Short Response Four

In Things Fall Apart, Achebe shows many customs and practices of the Ibo culture. Some of these customs highlight the nature of their culture. The fact that they are polytheistic shows that they are different from the white missionaries and causes problems between them. Their attitude towards death and murder are much more calm and lenient than the views of Americans. For example, Okonkwo is punished for murdering the dead elder's son by being exiled for seven years. In our society, such acts would be grounds for imprisonment and possibly even death. They are similar to us in how they do not judge anyone based upon what their ancestors have done. They value self worth more than the worth of one's parents. Their lenience, and even encouragement, of violence shows a savage side to them. This tells us that the Ibo culture is one that values strength and skill. They also value many Gods and worldly possessions, based on their religious views and their judgement based on monetary worth. However, some of their rituals, such as their weddings and funerals, bare a resemblance to our own society's. In their weddings, the make it about the bride and her mother. Also, in-laws must present gifts to one another. These are similar to weddings in many cultures. Their respect for the dead also shows similarities with our society. They celebrate their lives and take a break from their work and violent lives.
Okonkwo's role in the tribe is that of a normal man. He has all of his own problems to deal with, and he is just trying to do the best for him and his family. He has a little bit of an anger issue, and is a violent person. In our society, he could be anything from a common criminal to a rich man. He beats his wives, does not understand his son, hates his father, and overworks himself. He seems like an average Joe to me. I believe he is just a man trying to make it in his own world, nothing more, nothing less.

Short Response Three: Socrates

Socrates was a man of few possessions. His thirst for knowledge instead of wealth sets him apart from many people in history. However, it was this lack of a need for material possessions that proved to be his downfall. In today's world, it seems as though no one could be able to live as Socrates did. For example, Socrates lived to be seventy years of age in his lifetime. In our world today, there are so many diseases and hazards to our health that, without money for health care, one would not make it anywhere near the age of seventy. Also, with the amount of advances in communication, one needs money in order to keep up with what's happening in the outside world. One needs the internet for most communication and even to shop/pay bills. Everyone has a cell phone. Everything is communicated through text message, e-mail, instant message, and tweets.
In my personal life, I believe that my mom resembles Socrates in many ways. In one way, she is incredibly independent. She has been a single mother for ten years, works two jobs, and is able to care for myself and my two younger sisters. She also possesses a stubborn attitude in which she won't take no for an answer. Although she does not live a life without material possessions, she does not need many things in her life to make her happy. She also speaks her mind and stands by what she says, no matter what people may say. She's my own modern day Socrates.

Short Response One

Currently, in my daily life, I do not do a lot of writing. Most of the writing that I do is for school assignments, such as this one. In my opinion, writing can be used for numerous purposes. For one, it can be used to express feelings. This can be in any form, such as a letter or a journal entry. Writing can also be used to inform, such as in the form of a research assignment. It can also be used to communicate ideas in anything from an email to a post it to a text message. It is completely beneficial to our daily lives. One writing assignment that I personally found interesting was a research project from last semester about censorship. Originally, I was not excited about doing this assignment; however, as I progressed through the assignment, I noticed that I became extremely interested in the topic itself. The topic pertaining to censorship that I chose was the film rating system in America. The amount of information I found on this subject made the assignment so interesting that I ended up making my paper three pages longer than it was supposed to be.

Unit 0

My full name is Katrina Ashley Brockmeyer. Up until several years ago, I adored my first name. It was unique and I did not know many people who had the same name as me. It was one of the things that made me different. However, after the natural disaster of Hurricane Katrina, I wished that I had been given a different name. Almost everyone began to make jokes relating my name to the hurricane. Even in the present, my friends and family still refer to me as “Hurricane” to get a good chuckle. Now, I do not get offended by this at all, because there is no reason to be. It just gets extremely aggravating when I go to introduce myself, and the first thing out of someone’s mouth is “Like the hurricane?” One would think it would get old by now.

As far as I am concerned, there is no special reason I was named “Katrina”. I’m not named after another member of my family, nor am I named after anyone famous. My father picked the name randomly, and my mother happened to like it. Originally, they were planning to name me “Courtney”. I’m glad they chose to stray from this name, because I know entirely too many Courtneys.

Personally, I prefer not to have a nickname. This is because I feel like I don’t need one, not to mention that nicknames are created out of laziness. My family and some of my friends, however, do not agree with this. They choose to call me “Trina” instead, no matter how much I reprimand them for doing so. As far as other variations of my name go, I refuse to allow anyone to call me “Kat”. A previous boyfriend of mine called me “Kat” for the entirety of our relationship, and when things went south, I began feeling a lot of animosity towards this nickname. Resulting from this, I do not allow anyone to call me “Kat”; although there was a teacher I had in high school that refused to call me anything else.