TOW #7- The Strange, Isolated Life of a 21st Century Tuberculosis Patient (Written)

    The Strange, Isolated Life of a 21st Century Tuberculosis Patient is written by Natalie Shure, a woman who contracted tuberculosis while on a Peace Corps trip to Ukraine. Tuberculosis is contracted through the air, so patients have to be quarantined, which leads to depression and loneliness. Shure explains the loneliness that she felt, and how she fought through that loneliness. She uses a lot of pathos while writing this, as a lot of stories concerning disease patients often do, because we automatically feel bad for them for having whatever disease they have. Then they amplify that by showing how bad it actually is. Shure also uses anecdotes to tell her story. First she tells how she got the disease, then what happened when she got home from the trip, and on and on. I think the purpose of the anecdotes is to really show it from Shure's eyes, how she was just a normal girl, and then this horrible thing happened. It makes it easier to connect with her through the way she writes about the little moments in her life.

      But I don't think her purpose was to make us feel bad. I think Shure's purpose was just to educate people on how she, and other quarantined patients feel. The brightest part of this essay was when Shure was talking about her friend, Ksenia that she had met through the internet. Ksenia also had tuberculosis, and they really connected with each other. By talking about their beautiful friendship last, Shure left the readers with a sense of hope and happiness. She left the feeling that even if you're in a horrible situation, making the best out of it is the only thing you can really do. In the end, I really think Shure's final purpose was to educate people about how she lives, and also that tuberculosis still exists, because I didn't know that it did.

TOW #6- What you need to know about Ebola- The Onion (Written)

      Ebola is the disease that everyone is freaking out over, so of course the Onion had to cover it. Full disclosure, The Onion is a satirical website, which means that it is definitely the wrong website to be getting Ebola tips from. The article superficially looks like many of these Ebola articles look like, or any disease articles look like. There are questions that a person would typically ask, and then the answer. This way of presenting this article give it a bit of ethos, so that some people would actually be tricked into believing all this information was true. That's how the Onion works, in a sense. There are the people who know it's satire, and then there's the poor unfortunate people who don't, and will take this very seriously.

        The thing about satire is that it is usually used to prove a point, because they'll say something frankly and it's begin as a joke, until you realize it's actually true. For example, in the article where it says, "Ebola is contracted through contact with a health care system that vastly overestimates its preparedness for a global pandemic". It takes you a moment to realize that what they're saying, is in fact true. Another example, "How are Ebola outbreaks contained? Great question!" This hits home the point that they don't really know because we haven't contained it. Using satire, ethos, and humor, the Onion makes you think more about Ebola and what is actually going on with it, which is what I think their purpose was. Finally, the thing that got me at the end, was the final question. “When will all this Ebola hysteria end? For you? At exactly 11:18 a.m. on Tuesday, Oct. 28”. That got me at the end, because the real point of the Onion is to entertain, which is hit home but that last laugh.

http://www.theonion.com/articles/what-you-need-to-know-ebola,37137/

TOW #5- The Glass Castle by Jeannette Walls (IRB)

         The second part of Jeannette Walls' memoir focuses on her life in Welch, a little town in Virginia, and how she got out of Welch. This second part is a story of growth and realization that her parents aren't all that she thought they were. This is Walls growing up, and out growing her parents' way of living. First she chronicles the years of her life spent in dreary Welch, an old mining town fallen into poverty. It is a place one strives to escape, as the young Walls sets that as her goal. After she and her sister have escaped, they start new lives in New York City, but their parents still haunt them. In the end, it is a story about how she grew into her own person, but her parents' crazy lives will always have a lasting impact on her own, no matter how hard she tries to hide it.

       Walls didn't seem to have a specific purpose in writing her memoir. She wanted to tell someone about her crazy childhood and life, she wants people to understand her story, but I think mainly she wants people to see that where, or how, you grow up, doesn't have to influence who you are. Her family influences her life majorly, but she also makes something out of herself without forgetting them and their different way of life. A scene that really captures this is the last one, where Walls' two lives are colliding, the calm, serene one with her husband and farmhouse, and the crazy one with her mother coming over for Thanksgiving. While there are still some bitter thoughts, for the most part they are all happy and laughing as a family, remembering the good times. This ultimately, is the feeling that one pulls away from the memoir. That family can be crazy, and not so great, but in the end it always pulls together because of the shared memories.