Connecting Once Again

This article gives us a little bit of insight into J.D. Salinger's life. Just like many famous people his personal life is not well known to the world. Everyone needs their privacy and he took his to a point much farther than the average person. I believe that he based his character, Holden Caulfield, off himself. Salinger was thrown out of many schools as a teenager just as Holden is in The Catcher in the Rye. As a writer Salinger has chosen to expose his life to the outside world through only a few stories and a novel. This reinforces the fact that he does not want everyone to know exactly what is going on his life, but is willing to share about his childhood experiences.

connecting to Catcher in the Rye

My connection to Holden is when he leaves the fencing equipment on the subway. Sometimes I get sidetracked and forget about something. Like when Im at my locker after school grabbing the books I need to take home, and some one starts talking to me. I'll forget to grab something and end up rushing to finish it the next day. The feeling of letting someone down is not a good thing to feel. Its like everyone looks down on you. I also connect to a track meet freshman year when the med kit was left outside during a storm. Nobody was souly responsible for the med kit so we all suffered the consequences.
So I understand how he feels when he forgets about something that is important to other people. However, I try my best to make up for it where as Holden just blows it off like he doesnt care.

JD Salinger

If a book, manuscript, or short story written by J.D. Salinger is published there will be a large amount of speculation. If he wanted them to be published why didn't he get them published while he was alive? Another theory is that there are many people that become more famous after they die. So now the question that remains is will his family allow them to be published? They may not want to publish any of his works to be published, but Salinger fans will presure the family to release his works. So I expect to hear of many fueds and speculations. I personally think that if one is published it will sell quickly to a large audience. Popularity is not the issue.

English Other Shoes Project

Josh Wampler, Neal Buck, and Matt Randall
As a group we decided that we would like to experience what it is like to be perceived as a blind person. Our plan for “being” a blind person is to wear dark sunglasses and to be lead places (if possible we will use a cane). We thought that we would receive reactions such as staring, whispering, and people avoiding us. With Neal being the blind person, Josh, Neal, and some other friends went to play mini golf. When we arrived at the golf place, the lady behind the counter looked at Neal with disbelief. We could tell that this had not happened before. As we continued to play, a kid at the nearby batting cages stared at Neal as he attempted to play. We could tell that people were whispering and ignored them and played on as if nothing were happening. Josh and Neal then went to Culver’s where Josh portrayed the blind man. As Neal led Josh to a table in the restaurant people moved out of the way and stared at Josh as they passed. When they sat to eat their ice cream, other people could not help but to sit and stare as the two conversed and ate. For the second part of our project we decided to visit Wal-Mart. At Wal-Mart Matt would be portraying the blind person. Neal and Josh took turns leading Matt around the store. Matt had made a previous purchase that needed to be returned. We took this as an opportunity to see what kind of tools customer service has to aid people that are blind. As it turns out there was not much. The employees however, were very courteous and polite. They helped us make the exchange even though Neal had to sign for it because Matt could not. As we walked around the store people stared at Matt with surprised expressions on their faces. Other customers avoided eye contact with Neal and Josh. Just to see what would happen, Josh pushed a cart in front of Matt while an employee was standing nearby. The employee saw what happened and much to our amazement turned and walked away. After we got some items that we needed we went to make our purchases. Then, while standing in the checkout line, a woman gave us money. It was only $1.40 but none of us knew how to react.
ANALYSIS
We now know that it is very difficult to be blind in our society, even though we were only blind for a little bit. We felt very singled out by everybody staring at us and avoiding us. In our experiment, we discovered that businesses are not well suited for blind customers, and the employees were not used to seeing blind people. We now see that we should not single out people who are different because we have experienced what it is like to be in other shoes.

English Project

Group Members:
1. Me
2. Josh Wampler
3. Matt Randall

We plan to be "blind" people in the community just to see how people react. Our first trip will be to the bowling alley or the mini golf place. We believe that these are two places that we will get a numerous amount of reactions. The second day we plan on going to Wal Mart where we will test how people will react to a blind person. Our hypothesis is that people will stare, wisper, and even avoid the blind person.

Football vs. Soccer

Which do you think is better? And why?