Thursday, April 15, 2010

serenata huasteca

I decided to translate a song I grew up with called Serenata Huasteca

Canto al pie de tu ventana


pa'que sepas que te quiero

tu a mi no me quieres nada

pero yo por ti me muero



Dicen que ando muy errado

que despierte de mis sueños

pero se han equivocado

porque yo he de ser tu dueño



¿Que voy a hacer?

si deveras te quiero

ya te adoré

y olvidarte no puedo



dicen qu pa conseguirte

Necesito una fortuna

Que debo bajar del cielo

Las estrellas y la luna



Yo no bajare la luna, ni las estrellas tampoco

Aunque no tengo fortuna

Me querras poquito a poco



¿Que voy a hacer?

si deveras te quiero

ya te adoré

y olvidarte no puedo



Yo se que hay muchas mujeres

y que sobra quien me quiera

pero ninguna me importa

sOlo pienso en ti morena



Mi corazón te ha escogido

y llorar no quiero verlo

ya el pobre mucho ha sufrido

ahora tienes que quererlo



¿Que voy a hacer?

si deveras te quiero

ya te adoré

y olvidarte no puedo



¿Que voy a hacer?

si deveras te quiero

ya te adoré

y olvidarte no puedo

Translation:

I sing to the foot of your window

So that you will know that I love you

you dont love me at all

but I die for you


they say that im very mistaken

that I wake up from my dreams

but they have been mistaken

because I have to be your owner



what am I going to do?

If I really love you?

in time I will adore you

and I cannot forget you



they say to get to you

I need a fortune

That I must get from the sky

The stars and the moon



Im not getting the moon nor the stars

Even though I don’t have a fortune

You will love me little by little



what am I going to do?

If I really love you?

in time I will adore you

and I cannot forget you



I know that there are many women

And many might love me

But I don’t care about them

I only think of you, morena



My heart has chosen you

And I do not want to see it cry

This poor one has suffered much

Now you have to love it



what am I going to do?

If I really love you?

in time I will adore you

and I cannot forget you

Wednesday, March 31, 2010

exercise, exercise, exercise!!!

A simple thirty minutes a day of exercising could significantly increase our health and wellness. I myself exercise virtually every day of the week and I have notice that I have not been sick or fatigued for the past several years. Plus, I run whenever I can because it makes me feel good. When I feel good, I am a better person socially and academically. Exercise is a significant part of my life. I accept that exercising is a priority in my life because I have witnessed the effects it has on my own body.
However, those who deny exercising are the ones who make up the excuses while in the end they are only making excuses to their sick future selves.
Exercising has tremendous benefits on the human body. Without it our life spans might be significantly shorter and our obesity rates would be at a higher state than they already are. Those who exercise have tremendous advantage in longevity over those who do not.
Many will listen to this argument thinking “maybe I should exercise” but that will last for less than 10 minutes. If that’s the case, imagine that if you forget to exercise, it is like adding another pound of fat on your body and adding another spoonful of bad cholesterol close to your heart. those who do not exercise are only setting themselves up for disaster.

Thursday, March 11, 2010

Hooray for exercise!

Exercise, how it make us feel so alive. It is such a major factor of all our lives. It has inspired us to invent many forms of entertainment as well as understanding the joys of being in shape. Exercise augments our very well being. It makes us focus more and stimulates our bodies. It gives us a sense of euphoria (Like chocolate but without the calories!) when we figure out we ran a wile a minute faster than before. It builds our strength and prevents injuries so that we can stay in shape. Exercise is a wonderful action that we can take to look better and feel better.


Antithesis: “Yes,” she says, “but I do not have the time to exercise.”

This seems to be a problem with your schedule instead of the time it takes to exercise. There are over a thousand minutes in a day; only thirty of them have to be devoted to being active. Besides, exercise has many names: skiing, running, walking, running, playing football, Wii Fit, Dance Dance Revolution, etc. the list goes on. There are many ways to get exercise in, and it does not have to be done in one single action. Walking across a college campus is even exercise, but it is not done in a single time slot. If done sporadically during the day, the amount of time it takes is no longer an issue!

Antithesis “Yes,” he says, “but exercise is so hard.”

Nothing that is easy will yield the same results as when they are not. This is a matter of personal motivation. If you do not push yourself how will you be able to get far in anything? Everything in life takes work (albeit the instinctual things that all humans do, mind you). Homework, work, housecleaning, most of these have the word work in them, and if not, the connotation is there! Exercise is no different from other obligations in life. It is just a different manifestation of what we are used to in everyday life.

Antithesis: “exercise is too hard on the body” he says.

I think you have this backwards. Exercise is actually better for the body than lack thereof. Exercise gets the oxygen going and increases blood flow resulting in a better wellbeing. Many of the older generations exercised almost every day of the week. My grandfather worked on the farm everyday and had to run to school everyday. He is now going to be 72 and is still as active as ever. Now I know that exercise can cause chronic problems such as arthritis. However, having arthritis is a lot better than having heart disease. It is painful but not death. And even so, there are many ways of exercising that are little to no impact at all. Swimming, for instance, is great exercise that does not have any impact on the joints at all. It is the same thing with biking (if you don’t fall of course). Getting the body active has more health benefits than problems. It is indeed hard on the body, but no so much that it is not possible.

Exercise is a brilliant method for looking good, feeling good, and finding a new hobby perhaps. It is a great way to get healthier and does not have to take so much time. It might be hard but as many people say, “No pain, no gain!” By working out 30 min a day, one could become healthier and more energetic than one might think. “Exercising 30 min a day keeps the doctor away!”

Thursday, March 4, 2010

Ch 7: Choices to make

There are always the usual topics in which people take a stand on: homosexuality, stem cell research, evolution, terrorism, religion, and politics. All seem to jar people into emotional response those who are opposed to each of these will either be angry, hateful, and perhaps even fearful. The best way in a hostile environment, for instance, stem cell research, is to start with an enargeia. For instance,


Lying in her bed is your wife. She has a collapsing lung and will not last more than another day. She is in ICU with machines attached to every square inch of her torso. She pleaded that she wants to stay alive because she wants to grow old with you and have children. She wants to be able to watch them play there football games, or listen to their newly found piano composition, or see them become a state champion in track. Her doctor walks in and suggests that, with one embryo, he will be able to create a new lung for her. It is up to you to decide of you respect your wives wishes or decide to pull the plug on her.

The main factor that will probably make people feel the way about stem cell research is religion. God has a path for that embryo that is being used. It is a human being in the making. Or perhaps people will see it as unjust. To the issue at hand, stem cell research takes only one embryo. If for instance, someone that you love was on their death bed and you decided to not try for stem cell research based on the probability that the embryo that might be used will be a child. The one you loved the most perishes. There pejorative language might be useful. Talking about how single-minded (note, I probably would not use such a strong adjective as this one) it is to base a decision on someone’s life because of religious beliefs. I would talk about how sad it is to lose someone because of a single ideology. Then I would say it is unfortunate that people who deny saving a loved one can take such a large decision in their own hands without the consent of the one suffering.

Different yet so similar

Music its variety is so large, but there are so many things that are similar about it. By comparing the classical piano song “One Summer’s Day” by Joe Hisaishi and the alternative song “To Whom It May Concern,” these similarities are all very related.


“One Summer’s Day” is a softer type of piano song that starts almost suddenly and ends in such a memorable sort of way. It makes the listener both happy and sad at the same time (as most classical pieces should), and the change in style during the middle of the song is nice and edgy at the same time. The speed increases and the tone of the music takes an almost lighter, happier tone. It gives the song a dab of adventure during the second part of the song. At the end of the song, the last phrase (a term for similar measures in music) seems to end the song almost abruptly, like there should be something else afterwards. This is what makes this song great because it is pulling the listener in to the bitter end.

“To Whom It May Concern” uses a vocal medium to get its message across. The beginning of the song starts almost suddenly washing the listener in a minor tone. This beginning keeps adding onto itself increasing the melody tenfold. When the voice starts, it is nice complement to the rest of the music being played. The lyrics add a softer tone to the rest of the song making it almost sad but hopeful at the same time. Then, the singer changes style, and the song takes a harder tone to it. This change in style almost alerts the listener of the music. This part is a lot more edgy and increases the pace of the song. The guitar parts increase this edgy sound. At the end of the song, the edgy part dies away and gives way to the softer part to slowly fade away.

Both songs use the change in pace to grab the listener’s attention and keep it there. The softness of both songs makes the listener feel sad but happy at the same time. The second parts of both songs increase the listener’s awareness of the song and the parts seem to enhance each other in both songs. For “One Summer’s Day,” the bass and the melody parts seem to be complementing each other even though they are from different parts. The songs end in a decrescendo of complexity more than loudness.

Thursday, February 18, 2010

Invective on "True" Catholicism

If you are reading this and you are a religious person (mostly a catholic) it might make you a tad angry or shocked in what I am saying. I am not judging your personal religious values I am simply putting mine into context of what i have seen because I am a Cultural Catholic and I am happy to be one!

"True" Catholicism is nothing but an excuse to be able to say I live a catholic lifestyle. You don't. Either assimilate with us or go to Hell. That is a tad extreme, but to be honest it is very true.  I am a catholic and the sermon (where the priest expands the gospel reading into everyday life for those who did not know) in one of the masses talked about how we, as catholics are either cultural or true "Roman" Catholics.
      What is a true roman catholic you might add? Well, according to my priest, it is a catholic who follows ALL rules and blah blah blah. To sum things up, it is basically saying that you have to live a catholic LIFESTYLE. In other words, you obey the bible in everyway and live according to it in a Roman Catholic ideology. A cultural catholic, on the other hand, is someone who has religion for spiritual purposes instead of a lifestyle. They interpret the bible the way that they see it and they go to church for simple purpose of spiritual guidance. They do not always follow the bible and when they do, it is more of a tale of sorts. They look at the main idea and the moral instead of obeying it word by word.
   These catholics are the ones frowned upon. They are always gettting bashed because "real" Catholics should follow ALL the verses as they are written. This is where Catholicism pretty much falls apart when you break things down. For instance, this idea of Cultural Catholics and "True" Catholics is hypocritical. For one thing the priest talks about the gospel IN HIS INTERPRETATION. He also addresses the MAIN IDEA and the MORAL. Moreover,  he tells us that the bible is not subject for personal interpretation while he blabbers on about his view on it. Yes, we know the bible is the Holy word but God himself did not write it. PEOPLE wrote it which means those people interpreted their views of God differently. There are no Gospels of God. So we are telling Cultural Catholics to become "True" Catholics based off of personal interpretations found in the bible. However, isn't a true Catholic the ones who are like the followers of Jesus in the old times? The ones who interpreted God's and Jesus' word differently. If thats the case, aren't the Cultural Catholics the True Catholics anyway?
    It is unjust to judge how people are religious and how they should live accordingly. That was in the old days. This is the 21st century!! Catholicism needs to stop judging its own people's faith and instead, be glad that most people have faith in the first place. The Catholic community is not to blame here. Catholicism itself is. It needs to stop being hypocritical and move up to modern ways of life. Stop judging your own people and instead let them be spiritual in their own way.

Thursday, February 4, 2010

Good ol bumper stickers

The other day, I found a rather hilarious bumper sticker that may be a tad bit rude. But in the end its hilarity wins my heart over. It stated:

"I miss my Ex, but my aim is improving."

The ideology that I found behind this is that ex's are always disliked. Most of us have had a  past relationship that makes us think "OMG WHAT WAS I THINKING!?!?!?"  In a common topic standpoint this makes sense:
Do bad relationships exist in most of our pasts?
Is it possible that through human instinct and nature that having a bad relationship will happen quite a lot?
In what degree are Ex's valued?

In honor of my blog title, I will not answer these questions cause they are rhetorical. :)

Thursday, January 28, 2010

Confirm-efutation

Confirmation
Assertion to be confirmed: President Truman was right in using the atomic bomb to end the Second World War

Encomium: Truman is a patriotic man that was devoted to his country

Exposition of the situation: On August 6th and August 9th of 1945, two hydrogen bombs were dropped in Hiroshima and Nagasaki obliterating everything and killing tens of thousands of people. The decision came on August 3rd where Truman authorized the usage of the a-bombs because the Japanese rejected the Potsam Declaration.

Certainty: It was known that extreme measures had to be taken in order for Japan to force them to surrender fully. The idea of sending in an invasion force would have been suicide.

Credibility: President Truman was determining various ways to limit casualties in the Alliance forces. He wanted to save as many people as possible.

Possibility: It is possible that the Japanese people were in no way involved in the war. The government itself was held responsible.

Consistency: Truman’s decision was consistent with the pressure and extremity that all presidents have to endure while in war.

Propriety: The timing of Truman’s decision was convenient because it shortened the war and saved the lives of soldiers

Convenience: Truman’s decision was legitimate because it ended WWII, saved lives, and prevent battles that could have happened for many more years.

Refutation
False assertion to be refuted: President Truman was right in using the atomic bomb to end the Second World War

Exposition of the situation: On August 6th and August 9th of 1945, two hydrogen bombs were dropped in Hiroshima and Nagasaki obliterating everything and killing tens of thousands of people. The decision came on August 3rd where Truman authorized the usage of the a-bombs because the Japanese rejected the Potsam Declaration.

Uncertainty: It was not certain that dropping an atomic bomb was the most ideological and efficient solution.

Incredibility: It is hard to believe that over 100,000 lives had to be lost for the sake of showing who is boss

Impossibility: It is impossible that Truman’s decision had no underlying emotions like revenge and fury.

Lack of Consistency: The war efforts of Truman’s were iffy at best and lacked efficiency.
Impropriety: President Truman actions were inappropriate. Killing innocent civilians living in a totalitarianistic government is not the wisest solution.


Inconvenience: The dropping of nuclear weapons is an inconvenience because of the chaos it evokes and the destruction it causes. The spontaneity of it is unbearable .

Thursday, January 21, 2010

That clever ol' guy

"The root of education is bitter, but sweet are its fruits"-Isocrates



Ingeniousness is an art. Isocrates shows that this art is painted and written onto many different sayings. He, however, chose that that artwork of his is much more important than he was himself. His witty remark on education justifies this. Education itself is a very rough process; however, what is derived from that educations is what is beautiful. In old times, alchemists stated that in order to get something miraculous, something of equal value must be given. The same could be said in education. Ergo, education is not without its sacrifice. It is not a mere physical sacrifice, but it involves something more. One cannot be wise and innocent at the same time. The path to become educated is its sacrifice. It is a rough and dangerous road, but at the end, the reward is worth it. However, whenever there is a right way there is also an easy way. Through the easy way, the end of the path becomes closer. However, once the easy path is taken, one realizes that the easy way yields no rewards. Nothing is lost; therefore, nothing is given. This consideration helps understand that Isocrates was true to his word when saying "the root of education is bitter." Sports are parallel to this. Without the sacrifice given in practice, there is no outcome. Thus, Isocrates could be considered an alchemist of sorts. Without the sacrifice in the practice of learning, wisdom is not reached. Witty Isocrates talks about education in such a clear manner that his wisdom is marveled.

Wednesday, January 20, 2010

Not this again...

Technology is the future, but it is once again getting the short end of the stick. Supposedly, we students are spending more and more time texting, playing video games, going on the computer, and listening to music everyday. What we DON'T hear, however, is that students are using technology for school as well. In fact, some schools use technology for just about everything. Ironically, we are still blamed for "having our lives ruled by technology." This paradox is not addressed, and what I wonder is why technology is such a bad thing in the first place because news stations, ironically show this issue on TV all the time...

Tuesday, January 19, 2010

about me

Hello Everybody!
My name is Josh and I am a rhetorician. A few of the things I enjoy are running, lifting weights, and playing/listening to music. I am considering being either a physics or math major and I am planning to go into medicine. Over the course of the semester, I plan to become better at writing and arguing.

I admit that I am not a lover of English. In fact, if I did not like the professor of this course, I would not be taking it. :P
 
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