Speak Blog

I define myself by the way I act, not the people I hang around with or people I chose to talk to. I would not fall under the category of "He is just doing that so he will look cool." If I do something, someone will benefit from it, whether it be myself or someone else. I do my best to make sure that I never do something for the sole reason that it will make me look cool and fit in. I think that many people do live that way. I think it is unfortunate that they can not trust themselves and have enough self confidence to live how they want to. It is easy to quit and just try to blend in because one can feel strange or awkward when really trying to prevent that makes them more awkward. Personally, I never fell under one group when I was at Zionsville. I was never the super-athletic guy who only hung out with certain people. Most people were not stuck to one singular group. I was also never the guy that someone would pick on to get a cheap laugh. However in Speak I think the Author, Anderson, does a horrible job depicting school. I think that she takes the easy road and just makes the characters define themselves in one sentence. "Our group only talks to these people" or "Our group only goes to parties with this other group." Realistically, I have never seen this happen. People never isolate themselves completely because they don't want that stain on their reputation. In the novel, all of the groups seem to define themselves by who they hangout with or what they talk about, not what they do or enjoy doing. These groups seem to do their best to create only one self and eliminate James' theory. They try to limit the people that know them so that there will only be one view of them. For example, the Marthas force Heather to go through all of these tasks just to see if she will fit in. They don't want anyone to talk to them or hangout with them that isn't just like them in every way. This really isn't possible in real life because people can not live that way.

Blog 1

I think that books like Little Brother provide opportunities for us to question or feelings and beliefs on major issues that trouble our country and the rest of the world. This book causes me to debate internally my views on privacy and personal issues. I debate whether I think the government should be allowed to tap into our personal devices and computers to observe and help find dangerous criminals and terrorists. In little brother a situation occurs where Marcus, the main character, must reveal his password, which is almost sacred to him, to the government because they need it to determine if he was involved in a terrorist attack. This causes Marcus to strengthen his feelings that the government should not be able to view our private items. I disagree because I think that the government should do and be able to do anything they need to in an effort to find terrorists or prevent possible attacks. These books also give the opinions of the authors and expose us to potentially new ideas and new thoughts about different situations. For example, Little Brother proposed an idea that I had never really thought about. Little Brother exposed the idea that the government should not be allowed to go through anyone's phones, ipods, PDA's, internet, and computers even if they don't have permission from that person. Book like Little Brother also simulate or demonstrate different situations that are not far off. These types actions could occur in the near future and this is a potential reaction by the government. The government could choose to go through people's personal devices who could be suspicious because they need to catch the terrorists.