Blogging

So I completely finished Joker One.  It was cool to see how the unit grew and developed throughout their time in Iraq.  One of the best parts was when Lieutenant Campbell was asking him men how they felt about leaving and they all gave pretty much the same response: "I'm excited to go home and see my family but I hate to leave when we're not done yet."  They're afraid that the unit that replaces them will come in and screw up everything they've been trying to accomplish.  The unit leave with less men than it came with, a sad fact of war, but the men that are still there have become a family of sorts that can only be made through the hell that is war.  The book goes on to tell a little about how hard it was for them to adjust back to civilian life.  Lieutenant Campbell talks about how it was hard to walk down a crowded street, how every time a door slammed or car exhaust shot off he flinched.  War changes people and to change back and explain it isn't an easy thing to do, sometimes it's impossible.  Lieutenant Campbell wrote Joker One as a tribute to his men and what they did over there and I think he did a great job with it.  It's give a small taste of what happened over there and what the men had to deal with.  So until the beginning.......

Close-Reading Bingo

1."They were the free standing kind: a pair of integral signs swooping upward between the two floors they served without struts or piers to bear any intermediate weight" and  he tells us that "On sunny days like this one, a temporary, steeper escalator of daylight, formed by intersections of the lobby's towering volumes of marble and glass, met the real escalators just above their middle point, spreading into a needly area of shine where it fell against their brushed-steel side-pannels, and adding long glossy highlights to each of the black rubber handrails" By using such imagery and specific details, one is able to clearly paint a picture of the lobby in their minds. Break up the quotation into a few sentences.
 http://theycallmefreshmoney.blogspot.com/
2. He describes the boy’s feelings towards his parents with a negative, abusive and defiant diction. He makes it clear with his word choice that the feelings of the boy are arrogant and bitter towards his parents.  Avoid the he says part
http://allison789.blogspot.com/
3. ...he Mezzanine, Baker’s literal tone, but relaxed voiced allows the reader to get inside the mind of the speaker... Avoid referring to the reader.audience.
http://notoriouslymofulla.blogspot.com/ 
4.  The Mezzanine, written by Nicholson Baker is elegant, elevated, and also scholarly in the verbs being used. This excerpt was not extremely musical. It was also literal in denotation, as while reading it. Throughout the excerpt Barker used excellent verbs and description to explain all of the sentences. Don't be so vague with supporting quotes.http://jess-jess1993.blogspot.com/

Best one I saw: The dignified formality of Nicholson Baker's The Mezzanine describes the unusual tolerance the narrator feels for escaltors in his work place. His strange admiration is expressed with metaphors like "the free-standing kind: a pair of integral signs swooping upward" and "a temporary, steeper escalator of daylight" which help make a mental picture of the escalators as well as give an appreciation for the escalators. Baker's scholarly yet straightforward lexicon holds the flowing simile "like the radians of black luster that ride the undulating outer edge" to convey the graceful energy the narrator feels toward escalators. http://thatgirl-abbie.blogspot.com/

Currently at This Moment

Quite Strength: 43 pages
Dresden Files: 79 pages
Total Pages: 122 pages

  In. By far the simplest of all, Walker Lamond's Rules for My Unborn Son has a no-nonsense and almost journalistic approach to writing.
http://academiczengerine.blogspot.com/

The characters speak in colloquial language, using words such as "silly," "darling chicken-flower," and "wop." The language is humble, but it is suggestive of the culture and personality of the characters.
http://estella-havisham.blogspot.com/

The connotation is figurative and lyrical while the sound melodious as it flows along, defying many grammatical laws.   http://mallorymills94.blogspot.com/

The excerpt from Stardust by Neil Gaiman expresses elevated, melodious straightforward diction.
http://morgan-happygolucky.blogspot.com/

The elevation is low. It seems like this is taking place in the south which is known for their slang and terse language. http://bakefacespace123.blogspot.com/

Style Mapping

The language in Joker One is lower and poetic.  The team leader is speaking about the love the men have for one another.  "And love was why Brooks walked backwards everyday, guarding our vulnerable rear as we moved."  The common language doesn't detract from the poetic melody of the sergeants thoughts.

Joker One again

Still with Joker One, I've finished the book and it's a good one.  Golf Company eventually gets deployed to Ramadi, Iraq with the war on terrorism.  Golf Company is taking over the city from the Army.  The Marines of Golf Company have been training themselves for combat but one they arrive they must act less militaristic and become more friendly because the overall goal is to win the hearts and minds of the people.  An insurgency cannot succeed if the insurgents don't have the people.  Well the Marines do this for awhile, waving and smiling, and handing out candy to all the children, basically trying to make life a little bit better for the people there.  Well it fails.  The insurgents and even the people view these acts as sings of weakness and mount a large attack against the Marines.  From that point on the Marines no longer smile or wave, and when the people see them they move because there's now  look to them that says "we're here to protect you and we will, but we're just looking for a fight now".  The book gives a view into the life of the soldiers in Iraq and the challenges that their leaders, like Lieutenant Campbell, must face.  Campbell see's his men transform for green recruits to hardened veterans through their tour in Iraq.  Campbell said in his afterword that he stays in contact with a lot of the men he led in Iraq.  He says in the beginning that he wrote the book for them, as a way of telling the soldiers families what happened over there when the soldiers themselves couldn't tell.  Anyway it's a pretty good book that I would definitely recommend.  So until the beginning.....

Quarterly 1 I suppouse

So it;s been 9 weeks already, man it flies by.  Well can't really say any of the reading has been to challenging for me just same old same old.  Did surprise myself a little bit with the amount of war related books I've read but other than that nothing really.  I'd have to say most of my reading is done is study hall, it's the only free time I've got.  Goal I'm going to set for next semester is mainly to blog more, apparently I've been slacking there so ya.  Well that's really all I've got for this so I guess until the beginning......

Joker One

Still reading Joker One and it is a pretty good book. Like I was saying last time, Campbell wanted something more so he joined the Marines.  He ended up going to Iraq for a year as a computer guy, not really fighting as he'd hoped.  He then got returned to the states and was told that he'd be in charge of a sniper recon platoon 2/4.  He originally joined the Marines to lead men into battle, to see if he could handle that kind of pressure.  Well he got to Camp Golf, where he would take over 2/4 snipers and was told that they didn't need an officer but they did need a good computer guy, so once again he found himself in a meaningless role.  Eventually someone of higher rank came to the camp and became the computer guy so Campbell was given his chance to lead; but he wasn't given a sniper command, no he was put in charge of a platoon of infantry.  He resented this at first but he would soon learn that to be in charge of an infantry platoon would truly be a test of his ability to command.  When he arrived to take command, none of his men were there yet so he just sat at his desk confused as to what he was supposed to be doing until the Ox came in.  The Ox is a higher ranking officer in command of a fire team, and he is also courageous and has no care for his own safety.......that being said he also has no common sense and is somewhat crazy. For example, on a training exercise they were told to assault a bunker, two of the three squads flanked the bunker and so on and so forth.  Not the Ox though, he decided to charge straight at the bunker, going through barbed wire and such, all the while the "enemy" is "shooting" at them.  Basically he killed the entire squad because he did the "brave thing".  Yes the Ox is a good leader in that he is brave, and he's a bad leader for that exact same reason. And ya guess I'll leave off there for no so, till the beginning..........

Currently Again

Joker One: 193pages
Total pages: 1401 pages

"It matters not how strait the gate, how charged with punishment the scroll, I am the master of my fate: I am the captain of my soul." The Warrior Elite

Smile at pretty girls." Rules for my Unborn Son


"Never fail a mission, never leave a teammate." The Warrior Elite

I like these sentences overall because they all have meaning.  The first one is just saying that no matter what life throws at you you are still in control of your own life.  The second one is, well, you see a pretty girl you you smile, that's just a fact of life.  The last one, well, you have a mission you stay and complete that mission until it's done, and you never leave a brother behind.  Like i said, all of the sentences just have some sort of meaning to me.