Metacognition: Jane Eyre Mashup

     At the start of this project it was not extremely clear what we were to do. Before receiving instruction on the project, it was just told to us that the project having to do with this book would be different. As stated earlier in class it would not be an essay. This was because so many essays have already been written on the book Jane Eyre. Therefore this project would be different. One day we were told our project would be a mashup. When hearing these words it is pretty safe to say that everyone looked at each other in a confused way; all most likely thinking what in the world is that. That day we were not exactly told what we were to do. We were only given an example of David Shield's book Reality Hunger. It used the same format that we would use for our mashup. It used outside quotations out of context and then brought them together to bring across a developing idea or point. In the days that followed we were given our instructions. These included the format of how this project needed to be, and also the minimal requirements. Honestly, at this point not all of us were convinced.

     When looking at the format that needed to be taken for this project, specifically I was still not sure what needed to be done. I felt that the directions at first were not extremely clear. Then when looking at the minimal requirements, at first I thought it was actually a lot of sources that we needed. Especially a lot of sources from our book and our curriculum. Then only there was some outside sources. But, upon completion of the project, I did realize something else. I do admit that my partner and I used the very minimum amount of sources that we needed. However, there was a direct purpose for this. When we actually gathered sources, we had an ample amount of sources from the book and our curriculum. But, we struggled to find outside sources. This was actually an amazement to me. I thought that those outside sources would be the easiest to find but that proved otherwise. I will comment on our minimum use of sources in a second. First however, I would also like to say something on the formation of our groups. Our groups as much as we were allowed to chose by ourselves, it was clear that some people were overflow because there was not enough room. It was also mentioned that this project was meant to be beneficial when working in a large group. Although I did not work in a large group and it is unfair for me to therefore speak on their behalves, I go the feeling that by having a larger group you needed much more sources and that these sources were extremely hard to come by. That is the impression I got.

     These are all the ideas prior to our project and the gathering of sources and so. But, there was also the extremely important part of putting this mashup together. After determining the idea that we wanted to get across, and collecting our sources, we set out to format our mashup. At this point we actually had many different ways that we could go. All these ways were significant and related to the book and the outside world in many ways. However, we could not get over one idea. Our topic was independence and we thought, what if we declared our own independence. In light of the situations all across the world, in the past and actually in the very present, we felt that it would be an interesting task to declare our independence. So we sent out to do so. At the beginning we stated examples, specifically the Declaration of Independence of the United States of America. We felt that this was an appropriate place to start, to describe past revolutions and independence. We proceeded to then describe the challenges that have been faced. This is the why for creating this mashup. In the end we firmly stated our independence and our realization of what we have done. That was the most significant part. This was the mashup. Under that we had our sources. One note about the sources, I know that there was a time saving tip that said to do your bibliography at the end. However, the way it worked for us it actually proved quicker that we did the sources as we created the mashup. This is something that we noticed. In the end we signed our document. We signed after the sources because the mashup was supposed to sound as if one voice was speaking. That's what the end provided.

     So you may look at our mashup and see that it only uses the minimum amount of sources. This is true. There is nothing to hide about this. While inserting our mashup sources we were in a flow. We got near the end and saw that this would be a perfect place to end. We had many sources still left but where we were we felt as if it was perfect. We then proceeded to count our sources and saw that we were a couple short. We knew that this did not reach the minimum amount of sources so we needed to insert a couple more. Those added at the end were not ideal, we would have like to removed a couple sources actually. But, not to down those sources it was still near perfect. We were extremely satisfied with what we produced. It was concise and to the point of what we wanted to do. We wanted to declare our independence and the way we did it was just perfect. Our choice for a title supports this. This was our Declaration of Independence. Another note is our choice of posting this on a blog. We felt that this format was extremely important and significant. By putting this on a blog it makes it available to the public. This is public. This is for the public to see. By putting this out to the public it can gain support from the public, gaining comments or likes. This is exactly what a declaration like this needs; it needs support. Tangibly, it was also much easier to put this on a blog.

     In the end we thought that our mashup turned out real well. At first it was not clear what we were to do or even what we wanted to do. We looked at this project and thought about why we actually had to do it this way. Most of us rather wanted essays. However, after completion of this mashup, I can confidently say that this was a great project. The mashup took a different approach, different from anything I have ever done before. But this was a good thing. It changed the way on how I can look at things now. Plain and simply I also now know what a mashup is. But, overall the process was successful. I wish there may have been more guidance at the beginning, and maybe if we were told about the project before we read the book it may have helped before. But, the way it turned out is perfectly fine. It worked and I enjoyed it. It was successful.

An Inconvenient Truth: The U.S. Wants World Democracy

When the Cold War started, the two main superpowers, the Soviet Union and the U.S., had opposing viewpoints on the entire world. It is safe to make the argument that the Soviets supported Communist States while the U.S. put all of its support behind Democratic States. Specific examples I will get into later... However, the Cold War is all of 20 years behind us, and the U.S. still maintains the same mentality as during the Cold War. The Soviets do not exist anymore but we still implore the same tactics based on democracy as before. It is my claim that the U.S. wants world democracy and it will stop at nothing short to achieve so.

The Soviet Union, through the Warsaw Pact, created a strong Eastern Block of communist countries loyal to it. In addition to grabbing East Germany, and East Berlin, this is how the U.S.S.R. started its Communist domination. The U.S. throughout the years then held responses in Korea for example where it supported the democratic South Korea, while the Soviets supported the communist North Korea. Another incident was in the Vietnam War. Again, the U.S. supported the democratic South, while the Soviets supported the communist North. In these two cases the communist North both won. However, later on we get to Cuba, where the Soviets supported Cuba and all its actions because it was communist. The U.S. condemns Cuba as a Communist State to this day. Tensions have arose over this. Then we get to Afghanistan. The Soviets invade Afghanistan in an attempt to promote communism there. The U.S. responds by arming the Taliban resistance forces with weaponry. The Taliban prevail, communist dies out, right? Yes, but now the Taliban is killing our soldiers in Afghanistan causing more problems. All of this because of our angst for democracy.

Through these examples during just the Cold War alone, we see that communism always seems to find a way to bite us in the ass. This just makes us want democracy even more. The Cold War ended, and what do we do? We go after more democracy. We go into Iraq to take down a dictatorship and put into place what we want as a democracy. We continue our combat in Afghanistan to go after the forces that we helped arm against the Soviets. We try to undo all the harm that we have already caused in this world, but unfortunately I do not see much good coming from that so far. People say that we must learn from our history but this is completely false. We continue to repeat history, by making the same mistake after mistake and putting ourselves into a deeper hole. No one learns from history. History is just always repeated. This is what leads up to today.

Today there are multiple revolutionary movements in the Middle East and Africa. These revolutions are all trying to overcome a dictatorship and implement a new government, that of a democracy. When hearing this it is an invitation for the U.S. to become involved. But at first the United States balks. There is no response and a neutral position is taken. But time takes over and the U.S. must respond and it does so with a firm stance on democracy. Again. Going after democracy is nothing new for the U.S., it just continues on its old ways. Therefore we are only left to think what is next for the U.S. in this situation in the Middle East. Obviously it will have to do with democracy, but to what extent? Who knows.

It is such a privileged to live in a democratic place such as the U.S. It harms me to think about these places not as fortunate as ours. But what problems me even more is the question that arises due to this. Are not some of these countries better off without our democratic intervention? I do not understand why we as the U.S. go to foreign places, and impose our influences. Some countries are better off without our democracy, and I ask for the name of one country that received our democratic help successfully, without conflict. I hear no answer. This is because whenever we go in with democracy, we come out with more harm then good. This is what I cannot conceive. It irritates me what the U.S. does, and it irritates me more that there is nothing that I can do about it. That is how our democracy works.

360 Degrees: Government Shutdown

Upon recent weeks, one of the main political issues that have been circling around is the potential government shutdown. Through recent time, a growing concern within our nation has to do with the large national debt and large government spending. This directly stems from our budget deficit which directly correlates with the potential government shut down. The reason why the government would shut down is because it would not have a new budget. The current budget is soon to run out and there is no budget in place. This has caused a problem that for the short term has just been resolved; however it took time and effort to look at all potential problems with this issue.

 The first issue that this possible government shutdown has to do with is the budget issue. As said before, for many years our nation’s budget deficit has been continuously accumulating to insurmountable levels. It seems impossible to recover from such a deficit. But, it has come from years of abusing our budget. It has been from overspending in one area to another, but we can never see where we do not need the money. We as Americans just keep on spending. It leads to the questions, where can we make budget cuts? And, should we make these budget cuts? These are questions that need to be addressed and answered by our politicians.

Speaking of politicians, another issue leading to a possible government shutdown is the divide between Republicans and Democrats. Throughout politics, this has been an extremely strong divide. This divide has not allowed for much bipartisan collaboration on such serious issues where both sides have opposing viewpoints. This seems like one of those cases. Democrats do not want to cut spending in areas such as education, public services, and newly implemented government projects; however they do see possible cutbacks in defense. Republicans on the other hand want to cut spending and even cancel some of the new projects, but eagerly opposed defense cuts. Seeing this divide previously, it is expected that this divide would come up when talking about budget cuts, but never so seriously.

What is striking in this case is that the government is one step from shutting down all its non-essential aspects. This is shocking but it is not completely uncommon. Although a complete government shutdown has not happened, under the Clinton Administration there was a brief shutdown of some non-essential parts of the government for a short period of time. As you guessed it, it was over a budget deficit. Unfortunately, we have not learned from our mistakes and this issue regarding our budget and deficit lingers leading to the unfortunate case of a possible shutdown.

It is quite obvious and horrendous what a government shutdown would do. It would in some way or another disrupt the lives of every America. Fortunately, our Senators and Representatives recently decided on a new budget that will last till 2012. This does solve the problem in the short term, but it just makes us worry about it in the future; that is not a solution. It brings up the question how can our government actually solve this problem? Unfortunately it has never answered that question for the problem continues. We have a problem on our hands, but we do not have to deal with a government shutdown till 2012 possibly. What does this lead us to believe?