I had an interesting experience tonight. I can now relate better to my therapist. I had a grand mal seizure tonight.

Today, I began reading Yeager by Chuck Yeager. This is his autobiography. Apparently the book was penned by Leo Janos. It appears that Janos wrote down, almost verbatim, what Yeager said. The book has a very flowing and easy conversational tone to it. Yeager uses common everyday language that is dotted by colloquialisms and aviation terms. These are just enough to show his background, develop his character, and show that he knows what it is talking about when it comes to aviation. His words are straightforward for the most part, except when he uses connotative phrases that are common to the aviation world, such as “he augured in” or “he bought the farm.” All this fits together to convey a story as told by a one of a kind, common aviator.

            Chuck Yeager begins Yeager by describing his humble beginnings. His family was fairly poor and worked for what they did have. Chuck’s father was skilled with machinery and passed that down to Chuck. Chuck and his brother, Roy, frequently went hunting before school. They never shot what they would not eat. One day, however when Chuck was four, Roy was six and his younger sister, Doris Ann, was two and a half, Roy and Chuck were playing with a 12-gauge shot gun and Roy accidentally shot and killed Doris Ann. The family was devastated, but Chuck’s father used that time to teach his boys how to properly handle a gun. The Yeager family would later be blessed with Pansy Lee and Hal Jr.

            Growing up, Chuck was one of the best marksmen in Hamlin, West Virginia. He had 20/10 vision and steady hands that made his aim precise. These skills would later prepare him for being a fighter pilot even though, during his childhood, he did not dream of being a pilot.

            It is clear to me that Chuck was well disciplined by his father and learned how to respect people: he “got [his] first licking for calling a neighbor ‘McCoglin,’ instead of ‘Mister McCoglin.’” Still, he had a West Virginia accent: he “discovered fast that not everyone said ‘bidy’ when they meant ‘body,’ ‘paper poke’ instead of ‘sack,’ ‘simon’ for ‘salmon,’ ‘hit’ for ‘it,’ and so on.” How deep his accent was would become very obvious when he met Glennis. Glennis only understood about every third word that he said. Still she was attracted to him, and that was an attraction that would last through World War II and even him being missing in action.

            During World War II, Chuck Yeager was shot down by the Germans over France and declared missing in action. He worked hard to stay hidden from the Germans and to find the French underground. He was injured by shrapnel on his hands, feet, and head. On a point to which I can relate, he used sulfa; I am allergic to sulfa. Yeager worked with the Maquis to get over the Pyrenees to Spain. I have yet to find out what happens next.

Tonight, I just won a free trip to Headrush. Headrush is my youth group fall retreat. I thank God. How I won the trip was through a costume contest. I dressed up like an Ares I rocket. That is the newest in manned spaceflight technology. I even had a crawler transporter. The Constellation program that included the Ares I rocket was cancelled by Congress. Petition your congressmen to restart Constellation. Below is a computerized drawing of the Ares I rocket from NASA.

Harold and Maude

Last night, I watched the movie, Harold and Maude. The story begins with Harold, a twenty year old boy, pretending to hang himself. As the plot continues, Harold proceeds to pretend to slit his throat and pretends to drown. It is clear that Harold has a preoccupation with death and he later admits to a psychiatrist that he enjoys going to funerals. At one such funeral, Harold meets a 79 year old lady named Maude. She concludes that 80 is a good age to die at. Harold is attracted to Maude's vibrance and unique behavior. All with good intentions, she is a crazy driver and continually breaks rules and laws. Harold's mother trys to hook him up with a girl and takes away the hearse that he drive. Meanwhile, Harold is spending more and more time with Maude. Maude has been in a concentration camp in the Holocaust, and she teaches Harold how to live. Harold tells Maude about a time when he was in his boarding school chemistry room, mixed chemicals, and caused an explosion. He went home, but police came to his door and told his mother he was dead; she fainted. That's when Harold decided he liked being dead. All this while, Harold falls in love with Maude and becomes engaged to her; his mother and psychiatrist think he has something wrong with his brain. On Maude's 80th birthday, they get married. That's when Maude tells Harold that she's taken the tablets and she'll be gone by midnight. Harold is heartbroken. He rushes Maude to the hospital, but it is too late to save her. Afterwards, Harold crys, drives his hearse off a cliff, and goes away playing his banjo, dancing, and living. Maude finally taught Harold how to live instead of die.

There are a couple parts of the movie that I disagree with. Harold and Maude smoke opium; that is wrong. Harold and Maude sleep together before they are married. That is immoral. Lastly, Maude takes her own life. God never meant for man to take his own life. God has better plans for us. Besides, these beefs, I enjoyed Harold and Maude.

What I found interesting about Harold and Maude is the twisted sense of humor. Maude is always up to something. She is breaking the rules and getting away with hassleing the police. Harold is always trying to fake his own death, and his mother doesn't ever take him seriously. Also, there was one scene where Harold is introduced to a girl. He proceeds to show her how to use a harry carry knife. She sees that he is acting and then also proceeds to pretend to kill herself. Harold's mother walk in and says, "Harold, that was your third date!" It was also his last. He knew how to fake his death and ruin every date. However the third date seemed rather up his alley. I enjoyed the humor of the movie.

Close-reading Bingo

Common Weakness #7: "However, they are expressed without ehusiasm."
http://morgan-happygolucky.blogspot.com/
Common Weakness #3: "Kidd’s diction expresses the emotion that swelling within Lily."
http://bookworm-days.blogspot.com/
Common Weakness #8: "He excessively uses expletives and demonstrates the only implication of a simile is when something is compared to "as hell"."
http://mallorymills94.blogspot.com/
Common weakness #4: "Throughout this except, the vocabualary is easy to read, allowing the common people to read the book, without having a lot of education."
http://barrellxc2012.blogspot.com/

The best quote that I found was: "

J.D. Salinger’s vulgar, slang-riddled diction in Catcher in the Rye conveys Holden’s scrambled and, frankly, immature mindset and ironically implies that he is not the brightest of minds. A pessimist to boot, Holden begins his life-story by describing his childhood as “lousy” and his parents as “nice and all…but touchy as hell.” He favors phrases such as, “kind of crap,” “goddam,” and an occasional “as hell” at the end of a particularly vehement statement. At this point in Catcher in the Rye, the denotative word choice serves to conjure disregard for Holden’s mental capacity. However, this later becomes ironic in that Holden actually has a good head on his shoulders; he’s just had some trouble staying on track in life. "

http://catchingthenight.blogspot.com/

The End of Up Your Score: the Underground Guide to the SAT

Up Your Score’s guide to writing essays was very informative and was the same as students are taught in high school. It is the basic five-paragraph essay style. That means an introduction, three body paragraphs, and a conclusion. It should be drilled into everyone’s head by senior year.

Finally, the book finishes up with a section on how to concentrate and other insider tips for the SAT. Oddly enough, they suggest drinking games without the drinking to improve concentration. They also list your rights as an SAT taker. The most striking right I hear was the right to 30 minutes of uninterrupted silence, even from instruction time. Funniest were the sections on how to bubble in the circles so as to spend less time and how to sneak food into the testing center. The section on food even included a recipe for Sweet and Tasty 800 bars. The last two emphases were about the SAT providing you scholarship opportunities and how to dress for success on SAT day. I found this book thoroughly informative, will use this information, and plan to practice more for the SAT. After all, they said that there is no match for doing practice tests to prepare for the SAT; it will boost your concentration.

Another subject that I am surprised has to be explained so much is coordinate geometry. I thought that it was a very easy, concrete concept to grasp, but apparently some people are better at putting it into practice than using the concepts on a math exam. I was also astonished that some people do not understand the made up symbol problems. It is simply following the example set before you.

Just a note: On the “grid-in problems,” the “ETS screwed up!” They made grid a verb when the only definition for the word “grid” is a noun.

I was also surprised when this book suggested guessing. They actually recommend it. This is because your chances of getting the problem right cancel out the points that are taken off if you get it wrong. They take off a quarter point for wrong answers. If you have a one in five chance of getting the question right, you would get twenty out of one hundred questions right. For the other eighty, they would only take off twenty points. Do the math; you come out even. If you give an educated guess, you may beat the odds and score some extra points.

After the section about guessing and other rules in the book comes the section about the SAT II. This seems to be about editing for correctness and showing that you know how to use grammar and write a descent essay. All of the grammar rules that were listed in the book were ones that we had gone over in etymology class. They included: subject-verb agreement, noun-pronoun agreement, pronoun subjects and objects, pronoun consistency, verb tense agreement, adjective and adverb usage, parallel construction, run-on sentences and sentence fragments, observation issues, dangling modifiers, sentence logic, common expressions, and logical comparisons. Much of these mistakes can be heard when reading the sentence and are common sense.

Practice Diction Analysis

                In The Mezzanine, Nicholson Baker has the speaker describe his  office place and the sunlight flowing into it in a detailed, lyrical, an mellifluous manner. He uses figurative language to describe a “steeper escalator of daylight, formed by the intersections of the lobby’s towering volumes of marble and glass, met by the real escalators just above the middle point.” This vivid word picture describes a peaceful, placid office building that is one that a visitor would feel welcomed to. The towering volumes of “marble and glass” and brushed “brushed steel side-panels” of the escalator create an elegant and ornate atmosphere. The speaker’s careful, precise, and harmonious description of his office building followed by him “voluntarily [transferring his] paperback and CVS bag to [his] left hand” create a mood of easiness and relaxed movement to the passage from The Mezzanine.

The section of Up Your Score: The Underground Guide to the SAT about the verbal section of the SAT finished up with a list of words that are synonyms. Next comes the section about the math section of the SAT which begins as so:

“As most people know, the most appropriate place for doing math is in the bathroom. First of all, there are many geometric shapes in the bathroom. Second, there is generally ample time for even the most freakish discoveries – an ancient Greek calculated π to 70 digits while relaxing on a pay toilet in fourth-century Ithaca. Einstein himself concluded that space is bent while trying to catch a slippery bar of soap during an excursion in the tub. And everyone knows that Doc Brown for Back to the Future came up with the flux capacitor when he fell off the can.”

Clearly, this section is going to be dotted by humor.

This section is also quite useful. Included is a list of rules to help you remember how to know if a number is divisible by another number. There is also a long section about fractions. The most important part of the section about fractions is the fact that fractions are really division problems and can be manipulated as such. With how much they talk about fractions, it makes me realize that a lot of students have trouble with fractions. This reminds me of fifth grade when we were reprimanded for our bad scores on the fraction part of math tests. My teacher’s, Mrs. Reader’s, point was that by fifth grade we should have a handle on fractions. This was a very important skill to have mastered as she proceeded to teach us algebra.

Next the book goes through ratios. They say that “a ratio is a comparison (yep – just like the analogy questions). Not to seem repetitive, but they do make a good comparison. As they continue with the tips for the SAT, they note that “the SAT isn’t creative enough to have outlandish answers,” so this helps to eliminate answers such as “the bicyclist was going two hundred miles per hour.” Also, by using humor, they make the point that there are situations in which not enough information will be given to determine an answer.

One point that they then went on to make about being prepared for the test was included in the story below:

                        “And now we break for a commercial…

            Don’t you hate it when rabid elephants attack you and steal your pencils? I do. On the crucial day of my test, I was carrying no fewer than eight number two pencils, and this tremendous elephant, foaming at the mouth, lunged out of the test center and grabbed my writing implements. I was ticked off.

            But then I decided to try new improved Oxford Anti-Elephant soap. It not only cleans and softens my skin but also keeps those pesky pachyderms away. Now I can carry as many pencils as I like, and it’s improved my whole life.

            Well, some of my life. Actually the point of this message is to remind you to have enough number two pencils around when you take your test. Also, we wanted to give you a break from reading about math – after all, math is not the most exciting material available for perusal.

            Now, get back to work!”

Apollo 18

Last night, I went to see Discover the Truth: Apollo 18. There were many things wrong with the movie that made it terribly funny. First of all, there was a docking hatch on the LK when there shouldn’t have been. Secondly, the space suits buttoned up the front when they shouldn’t have. Third, they called the command module an orbiter; the only ship to be called an orbiter is what most people consider the Space Shuttle. Fourth, they put an all rookie crew on board; NASA never sent an all rookie crew to the moon. Lastly, there was flawed logic on the part of the astronauts. There are many more mistakes in the movie, but these mistakes made it a comedy of errors. My dad was also quick to point out that the rocks moved and screamed; I guess they went off the Bible that even the rocks cry out.

Currently

I read 158 pages in Up Your Score: The Underground Guide to the SAT.

Favorite Quotes from Style Mapping:

1. Stardust has a harsh tone to it because of the dull and clattering effects to the whole novel.

-From: http://edison-eddie.blogspot.com/

2. Different from the others, Eugenides conducts a style that is scholarly yet gloomy while the reader stumbles on the cacophonous language.

-From: http://kimberlyelephant.blogspot.com/

3. It is written like an infuriated tirade, with no hint of class.

-From: http://ascrapofparchment.blogspot.com/

4. The expressive adjectives such as "endless," "gnashing," "bitter," "hobbled," "pinewood,"  "oblique" portrays a lustrous description and creates an experience of the dark mood of the passage.

-From: http://mywebpaige.blogspot.com/

5. The language is rough and coarse in order to portray the common colloquialisms of southern Texas.

-From: http://rivers-thenewzealander.blogspot.com/

Responses to Quotes:

1. I picked this one because of the use of the word, “clattering”. That creates a vivid mental sound effect of the writing.
2. Once again, I picked this one for the vivid mental sound effect that “cacophonous” creates.
3. I can just imagine the author in this case going into a rant as he writes the selection.
4. I like the examples of the sorts of adjectives that are used to describe things in the selection.
5. The use of common colloquialisms of southern Texas creates a vivid mental sound effect of how the speaker is speaking in the selection.

Long Poem:

“Chernobyl”
by: Eugene, Oregon, 1986

They said it couldn’t happen, but it did:

A nuclear reactor blew its lid.

Though the cause is still a mystery,

The Ukraine may be history,

With a burning, melting core,

Twelve miles from a reservoir

In the very greatest wetland

In all Europe, south of Finland.

Water is contaminated,

Farmland is irradiated.

People surely suffer,

Yet parade just as before,

But life and death are not the same any more.

Shall we stake our lives on fickle winds and weather?

Or shall we see that we are all in this together?

It was thirty-six hours after the explosion

Before the Russians set their wheels in motion.

Evacuation came too late

And passing time had sealed the fate

Of the nearby town of Pripyat,

Where twenty-five thousand people caught

In a radioactive cloud

Of which no knowledge was allowed

All had their blood cells altered

While the Russian leaders faltered.

The radioactivity

Had blown across the Baltic Sea

Before Ukrainians ever had a notion.

Shall we stake our lives on fickle winds and weather?

Or shall we see that we are all in this together?

Do you think our power structure’s much the better?

Do you think that they reveal the truth unfettered?

The official line they gave ya

Was that over Scandinavia

Radiation’s barely heightened,

You’re unnecessarily frightened,

There’s no cesium, no iodine,

No danger, you’ll be fine,

The cloud is dissipating,

Radiation is decaying,

By the time it reaches here

There’ll be nothing left to fear,

It’s bound to be about too low to measure.

Shall we stake our lives on fickle winds and weather?

Or shall we see that we are all in this together?

Did you hear that our reactors are much safer?

Did you know that it’s your life you’re asked to wager?

Chernobyl had safety systems

Far too numerous to list ‘em:

If they shut it down to fuel it,

They had water for to cool it;

They had insulated wires

Not expected to catch fire;

And they had containment structures

Which were not supposed to rupture;

And yet the roof was blown,

As photographs have shown.

But it cannot happen here, you’re in no danger.

Shall we stake our lives on fickle winds and weather?

Or shall we see that we are all in this together?

I finally got to the end of the definitions of words that may be on the SAT. Many of them I had already learned in etymology class. That was over six hundred words. Wow! I do find that I actually use quite a few of those words in my daily routine. I never knew that there were so many complicated words.

The writers of Up Your Score: The Underground Guide to the SAT sure know how to make the vocabulary words applicable. They use many pop-culture references, a plethora of puns, and catchy sentences to grab the reader’s attention. The writing style is a unique mix of high class words and everyday slang. I am surprised that I find a book about the SAT so interesting, but it grabs my attention.

This book includes interesting sections such as how to sneak food into the SAT and how to fill in the fill-in-the-blank bubbles faster. With the impending SAT, I am eager for every opportunity to make my test taking skills more streamlined. I had never heard of a book called Ten Real SATs until I began reading this book. I think that I will go to student services at my school and look up these practice tests.

Style Mapping

Various authors use high or low, musical or harsh, and denotative or connotative language to paint a range of scenes and situations. In Stardust, Neil Gaiman articulates his description of Wall, the people and the area formal, harmonious, flowing, descriptive language where words can be taken for their face value meaning. Annie Provlx in “The Mud Below” instead verbalizes her description of the cowboy on the bull with a precise, detailed, educated, metrical wording. Up Your Score on the other hand, speaks with a mixture of intricate words and slang pop-culture references that are very punctuated, straightforward at times, but somewhat suggestive, and often light. All three of these examples have their own unique way of using a variety of dictions and combinations thereof to describe scenes and situations.

As I continue to read, I am finding that Up Your Score: The Underground Guide to the SAT is an ever more useful book. I am working through the part on the verbal section of the SAT. The book begins with a section about fill in the blank problems. These problems are to test your vocabulary. I find it very useful that they tell you what key words to look for and what they mean in the question. They break it up into looking for positive words and negative words, whether words agree or conflict, and seeing relationships between words in the fill in the blank section.

The next section that is discussed is the analogy section. This book breaks up analogies into eleven categories: synonyms, antonyms, a thing and what it’s used for, cause and effect, things that go together, type of person and something that person would use, type of person and something that person would do, relative size, relative degrees of the same thing, description, and part and whole. They also use the practical saying of “blank is to blank as blank is to blank.”

Next comes the critical reading passage. They do not suggest skimming as you miss details, yet they emphasize annotating. Still, their suggestions are dotted by humor. One strategy they give for helping you get through the critical reading passage is to “read the passage, then translate the whole thing into Swedish. (This will help only if you are Swedish.)” Clearly, they are all about making the reader comfortable with the subject matter yet keeping the mood light so as to keep the reader interested. As they go through strategies on what the questions are about, in the section on author’s logic, they suggest you “pretend you’re the author (but don’t spend the time the real author ought to spend regretting ever having written such a boring, useless passave).”

As they begin to talk about SAT words, they give a list of stems to look for. This is very helpful and reminds me of how I learned Greek and Latin stems in fourth and fifth grade. These stems have been very useful in helping me to learn vocabulary. I didn’t learn them at the time, but I remember them now. Thus they have come in handy. This is how I deal with the vocabulary tests in etymology class. This is also how I break down words in my everyday reading.

I began reading Up Your Score: The Underground Guide to the SAT. To quote the writers, they pulled this book off with real panache. This is definitely a place where I can find the vocabulary that I learn in etymology class used in a sentence. They use it correctly and make it sound like it’s just part of how they speak, not a deliberate use of vocabulary. The writers write in such a way as to appeal to a teenage reader. They acknowledge that the reader has a life and would much rather do something else than study about or take the SAT. They also use frequent joking to lighten the mood. The SAT is referred to as the Slimy Atrocious Torture, and the ETS is referred to as the Evil Testing Serpent.

I can already tell that this book is going to tell me how to outsmart the SAT, not just ways to ace it. It will include tips on what the methods are of the SAT and how to look for them. It will also include information of how to streamline one’s test taking skills in order to work faster and more efficiently. This book is definitely going to be a help for the test.

I have read 202 pages in The Magician’s Nephew by C. S. Lewis.

Quarterly

In my reading this year, I have found myself reading during the work day and early in the week. I have quite enjoyed my reading. I have found myself able to finish books that I set out to finish and able to evaluate other books as to whether they are worth reading. I have learned many life skills from some of the self help books that I have read. I have learned much from my nonfiction reading on the space race. My eyes have been opened to new ways of evaluating and connecting with my reading through my blogging. My nonfiction reading has challenged me to keep pace since I am a slow reader. I have learned more about different styles of writing through my reading. My reading this quarter has been quite educational.

I was very surprised by the horse, Strawberry’s, transformation by Aslan into a winged horse named Fledge. Fledge became very important when it was time for Digory to get the special Apple to help heal Narnia. Without him, Digory and Polly could not have made the journey. Digory was tempted to eat the Apple by the witch and himself. That is similar to when Satan tempts humans. It is good that Digory did not fall for the temptation and was able to heal his mom with an Apple grown from the tree which grew from the Apple that Digory brought back.

C. S. Lewis does a very good job foreshadowing the next book. He mentions the lamppost that grew and comings and goings to Narnia through a certain wardrobe which Digory made from wood from an Apple tree. The foreshadowing in this book is probably so obvious because the second book in the Chronicles of Narnia series was written before the first.

Uncle Andrew was just as enthralled with the witch, Jadis, from Charn. He did anything she wanted, but still he was only a pawn in her game. She certainly took advantage of him. I can't imagine what she did while they were out around town. It is clear why Aunt Letty did not approve of her. It is interesting to think that her clothes did not match those in England at the time. It is a shame that Digory released Jadis into Narnia and thus spoiled the land.

What I was struck by as Jadis, Andrew, the cabby, Strawberry, Digory, and Polly were in Narnia was that Andrew and Jadis wanted a gun to shoot the lion. I don’t understand how anyone could think of killing a singing beast except that Andrew only heard roars.

Aslan’s singing and brining Narnia into being reminded me of our world’s creation story when God called our world into being. I wonder if everything happened all at once or if the lights appeared one at a time. A sudden appearing might explain the big bang theory. It is also interesting to think of how the animals might have come into being. In Narnia, the animals sort of grew out of lumps in the ground. The trees and plants just grew up out of the ground on their own. I wonder how God created the animals in our world.

It is a shame that Digory spoiled Narnia by brining Jadis into it. I wonder how Aslan will have him make up for what he did. Aparently on of the human race will save Narnia. I have a feeling that Strawberry, the talking horse, will play a part in something that Digory will be required to do.

I began reading The Magician’s Nephew by C. S. Lewis. C. S. Lewis writes in a very interesting way. His writing is very easy to understand. However, he does use some words and wordings that are now considered archaic. That is because the book was written in 1955 and the story is set even farther back in time. That’s over fifty-five years old. He uses description and foreshadowing that make the reader always want to read the next page. One of his interesting descriptions was how he described the character Digory.

“The face of the strange boy was very grubby. It could hardly have been grubbier if he had first rubbed his hands in the earth, and then had a good cry, and then dried his face with his hands. As a matter of fact this was very nearly what he had been doing.”

-The Magician’s Nephew by C. S. Lewis

Two characters, Polly, a young girl, and Digory, a young boy, end up finding themselves transported by magic to a Wood between Worlds. They are very daring to try ponds in that woods that lead to worlds other than their own. On one such jump, they end up in Charn, a world much older than the present world.

“Low down and near the horizon hung a great red sun, far bigger than our sun. Digory felt at once that it was also older than ours: a sun near the end of its life, weary of looking down upon that world.”

-The Magician’s Nephew by C. S. Lewis

I think it is unique how C. S. Lewis characterizes and provides personification for the sun of Charn.

As the children are traveling through the rooms of Charn, they come upon a room filled with images of kings and queen. The images faces are described as in the start being nice looking faces, but as the children move on down the line, the faces become crueler and meaner. At the end, they come to a lady whom Digory describes as very beautiful. I am surprised that the children did not see that she was at the end of cruel faces and fear her.

Digory comes upon a bell with an inscription that reads:

            “Make your choice, adventurous Stranger;

            Strike the Bell and bide the danger,

            Or wonder, till it drives you mad,

            What would have followed if you had.”

            -The Magician’s Nephew by C. S. Lewis

Digory then follows up reading the inscription with stopping Polly from returning to safety and hitting the bell. Clearly he had little restraint on his curiosity enough to wonder if his actions that were to follow would put anyone in danger. The beautiful image at the end came to life, and immediately the children could recognize that she was cruel even though they still did what she said without thinking. She wants to go to Digory and Polly’s world, and I am eager to find out what happens next.

Last night as I was reading, there was a power outage. The sun went down, and then all the light I had to read by was one candle. I now know how difficult it was to read into the night in Abraham Lincoln’s day.

I read 60 pages in Moon Shot, 17 pages in The Right Stuff, and 23 pages in Overcoming Anxiety.

Quotes of the Week

All quotes this week are taken from Moon Shot by Shepard, Slayton, Benedict, and Barbee.

1. “‘…life in this universe was not just an accident based on random provesses…Clearly…the universe has meaning and direction.’”

-Ed Mitchell

2. “There’s something wooly and wild about a lanky American speaking Russian with a distinct Oklahoma twang.”
3. “That Russian talk was godawful tough.”

Responses

1. The men who went to the moon clearly saw evidence of God or some intelligent creator at work. The was Mitchell captured this was so amazing. Our beautiful Earth is so fragile.
2. Accents are hard to acquire and hard to get rid of. The Oklahoma twang made Alexi Leonov cringe. Still, this provided a unique characteristic about Deke Slayton’s speech.
3. Russian is a hard language to learn after being accustomed to English. There is a whole new language. Not all the letters are easily pronounceable by English speakers. There is something in the brain, as well, that makes it even tougher to learn a new language the older you are. Deke Slayton had some tough learning to do.

The Right Stuff

The Right Stuff by Tom Wolfe left a sour taste in my mouth with the way the deaths were described. I think the goriness of the book is best explained through an excerpt.

“Conrad stood there soaking wet in the swamp bog, wondering what the hell to do. It was a struggle to move twenty feet in this freaking muck. Every time he looked up, he was looking into a delirium of limbs, vines, dappled shadows, and a chopped-up white light that came through the tree-tops – the ubiquitous screen of trees with a thousand little places where the sun peeked through. Nevertheless, he started wading back out into the muck and the scum, and the others followed. He kept looking up. Gradually he could make it out. Up in the treetops there was a pattern of broken limbs where the SNJ had come crashing through. It was like a tunnel through the treetops. Conrad and the others began splashing through the swamp, following the strange path ninety or a hundred feet above them. It took a sharp turn. That must have been where the wing broke off. The trail veered to one side and started downward. They kept looking up and wading through the muck. Then they stopped. There was a great green sap wound up there in the middle of a tree trunk. It was odd. Near the huge gash was…tree disease…some sort of brownish lumpy sack up there in the branches, such as you see in trees infested by bagworms, and there were yellowish curds on the branches around it, as if the disease had caused the sap to ooze out and fester and congeal – except that it couldn’t be sap because it was streaked with blood. In the next instant – Conrad didn’t have to say a word. Each man could see it all. The lumpy sack was the cloth liner of a flight helmet, with the earphones attached to it. The curds were Bud Jennings’s brains. The tree trunk had smashed through the cockpit canopy of the SNJ and knocked Bud Jennings’s head to pieces like a melon.”

            -The Right Stuff by Tom Wolfe

With this description, I begin to wonder if these events even truly occurred. Any pilot in Pete Conrad’s field would just say that Bud Jennings augered in and died. I read in the introduction that Tom Wolfe had trouble getting any astronaut to talk to him. If this is characteristic of his writing, then I am not surprised.

Overcoming Anxiety

Although very bland and dry, Overcoming Anxiety by Helen Kennerley was a welcomed relief from The Right Stuff. I would equate Overcoming Anxiety to Feeling Good by David Burns. It was written in 1997, references Aaron Beck’s work on CBT almost as much, and includes similar categorizing, and exercises. Although the book may have some merit, it is difficult to squeeze out of it what is actually useful and applicable to everyday life.

To make a connection, I am going to try talking to the walls. It would be really helpful if Mr. Hill would comment on my blog so that I would know how to improve it.

Moon Shot

Apollo-Soyuz proved to be a success and marked a major point in history for both Deke Slayton and the world. For Deke, it proved to be a flight worth waiting sixteen years for for the fifty-one year old rookie. For the world, it marked an easing of the tensions that were involved in the Cold War. At least the Apollo portion of the trip came to have the world realize that the Earth is very fragile and much of our resources are quite finite. Our actions have a major impact on the Earth. Apollo-Soyuz was the gateway into the age of space stations and the Space Shuttle.

The Right Stuff

Tom Wolfe writes with incredible imagery. Although his writing can be like slogging through a swamp, at times, he manages to paint a picture of certain events that is as real as life. Unfortunately that picture is too real and too grisly. I counted eight gruesome deaths in the first chapter. If this is a sign of how the rest of the book is to be, I cannot continue.

When Alan Shepard flew on Apollo 14, he was the oldest man to fly in space at age forty-seven. He and Ed Mitchell were able to collect some moon rocks that held valuable information giving a picture of the moon’s early stages. Stuart Roosa was able to collect a valuable set of pictures that gave geologists a better view of the moon.

It is interesting to note that Mitchell said that “life in the universe was not just an accident based on random processes…Clearly…the universe has meaning and direction.” Shepard noted about the Earth that “it is, in face, very finite, very fragile…so incredibly fragile. That thin, thin, atmosphere, the thinnest shell of air hugging the world – it can be blown away so easily! A meteor, a cataclysmic volcano, man’s own uncaring outpourings of poison…” Such great observations were made by Apollo 14 about our Earth and universe. As memorable as these observations were, what is almost more memorable was Alan Shepard’s golf shot with a six iron. That was followed by his famous quote, “There it goes! Miles and miles and miles!”

By God’s grace and plenty of vitamins, Deke Slayton’s irregular heart beat was cleared and he was allowed back into the flight rotation. It is clear that Shepard and Slayton had a hand in writing this book. Three chapters are devoted to covering Apollo 14 while only one chapter is devoted to covering Apollo 10, Apollo 11, and Apollo 12. Also one chapter is devoted to wrapping up the last three Apollo missions, summing up the program, summing up Skylab, and reintroducing Deke Slayton into the flight rotation. It would be really interesting to have a book written with contributions from all of the astronauts that flew in space.

Written in 1994, I believe this quote from Moon Shot by Shepard, Slayton, Benedict, and Barbee best sums up the end of the Apollo program.

“It’s been more than two decades since [Gene Cernan] spoke those words. No one will again tread lunar dust until sometime in the next century.”

Moon Shot was almost prophetic as it spoke of future efforts to build a great space station and ideas of returning to the moon and then continuing on to Mars. Project Constellation’s three main goals were to service the International Space Station, return man to the moon, and continue on to Mars. All that was before Congress cut the funding to Constellation, thereby ending the program. What the United States needs for its manned space program is another space race.

            It was neat to read about the efforts made in the Apollo-Soyuz project to make peace between the two countries. Language was a major barrier for the two. In the beginning, a whole work day would accomplish about five minutes of work. Another thing that struck me was that each country had its own atmosphere. After the Americans partied a bit too much on their first stay in Russia, the Russians built a three story apartment building for them behind the barbed wire of Star City.

“Deke [Slayton] and Tom [Stafford] allowed that it didn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out that the Russians had bugged the entire hotel. You couldn’t sneeze without everything being listened to and recorded.

‘So we put it all to good use,’ Deke laughed. ‘We learned to talk to the walls, the lamps, the mirrors – anything and everything. Because everything had ears. One of our guys said how great it would be if we had more towels and soap. Presto, we had them the next night. Another of the guys said, real casual-like, how great it would be if we had a pool table in the place. Sure enough, we came back after work, and that night we almost fell over a pool table. It was sort of archaic, the kind of table you’d find in a museum back in the States, but it was still a pool table.

‘We played it carefully, not getting greedy about things. But there were a couple Russian technicians working with us we didn’t like. So we talked to a lamp one night about what assholes we thought these guys were, and, oh man, we never saw those guys again. They just vanished.’

            -Moon Shot by Shepard, Slayton, Benedict, and Barbee

Today I was given another point of relating to Deke and Alan being grounded. My doctor told me that I cannot SCUBA dive, or even go to camp, if I am still having mood swings. I have not been able to find that holy grail of total stability. Whoosh, it felt like they yanked my wings and grounded me. I will not let this stop me, though.