Senior English Homework Through January

Monday
Read Chapters 1 and 2 of Candide and write one blog entry.

Tuesday
Read Chapters 3 and 4 of Candide and write one blog entry.

Wednesday
Rehearse your scenes for tommorow's performance.

Thursday
Read Chapters 5 and 6 of Candide and write one blog entry.

Over the break you should read Candide. I would recommend you read it towards the end of break as to remember it for class. The exam (administered on January 9th)
will be a series of quotations in which you will have to identify the context. There will also be some short answer questions.

Pre AP ELA 9th Grade Homework Throught January

Monday
Read Matthew 1-12 and write one blog entry.

Tuesday
Read Matthew 13-22 and write one blog entry

Wednesday
Dress like a Taoist.
Rehearse your scenes your Thursday’s festival.

Thursday
Read Matthew 23-28 and write one blog entry.

Friday
Read Mark 1-10 and write one blog entry.


During vacation create an entry for every time you read either in a journal or your blog. They will be graded using the same rubric as our blogs.

Complete Mark by the 19th of December.

Read the Gospel of Luke by the 24th of Decemeber.

Read the Gospel of John by the 30th of December.

Read the Book of Revelation before you come back to school.

Senior English Homework Sheet

12.3.07-12.7.07

Monday
Read the following reviews in preparation for class tomorrow:
http://www.variety.com/awardcentral_review/VE1117927432.html?nav=reviews07&categoryid=1986&cs=1&p=0
http://www.villagevoice.com/film/0525,tracking6,65165,20.html


Tuesday
If you were the producer of a film version of Hamlet what famous actors would play each character. Copy and paste their images onto your blog.

Wednesday
Read Chapters 1 and 2 of Candide.

Thursday
Practice your scene at least once outside of class, perhaps with costumes.

Friday
Read Chapters 3 and 4 of Candide.

Pre AP ELA 9th Grade

This week (12.3.07 - 12.7.07) you must:

Monday:
Read the Tao Te Ching 1-12 and write one blog entry.

Tuesday:
Read the Tao Te Ching 13-28 and write one blog entry.

Wednesday:
Read:
http://owl.english.purdue.edu/handouts/grammar/g_actpass.html
and complete the excercises below to be discussed in class tomorrow
http://web2.uvcs.uvic.ca/elc/studyzone/410/reading/exercises/dogqz.htm.

Thursday
Read the Tao Te Chin 29-43 and write one blog entry.

Friday
Read the Tao Te Ching 44-66 and write one blog entry.




Rehearse your scenes for A Midsummer Night's Dream.

Pre AP ELA Playing GO

We're going to read 1,2 and 3 of this page:

http://playgo.to/interactive/

Senior English Writers Workshop

Having read your blogs I've seen that most of you don't follow up after Writers Workshop. Your laziness has brought me to grade your writers workshop projects. This will start today and end in January. What you do not finish in WW you must finish at home before the next WW.

Today we'll be working on passive voice. Togethere we'll read a mini-lesson, then you'll be given some exercises that must be copy and pasted into your blog.
http://owl.english.purdue.edu/handouts/grammar/g_actpass.html

Correct these sentences, then check yourself. You can only copy and paste correct sentences.
http://web2.uvcs.uvic.ca/elc/studyzone/410/reading/exercises/dogqz.htm

When finished correct these sentences, without the check option:
Level 1: Directions: Change the sentences below to the passive voice.

Children cannot open these bottles easily.

The government built a road right outside her front door.

Mr. Ross broke the antique vase as he walked through the store.

When she arrived, the changes amazed her.

The construction workers are making street repairs all month long.

The party will celebrate his retirement.

His professors were discussing his oral exam right in front of him.

My son ate all the homemade cookies.

Corrosion had damaged the hull of the ship.

Some children were visiting the old homestead while I was there.

Pre AP ELA 9th Grade Homework Sheet 11.26.07 - 11.30.07

Monday
Read Night and write one blog entry.

Tuesday
Finish Night and write one blog entry.

Wednesday
Complete your papers by incorporating your paraphrasing, summaries and quotations into your speeches.

Thursday
Read Tao Te Ching 1-15 and write one blog entry.

Friday
Read Tao Te Ching 16-37 and write one blog entry.
Incorporate the following video clip into your blog-
http://video.google.com/url?docid=-9128827406902307787&esrc=sr2&ev=v&len=320&q=Jet%2BLi%2Bfrom%2BOnce%2Bupon%2Ba%2Btime%2Bin%2Bchina&srcurl=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.youtube.com%2Fwatch%3Fv%3DgU_j1wu81DU&vidurl=%2Fvideoplay%3Fdocid%3D-9128827406902307787%26q%3DJet%2BLi%2Bfrom%2BOnce%2Bupon%2Ba%2Btime%2Bin%2Bchina%26total%3D147%26start%3D0%26num%3D10%26so%3D0%26type%3Dsearch%26plindex%3D1&usg=AL29H22QrJ89cZZRfr5Kz4M9UofkEFBJqg

Pre AP ELA 9th Grade Homework Sheet 11.26.07 - 11.30.07

http://video.google.com/url?docid=-9128827406902307787&esrc=sr2&ev=v&len=320&q=Jet%2BLi%2Bfrom%2BOnce%2Bupon%2Ba%2Btime%2Bin%2Bchina&srcurl=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.youtube.com%2Fwatch%3Fv%3DgU_j1wu81DU&vidurl=%2Fvideoplay%3Fdocid%3D-9128827406902307787%26q%3DJet%2BLi%2Bfrom%2BOnce%2Bupon%2Ba%2Btime%2Bin%2Bchina%26total%3D147%26start%3D0%26num%3D10%26so%3D0%26type%3Dsearch%26plindex%3D1&usg=AL29H22QrJ89cZZRfr5Kz4M9UofkEFBJqg

Senior English Homework Sheet 11.26.07 - 11.30.07

Monday
Read and write a blog entry for The Selfish Gene.

Tuesday
Read and write a blog entry for The Selfish Gene. Write about the Prisoner's Dilemna in regards to your reading.

Wednesday
Based on our work today, publish the incorporation of paraphrases, summaries, and direct quotations from your sources.

Thursday
Read and write a blog entry for The Selfish Gene.

Friday
Read and write your final blog entry for The Selfish Gene.

Senior English Writers Workshop

Today we'll be completing the research we began last week.

Go to the following address, read the passage to then write instructions of how to select an article to publish on your blog:
http://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/553/03/


Now, go to EBSCO host, as we did last week.
http://www.cng.edu/login_students.php

You will need five secondary sources from EBSCO
that you might be able to use. Also, identify primary sources your secondary sources cite that might be relevant to your topic. Publish you sources in the following format:

Tangen, Jesse (2007) Seniors: Students Who Want to Graduate. Bogota: CNG prensa.

What you do not finish in class you must complete this weekend as well as the regular assigned homework.

Senior ELA Homework Sheet #13

Senior English 11.19.07 – 11.21.07
Homework Sheet #13

Monday
Write one blog entry for The Selfish Gene.

Tuesday
View
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ciFe8JmR-nY
and post a response on youtube.com that will be copy and pasted into your own blog.

Wednesday
Write on blog entry for The Selfish Gene.

Pre AP ELA 11.19.07 - 11.21.07

Pre AP 9th Grade ELA English 11.19.07 – 11.21.07
Homework Sheet #13
.

Monday
Write a blog entry for books 15, 17, 18.

Tuesday
Write a blog entry for any of the books we have not read. What makes them different?

Wednesday
Write one closing blog entry about The Essential Analects as a whole work. Over the weekend check some of your friends' blog for the class. Respond to what calls your attention.


TBA
Reading assignment to be given.

Research and Citations

Today we'll be working on some ways to identify and use resources for papers, without plagiarizing:

http://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/563/01/

Senior ELA Homework Sheet 11.13.07- 11.16.07

Senior ELA Homework Sheet 11.13.07-11.16.07

Tuesday
Read The Selfish Gene. Write one blog entry.

Wednesday
Based on your research today, incorporate examples of summarizing, paraphrasing and direct quoting into your speech.

Thursday
Read The Selfish Gene. Write one blog entry.

Friday
Read The Selfish Gene. Write one blog entry.

Pre AP 9th Grade ELA 11.13.07-11.16.07

Pre AP 9th Grade ELA Homework Sheet 11.13.07-11.16.07

Tuesday
Read Books 4, 5 and 6 of The Analects. Write one blog entry.

Wednesday
Based on your research today, incorporate examples of summarizing, paraphrasing and direct quoting into your speech.

Thursday
Read Books 7, 8 and 11 of The Analects. Write one blog entry.

Friday
Read Books 12, 13 and 14 of The Analects. Write one blog entry.

Senior English "The Power and the Glory"

I found this in a Chicago Tribune column about summer reading:

"The Power and the Glory" by Graham Greene. You want a novel about atonement? In a Mexican state in the 1930s, the Catholic Church has been outlawed. The last priest--the whiskey priest--is on the run from the firing squad. Greene's 1940 classic, as gripping as a modern thriller, is a generous yet merciless portrayal of humans and their church. Everyone is flawed--the priests, the people who loathe them, the people who want them to be saints--but courage sometimes flickers even in the cynical, corrupted soul.


How does this columnist describe the genre of this novel?

Senior English Paraphrasing

Read the following page

http://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/619/01/

Then, complete the exercise page. We´ll discuss the answers.

Senior English Homework Sheet 11.6.07 - 11.9.07

Senior English 11.6.07 – 11.9.07
Homework Sheet #12

Tuesday
Practice your speech for Friday.

Wednesday
Imagine Hamlet will choose a song to express his feelings in Act III. Which song does he choose? Explain why it is appropriate, using the lyrics. Post it on your blog.

Thursday
Rehearse your speech for Friday.

Friday
Write one blog entry about The Selfish Gene.

Persuasive Speech due November 9th.

Pre AP 9th English Homework Sheet #11

Pre AP 9th Grade ELA English 10.29.07 – 11.2.07
Homework Sheet #11
.

Monday
Write a blog entry for book two of Samuel verses 1-12.

Tuesday
Cite five tertiary sources to support the logos part of your persuasive speech.

Wednesday
Write a blog entry for Job

Thursday
Revise your speech based on your partners’ criticism.

Friday
Write a blog entry for Job

Senior English Homework Sheet #11

Senior English 10.29.07 – 11.2.07
Homework Sheet #11

Monday
Write your final blog entry about The Power and the Glory.

Tuesday
Find five tertiary sources that will help you in supporting the logos of your persuasive speech.

Thursday
Complete the paraphrasing exercises at http://gsi.berkeley.edu/resources/conduct/exercises.html

Friday
Write an entry for The Selfish Gene noting your first impressions.

Persuasive speech due November 9th.

Public Speaking Clip

Watch the following video clip. Answer the question from the homework sheet by adding a comment here.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9r-XG_VJZDw

Senior English 10.22.07 – 10.26.07

Senior English 10.22.07 – 10.26.07
Homework Sheet #10

Monday
Write one blog entry about The Power and the Glory.

Tuesday
Listen to speech as posted on my blog. Is this a good public speaker based on the criteria we established? Why? Why not?

Thursday
Write one blog entry about The Power and the Glory

Friday
Revise your speech based on your partner’s criticism for Tuesday’s workshop.

Persuasive speech due November 9th.

Pre AP 9th Grade ELA English 10.22.07 – 10.26.07

Pre AP 9th Grade ELA English 10.22.07 – 10.26.07
Homework Sheet #10
.

Monday
Write a blog entry for Exodus chapters 1-12.

Tuesday
Watch the video clip posted on my blog. Is this a good public speaker based on the criteria we established? Why? Why not?

Wednesday
Write a blog entry for Exodus chapters 13-40.

Thursday
Revise your speech based on your partners’ criticism.

Friday
Write a blog entry for Book One of Samuel chapters 16-to the end


Looking ahead:
Persuasive speeches due November 9th.

Senior English The Birthday Party

I found these clips of a film version of The Birthday Party as well as an interview with Pinter. I thought you might like to discuss them.

Scenes from the 1968 film:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fZxt2rqBoAc

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mjp8Ms2t19Q

Interviews with Pinter :
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aXwdCZoQ7S8

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wSL4K58eqv4

Senior English Video Clip for Thurdsay's HW

http://www.americanrhetoric.com/MovieSpeeches/moviespeechclueless.html

Pre-AP 9th Grade ELA Homework Sheet # 8

Pre AP 9th Grade ELA English 10.1.07 – 10.5.07
Homework Sheet #8

Monday
Write a blog for any three myths.

Tuesday
Write a blog for any three myths.

Wednesday
Choose an op-ed. Copy and paste it onto your blog. Respond to it revealing any fallacies we learned about today.

Thursday
Write a blog for any three myths.

Friday
Read God’s Secretaries. Be ready for a short exam on its content on the first day back from vacation.

The Baccae performance will take place on October 5th.

Senior English Friday's Homework

From The Emperor by Ryszard Kapuscinski. The Emperor refers to Halie Selassie (whom you may have heard of from Reggae songs) on whom the book is based.



The Emperor threw an imposing reception for the meeting of the presidents. Wine and caviar were flowin in from Europe specially for the occasion. At a cost of twenty-five thousand dollars, Miram Makeba was brought from Hollywood to serenade the leaders with Zulu songs after the feast. All told, more than three thousand people, divided hierarchically into upper and lower categories, were invited. Each category received invitations of a different color and chose from a different menu.

The reception took place in the Emperor's Old Palace. The guests passed long ranks of soldiers from the Imperial Guard, armed with sabers and halberds. From atop towers, spotlit trumpeters played the Emperor's fanfare. In the galleries, theatrical troupes performed scenes from the lives of past Emperors. From the balconies, girls in folk costumes showered the guests with flowers. The sky exploded in plumes of fireworks.

When the guests had been seated at tables in the great hall, fanfares rang out and the Emperor walked in with President Nasser of Egypt at his right hand. They formed an extraordinary pair. Nasser, a tall, stocky, imperious man, his head thrust forward with his wide jaws set into a smile, and next to him the diminutive silhouette - frail, one could almost say - of Haile Selassie, worn by the years, with his thin, expressive face, his glistening, penetrating eyes. Behind them the remaining leaders entered in pairs. The audience rose; everyone was applauding. Ovations sounded for unity and the Emperor. Then the feast began. There was one dark-skinned wiater for every four guests. Out of excitement and nervousness, things were falling from the waiters' hands. The table setting was silver, in the old Harar style. Several tons of priceless antique silver lay on those tables. Some people slipped pieces of silverware into their pockets. One sneaked a fork, the next one a spoon.

Mountains of meat, fruit, fish, and cheese rose on the tables. Many-layered cakes dripped with sweet, colored icing. Distinguished wines spread reflected colors and invigorating aromas. The music played on, and costumed clowns did somersaults to the delight of the carefree revelers. Time passed in conversation, laughter, consumption.

It was a splendid affair.

During these proceedings, I needed to find a quiet place, but I didn't know where to look. I left the Great Chamber by a side door that led outside. It was a dark night, with a fine rain falling. A May rain, but a chilly one. A gentle slop led down from the door, and some distance below stood a poorly lit building without walls. A row of waiters stood in a line from the door to this building, passing dishes with leftovers from the banquet table. On those dishes a stream of bones, nibbled scraps, mashed vegetables, fish heads, and cut-away bits of meat flowed. I walked toward the building without walls, slipping on the mud and scattered bits of food.

I noticed that something on the other side was moving, shifting, murmuring, squishing, sighing, and smacking its lips. I turned the corner to have a closer look.

In the thick night, a crowd of barefoot beggars stood huddled together. The dishwashers working in the building threw leftovers to them. I watched the crowd devour the scraps, bones, and fish heads with laborious concentration. In the meticulous absorption of this eating there was an almost violent biological abandon -- the satisfaction of hunger in anxiety and ecstasy.
From time to time the waiters would get held up, and the flow of dishes would stop. Then the crowd of beggars would relax as though someone had given them the order to stand at ease. People wiped their lips and straightened their muddy and food-stained rags. But soon the stream of dishes would start flowing again -- because up there the great hogging, with smacking of lips and slurping, was going on, too -- and the crowd would fall again to its blessed and eager labor of feeding.

I was getting soaked, so I returned to the Great Chamber to the Imperial party. I looked at the silver and gold on the scarlet velvet, at President Kasavuba, at my neighbor, a certain Aye Mamlaye. I breathed in the scent of roses and incense, I listened to the suggestive Zulu song that Miriam Makeba was singing, I bowed to the Emperor (an absolute requirement of protocol), and I went home.

Senior English for Thursday night

I found a recent review of a newly translated Kapusckinski bookhttp://www.thenation.com/docprint.mhtml?i=20071001&s=rice . Read the review, than write an e-mail to author at http://www.thenation.com/contact/lett agreeing or disagreeing. Make sure you answer the specific points made by the author. Be sure to copy and paste this e-mail into your blog as an entry.

Senior English Homework Audio Clip

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=6994682

Pre AP 9th Grade ELA David Ferry Talking About Translation

See what David Ferry thinks of translation:

http://forum.wgbh.org/wgbh/forum.php?lecture_id=1741

Senior English La Dolce Vita and Existentialism

A Funny, But Bad Gilgamesh: The Movie

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LSZuFjoBN_o

Gilgamesh: The Movie

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BHInCYIGq3E&mode=related&search=

Gilgamesh Found

How did they find Gilgamesh?


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kxEMnJ6BLOQ

The Stranger: The Song Senior English

Some of you mentioned this song in your blogs. I thought you might like to discuss the video.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ac2MEen9340#

For Pre-AP 9th Grade ELA

http://www.iasfbo.inaf.it/~malaguti/calvino/cosmicomics/bet.html

Read this piece and let's discuss on our blogs.

I also pasted it here, but it lost its format.




How Much Shall We Bet?
The logic of cybernetics, applied to the history of the universe, is in the process of demonstrating how the galaxies, the solar system, the Earth, cellular life could not help but be born. According to cybernetics, the universe is formed by a series of feedbacks, positive and negative, at first through the force of gravity that concentrates masses of hydrogen in the primitive cloud, then through nuclear force and centrifugal force which are balanced with the first. From the moment that the process is set in motion, it can only follow the logic of this chain.
Yes, but at the beginning nobody knew it, --Qfwfq explained,-- I mean, you could foretell it perhaps, but instinctively, by ear, guessing. I don't want to boast, but from the start I was willing to bet that there was going to be a universe, and I hit the nail on the head; on the question of its nature, too, I won plenty of bets, with old Dean (k)yK.
When we started betting there wasn't anything yet that might lead you to foresee anything, except for a few particles spinning around, some electrons scattered here and there at random, and protons all more or less on their own. I started feeling a bit strange, as if there was going to be a change of weather (in fact, it had grown slightly cold), and so I said: "You want to bet we're heading for atoms today?'' And Dean (k)yK said: "Oh, cut it out. Atoms! Nothing of the sort, and I'll bet you anything you say.''
So I said: "Would you even bet ix?''
The Dean answered: "Ix raised to en!''
He had no sooner finished saying this than around each proton its electron started whirling and buzzing. An enormous hydrogen cloud was condensing in space. "You see? Full of atoms!''
"Oh, if you call that stuff atoms!'' (k)yK said; he had the bad habit of putting up an argument, instead of admitting he had lost a bet.
We were always betting, the Dean and I, because there was really nothing else to do, and also because the only proof I existed was that I bet with him, and the only proof he existed was that he bet with me. We bet on what events would or would not take place; the choice was virtually unlimited, because up till then absolutely nothing had happened. But since there wasn't even a way to imagine how an event might be, we designated it in a kind of code: Event A, Event B, Event C, and so on, just to distinguish one from the other. What I mean is: since there were no alphabets in existence then or any other series of accepted signs, first we bet on how a series of signs might be and then we matched these possible signs with various possible events, in order to identify with sufficient precision matters that we still didn't know a thing about.
We also didn't know what we were staking because there was nothing that could serve as a stake, and so we gambled on our word, keeping an account of the bets each had won, to be added up later. All these calculations were very difficult, since numbers didn't exist then, and we didn't even have the concept of number, to begin to count, because it wasn't possible to separate anything from anything else. This situation began to change when, in the protogalaxies, the protostars started condensing, and I quickly realized where it would all end, with that temperature rising all the time, and so I said:
"Now they're going to catch fire.''
"Nuts!'' the Dean said.
"Want to bet?'' I said.
"Anything you like,'' he said, and wham the darkness was shattered by all these incandescent balls that began to swell out.
"Oh, but that isn't what catching fire means...'' (k)yK began, quibbling about words in his usual way.
By that time I had developed a system of my own, to shut him up: "Oh, no? And what does it mean then, in your opinion?''
He kept quiet: lacking imagination as he did, when a word began to have one meaning, he couldn't conceive of its having any other. Dean (k)yK, if you had to spend much time with him, was a fairly boring sort, without any resources, he never had anything to tell. Not that I, on the other hand, could have told much, since events worth telling about had never happened, or at least so it appeared to us. The only thing was to frame hypotheses, or rather: hypothesize on the possibility of framing hypotheses. Now, when it came to framing hypotheses of hypotheses, I had much more imagination than the Dean, and this was both an advantage and a disadvantage, because it led me to make riskier bets, so that you might say our probabilities of winning were even.
As a rule, I bet on the possibility of a certain event's taking place, whereas the Dean almost always bet against it. He had a static sense of reality, old (k)yK, if I may express myself in these terms, since between static and dynamic at that time there wasn't the difference there is nowadays, or in any case you had to be very careful in grasping it, that difference.
For example, the stars began to swell, and I said: "How much?'' I tried to lead our predictions into the field of numbers, where he would have less to argue about.
At that time there were only two numbers: the number e and the number pi. The Dean did some figuring, by and large, and answered: "They'll grow to e raised to pi.'' Trying to act smart! Any fool could have told that much. But matters weren't so simple, as I had realized. "You want to bet they stop, at a certain point?''
"All right. When are they going to stop?''
And with my usual bravado, I came out with my pi. He swallowed it. The Dean was dumbfounded.
From that moment on we began to bet on the basis of e and pi.
"Pi!'' the Dean shouted, in the midst of the darkness and the scattered flashes. But instead that was the time it was e. We did it all for fun, obviously; because there was nothing in it for us, as far as earning went. When the elements began to be formed, we started evaluating our bets in atoms of the rarer elements, and this is where I made a mistake. I had seen that the rarest of all was technetium, so I started betting technetium and winning, and hoarding: I built up a capital of technetium. I hadn't foreseen it was an unstable element that dissolved in radiations: suddenly I had to start all over again, from zero.
Naturally, I made some wrong bets, too, but then I got ahead again and I could allow myself a few risky prognostications.
"Now a bismuth isotope is going to come out!'' I said hastily, watching the newborn elements crackle forth from the crucible of a "supernova'' star. "Let's bet!''
Nothing of the sort: it was a polonium atom, in mint condition. In these cases (k)yK would snigger and chuckle as if his victories were something to be proud of, whereas he simply benefitted from overbold moves on my part. Conversely, the more I went ahead, the better I understood the mechanism, and in the face of every new phenomenon, after a few rather groping bets, I could calculate my previsions rationally. The order that made one galaxy move at precisely so many million light-years from another, no more and no less, became clear to me before he caught on. After a while it was all so easy I didn't enjoy it any more.
And so, from the data I had at my disposal, I tried mentally to deduce other data, and from them still others, until I succeeded in suggesting eventualities that had no apparent connection with what we were arguing about. And I just let them fall, casually, into our conversation.
For example, we were making predictions about the curve of the galactic spirals, and all of a sudden I came out with: "Now listen a minute, (k)yK, what do you think? Will the Assyrians invade Mesopotamia?''
He laughed, confused. "Meso- what? When?''
I calculated quickly and blurted a date, not in years and centuries of course, because then the units of measuring time weren't conceivable in lengths of that sort, and to indicate a precise date we had to rely on formulas so complicated it would have taken a whole blackboard to write them down.
"How can you tell?''
"Come on, (k)yK, are they going to invade or not? I say they do; you say no. All right? Don't take so long about it.''
We were still in the boundless void, striped here and there by a streak or two of hydrogen around the vortexes of the first constellations. I admit it required very complicated deductions to foresee the Mesopotamian plains black with men and horses and arrows and trumpets, but, since I had nothing else to do, I could bring it off.
Instead, in such cases, the Dean always bet no, not because he believed the Assyrians wouldn't do it, but simply because he refused to think there would ever be Assyrians and Mesopotamia and the Earth and the human race.
These bets, obviously, were long-term affairs, more than the others; not like some cases, where the result was immediately know. "You see that Sun over there, the one being formed with an ellipsoid all around it? Quick before the planets are formed: how far will the orbits be from one another?''
The words were hardly out of my mouth when, in the space of eight or nine--what am I saying?--six or seven hundred million years, the planets started revolving each in its orbit, not a whit more narrow nor a whit wider.
I got much more satisfaction, however, from the bets we had to bear in mind for billions and billions of years, without forgetting what we had bet on, and remembering the shorter-term bets at the same time, and the number (the era of whole numbers had begun, and this complicated matters a bit) of bets each of us had won, the sum of the stakes (my advantage kept growing; the Dean was up to his ears in debt). And in addition to all this I had to dream up new bets, further and further ahead in the chain of my deductions.
"On February 8, 1926, at Santhia, in the Province of Vercelli--got that? At number 18 in Via Garibaldi--you follow me? Signorina Giuseppina Pensotti, aged twenty-two, leaves her home at quarter to six in the afternoon: does she turn right or left?''
"Mmmmm . . . '' (k)yK said.
"Come on, quickly. I say she turns right . . . '' And through the dust nebulae, furrowed by the orbits of the constellations, I could already see the wispy evening mist rise in the streets of Santhia, the faint light of a street lamp barely outlining the sidewalk in the snow, illuminating for a moment the slim shadow of Giuseppina Pensotti as she turned the corner past the Customs House and disappeared.
On the subject of what was to happen among the celestial bodies, I could stop making new bets and wait calmly to pocket my winnings from (k)yK as my predictions gradually came true. But my passion for gambling led me, from every possible event, to foresee the interminable series of events that followed, even down to the most marginal and aleatory ones. I began to combine predictions of the most immediately and easily calculated events with others that required extremely complicated operations. "Hurry, look at the way the planets are condensing: now tell me, which is the one where an atmosphere is going to be formed? Mercury? Venus? Earth? Mars? Come on: make up your mind! And while you're about it, calculate for me the index of demographic increase on the Indian subcontinent during the British raj. What are you puzzling over? Make it snappy!''
I had started along a narrow channel beyond which events were piling up with multiplied density; I had only to seize them by the handful and throw them in the face of my competitor, who had never guessed at their existence. Once I happened to drop, almost absently, the question: "Arsenal-Real Madrid, semifinals. Arsenal playing at home. Who wins?,'' and in a moment I realized that with what seemed a casual jumble of words I had hit on an infinite reserve of new combinations among the signs which compact, opaque, uniform reality would use to disguise its monotony, and I realized that perhaps the race toward the future, the race I had been the first to foresee and desire, tended only--through time and space--toward a crumbling into alternatives like this, until it would dissolve in a geometry of invisible triangles and ricochets like the course of a football among the white lines of a field as I tried to imagine them, drawn at the bottom of the luminous vortex of the planetary system, deciphering the numbers marked on the chests and backs of the players at night, unrecognizable in the distance.
By now I had plunged into this new area of possibility, gambling everything I had won before. Who could stop me? The Dean's customary bewildered incredulity only spurred me to greater risks. When I saw I was caught in a trap it was too late. I still had the satisfaction--a meager satisfaction, this time--of being the first to be aware of it: (k)yK seemed not to catch on to the fact that luck had now come over to his side, but I counted his bursts of laughter, once rare and now becoming more and more frequent...
"Qfwfq, have you noticed that Pharaoh Amenhotep IV had no male issue? I've won!''
"Qfwfq, look at Pompey! He lost out to Caesar after all! I told you so!''
And yet I had worked out my calculations to their conclusion, I hadn't overlooked a single component. Even if I were to go back to the beginning, I would bet the same way as before.
"Qfwfq, under the Emperor Justinian, it was the silkworm that was imported from China to Constantinople. Not gunpowder... Or am I getting things mixed up?''
"No, no, you win, you win . . . ''
To be sure, I had let myself go, making predictions about fleeting, impalpable events, countless predictions, and now I couldn't draw back, I couldn't correct myself. Besides correct myself how? On the basis of what?
"You see, Balzac doesn't make Lucien de Rubempre commit suicide at the end of Les Illusions perdues," the Dean said, in a triumphant, squeaky little voice he had been developing of late. ``He has him saved by Carlos Herrera, alias Vautrin. You know? The character who was also in Pere Goirot... Now then, Qfwfq, how far have we got?''
My advantage was dropping. I had saved my winnings, converted into hard Valletta, in a Swiss bank, but I had constantly to withdraw big sums to meet my losses. Not that I lost every time. I still won a bet now and then, even a big one, but the roles had been reversed; when I won I could no longer be sure it wasn't an accident or that, the next time, my calculations wouldn't again be proved to be wrong.
At the point we had reached, we needed reference libraries, subscriptions to specialized magazines, as well as a complex of electronic computers for our calculations: everything, as you know, was furnished us by a Research Foundation, to which, when we settled on this planet, we appealed for funds to finance our research. Naturally, our bets figure as an innocent game between the two of us and nobody suspects the huge sums involved in them. Officially we live on our modest salaries as researchers for the Electronic Predictions Center, with the added sum, for (k)yK, that goes with the position of Dean, which he has intrigued to obtain from the Department, though we kept on pretending he wasn't lifting a finger. (His predilection for stasis has got steadily worse; he turned up here in the guise of a paralytic, in a wheelchair.) This title of Dean, I might add, has nothing to do with seniority, otherwise I'd be just as much entitled to it as he is, though of course it doesn't mean anything to me.
So this is how we reached our present situation. Dean (k)yK, from the porch of his building, seated in the wheelchair, his legs covered with a rug of newspapers from all over the world, which arrive with the morning post, shouts so loud you can hear him all the way across the campus: "Qfwfq, the atomic treaty between Turkey and Japan wasn't signed today; they haven't even begun talks. You see? Qfwfq, that man in Termini Imerese who killed his wife was given three years, just as I said. Not life!''
And he waves the pages of the papers, black and white the way space was when the galaxies were being formed, and crammed--as space was then--with isolated corpuscles, surrounded by emptiness, containing no destination of meaning. And I think how beautiful it was then, through that void, to draw lines and parabolas, pick out the precise point, the intersection between space and time where the event would spring forth, undeniable in the prominence of its glow; whereas now events come flowing down without interruption, like cement being poured, one column next to the other, one within the other, separated by black and incongruous headlines, legible in many ways but intrinsically illegible, a doughy mass of events without form or direction, which surrounds, submerges, crushes all reasoning.
"You know something Qfwfq? The closing quotations on Wall Street are down 2 per cent, not 6! And that building constructed illegally on the Via Cassia is twelve stories high, not nine! Nearco IV wins at Longchamps by two lengths. What's our score now, Qfwfq?''
from Cosmicomics

What Do These Numbers Mean?

What You Need To Do Today

1) Read and respond to my first blog entry.
2) Create your own blog account.
3) Write an introduction to your blog for this class.
4) Find tow blogs about what we read yesterday and comment on them.
5) Find tow blogs about where you are from.

Getting Started

Reading to Blog

What’s more important the book or our interpretations of the book? Can there be a book without there being interpretation? We’ll be able to answer some of those questions after we’ve recorded the history of our relationships with our books. In order to preserve paper and promote our communication with the academic world outside of CNG, we’ll be keep blogs about the books we read.

You will write you own blogs, and respond to your blogs as prescribed by your weekly homework sheet. You should not approach each blog the same way. With variety comes varied thought; therefore, I propose focusing on different topics and using different approaches in each entry. Here are some possibilities:

- Respond to the text personally

I never had my house blown down by a wolf, but I did have felt loss. For example, I once abandoned my favorite apartment. I left most of my furniture there, some clothes, even a television!

- Connect text to another book, a film, work of art, a comic or any other creation

The Three Little Pigs reminds me of The Matrix. When the Wolf “huffed and puffed and blew his house down” he acted just as Morpheus did for Reeve’s character. Suddenly, Reeves was without the security he once felt.

- Ask questions to later answer

What might the grandmother represent?

Why would the Wolf want to blow down the houses?

How might I write a better ending?


I would then maybe answer these questions in later blogs.
You may use any combination of these, or you can write your own type of entries. Let your reading guide your entries.

You will be assessed using the rubric distributed in class

I look forward to reading and responding to your entries.