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.

TOW #4- America Responds to the Latest Mass Shootings (Visual)

    Yet another school shooting, just another day in the life of every American. Is this what we are now? A society where a norm is little kids getting shot? This is what this cartoon is questioning. It is also very true. In the days since the Sandy Hook shootings, there have been a multitude of new examples. 74, just in schools. Everyday, there is another story, another hundred people grieving for their loved ones. Now, it is so commonplace that the news may spend just ten minutes, or less on it, before going on, to explain other things, like how a Kardashian is pregnant. Chris Britt showcases this horrible cultural phenomenon that is taking place, through the Creators Syndicate, a website where hundreds of political cartoons are posted weekly.
   Did everyone know during the Sandy Hook tragedy, that it wasn't going to change anything? Did the optimists push it to the back of their minds while the pessimists complained loudly? Not much has changed in the policies that govern  gun rights. Americans have become jaded, and this is what Britt shows. People dying is no longer something out of the ordinary., but nobody expects it to happen to them. I am sitting in a school right now, one very similar to Sandy Hook. Do the gun regulations make me safe? No, as the 74 school shootings since Sandy Hook have proved. Americans need to stop thinking of these shootings as just something on the news, and start thinking of them as very real threats, because they are.

TOW #3- I Had a Stroke at 33 by Christine Hyung-Oak Lee (Written)

      I Had a Stoke at 33 is a long form Buzzfeed article written by Christine Hyung-Oak Lee. It is about her personal experience of having a stroke very young because of a hole in her heart. While not lacking in many medical details, the main focus of this article is about how she felt during and after the stroke. It's how her life went into a tailspin, but ultimately made her into the person she is today. Since the article is on Buzzfeed, it is mostly targeted towards the younger generations, probably teenagers, or people in their twenties. While the story is sad, telling about her life feel apart, it also inspires hope, that she was able to fight through this tragic event. It showcases how the people around her dealt with it, but mostly importantly how Christine dealt with it.

      A stroke is a horrible thing, that changes brain patterns forever. At just 33, Christine's way of life, her way of thinking, everything about her, was scrambled. She had to quit her job, she divorced her husband, and her thoughts would never be the same. But ultimately, out of all these struggles, she gets her life back on track. I think her purpose is to educate and inspire. Educate people about what happens when you have a stroke, so maybe people that know stroke victims can be even more understanding. Inspire people not to give up, to keep on fighting through whatever is afflicting them. I think she did accomplish this, because before reading this article, I had no idea what a stroke was like. I only knew the physical, that you sometimes got paralyzed. I didn't know the mental effects, or the social effects. Inspiring is a little harder, but I believe she did that too, because I was hooked the instant I started reading, then thought about it many times during the day after that. By speaking up about her stroke. Christine has educated at least one more person, me.

Link: http://www.buzzfeed.com/xtinehlee/i-had-a-stroke-at-33#1u9787

TOW #2- The Glass Castle by Jeannette Walls (IRB)

The Glass Castle by Jeannette Walls is a memoir about Walls' life, and the crazy nomadic life she had with her family. The first part of the Glass Castle is purely about her childhood, starting from when she was very young and continuing until she is around ten or eleven. Her and her siblings' lives are greatly influenced by their parents, who many would say are not the best of parents. Her mother is a free spirited woman who does not believe in rules while her father is a brilliant drunk, chasing the dream of inventing something great, even if it leads his family to ruin. While most people would agree that Walls' childhood was not the best, she paints it in the light that showed she was always happy with her situation, blinded by her childhood innocence that saw her parents always as heroes.

Using descriptive language, Walls paints the story of her family in the desert. She tells it as a narrative, flowing from one story, one home, one crazy adventure, to the next. It seems, her purpose for this first part of the book, is to show how even if their way of living was not the same as everyone else, they were happy. Even through out when they were hungry, fighting, or in a rough patch, they would come together and become one happy family again. It seemed their problems would always be fixed with one action that showed good faith. For example, when her mom and dad were physically fighting one time, it ended with them laughing together and saying they loved each other. Not to say that their problems were not major, but I think that Walls got her point across that you don't have to have the typical suburban American life to be happy. 

IRB Intro #1- The Glass Castle by Jeannette Walls

I am going to be reading The Glass Castle, by Jeannette Walls for my IRB. It is a memoir about Walls' life and family. I decided to read this book because I was going to read it last year for school, but I ran out of time. Also, my friend and Ms. Torresani, my teacher from last year, recommended it. Hopefully it will be good, because they say it is.