Dreamer Mentality

Please respond to the following questions-make sure to give a thorough response, end with a question and respond to at least one other person's comment.
Idealism has always been a way for people to escape reality, or to pursue a reality that isn't quite tangible. If you are a dreamer, do you have to be more careful? Nick says to Gatsby, "You can't repeat the past." What do you think? Are there repercussions? Are people more apt to not get what they desire?

Money, money, money...

Please answer the following prompts in a detailed, fluent response. Make sure to comment on other people's views within your own response. Take your level of thinking higher. Make sure you are being thorough and honest.

What are your perceptions of material wealth/money?  Is it something your desire? What is "wealth"? Do we see too much excess today? Are we always wanting more? Do we "want" too much? Is being content or fulfilled enough? When is enough, enough? Is your financial status a reflection of how successful you are? What is success to you? (Remember that I am asking questions to challenge your thinking, you write what you desire).

Happiness

Please respond to the following prompts: I expect you to to ask an open-ended critical level question at the end of your response that may prompt someone else. I also expect you to react to one other's comment within your own reflection. Make sure you are being thoughtful and discerning.

What constitutes "happiness" in life? What do you need to be happy? What should drive and push us regarding happiness? What might blind us from becoming happy?

Music Makes the People

In response to our HR music lesson I would like you to appeal to your emotional side for a bit.  Please answer the following questions and speak with feeling and passion ( and honesty).
When you are done answering the questions, I would like you to respond to at least two other people's responses.  Let's share together and interact a bit because we will be doing a lot of this the next couple of months.

1.  How does music (or art, film, or any other creative medium) inspire and shape you?  Show how.  How is it a "feeling" and "response"?  How does it reflect your spirit?  Is it something that frees you?  Brings catharsis?  Compassion?  Empathy?  Please reflect.

2.  Fill in the blank-(keep this toward the topic of music or art):
When I hear (see, sing...)____________, I know/I feel________________.
Please elaborate on your statement.

Example: When I hear Motown-from Otis Redding, Marvin Gay and Stevie Wonder to Aretha Franklin and  the Temptations, I am entranced.  It is a connection I feel.   I am listening to art passed down to me.  I am listening to something that speaks truth-something that was meant to transcend. I hear something that was played in the house on Saturday mornings, cleaning the furniture and singing and dancing with a mop.  In my car, on lazy Sunday's or when the doldrums of life seem too real, I put in my Motown and it shares its voice allowing for a more liberating experience.  It is an experience, a nostalgia, a memory of times that always pervade my soul with warmth.  It is a love of past experience and knowledge. A love of the shouts, and beats, rhythms, rhymes and that of LIFE!
"but the soft words they are spoke so gentle
yeah yeah yeah
and it makes it easier to bear
oh she wont regret it
no no
them young girls they dont forget it
love is their whole happiness
yeah yeha yeah
but its all so easy
all you got to do is try
try a little tenderness"-

Every time I listen to those lyrics, I smile.  Otis lives through me, letting me know the trials of love, of want, of a lesson learned.  I shout it from the pit of my stomach and blare it out.  Oh how I could go on...

3.  Pick one song that moves you and share your ideas.

4.  If you so desire; tell me your top music artists: 

For me: 

1. Led Zeppelin

2.  Tool 

3. Dave Matthews Band 

4.  Metallica

5.  Rodrigo y Gabriela...and the list goes on and on...

Race, Class and Gender

Please respond to the following questions from your reading of Race, Class and Gender.  I expect DEPTH in your response; try to use specifics in the text to support your claims and opinions.  

Did this reading give you any new  ideas or make you think differently?  Make sure to use specifics from the chapter, “Shifting the Center” to support your ideas.  How might you change your perceptions based on this reading?  This is a very open response, but it requires you understand its ideas and to discuss what they mean to you.

Also respond to how you view the power of words.  What do they do?  Why are they powerful?

Emerson and Self Reliance

Please respond, individually, to the following prompts. These are extra points so you must be reflective and thoughtful. I expect at least a solid papragraph. When you are finished, please ask a question(s). As you are writing, make sure to use specifics from the text to back up your responses and to keep questioning, challenging other people's thinking. I would like your relfection to talk not only about the text, but its application to contemporary society.

Please write your favorite quote (or aphorism) from the essay "Self Reliance" and analyze its significance. (What intrigues you about Emerson's perspective of living? How do you embrace or challenge this notion? ) You can write more than one if you wish.

Also, if you accept the challenge, I would like you to discuss what you agree with and resist when it comes to Daniel Suelo's way of living (see article-"Moab Man...")? How might his life teach us about how we live today and what we focus on and consume ourselves with?

A Virtuous Life

READ THIS FIRST:
For this blog response, I would like you to speak some truth! You MUST first answer my questions; be thorough, show depth and use Franklin's text to support your assertions. I would like you to write a critical question at the end of your response. I expect you to respond to at least one other person's post and question.
Do not give me just one sentence...write with some heart and conviction. Write what is real to you.

1. What virtue on Franklin's list do you think is most important? What virtue do you think people need to improve upon?
2. How do we learn what it means to live "right"?  
3. What virtues must you attain to live a "good" life? Do you practice these?
4. What drives you to improve (if you seek this idea)? Will we ever be satisfied?