Thursday, October 30, 2014

Jonathan Safran Foer Webinar Reaction Assignmet

1. The webinar and the excerpt both are informative, persuasive, and inspiring. On October 28-29, 2014, the Jonathan Safran Foer Webinar was the presented by Jonathan Safran Foer himself.

50 Word Summary


The main content of the webinar was about Jonathan Safran Foer's novel, Eating Animals, and his excerpt, A Case of Eating Dogs. The whole topic was to get into deeper meaning in what food we eat and get us to think of the mockery of the food we eat everyday. We discussed the benefits and disadvantages of being a vegetarian with Safran Foer. For example, he talked something about a vegetarian's diet may be more or less expensive to the majority of an American diet. In A Case for Eating Dogs it gave deep mockery of dogs and livestock we eat. This excerpt also gave dark humor of how much people(especially in the United States) actually do not pay attention of what kind of nourishment enter their body. My overall reaction was pure fascination because it got me thinking and questioning thoroughly.


Description of three stand-out moments



  • One major moment throughout the whole two day discussion of the novel was the excerpt A Case of Eating. I found this somewhat inspiring and important. Safran Foer gave an excellent example of comparing dogs to the livestock we eat. I found it important because it revealed how people do not and would not pay attention of the food they eat. Also, he gave a strong case to question oneself of what is wrong and what is right. This inspired me to learn much more what I eat.
  • Another moment I thought stood out was the dark humor Safran Foer used in the excerpt. It is important for him to use dark humor in order t get his point out towards the reader. I actually liked how emphasized it because it presented humorously how dogs is just the same meat as any other meat we eat, It also showed a darker way of how people will not notice any difference. I like the last two paragraphs of the excerpt especially. It made me think more into deeper meaning than before.
  • A lot has fascinated and stood out to me this whole time. However, in the webinar Safran Foer said his goal is not to turn us to vegetarians but to inform us how our food is processed. This stood out the most because I expected him to give us this long lecture of why we should go vegetarian. All he cared about was to give us a deeper background of how our food is processed and let us consider it.
2. How this presentation can relate to your life?

This whole webinar and excerpt can relate a lot to my life by letting me know how my food is processed and consider food into more depths. I mean food is my everyday life because food is life. By getting deeper knowledge of what I'm eating inspires me to question food more and search more information. This two day experience moved me to actually read the novel first hand. I agree to pretty much everything but I would just like to point out that erasing meat from your daily life will be a hard process. There are a lot of people with different circumstances. Some may be easy to adapt to but others such as myself will be very hard. I see this as something learn lots from but getting rid of something may be impossible. Overall it was a new experience to learn from and I enjoyed every single bit.

Thursday, October 23, 2014

Latin Roots #5

Roots and Derivatives

1. cent(i)
2. cid (e)
3. clam, claim
4. cord, cour

Word List

1. bicentennial- a 200th anniversary; pertaining to or in honor of a 200th anniversary; consisting of or lasting 200 years. Sentence: We celebrated the bicentennial anniversary of our country with big events and parties.
2. centenarian- a person who has reached the age of 100. Sentence: There are starting to be many centenarians around the world than before.
3. centurion- (in the ancient Roman army) the commander of a century. Sentence: A group of 100 men were commanded by a centurion.
4. clamorous- vigorous in demands or complaints. Sentence: Kindergarten classes are filled with clamorous children.
5. concise-expressing much in few words; brief and to the point. Sentence: There a few teachers that don't give a clear and concise answer to my questions.
6. concordance-agreement; harmony; an alphabetical index of the principal words of a book. Sentence: With the full concordance you can find any word you need.
7. cordial- courteous and gracious; friendly; warm. Sentence: There are many cordial people in the world that may change your perspective differently.
8. discordant- disagreeable to the ear; dissonant; harsh. Sentence: First timers with instruments play many discordant notes.
9. genocide- the deliberate and systematic extermination of a national, racial, political, or cultural group. Sentence: There have been many genocide acts in the past history such as Adolf Hitler with the Jews.
10. incisive- penetrating; cutting; biting; trenchant. Sentence: With Timmy's incisive speech he got an A+.
11. proclamation- something that is proclaimed; a public and official announcement. Sentence: On October 31st Abraham Lincoln issued a proclamation declaring Nevada a state.
12. reclaim- to claim again; the return or restoration of, as a right, possession, etc. Sentence: I finally reclaimed my DS in order to play the new Super Smash Bros.

Thursday, October 9, 2014

Latin Roots #4

Roots and Derivatives

1. bon, boun
2. capit, capt
3. carn(i)
4. ced(e), ceed, cess

Word List

1. accession- the act of coming into the possession of a right, title, office, etc.; an increase by something added. Sentence: After being grounded for a month my accession was freedom.
2. bona fide- made, done, presented, etc., in good faith; without deception or fraud. Sentence: I made a bona fide offer to my mommy so I may sleep over at my friend's house.
3. bonanza- a source of great and sudden wealth or luck; a spectacular windfall. Sentence: I got a bonanza for cleaning my one month dirty closet when I found a total of $50 in many pockets of my pants.
4. bounteous- giving or disposed to give freely; generous; liberal; freely bestowed; plentiful; abundant. Sentence: The most bounteous affection a mother can give to a child is love and care.
5. capitulation- the document containing the terms of a surrender. Sentence: There have been many wars and battles with capitulations.
6. carnage- the slaughter of a great number of people, as in battle; butchery; massacre. Sentence: After the war ended, the carnage that was left behind by the Holocaust was discovered.
7. carnivorous- flesh-eating. Sentence: Carnivorous animals are meat-eaters.
8. incarnate- embodied in flesh; given a bodily, especially a human, form; flesh-colored or crimson. Sentence: Due to the leader's wicked actions many believed he's the devil incarnate.
9. intercede- to act or interpose in behalf of someone in difficulty or trouble, as by pleading or petition. Sentence: The majority of the time I intercede in my friends' arguments in order fr them to get along again.
10. precedent- any act, decision, or case that serves as a guide or justification for subsequent situations; going or coming before. Sentence: When my brothers and I can't agree about something there will always be some type of ridiculous precedent such as rock, paper, scissor.
11. recapitulation- a brief review or summary, as of a speech. Sentence: The recapitulation of the hour-long lecture was hard to remember
12. reincarnation- the belief that the soul, upon death of the body, comes back to earth in another body or form. Sentence: Many Egyptian pharaohs believed in reincarnation and prepared for life in the next world.