Swing Dancing?

Swing Dancing: An Essay

Response to "Behind the Formaldehyde Curtain"

4.                  From the very beginning of this passage, its title, we find that Mitford pokes fun at the entire funeral and embalming industry. Throughout the passage, Mitford explains the process of embalming a body, and points out how incredibly ridiculous the entire thing is. She further explains how far from reality the rest of the living people are to this process. I agree to a certain extent with almost everything Mitford brings up, partly because I believe her passage makes sense, but also because her descriptions were apt enough to make me squirm in my seat, yet at the same time marvel the level of satiric language included.
                    Mitford makes her opinions of the embalming process quite clear in this passage. Her idea of the process is that the ones who enjoy the work or benefit from it have no problem with cleaning up a dead body, and that the people who don't understand the embalming procedures have no idea what is going on with the body; people are either having fun with the body, or blissfully unaware of the gruesome work that is put into prepping said body for the time when the "curtain" is drawn and the work of art revealed. Mitford's title gives the reader the understanding that the body is prepped like a production, and kept behind a curtain until the final showing. This curtain prevents anyone from understanding the vile work put into the body before its debut in the casket. The average person will not even expect their deceased to be embalmed, because, as Mitford points out, it is generally assumed that the body will be embalmed. Mitford Recites to us the tale of the embalming because it is ironic that none of the work is appreciated by the ones who it is done for. The family of the deceased do not usually think about the process of embalming, but pay for it anyway, and have no understanding of what type of effort is put into the dead body sitting in the casket at the funeral. The descriptions of the operations done in preparation for the body are horrifyingly soul-scarring. This powerful language is interesting because it forces the reader to take note, and ultimately be completely entranced by the terrible process. At the end of the essay the reader reflects on what he or she has just read, and realizes that the point was to show how much effort goes into something that no one really gives a thought to.
                     I have to say (write), that I actually do agree with what Mitford says. This is solely because I have not ever heard of this process, with the exception of Evita Peron in South America. I fully understand that I am taking a side on this issue based completely on one argument, without even hearing or thinking of a counter to it. I think that the way Mitford presents her idea of the embalming immediately biases the reader towards her side, mostly because it is written so well. As for my own experience, I have only been to two funerals, both were my grandparent's. In one, we had my grandmother cremated, and in the other, we had a closed casket for my grandfather. Now, I didn't really think about the actual body of my grandfather, nor was embalming mentioned at all during the weeks the led up to that day, so either he was embalmed and I was one of the blissfully ignorant people, or he wasn't and I had no idea. Either way, I completely fell into Mitford's stereotypically ignorant people.
                   

Swimming and Cycling

I'm not sure if I've ever mentioned these two sports before, so here goes.

Natural-Born Leader/Follower

And here.

We.

Go.

Written Like "Shooting an Elephant"

Mrs. G: Sorry for the late post, I was not able to post it for some reason because I had a problem with the particular computer I was on, which ended up deleting my post. I had to re-write a portion of it, and I was too busy on Monday night.
It's here.

Structure

"The Human Cost of an Illiterate Society"

             One thing that stuck out for me while reading this passage was the sheer amount of examples Kozol developed, and how he presented his ideas to the reader. Not only did he jumpy right into his subject, he "listed" (I use quotations because it wasn't really a list, but rather, a string of well developed paragraphs that, if paraphrased, could become a list) multiple examples from the start. All of these examples were large paragraphs, evenly spaced. The amount of words, the enormity of each of these paragraphs was well-balanced, and I never felt like one example outweighed the other in terms of how much real estate that particular example had in the passage.
           Something I really liked about this format of equally large paragraphs was that the passage as a whole was short. It wasn't very difficult to read, and even though there were large paragraphs, the examples were laid out well enough that I never felt like the structure was awkward or irrational.
           More than once, Kovol uses the structure of a single sentence paragraph. This allows for a sort of break in the flow of the passage, and really caught my attention as a reader. While reading, partly because this passage is pretty powerful, these single sentences would serve as an almost rude wake up call. The paragraphs in this passage get bigger and smaller gradually, creating a nice, even flow between each example that culminates with the largest paragraph, and ebbs down to smaller and smaller groups of sentences until the reader is just left with another single sentence, which causes all of their attention to be drawn to the meaning behind that peculiar sentence, which starts off the next example, and then flows into larger and larger paragraphs and so on.
            Kovol's gradual increase and decrease in the size of his paragraphs help with the flow of his work. The structure serves as a metaphor for conversation; one does not start talking about a subject full force, or without some sort of prompt, no, they bring up the topic, start sharing ideas, and then elaborate on their ideas, and keep talking until they are able to sum up the meaning or message of their ideas in a single grouping of words, which at that point helps them share their idea legibly and well-developed.
Other than that, I really didn't notice anything too spectacular about this passage.

Cycling Race!

    As I transition from swimming to cycling, I notice some similarities, and some differences. First of all, left me start off by saying that I recently started racing. My first race was on August 25th, 2012. This was a 48.6 mile road race that started in Winters, a town near Davis, and proceeded along a 24.3 mile course. We did two laps in the Category 5 race.
    Waking up in the morning instantly reminded me of waking up for swim meets. I’ve traveled to many towns and cities for swim meets, but never for a cycling race. I was about to experience something incredibly different. I woke up at 5:00am, ate breakfast, and got my bag ready, just as I have done hundreds of times for swim meets. I went with my father, but unlike any swim meet, I actually drove to the cycling race. We arrived in Winters with about 45 minutes to spare before I needed to warm up, and we parked in the parking lot. But for a cycling race, the parking lot is also the area where people warm up on stationary trainers, do maintenance, and watch race starts. I was very interested in this “culture” that my new sport has. Unlike swimming, the average age of these athletes was far above mine, and I was one of the people there. Another feeling I got was that I was not special, nor was I the best, nor could I even be considered a challenger to anyone, even in my own category. I was no one, I left no impression, I didn’t even have a registered team. I was just a 17 year old, in a field of people above the age of 20, who had a blue, white, and gold jersey on.
    I started the race, and felt fine. I was near the back of the pack of riders, 50 in all, and the pace wasn’t excruciating. Unfortunately, the flow in the back of the pack is quite stop-and-go, so I had trouble holding the pace. Eventually, I got caught behind some slower people, and with a headwind and a slight uphill gradient I had a very tough time making it back into the draft of the main group. When I finally did, we hit a couple of hills and I moved up a few places, only to be slowly brought back to the rear of the field. We hit the feed zone at mile 12, just before a small climb, and the group accelerated. I was caught in a gear too large for me to push up the hill, and I was dropped. I fought hard on that climb, and passed more than a few people on my way up. I descended alone, and pulled hard on the last 10 miles of that lap, averaging speeds of over 30 miles per hour on some sections. I worked hard, both alone and with others at times on the second lap, and felt like I was going to die at times. I just kept turning those pedals over and over, passing others who had been dropped by the front group on the second lap. I never made it back to the leaders, and finished alone, ahead of a guy I had been working together with on and off for about 15 miles. I averaged 19.8 miles an hour for 48.6 miles, faster than I have ever averaged before in my life, and my average heart rate was 178, which is very high. I sustained that intensity for the two hours and 26 minutes it took me to complete the race. I thought I had had a bad day, but I found out that my limit of endurance is much higher than I thought, and that I actually finished 30th out of 50 riders, which is not too bad for my first race.
And I am quite hungry for more.

Greasy Lake Response

It was "bad."

Cycling Metaphor for Human Judgement

It's over yonder -->                                                                                         ~yonder~