Power

Power is the ability to overturn, control, or influence another person physically or mentally by oneself or through a group effort. Power has a wide variety of categories. There is military, political, mental, and economic power. Military power is the taking over of other forces through the use of modern weapons and large militaries. Political power is controlling or overturning other political parties to help improve a specific party's influence on a country. Mental power is using education, leadership, and common sense to guide a certain audience into believing what another person believes, often used in different forms of media. Economic power is operating off a large sum of money, in most cases, a person or company with more money is considered more valuable compared to a small company or poor person. Overall, in most forms of power, there is a blend of each category to help raise a certain power.

Chapel speech

Turtles and Moths

10/9/14

9:45 PM

Humans typically admire animals because humans often feel guilty for treating animals unequally for the benefit of human power or that humans love how animals look and act. This means that humans have taken a majority of animal’s habitats and feel responsible for destroying nature. Also, humans typically admire animals because humans love studying, looking at or living with animals as pets often treating the pet like another person.

Hoagland and Woolf admire turtle and moths’ natural lives. Hoagland and Woolf put themselves in a turtle and moth’s shoes to understand what it would be like to be a turtle or moth. In both stories, Hoagland and Woolf are faced with a moth and turtle struggling to survive and decide to let the animals suffer and die. The reason why Woolf and Hoagland let the animals die is because nature is not fair, death occurs and there is nothing humans can do to cure the wild from death. On page ¾, Woolf states, “One’s sympathies, of course, were all on the side of life”, admitting that Woolf wanted to save the moth from death but did not want to interfere with nature. Also, in Hoagland’s story, Hoagland admits that humans have disrupted the way turtles live their natural lives by capturing the turtles from the wild and bringing turtles back to the city.

            I admire Osprey because of their ability to adapt to human’s invasion of their habitat and food source. Ospreys are large water birds that only eat fish and migrate from New England to Florida for the winter. Often, humans have developed buildings on most coastlines and marshlands interfering with osprey’s nesting habitat. Over the last few decades, ospreys have developed nesting on top of human objects. For example, ospreys have designed nests on football stadium lights, abandon water shacks, and even cellular towers. I admire the osprey because they have adjusted to the human’s construction and adapted by discovering places to take advantage of a safe, out of the way habitat. Also, ospreys do not create trouble, osprey mind their own business by fishing in the ocean or ponds and bringing the fish back to their nest to feed their families. Ospreys do not create trouble in the wild, osprey stay out of other animal’s lives and try to survive on their own.

Osprey Picture: http://savetheeaglesinternational.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/02/osprey-with-bass.jpg

Total Eclipse

(Pg. 489, lines 14-20)

“We never looked back. It was a general vamoose, and an odd one, for when we left the hill, the sun was still partially eclipsed- a sight rare enough, and one which, in itself, we would probably have driven five hours to see. But enough is enough. One turns at last even form glory itself with a sigh of relief. From the depths of mystery, and even from the heights of splendor, we bounce back and hurry for the latitudes of home.”

The importance of this passage is that the passage represents the story as a whole. The passage stands out because it is recapping why the trip to Yakima was worth it. In addition, the phrase “We never looked back” means that their journey was successful because she had seen the eclipse like she planned and was ready to head back home. Also, stating “One turns at last even from glory itself with a sigh of relief ” supports the theory that Dillard was only in Yakima to see the eclipse and once the eclipse occurred, she wanted to head home. Dillard’s goal in writing this passage was to reflect and describe how grateful she was to see and be apart of a total eclipse in person. Dillard does an unbelievable job using her senses to paint the scenery and moments in my head helping me understand what it is like to be in an eclipse. The passage fits into Total Eclipse as a whole because the passage values the importance of experiencing the total eclipse but also, the best moments don’t last forever and that good moments always come to an ending. In Dillard’s case, the total eclipse ending and driving back home is when the good moments end. Overall, this passage emphasized the great experience Dillard had visiting Yakima and seeing a total eclipse.