Blog 30

1. Describe specific connections between the text you read and your experiences in the many aspects of MSB (Into The Wild):

My experience during the Media Saves the Beach showed me a new perspective of nature and health of our valuable ecosystems. Into The Wild, Chris McCandless ventured into the wild scenic areas of the Americas and saw some of the most beautiful sights imaginable. In a way, MSB and Chris McCandless journey accomplished the same things, proving how beautiful nature is and how delicate it is.

Into The Wild (Nature Writing)

Was McCandless justified in the pain he brought to family and friends in choosing his own solitary course in life? Why or why not?

In 1992 the body of a young man was found in the Alaskan mountains. Chris McCandless, the protagonist of Into the Wild, was searching for his true self, but died in the process. Had Chris survived his solitary adventure as he likely planned, the pain he caused his family and friends could have been justified, but his death made that impossible.

McCandless followed his dreams, did what he wanted to, and pursued happiness, even at the expense of his family’s and friends’ pain. It is good to follow your dreams, and to pursue happiness for yourself; the right to pursue happiness is in our country’s Declaration of Independence. Chris knew this. So he ran away from home. The sudden absence of Chris pained his family, and it would be another two years before they would hear any news about him. Chris was following his dreams.

McCandless began referring to himself by a different name: Alex. “Two years he walks the earth. No phone, no pool, no pets, no cigarettes. Ultimate freedom. An extremist. An aesthetic voyager whose home is the road.” says Alex ‘Supertramp’ in May of 1992. In many ways Alex represented another personality inside Chris. Alex was the one who wanted to return when he was on his deathbed in the mountains of Alaska. Chris never intended to return. Chris didn’t care about his family; they were always trying to “buy his love” with their money. Because of this, money was one of the things Chris hated the most. He hated what it turned people into, such as greedy and inhumane. This hatred motivated him to later burn all of his cash and basically live moneyless for two years. His original intentions for his expedition were to get away from money, get away from family, and journey no matter how much it hurt his family. He believed he was justified, but after two years, Chris grew up he realized his intentions were not good.

Some criticized McCandless for being unprepared and untrained. An Alaskan park ranger said, “…he spent very little time learning how to actually live in the wild. He arrived at the Stampede Trail without even a map of the area. If he (had) had a good map he could have walked out of his predicament…Essentially, Chris McCandless committed suicide." McCandless came into the Stampede Trail with a bag full of materials insufficient to keep him alive. It was a wonder that he survived the two-month period that he did. He said in a letter that he was ready to “live off the land for a while”. That was Chris talking. Maybe that was Alex realizing the pain was too great for all and therefore not justified.

McCandless never got to say goodbye to his family, and he died alone in the wild. Some say that’s the way he wanted it, but some say he was going to return. His journal references that he wanted to return home, but some even say he lost his sanity right before his tragic death. The pain caused by his death, in some ways, was justified, and in other ways, it was not. Yes, he was a reckless kid in over his head, but he was also following his dreams. Chris probably never understood the pain he caused his family and friends, and even the many friendly characters he met on his expedition across the continent. The amount of pain Chris brought on by his unnecessary, horrendous, and untimely death cannot be justified.

Into The Wild Rough Draft Essay

Into The Wild Essay:

In 1992 a young man was found dead in the Alaskan mountains. Chris McCandless, the main character of ‘Into the Wild’, was searching for his true self, and died in the process of doing so. Because Chris McCandless wanted, some would say needed, to do something reckless, and his original intent was to survive and return home, his pain which he brought onto his family and friends was and will never be justified.

McCandless wouldn’t agree with the statement that him causing his friends and family emotional pain was justified, maybe the pre-journey Chris, but the Chris who grew during his venture into the wild, the post-journey Chris, wouldn’t. In the story ‘Into The Wild’ there are two Chris McCandless, and the story jumps from the present to the past and back around again, and because of that it is difficult to indentify which McCandless it is referring too. Luckily enough, the Author, Jon Krakauer, gives us a big hint. Chris renames himself several times, one name is his real one, Chris McCandless, one is Alex McCandless, and the last is Alex Supertramp, his alter ego. But along with those names, there is deeper meaning to the change of names. Three names are spread across two egos.

Many people criticized McCandless for not contacting or keeping contact with his parents and family. He did not have to tell his parents anything. He was doing what he wanted, not what other people wanted him to do and he was happy. Again, he didn’t have to do anything. He should have kept contact, or at least not pushed himself as far as he did, and returned before his demise.

Losing a family member is like pain that will never leave. It’s like plastic degrading, it never does, it just breaks down into smaller and smaller pieces. The pain for McCandless would/will never leave, and his death will never be justified, but he never really wanted to die. He wanted an adventure, and with his family it would never have happen, so he left. Although he doesn’t exactly hint at it until he is on his deathbed, I believe he always thought of returning. Alex/Chris originally set off into the Alaskan mountains after 2 years of adventuring to ‘live off the land’. In his journal he said he wanted to return, but only said this before he died.

Chris McCandless wouldn’t agree with the statement that him causing his friends and family emotional pain was justified, maybe the pre-journey Chris, but the Chris who grew during his venture into the wild, better known as Alex, wouldn’t agree. He probably knew it wouldn’t be, leaving without telling, and next they would hear he was dead.

Nature Reading

Read the italicized passage on page 168 that McCandless wrote and the italicized passage he highlighted from Tolstoy on page 169. Based on these writings and events in this chapter, what convinced McCandless that it was time to return to civilization? What did he learn from his time “in the wild”?

Chris learned what real living was like. He did not declare any regrets, and in some ways I feel and believe that he lost his sanity. He wrote in a poetic form and yet he described his ‘real’ life had begun, rebirth, that he has ‘real’ responsibilities. In the scariest way, what he wrote makes complete sense to me. It does make sense. Complete sense. I think that Chris learned what real living was like. When he ventured off he experienced so much, he covered more ground than most of us will in life, and he ran away from everything in his life, and yet he describes these ‘real’ responsibilities. It’s very weird.

Krakauer observes that it is not “unusual for a young man to be drawn to a pursuit considered reckless by his elders.” Explain whether McCandless would agree with Krakauer.

In 1990 Chris McCandless ran away from his parents and responsibilities, and did something “unusual for a young man to be drawn to a pursuit considered reckless by his elders”, but is that really that unusual? I think McCandless would agree with that statement.

It’s the reason why so many kids leave for the furthest away schools they got into, because they want to do something reckless before they get old and boring. But McCandless, and like a lot of young adults, wanted to do something even more reckless. But McCandless is a rare bread, in my opinion, for he actually did what so many kids threaten to do, he went ‘into the wild’. What is different about McCandless, or was different, is that he did it, but he had a reason. Lots of kids, in fact most of kids will attest to disliking their parents, McCandless did, but he also had a reason.

He hated his parents and always thought they were trying to buy him and his love, he hated money. He hated what money did to people, and his parents had lots of it. That was his reason. Reckless and stupid Chris left with not a lot.

Blog 26

1. Link to award: http://www.ivieawards.org/enter_ivie.asp

2. Summarize the basic requirements including entry fees, contest deadlines, permission forms, file sizes, and other requirements:

Entry Fee: $10

Deadline: April 1, 2010 (but it needs to be in at-least 20 days before)

File Size: Irrelevant, as long as its uncompressed, HQ

3. Will your work be accepted?

Not in my current film's status. The requirement is at least 7 minutes in length, my film will only be able to span 5 minutes, which makes sense for the amount of interviews and script length. But my original intent was to compile and edit my video along with another student film. We decided this early on, so we've been using the same equipment and narration etc.

Great Gatsby Essay

(Draft 1)

Evaluate The Great Gatsby as a criticism of the corruption of the American Dream:

The Faux Dream

The American Dream is a national philosophy in/of the United States in which democratic morals are professed as a promise of prosperity and wealth for its people. The American Dream, first expressed by James Truslow Adams in 1931, says that citizens of any class can achieve a "better, richer, and happier life.", or move up social classes. But the American Dream was a fantasy, a myth, and had already been proven to be so years before Adams had stated this.

We’d all like to believe that you can become a rich, high class citizen by doing an honorable days work, but this is a lie. As told in the Great Gatsby, the lead character, Jay Gatsby, is a mysterious man. A government agent? A drug store owner? What does he do? That is the question for the most of the book. Until it is revealed that he is nothing more than a common bootlegger of the 1920’s era. Yet he started out smart, athletic, but had nothing but a dream to become something more than an American citizen, a member of the America high class. So he did what he had to do if he ever wanted to reach full happiness, in this case it is the beautiful Daisy Buchanan, but that is the point of the American Dream, the right to purse happiness.

Before the American Dream even materialized in the minds of the masses, it was proven incorrect, false, fictional, a lie. The author of the Great Gatsby, F. Scott Fitzgerald, understood something about people, he understood how we work, how it is inevitable to have some form of segregation one way or another.

"Better, richer, and happier life." The first page of the Great Gatsby, Nick Carroway (the narrator) says this about the way his mind works: “Whenever you feel like criticizing any one,” he told me, “just remember that all the people in this world haven’t had the advantages that you’ve had.” Nick’s attitudes toward Jay Gatsby are of two minds and contradictory. At times he seems to disapprove of Gatsby’s ethics and possible illegal activity, but he also romanticizes and admires Gatsby, describing the events of the novel in a nostalgic and elegiac tone. Nick has nothing, similar to Gatsby, before he got into illegal activity, and Gatsby continuely tries to get Nick involved with whatever Gatsby does, but Nick declines time after time, showing Gatsby that Nick still sees hope in the American Dream.

He is Gatsby’s neighbor, and he is the one who gets him his golden girl in the end. Gatsby has done illegal things to move up his class status, and yet he has still not reached happiness, which in other words is Daisy. And in the end, it took Nick, who is a nobody, to get him his happiness, but its not lasting.

In the end of the book, Gatsby finally meets up with his golden girl Daisy, but at the price of his life. Gatsby spent over 6 years reinventing his life, breaking the law, and putting his future in the line for happiness, trying to achieve a "better, richer, and happier life." Gatsby does attain this, but breaking the original philosophy that we have all grown up believing in.

"A lot of people have been bootleggers. I'm not justifying the behavior I'm just saying it was the thing to do"

Sources Cited:

1. “The Great Gatsby” F. Scott Fitzgerald (1925)
2. “The Center for The New American Dream” 
http://www.newdream.org/about/

MSB Current Events

1. http://www3.signonsandiego.com/stories/2009/sep/22/following-flow-pollutants/?southcounty&zIndex=169982

-this article (titled 'Following The Flow of Pollutants') is very important. Even though I feel like almost everything Scripps Institute of Oceanography (SIO) is important, this one is finally doing something. Most of what Scripps does nowadays is educating and researching about pollution and such, but this is a good example of what they try to do

2. http://www.slate.com/id/2182758

-Basically a new news story about the advantages that Reverse Osmosis (AKA Toilet to Tap) has over other leading filtration processes. Well, mainly the summarized advantages of RO and the parts when it really compares it to other filtration processes.

3. http://theconstanceblog.blogspot.com/

-From Constance's blog, a new law will allow California to help fund recycling and reuse of water programs for discarded tires in Mexico. California ships millions of discarded tires to Mexico, annually, thousands of which flow back across our border which ends up littering the beaches of San Diego.

Newly Found (Relevant to MSB Project) Events:

4. http://discovermagazine.com/2008/may/23-from-toilet-to-tap

-Yet another site that retells the importance of toilet to tap and summarizes how it works.

5. http://www.apa.org/monitor/sep04/toilet.html

-Psychologists lend their expertise to overcoming the public's aversion to reclaimed water.