reflective

Reflective Rough Draft

When writing a paper, I always try to make the subject relate to something that I am interested or passionate about. When my teacher announced to the class that we would be talking about Technology this semester in English 102, I really didn’t know what to expect. I just recently graduated early from high school in January, and I quickly realized that I would have a lot of freedoms in this English class. It definitely was not what I was use to. I was nervous about English because I had always had a hard problem relating to my topics in high school. In high school, if I was told to write about Romeo and Juliet, I would simply talk about the book and never really engage the text like English 102 has taught me. I quickly discovered that engaging the text and analyzing the authors opinions with those of other authors, I was easily interested and happy to be writing my paper. I was also really excited when I found out that my teacher WANTED me to use words like I and they. In my previous classes teachers had always said that in a research paper, personal opinions should not be included. I really suffered with this concept because to me, the personal opinion of an author is what attracts me into reading any paper.
So, there I was in English 102 completely flabbergasted by this new idea of writing. I finally had an English teacher that wanted to hear what I had to say about a topic. The topic which we spent our time discussing was Technology. I found myself really becoming entranced with all these different questions which Nye, Vonnegut, and Vincente were asking their readers to think about. The authors never gave answers to these questions, which allowed my mind to continuously analyze their ideas over and over. I found myself becoming very passionate about the conclusions and beliefs I would come to about technology and its pros and cons. I actually became so passionate about it, that I often found myself leaving class upset over some remarks and views of a former classmate who definitely had a more arrogant outlook on things. Luckily for me, that student only came to class for two weeks before dropping out.
When we first began exploring the texts and writing papers about them, the piece of writing that stood out to me the most was the “Human Factor”. It really amazed me to see how many of mans everyday disasters were caused by technology being placed in the hands of people who were not educated well enough to use it. When we began reading Cats Cradle I began thinking about how technology sort of allows us to play God and alter with the natural way which nature works. And then there was Nye, who just absolutely sent my mind in all directions with his questions like whether technology shapes us or we it, is it creating social uniformity or diversity, destroying jobs or creating jobs, making us more secure or insecure, expanding our minds or making us too dependant on machines, improving our lives or limiting our very existence?
I found the topic of my final research paper when I was asked to write a paper analyzing Nye and two other resources which he used in his book. I became very interested in a “technique” which Ellul talked about in her book. To me, “technique” refers to the way which we go about our daily tasks. Growing up I was always really fascinated when I would go to the museum or watch old TV shows and see the way which our ancestors survived. I found their way of life so much more interesting and rewarding. As a child I would always imagine myself living like the kids on Little House on the Prairie, or back in the Gilded Age. I have always been into art, and I just found the “technique” which we once produced goods to be so much more unique. I have always felt that technology is taking away from these arts, and taking the beauty out of many things. I don’t understand why we feel the need to change these past times. I often find myself wondering what it would be like if we just stopped everything and went back to these modern ways.
When I started thinking about our constant need to evolve, I began trying to search for examples of technologies we have created to help, which ended up causing more problems. After sitting on my couch for about 5 minutes pondering, pesticides finally jumped into my brain. To me, pesticides was the perfect topic for me to talk about. I knew that I needed a topic which I was interested in, and also a topic which let me explore all my previous ideas. Pesticides allowed me to think about the modern ways which we use to farm and irrigate our land, while also focusing in the human factor which technology has.
My biggest problem I encountered in this paper was keeping the discussion of pesticides in terms which I could understand. I began researching pesticides thinking “okay I have narrowed down my topic pretty well, there cant be that much information for me to cover.” I was really wrong. I began getting caught up in the history of pesticides, different agricultural techniques, the different types of land, etc. I was not an expert in farming or pesticides, and I would often sit there re reading passages trying to understand what the author was trying to say. I began writing a paper with little passion, and just plain old facts. Luckily, it didn’t take long for me to throw out that paper and realize that I didn’t need to talk about the history and different terms used in describing agriculture. I began focusing on the impacts it has had on animals and humans. For me, the idea that we willingly put these harmful chemicals into our food is just absurd. There is no excuse or logical reason behind it. In my eyes, the only stake holders here are us humans and our health, animals, and our land. There is no pros and cons pesticides as far as I am concerned. I was going to focus on businesses and large companies that benefit from this new way of farming or taking care of weeds, but at the end of the day these people are humans and are affected by their actions just like everyone else. Throughout my time researching I did not find one good pro to using these pesticides besides greed and money. Money is never more important than our health and existence on this world. If it seems like my paper is a little one sided, its because that’s how pesticides are, they are one sided. There is no good or bad to them as farm as I am concerned. I often felt like the people who were for the use of pesticides were like those cigarette executives they poke fun at in all those commercials against smoking. Their reasoning was just a joke, no good was coming from the use of pesticides. What good is it to have millions of dollars, but your dying from a cancer or disease that cannot be cured?
When writing my paper I chose passages which to me were just appalling. I wanted to grab the readers attention. I also chose to add some information that helped explain why pesticides were ever used and why it took so long for people to begin speaking against it. It was hard for people to say, “hey should we really be putting chemicals into the earth?” when it was currently saving soldiers in the war. I really wanted to get the point across that our actions are having a huge affect on the world, and that we are killing ourselves. I chose to use a quote from Albert Schweitzer because he sums up my whole paper and way which I view technology in one single sentence. I don’t think that technology is bad. I think that the way which we use technology is bad though. We are the only species that feels the need to constantly change and evolve through the use of technology. I see this as a major down fall. I am a firm believer in the saying “if it’s not broke, don’t fix it.” Our need to constantly fix the unbroken has caused us to harm ourselves and take high risks. We don’t look to the future at the impacts which pesticides are going to have on us in 100 years if we don’t stop now, we don’t worry about he animals which will no longer be in existence if we continue to use pesticides, and we don’t seem very concerned about the polluted water supply which we will be encountering. We take good food, and water for granted. It amazes me that we can so carelessly pollute the two things which we cannot survive without.
Okay, I am done ranting and raving now. Every time I begin talking about pesticides and the way which we are destroying the earth, I go into a mad rant. I guess that’s a good thing though, because I accomplished my mission of writing something that I am passionate about instead of just the old boring research papers which I was encountered in high school. I wish I had known back then how to relate my topics to issues which concerned me. I would really like to have discovered where my mind would of taken me in some of my previous discussions and learn more about my view points of topics which I fail to analyze on a daily basis. I guess I am only human, and fail to look to my future and take a closer look at things. After writing this paper, I have become so much more aware of the harmful chemicals I am putting into my body. I wonder what other aspects of my life I have been over looking and blinded to. Like most humans I don’t easily see the impact of technology on my life for better or worse. I hope that this paper helps people become more concerned about what they are feeding their kids, and themselves. We just seem to assume that everything we buy from the store is going to be healthy. We need to be aware of how we are handling our food supplies and how we are using technology to change the natural cycles of nature.