Adulthood can be put into play at different times of peoples lives, with some people having to grow up faster than others or even having to fend for themselves at a young age, but for this particular blog lets just all agree that adulthood is at age eighteen.  For me, adulthood has only been the past couple of years of my life considering I did not turn eighteen until about a year and a half ago, which even then I never considered myself an adult.  Anyways, the purpose of this blog is not to argue my opinions on the age of adulthood, but to explain an experience that I have had during my adulthood that has affected me.

Unfortunately, it is eleven o'clock at night and I am racing to finish this blog, knowing that I have class at eight in the morning.  The reason I am racing to write this blog is because college has introduced me to this really cruel concept called procrastinating, which brings me to my point of this blog.  College is the one thing that seemed to have affected me the most in the last year.

Because me being an adult has not been a very long period of my life, not much has dramatically affected me since turning eighteen.  Although this is not very specific and something most young adults are doing these days, college was the one thing that I could think of that has affected my life.  In my household, college is a must because both of my parents realize how important college is and have explained to me how important it was my whole childhood growing up.  My mother just recently finished her degree in the last ten or fifteen years, and my dad never finished college but had to work his way up at a chemical plant for many years to get where he is today.

The reason for college being the one thing that I know has affected me is because it has taught me so many things besides education, and I have just started my college experience.  The one major thing that college has taught me, and is still teaching me as I go is time management.  Having free time is one of the things that makes college so enjoyable and helps a person grow up, but it also comes with a lot of responsibility.  In high school there was always someone making sure all of the assignments were getting done, and making sure that no one got left behind.  In college every assignment that is due is strictly to do on your own time and is your responsibility to get done.

So far college has been a very enjoyable experience for me, and has also given me a greater understanding of the real world.  Considering that my first year of college is almost in the books, there are many things that I can improve on to become a better student/person.  Just from high school until now, I can see a change in my maturity for the better.  I am looking forward to my next few years of college, and cannot wait to see what the future holds.

My research paper is based on the mythology of the night sky as in how the constellations got their names, and it is also about the ancient meaning of the stars and how they were used in everyday life.  The purpose of this research project is to help the reader and myself better understand and appreciate the stars.  The reason for me writing this research paper is because it is a major part of my grade, and if I intend to pass the class I must write the paper.  Some specific points that I plan on writing about in the paper are how the Greek came up with the different names and shapes of constellations, and also explain how important the stars were to people who used them like a map.

Throughout my paper in also believe it will be sufficient to use rhetorical appeals such as logos, pathos, ethos and kairos.  For example, if I was to use pathos I would use great emotion to persuade the reader even if that may be persuading the reader to go out and look at the stars more often because they are taken for granted.  With the topic of my paper, it is not going to be very easy to use these appeals, but I will find a way after doing my research.

A small portion of my research will come from the documentary film "The City Dark" although there were not an abundant amount of information having to do with mythology or ancient meanings of the night sky.  Although, astronomer Jeff Kuhn says, "Astronomy is the oldest of the sciences.  We can trace the development of our inquiry into the universe to the ability to look up to the sky and see things that you don't understand, that you want to be able to touch and to understand.  Every civilization that we know about built a science around explaining the sky that was above them that they saw at night".  To me this in a great quote, explaining the importance and ancient history of the night sky.  Now days many people do not take the time to realize just how important the stars were in ancient time because now there is so much technology it is taking away from such things.

Most of the information for my paper will be coming from Internet sources and online articles and/or papers.  So far I have managed to find five different articles from the online library sources, but I plan on finding a couple more sources from Google scholar this week.  I do not plan on doing any personal interviews because there is not much that I can ask on this topic.  The research that I am working so diligently on is going to better help me understand, and elaborate on this paper to make it the best I can possibly make it.  In doing this research paper I will end up having a greater appreciation for the stars myself, and will also be able to understand the history behind the stars which I find very interesting.

Light pollution has become a major problem across the United States, and even the rest of the world today.  Most of the lights that are lighting up the big cities across the world are building and street lights and many other things.  But some of this lighting is coming from cities that have a high crime rate, or a lot of criminals.

In a lot of big cities when crime rate is up, the city is making parks that are very well lit so young children can play without having to worry about someone kidnapping them or robbing them.  The light provides a safe place and allows you to see all around you unlike dark allies and streets.

Ian Cheney, the director of the movie says, "there is controversy over whether more light leads to less crime, but there is agreement that light seems to make people feel safer, almost like its built in our genes to move closer to the campfire or to the brightest city."  In my opinion light does make people feel safer, which is why little kids want to sleep with the light on when they still believe in monsters under the bed.  The lack of light can also cause people to see things, because they are scared and paranoid.

In my opinion, more lights do lead to less crime with humans, but it is causing more harm to animals, which can be considered crime also.  More lights do lead to a lower crime rate because there is no where to hide when things are lit up. But the bright lights are causing animals to go off of a normall migration paths and die.  Lights are a vital source in the crime world, but i think they can innovate on the lights and make them more efficient to the world.

Light pollution is something that does not cross the mind of most Americans because not many people know what king of negative affects it is having on us as humans and most of all, animals and reptiles.  Light pollution is very quickly becoming out of control due to the rapid growth of the worlds population.  Out of all of the species in the world, there were two that were talked about being affected in The City Dark.  

The first species that was talked about was the sea turtles, and how they use the moonlight to find there was to the ocean after being born on the beach.  The filmaker of the movie had something to say about the sea turtles, "Every summer, tens of thousands of [Florida sea] turtles, already a threatened, are lost due to disorientation."  What his is saying is that each year thousands of sea turtles are hatched on the beach, and typically they use the reflection of moonlight off of the water to find there way to the ocean. What ends up happening is because there is so much city light that is around the are of the beach, the sea turtles basically get confused and may start going towards the city light instead of the ocean.  The problem with this is that the baby sea turtles will die of dehydration in a matter of minutes.  The most important problem with this is the fact that the sea turtles are already lacking in population, which is such a sad thing.

The second set of species that is talked about in the movie is the birds that are migrating threw Chicago, and in some cases some of the birds are just flying and not in route to warmer weather.  Chicago is not the only major city that is causing these migratory birds to collide with buildings, it is happening all over the United States.  Ornithologist, Susan Elbin from the Audubon Society says, "The estimate is that there are a billion birds killed across the United States every year by collisions into buildings."  This is terrible in many ways, on one note there are tons of birds crashing into windows and buildings in heavily populated areas, which can obviously be unsanitary.  Also, not that these migratory birds are under populated but there are being billions killed and not do to the cycle of life, but to overpopulating humans leaving lights on all night all over the world.

Besides the reptiles and animals being killed due to the pollution of light, some people also believe that is is ruining natural habitat too.  In The City Dark, Chad Moore, of the National Parks Service says, "When we add light to the environment that has the potential to disrupt habitat, just like running a bulldozer over the landscape..." Basically what he is saying, is the light pollution can cause what is normally a very dark and peaceful wooded area at night to become lit up and mess up the cycle for many species.  When is comes down to it, the amount of light pollution in the world today is growing night by night and something needs to be done about it because it is causing harm to many species around the world.

As a child, the night sky never really interested me when I was growing up, and my family never really said muh about it to me.  Although it seems that the older I get, the more fascinating the night sky ans stars are.  Living in Mont Belvieu, which is a somewhat rural town located a few miles east of Baytown, we have some pretty dark nights despite the many refineries that surround the gas rich town.  Here lately I have found myself cranking up the hot tub many nights, and just relaxing and staring up at the stars.  Now granite, there are a select number of stars that are visible to the human eye from my backyard, but they are clear enough to see some of the bigger constellations, and my favorite the satellites slowly making their way around the world.  Besides the occasional sitting in the hot tub, there is a memory of stars I have from this past deer season.  I can remember all of the stars like it was yesterday because of how bright they seemed compared to here at home.

After selling his ranch in Beeville Texas, my uncle got on a deer lease in Incinal Texas, which is just Northeast of Laredo on the border of Mexico.  Last deer season I had the privilege of going down there several times.  And it was not until my fifth and final time to go that my cousin an I looked up as we were sitting around the fire, only to notice thousands of bright shinning stars lighting up the night sky.  The amount of stars in the sky was just unreal compared to anywhere around home.  We became so interested that we downloaded an app that supposedly shows you what constellation is what when you point your phone at the sky.  Whether the app gave us an accurate reading or not, we don't know, but it still kept us in awe at the amount and brightness of stars.  Even knowing we had to get up at five the next morning to go hunting, we still stayed up until around eleven just looking at the stars and watching shooting stars.

The sad thing is that I have been to Canada and even some U.S. states that are very rural and not full of bright city lights, I just never paid attention to the stars.  Now that I realize how interesting the stars really are, I wish I could go back in time and take the time to look at the stars in those far away places.  Thanks to that one late Laredo night, I would love to go back to Canada to see the night sky, especially the northern lights which are another phenomenon itself.  We do have a farm in the small town of Raywood, which is only thirty minutes from my house, but it is away from all of the city lights.  I may have to make a trip up there this week just to admire the stars.

In choosing two poems to compare towards each other with the same author, I chose Carol Ann Duffy. I did not pick this author for any particular reason, I picked her because I procrastinated to write this blog and she was the first Author i found in the table of contents twice.  Although the poem "Mrs Darwin" is an extremely short poem consisting of only five lines, I believe it greatly compares to Duffy's other poem "Valentine".  They both compare someone of interest to something that some people would consider nasty or not highly thought of.

To start off, the poem "Mrs Darwin" is my new favorite poem because of the fact that it is very short and simple to read, but the poem does make sense and can be compared to "Valentine".  In the poem "Valentine" the narrator is clearly describing Valentines, not only because the title says, but in the first line it says "not a red rose or a satin heart"(Duffy 1), which are the most popular Valentine day gifts.  In this poem the narrator is explaining giving their Valentine an onion because it can help explain love better that anything else.  In my opinion I do not believe the narrator is literally giving their Valentine an onion, but explaining that if they gave them an onion it would show how the love they share goes.  On the other hand, in the poem "Mrs Darwin" not much can be talked about because it is such a short poem, but there is still a connection between the two.

Now although this poem is not talking about giving anyone a gift, and it does not happen on Valentines day, they can be looked at in the same way if you do not look at them in a literal way.  In "Mrs Darwin" it says, "I said to him / Something about that Chimpanzee over there / reminds me of you" (Duffy 3-5).  Now clearly the narrator in this poem is a female, and in the poem "Valentine" I also believe it is a female because of the way the onion is explained in great detail, and typically men do not think that way.  The comparison of the two poems is the way the narrator compares the onion to love in "Valentine" and the way the Chimpanzee is compared to a person in "Mrs Darwin".  The only reason that these two poems are not mirror images of each other is because "Mrs Darwin" is such a short poem, it does not go into great detail of how the Chimpanzee is being compared.  Therefor, it is up to the reader to put the pieces together and understand what the author is saying.  In my opinion she is comparing the Chimpanzee to the man in the way he acts, this could be in a bad way or in a good way. In respect to the author Carol Ann Duffy, these are both two well written poems and both keep your mind thinking because of the many meanings they can have.

The one poem that kept me confused even after reading it several times was "The Albatross".  The poem itself somewhat made since to me, but at the same time it left me with lots of confusion.  Starting from the very beginning of the poem I was confused.  "When I know you are coming home I put on this necklace." (Bass 1-2)  This line out of "The Albatross" starts the poem off with a since of curiosity.  "... glass beads on a silken thread, a blue that used to match my eyes."(3-4) These two lines just added on to the curiosity, the necklace sounds like a cheap home made necklace because it is made of glass beads and thread.  Besides the necklace, the description of her eyes had me very confused.  The only thing that I could think of is some people’s eyes change, depending on the mood they are in, meaning her mood changed knowing that he is coming home.  The next two lines of the poem thoroughly confused me even after reading over them several times.  "I like to think I am remembering you.  I like to think you don’t forget."(5-6)   Those two lines did not make any since to me and it annoyed me through the rest of the poem.  In these two lines I got the idea that the husband must have left her and the kid.  The reason I think this is because when she says “I like to think I am Remembering you”, it makes me think she used to put on the necklace when he was coming hone, but now since he is not there she still does this to reminisce on old times.  Then, in the last line she says “I like to think you don’t forget”, and I took that as her thinking he still thinks about coming home to see her in the necklace. 

The next stanza of the poem was much easier to understand, mostly because it was doing a lot of describing of the necklace.  She explains how the necklace lies heavy on her skin, and the way that is clatters when she reaches down to pick up her screaming child.  In a way, I believe the screaming child is in the poem to help understand how uneasy the whole situation is, not only just to the mother but the child as well.  “I swing her, roll her in my arms until she forgets.” (10) This line makes perfect since to me because I understand that the mother is trying to help the child forget about all of the pain and hard times they are going threw. 

As far as being confused, the last stanza of them poem was the most confusing to me.  In the last stanza, the man comes home and does not speak much, but when he does speak the woman says his voice sounds unfamiliar.  She explains that she is sitting in a pile of toys and unwashed clothes, so she obviously did not do any cleaning throughout the day.  When the man speaks, she explains that the child tugs on the necklace and the beads go all over the floor, like the sound of falling rain.  The only thing I can understand is that the beads falling create a since of purpose to explain that the family is falling apart.  Other than that, the poem just did not click to me, and the way it ended just leaves you hanging like…

After reading through all of the poems in the list we had to choose from, the two poems I chose were "Variation on the Word Sleep" and "A Monorhyme for the Shower".  Both of the poems are about a love life or someone wanting the love life they had, as were most of the poems.  The reason for me picking these two poems out of all the other ones is because they are both about people either talking about or watching their spouses or someone they want to be with.  Although, there are a few differences between the two poems they are both relatively about the same thing.

In "Variation on the Word Sleep" you get the since that the author is talking about wanting to be with someone, and wanting to be able to watch them sleep.  Which may sound strange, but it is like they are reminiscing on the first time they got to spend with this unknown person.  I'm assuming that the character is a female, just because of the fact that the author is a female, but it could be a male.  That is an unanswered question throughout the poem.  In this poem, there is a since that the character either used to sleep with this person, and they past away, or just knows who the person is and wants to have them in their life again like the time they are thinking back on.

In "A Monorhyme for the Shower", the narrator of the poem is obviously a male, but just like in "Variation of the Word Sleep" the narrator is this time instead of wanting to watch someone sleep, he is watching his wife shower.  In this poem, the narrator is just admiring the beauty of his wife, and reminiscing on his youth when he was scared to approach her and ask her out because of how beautiful she was.  He also talks about "the continuous life we share", which lets the reader know they are married.

Between the two poems, I connected the since of both narrators admiring a person they loved, or once loved.  The difference between the two is that in "Variation on the Word Sleep" the narrator is admiring someone he or she loves, but the person they are admiring is not there.  In "A Monorhyme for the Shower" the narrator is admiring someone they love that is still alive, or there physically with him.  He is also explaining that they are married and he still loves her like he did the day he first met her, unlike in "Variation of the Word Sleep" where the narrator wants to go back and be with this person like it was the first day.  In the end, they are both reminiscing on the love they share or shared with one person.  The only major difference is that in the first poem, the narrator is not physically with the person they're thinking about, and in the second poem the narrator is with the person he is talking about.

The poem that I choose to read was "Discretion".  The beginning of them poem made since to me because it was clear what the writer was talking about, but towards the end of the poem I had some questions about parts of the poem that just did not make since to me.  The writer, which is in the point of view of the male during the poem, describes watching the woman he was camping with as she went to use the restroom.  Which I found very strange, not that he watched her to make sure she was safe, but the fact that he described what he saw.  He describes being able to lightly see everything because of the heavenly light.  And the narrator also describes the motionless leaves of aspen "licking her back".  Which explains that she went in the bushes or was obviously very close to some bushes and/or a tree.  From the beginning of the poem, all the way up to this point, it made since to me and I understood.  The next line in the poem is where I became confused, even after reading it several times.

"Illuminating even the deep green eyes of whatever animal it was that watched her from the forest--- a deer, I believed, and still believe". Thinking about this line from a literal point of view, it is not that hard to understand.  But in the next line he says, "though I confess I did not rise that night to make sure, did not shine my light or murmur, but waited...".  Part of me wants to believe that it really was a deer he saw, but at the same time I believe that what he saw that night was not a deer and it scared him so much that he did not want to mention it.  Another way to look at his reasoning for not saying anything to the girl using the bathroom lies in the name of the title, "Discretion", which means speaking in such a way as to avoid causing offense, or revealing private information.

When she makes her way back into the tent, he just laid his head back down, as if he did not watch her go.  When she went out of the tent, apparently he told her he would not look because at the end of the poem he says, "as she returned settle slowly back down to the pillow made of my clothes and welcomed her shivering back into the tent, from which I had sworn I would not look".  This all made since to me up to a certain point but I still have many questions about this poem.  One thing I am not sure of is why they are in the woods in a tent, and why they have no clothes on.  Also it would be helpful to know their relationship, and lastly I wanted to know if the narrator really did see a deer or was it something else.  Overall, the poem did make since and it was very interesting throughout the whole thing.

The details are very faint, but I can remember just enough to make a story out of it.  I was around the age of six and was never a big fan of swimming pools nor mud.  Of course my family thoroughly enjoyed mudding and swimming in the time they had off, so I remember spending lots of time in the house or playing with the dog in the yard.  The very few time I did get into the pool, I was sure to have the floats on both arms, and without a doubt someone holding me.  One day, having the family that I have, my grandpa thought it would be funny to "see if I could swim".  It was a hot summer day, I remember this because my dad and grandpa were both wearing bathing suits, and had been working in the yard all day.  Once they finished they decided to take a dip in the pool, and it was pretty apparent that my grandpa thought it was time I went swimming too, but on my own.  I can remember my grandpa picking me up and gently throwing me in the pool.  At the time I was probably the most upset six year old in the world, and balled my eyes out.  After that horrible experience in the pool, which by the way taught me how to swim, I have loved the water since then all because my grandpa thought it would be funny to throw me in the pool.