The Letters of christopher Columbus

Simone Sutton

08/28/09

AP English III

The Letters of Christopher Columbus

Christopher Columbus, the man most famous for “discovering” the Americas. By now most people know that this event was a complete accident. He was actually looking for a trade route to the Indies but instead he ran into America. In simplest terms Christopher Columbus was a failure. It just seems like luck that Christopher Columbus made one good achievement that overshadowed his other failures.

Columbus had a string of unrelenting bad luck after his discovery on America. Apparently his luck has never been that good. It seems he became an adventurer in order to make it big. He wasn’t born into a rich family, but he was born near a sea which could have been the source for his love of sea travel.

The first letter Columbus sent was very optimistic seeing as he found a very beautiful continent. He is going around naming all of the islands that he sees after the Spanish monarch and other people of importance. This letter though sounds to me like he is sucking up to Isabella and Ferdinand. Every other word is an attestment to their greatness. But a man like Columbus would be grateful for being given the opportunity to travel the sea in search of riches.

The second letter must have been written after all of Columbus’s problems have started because it tell only of how much trouble he is in , and him begging Isabella and Ferdinand to get him out of it. Columbus is not a young man anymore and probably doesn’t want to spend the rest of his life in jail or exiled or on the run from whatever trouble he has gotten himself into.

Simone Sutton

8/27/09

AP English III

“Alvar Nunez Cabeza de Vaca”

If someone were comparing Cabeza de Vaca to Christopher Columbus it would seem that de Vaca was more heroic than Columbus. De Vaca was descendant from a long ling oh heroes, which is where his strange name “cows head” comes from.

Even though he is kind of unknown by the general population and even though he didn’t discover anything, de Vaca’s adventures were greater than and not as much of a train wreck as Columbus’s. He is also a fighter, as well as an adventurer so he was much tougher than Columbus. He fought in wars as stuff. His journey to the new world was an expedition with a man named Narvaez.

That expedition was a total disaster though. Narvaez was a bad leader and he had a lot of bad luck during the adventure, like having his ships destroyed in a hurricane. After bouts with Native Americans some really bad decisions Narvaez left and disappeared from the adventure leaving de Vaca and three other stranded. At that point his adventures can be described as an odyssey

He encountered many groups. He witnessed cruel slavers and opposed them even though they were in a greater position than he was, and even though they came from the same country. Eventually though he found his way back to his home counter and tried to change the things he witnessed. All that accomplished for him was getting banished from Algeria and America.

Alvar Nunez Cabeza de Vaca then wrote down the story of his adventures and had the published. He seemingly downplayed his experiences even thought he had many near death experiences. As if he didn’t want to brag about the numerous times that he almost died but somehow found a way out of his predicament.

Iroquois Creation Story

“Iroquois Creation Story”

The Iroquois creation story starts out talking about two worlds, but it only goes into depth with the lower world. The lower world could be hell an equivalent of hell. Then the article talks about a woman, maybe a goddess (who reminds me of the Japanese sun goddess Amateratsu), descending to the lower world. So maybe the lower world is the earth. But there are monsters in the lower world that could either be animals or demons.

The woman gives birth to twins, a good twin and a bad twin. The good twin brings light to the lower world by turning the head of his mother, who died while giving birth, into the sun and her body into the moon. This is similar to Christianity, when God creates the sun on the first day. The good twin also makes “spots of light” which according to the article dictate the seasons years etc. This maybe a reference to how some Native American cultures used astronomy or astrology to predict weather patterns and growing seasons for crops.

“The good mind continued works of creation…” the article continues. The good mind made animals, land forms, and created man and woman in the image of himself, like Adam and Eve. The good mind made the lower world into a world of life light and fruitfulness very similar to the Garden of Eden.

On the opposite end of the spectrum, the bad twin creates things that would be unhealthy for mankind like reptiles and snakes. Snakes stand out because the snake that was in the Garden of Eden was Satan which, the bad twin obviously represents. Everything the bad twin attempted to create seemed to be a failure when compared to what the good twin made. So it seems everything he does is meant to counter what the good twin does. He tries to take all of the animals away from the humans but, the good twin is obviously more powerful that the bad twin so, he just brings them back.

All of this conflict eventually leads up to a final confrontation between both twins, in which they both know each other’s weakness. The fighting ends with the good twin beating the bad twin into the ground. He sinks into the earth and becomes the evil spirit. This event seems symbolic of Satan’s fall from heaven.

The good twin is basically God. But what is interesting is that the god of the earth actually came from a woman, which must come from the Native American culture, which is primarily matriarchal. This shows that females are higher up than the male god, even though the god is what brought life and light. Even though this creation story is similar to the Christian creation story, as many other foreign creation stories are, this one still has one big marker that defines it as Native American.

This creation story, according to the author, is actually history even though it seems like complete myth. The author is an Iroquois himself so he would have heard this story from his elders who pasted it through the generations. It would be the history of the Iroquois as they see it.

Is google making us stupid

Simone Sutton

8/24/09

AP English III Blog Assignment

“Is Google Making us Stupid?”

Does surfing the internet cause our brains to become less efficient. This is the main point that the author of this article is trying to make. In the past the author of the article could read for hours on end without losing focus. He could absorb hundreds of pages with such ease. But now he can’t, and he’s not the only one other well educated individuals who could read forever can’t read what they once could. Bloggers and lit majors both experience this problem. They all have one thing in common, they all use the internet. And they use it more than ever.

Apparently using the internet not only affects how we get information but, also how we comprehend it. The internet doesn’t help us find information we need, it hands it to us on a plate. While researchers once had to spend hours inside of a library to find enough information to write whatever they were writing, it only takes a few minutes on the internet. Not only that, but there is almost no effort on our part besides typing a few words and phrases. Because it’s so easy and fast for us to be entertained and find what we need on the internet, our brains have adjusted. We don’t need to understand a foreign concept because the internet will tell us. We no longer need to focus for more than a few minutes because we can just look at another source to tell us what we need to know.

The way we read determines how our brains will function. If you read characters instead of letters, you will have a different brain function. Consequently, reading on the internet instead of reading, printed sources will cause your mind to function differently.

The human mind is an ever-changing thing. With every new king of technology our brains adjust to make the most of it. Our mind starts taking shortcuts. As technology becomes more advanced and like the human mind, the less significant our own minds become. When writing was invented people thought humans would become stupid and lose their ability to remember things in their head. Now, we can’t remember as much as we used to be able to but because of writing knowledge began to spread. When the printing press was invented people thought that the wide availability of books would cause learning to decrease, but still knowledge began to spread and more people learned how to read.

It seems through history people have been skeptical of new technology, and even though it changed our brains abilities there is no doubt that it has all been for the better of intelligence.

8/20/09 poem

An oak like an adult turtle.