my creative life. After my idea to write a novel had died, I  tried to move into video game creation. Unfortunately, I ran out of time to continue to work on the game and writers block hit me in the early stages of designing the characters. Finally while playing some video games (such as minecraft) I have hit writer's block and run out of things to do and create while playing. this causes me the most anguish as I want to play but I become frustrated because I have no idea what to do. This disease can ruin many things and can take over your life. However, there are ways to regain creative motion and you must work to get back into the groove.

Fulfilling life- Response to Charlie

Looking through my classmate’s blogs, I found a post about the meaning of “Full Life” by Charlie DeLorenzo. In this blog post Charlie responds to another blog post about living a “full life” and what that person thought living a full life would mean. Charlie also explained his point of view on living a full life and how one could do that. He says that a full life can be attained through experience and perspective. A full life is one that “individual can be at peace with the whole of what has been experienced in their life.” Also to truly understand happiness, one must first have felt sadness. Charlie goes on to talk about how to feel one emotion you must know its opposite, to live a “full life” you must experience all of the good and bad things in life. It all depends on how you play the game with the cards you are dealt.

            While throughout Charlie’s post, he’s brought up many good points that I do agree with, he says a lot of things I don’t really agree on. I believe that to live a full life, you must have experiences throughout your life. To know what living really is, you need to experience life and do all that you can do. Life isn’t about how much money you make, how many places you go, how many people say they are your friends. Life is about being happy with who you are and what you have done. People will always tell you how successful they are because they want to try and prove that they are living a perfect life. However, these people have never truly lived, slaving away every day for a number in a bank account that doesn’t mean anything when they are saying goodbye at the end of their life. No one has ever said that they loved that person and that someone was a great person just because they had a lot of money. Also the old saying that “money can buy happiness because money buys jet skis and you’ve never seen a sad person on a jet ski” is wrong. No one is going to think that their life was fulfilling because they owned a jet ski.

            Some people think that their life would be perfectly fulfilling traveling around the world and seeing every sight that the world has to offer. The wonders of the world fill their cameras and they could say that they hit all of the most beautiful places anyone has ever dreamed of. Bragging to all of their friends and showing hundreds of pictures to everyone would give them a sense of pride. While yes those experiences would last a lifetime and out travelers would say they wouldn’t trade it for the world, things might not be as perfect as they seem. No not even a life like this would guarantee you a perfect life.

            Finally we have the people that live their life by the light of the lord. While they will constantly tell you how the lord is your savior and the only way to heaven. Heaven is the only way to be proven as a good person while you were on earth. You must go to church and you must repent for your sins to be a model citizen and live a fulfilling life. However, in the churches eyes, you can’t be a good person or live the life you should unless you give yourself to god and become a member of said churches. However, none of this makes you live a fulfilling life, and forcing someone else to live this way does not make them live a fulfilling life.

            The only way to truly live a fulfilling life is to be happy with every decision you make. You must be willing to look back at your life in the end and not tell yourself that you have had a fulfilling life, but think that with everything you’ve done and everyone you’ve loved, you wouldn’t have changed a thing. Being truly happy with what you have done and who you have become, that is what makes a life fulfilling.

Creative- RAFT- The Road by Cormac Mcarthy

April 2, 2013

The Pentagon

Col. James Ungerhold

The ever growing threats from North Korea are becoming too much. After constant threats from the United Nations the feeling is that they are going to start a nuclear war. Fear is running through all here, we don’t know what to expect from the Koreans. The president has been by more than ever.  The other nations have agreed to assist us if the threats are true. The amount of testing has the world in a panic. We have seen the power of the nukes and no one wants a repeat of that. Except for Korea that is.

April 3, 2013

My Office

Col. James Ungerhold

The day that we have all feared has come true; the Koreans have threatened us with use of nuclear missiles. I just finished watching the news like everyone else, wake up with my morning cereal to hear that we are under attack. I haven’t even left to get my newspaper or wake my kids up before I received a call to get ready. They will be here any minute to take us back to the Pentagon. This is going to be a very long week; I don’t foresee much sleep in my future.

April 3, 2013

White-Hawk Helicopter

Col. James Ungerhold

We just left the ground, it feels weird getting VIP pick up from a military helicopter in the middle of my street. A few members of the service stayed behind to guard my family; I still wish I could take them with me. Little Sara must be so scared, I don’t know what I would do if something happened to them. I’ve heard we have a safe base on the border of Mexico far underground.  If anything goes wrong, I hope the solders know to take them south.

April 3, 2013

The Pentagon

Col. James Ungerhold

I just arrived with Lt. Gerry McGregor and my neighbor, Col. Hunter Pavelski. The mad scramble around here makes everything just that much more real. President Obama is I the room and seems like he hasn’t slept in weeks. Then again who has? The scout drones have returned video of the Korean missiles and it is worse than we had first anticipated. Fields of silos line the ground with war heads ready to fire. The secretary has been attempting to call the UN, the only plan that has resonated in all could cause a lot of problems. The idea to bomb their missiles before they could launch, however I don’t feel most of the UN would be against us. It feels like the room is on fire, there isn’t one member of this room not sweating.

April 3, 2013

The Pentagon

Col. James Ungerhold

We have received the go ahead from the United Nations to sweep the nuclear missiles of North Korea. The tension in this room can be cut with a knife, the order id ready to be sent, but who wants to be responsible for that. It feels like the scene from the Dark Night, both boats with the detonator to blow the other sky high, but we are still here, do they truly want to kill us? I hope we can end this soon, but there is no god that can be prayed to that can end this.

April, 4, 2013

The Pentagon

Col. James Ungerhold

It’s only been an hour and we still have not come to a decision. Many have suggested to contact Kim Jong-Un himself, but what do we have to say to him? “If you pull the trigger we are dead, but if we pull first your whole country will be obliterated”. This whole situation is just crazy, like why are we doing this? I need a cup of coffee.

April 4, 2013

White-Hawk Helicopter

Col. James Ungerhold

We are on route to the nuclear safety base in Mexico. The suspicions were true that it was real; we have been told that our family is being picked up. Sadly I doubt that. The missiles were launched as we were deliberating whether to attack first. There is no way that we have the ability to protect the entire country. I just hope that the small area that we could save will be alright. This moment is almost beautiful, the calm before the storm as they say.

April 17, 2013

Mexico- Nuclear War Bunker

Col. James Ungerhold

We have seen the full effect of the war heads that struck this great nation. Everything is gone, everything has burned, craters have opened in the earth, earthquakes and fires ravage the country. Survivors travel the roads; many look at the helicopters puzzled as if it isn’t real. Luckily they seem to have heard about the base, they are all headed south. I hope my family is on their way; however I feel that I will never see them again. What would they be thinking, walking to safety through that, I don’t wish that on anyone.

Rationale

               While reading The Road by Cormac McCarthy, a story about a father and son traveling south after an apocalyptic event that burned the nation, one question continued to be brought up. Through every discussion we wondered how this post-apocalyptic world was made as all we were told was that there fires and seismic events. I then decided to create my own idea for how this could have possibly happened. Through the journal entries of Colonel James Ungerhold I was able to depict a scenario using real world ideas with differing endings. As many know about the nuclear war threats of North Korea from 2013, I decided to change history to create this apocalyptic waste land. Col. James Ungerhold was a prominent member in the Pentagon and the talk of national security. He documented his daily life with small journal entries whenever he got the chance, using what we found from this time period, we were able to understand what happened to create this burned world.

Response to Jean Carlo- The Death Penalty

In the case of the death penalty, while yes, taking away the lives of another human can be considered immoral and playing god, those who are against the death penalty also need to look at other issues where the death penalty is enforced but in a way people wouldn't think about. While what Lisa did is inexcusable, and children should not be tortured in that way. When someone brings a child into the world, they are supposed to care for the child and nurture it. However, in Lisa’s case this is inhumane and borderline torture to do this to a child.

With that said I don’t feel that she deserves the death penalty. Time in a correctional facility and the forfeiture of her rights to see the children. Her girlfriend shouldn't be given the rights to the children as she is just as much to blame for the improper care of the children.  She was also around to see this torture and could have stopped it or get them out of the awful environment. However, the death penalty does not apply for this situation, and I do feel like the idea behind why the death penalty was created back in the day has lost its way.

In the times when the death penalty was created, people were put to death for major crimes against the rest of society. These would be murderers, looters, or roaming gangs. The society would decide as a whole who would be put to death, and many times a trial wouldn't occur. However it is not only the members of society that would put someone to death, as the government would publicly hang any who go against them. Many medieval rulers were known for this tactic and this is how the death penalty became wildly known and used. Public be-headings and hangings were a common sight in France. Crimes against the state were not tolerated, even in the sake of trying to create a better life for the citizens.

While many would think none of that has any effect on the death penalty today, they would be completely wrong. Crimes against America happen all of the time and we immediately condemn those who have wronged us to death.  In many cases, people would become angry if I were to claim that one of these enemies of the United States didn't deserve to be put to death. Most of the country would be outraged if criminals such as the terrorist leader of Al-Qaeda, Osama Bin Laden was just put in a jail and not killed for his actions. As he mastermind behind the largest terrorist attack the United States has endured, there was a major outcry from the American public for his head. After the attacks of September 11^th, destroying the twin towers in New York, the citizens of the United States were outraged and a call for Osama bin Laden’s head could not be ignored. The penalty of death was begged for by the masses and there would be a hunt that would last years to follow this tragedy. However, no one ever said it was inhumane or that it was playing god. No one wanted Osama bin Laden to sit in a United States prison, people wanted torture and the worst kind of punishment for his “sins”. However, who could wish these things upon someone, who would want the death penalty put upon someone. That answer to that is not only the United States, but the rest of the world. For the world, Adolf Hitler was going to be put to death and punished in the most vile of ways. Again a man that didn't even commit the crime its self, is the one that the public wants put to death. While they are the brain behind the crimes, they didn't commit the crimes themselves, unlike Lisa. In a world where people want to have their opinions heard, they must think through what they want before they become a hypocrite. 

Spread of Technology

        While writing my response paper the other day I couldn't help but think about how spread out we have become in the advancement of technology. In the days of early sciences, the main focus was to sustain life and understand our world. Chemistry took the natural resources of our planet and created new things with them. Engineers created new means of doing almost everything, making life more efficient and easy. The growth of technology made it possible for people to live longer and healthier. However, in recent years of sciences, we seem to have gotten away from technological advancement and moved into science fiction none sense.   

       

      With the introduction of even more science fiction into the media, the masses have begun to call for these fictional ideas to become reality. In the past year, scientists have discovered how to create real life light-sabers from the award winning series of Star Wars movies. While many would say this is an amazing feat of technology and that we are stepping closer to the future, I disagree. This seems like we are taking a step backwards, instead of creating things that could help people and propel ourselves into the future, we are playing with swords of light. There are still families that are being devastated by the loss of a loved one to cancer. Instead of working on ridiculous toys, we should focus on fixing what is already wrong with the world.

       While I am not saying that I hate the Star Wars franchise, I do feel that we could be putting our effort into more important ideas. I have watched every movie and would love to wield a glowing sword of the jedi, however that could be worried about years from now after we have run out of other things that need attention. We need to be more focused as a society and work towards reachable and necessary goals. When we all finally come to a consensus and work together towards one goal, then we will be successful. The world can once again flourish, but for now we need to come together and focus on what is really needed in today's society.