Friday, April 29, 2011

RD!: ender's game

RD1
The book I'm currently reading is called "Ender's Game." It is a book by Orson Scott card and the plot of the story is simple. It tells of the life of the main character Ender who is a military genius. In the begning Ender is described to have been chosen to lead an army against the buggers, a notorious race of ant like creatures who will kill anyone without mercy. Making them perfect killing machines. Although he is a genius, Ender is a 6 year old boy who is hated and confused..
In this story there are chosen ones and unchosen ones. In the beginning everyone is chosen and they receive monitoring from the government. After a year or two, many of them are eliminated and they return to their normal 4 year old or 5 year old lives. to most kids, this is good, but for the ones tht have learned of how they can help losing their chosen one privilege is like saying that they are not talented.There are some, however, that keep the chosen one privileged for 3 years like Ender. These are the ones who are talented and are chosen to go into military tactic school out in outer space.
At the age of 6, Ender is chosen to go into the military academy in outer space and Ender tries to fight his mind on either wanting to go or not. He debates in himself that it would probably be better if he did go, but if he did his parents and his sister wouldn't be there for him. Due to his 3 years of chosen privileges, the other kids around him hates him. His own brother resents him because he was only chosen for 2 years.
Ender is a fragile child. Even with his extreme brilliance and superior strength, his mind is injured by the life he lived and is forced to live. His worst fear is to be alone with no one who cares or loves him and that is exactly what the military commanders are trying to do to him. He is but a young flower stranded in a wide open grassy area first with his sister flower next to him, but then he is forced to leave his sister flower and travel into another wide open grassy area with no one around him but the grass of resentment.
In the second part of the book, young Ender faces many challenges from his teachers and his peers.
After stepping out of the rocket from earth, Young Ender and the rest of the first time participants learn about the rules of Military School. Here, Graff, a military instructor who took Ender away from his family, picks on Ender and causes the other kids to hate him. After Graff dismisses them to go their dorms, Older launches start bullying him. He was forced to choose the worst bed in the dorm, and he has constantly been  shoved around.
In this school Ender develops loneliness. He starts to learn that he must be in power for others to see him even if they are all scared of him. (missing 2cd)
After finishing the whole book I decided to think about what the author’s purpose of the book was. In my opinion the authors purpose of this book is to show how fear is dangerous in many levels. In the beginning, a simple human spaceship went up on a suspicious dark moon to see what was going on. The buggers who inhabited this moon slaughtered the humans out of fear. The buggers have never seen any other type of intelligent life form before and neither have the humans. The humans first tried to settle this by talking, and sent signals to the buggers. However, the buggers could not understand them and so the humans actions concluded un-useful. In the end, with the slaughtered space troop and frightening new life forms, they humans also developed fear. They concluded that the buggers had to be stopped because they were too dangerous -scared of them-, and there was no way to communicate with them. This then led to a whole entirely new war, space-war. The opponent was the buggers, and the home force was the humans.
This shows how fear affects a person and even a society. Without a way to communicate and danger shows up, fear is spread quickly. With this spread of fear, a reflex of ours tells u that there must be something done. A conclusion must be made and fast. This reflex is what I consider, the survival of a human. When in danger, the human body reacts to protect itself.  As a whole world, such a danger will cause the human population to react and try to survive. Fear contributes to this because it is the danger. In my opinion it’s human nature and what the author is saying is that fear leads to war.

Thursday, April 7, 2011

Ender's Game 1

The book I'm currently reading is called "Ender's Game." It is a book by Orson Scott card. The plot of the story is simple. It tells of the life of the main character Ender who is a military genius. He has been chosen to lead an army against he buggers, who are a notorious race of ant like creatures who will kill anyone without mercy like a robot. Ender is a 6 year old boy who is confused and hated for his genius-ness.
In this story there are chosen ones and unchosen ones. In the beginning everyone is chosen and they receive monitoring from the government. After a year or two, many of them are eliminated and they return to their normal 4 year old or 5 year old lives. Losing their chosen one privilege is like saying that they are not talented enough to help out in the war between humans and buggers. There are some, however, that keep the chosen one privileged for 3 years like Ender. These are the ones that go into military tactic school out in outer space.
At the age of 6, Ender is chosen to go into the military academy in outer space. Ender doesn't want to leave his family but the only one who truly loves him is his sister. Due to his 3 years, the other kids hate him. His own brother resents him because he was only chosen for 2 years. His parents love him but also resent him because he is the past of which they tried to avoid (because of both of their children (older brother and sister of ender) only were chosen for 2 years). His older brother oftentimes bullies young Ender and his older sister stands for him.
Ender is a fragile child. Even with his extreme brilliance and superior strength, his mind is injured by the life he lived and is forced to live. His worst fear is to be alone with no one who cares or loves him. He is young flower stranded in a wide open grassy area with his sister flower next to him. He is forced to leave his sister flower and travel into another wide open grassy area with no one around him but resentment.

Friday, April 1, 2011

Vignette Name Review

In our last vignette project that we were assigned, I noticed that everyone wrote about some similar and different things. There were many stories that specifically talked about their own life, but also some that had the same theme. For example, In Kathy's blog, Victor's blog, and Yen's blog,, all three of them had a vignette dedicated to their name. Their name expressed their heritage, and their past. For me, heritage is a very important because it symbolizes who we are.
In Kathy's "My Name," post I found a quote where she explains her last name. 
My last name is Douglas; it’s from my dad’s side of course. It’s a Scottish last name and somehow there are these two Douglass in Scottish history. The black Douglas (no pun intended) and the red Douglas. I guess this infers that I have some Scottish in me from somewhere.
Kathy's last name "Douglas," comes from Scotland. This is important to know, because heritage shows who you are. Past ancestors have worked hard to past down their last name into the next generation.To know heritage is also to know how one truly is. Heritage is also the energy runs through the generations, inheritance, and much more.
In Yen's blog post "My Name," he also shares the origin of his last name. 
These are all Vietnamese names, but my brother’s and my names are all America sounding....They told me that Yen and Ian sounds alike, and that it would make me fit in better. Then I ask why they didn't just name me Bob or something.  Then I regret it.  My name represents who I am.  I can’t give up who I am.  My name is mine.  
First, This quote does a lot about his heritage, but at least it tells where it is from. It also shows he knows that his name represents him. Secondly, In this quote I can extract two major details about his heritage. One, he is from Vietnam, and Two, he knows who he is. Both of these are important to know and
Names and heritage tell a lot of what someone's background. They are important because everyone should be proud of where they come from. Heritage connects the past to the present.
I have enjoyed reading my peer's post, but I didn't really know what to write about. I couldn't find any similarities that other people haven't already written about so I decided to write about one of the standouts topics.