Important ideas i learned from other classmates.

I enjoyed blogging a lot. If i was stuck and didn't understand something, i could just go check someone elses blog and see what they thought about it. I understood the first part of the book a lot better when i read Matt's blog, he also let me understand the symbolism of the paper weight better. At first i did not really think the paperweight could symbolize anything, but Matt explained it in a way that made sense and was easily understood. I also liked blogging better than regular assignments because you didn't have to bring anything home at night, I would just turn on my computer and do my homework as i was talking online or listening to music. I am also a very disorganized person, so it helped that i didn't have to carry papers around with me, and that i couldn't lose my homework once i did it. As i talked with other classmates I understood a different perspective on the book, we made predictions about what would happen with O'Brien, and we asked questions about how the whole society came about. It helped me form ideas in my mind that i would have never thought of unless i discussed it with other people. Another important idea i learned from other classmates was that while i was reading the book i would right down or try to remember questions that i had about it, that way i could come in the next day and get them answered instead of me not understanding it. For about the first half of the book i would read the book, than answer the questions in the packet, it was hard to do and i had to go back and look in the book for some of the answers, than in class Garret just told me to answer the questions as i read, instead of after i read, this helped tremendously and it was much easier for me.

Parallels between reality and the book.

At first glance there doesn't seem to be many parallels at all between the US government and the government in 1984. At a closer look you could see that our government does have a lot of power we do not know about. After 9/11 our congress passed the patriot act, which gave the government some rights that let them track terrorists better, or so we thought. In reality though the government could exercise those rights on anyone. If they go through the legal system they can listen to our phone calls, and spy on our house. We have to make sure that our government doesn't start doing that whenever they feel like it, as in 1984. Another parallel is that our government makes all the children in the country go to school, in a way this is controlling them totally and it is kind of scary, this is similar to 1984 because they tell the parents where to go to work and the children where to go to school.