The Forever War: Prologue

If the prologue of this book is an accurate representation of what is to come, I am very nervous. This is some of the most disturbing writing I have ever read. The title of the prologue is "Hells Bells", named after the AC/DC song. Filkins gets into gory detail about his time in Iraq. He tells a story of hearing the song played by troops in an open field before they began to fire. The song is soon drowned out by gunshots and screams. While reading this prologue, I felt like I was there. Filkins is so descriptive that i could picture every gun shot and explosion that he described. The book has not even really begun yet and he already has described watching a soldier die. I feel like this book is going to be very interesting but hard for me to get through.

Talk of the Town Piece

I have decided to write my Talk of the Town essay on smoking policies on campus. It has been brought to my attention that Bristol Community College, among many colleges in the United States, have banned smoking on campus. This seems like a wonderful policy to me and I want to find out what other Bridgewater State University students thnak about this idea as well. There is nothing worse than walking to class, stuck behind someone smoking a cigarette. The second hand smoke that BSU students are breathing in must be at an all time high. It seems as though every time I walk into a building on campus, I am bombarded by a smoker standing in front of it.

This piece is extra personal to me because I have recently quit smoking. I know what it is like to "have" to smoke right before class. Now that I have quit, I realize how disgusting it is for fellow non smoking students to breathe in the second hand smoke. As a smoker, I was never really concerned about other students and never realized how much I was potentially harming them. Whether BSU is a smoke free campus or not, someone will always be unhappy. I want to look at both sides of the story and find out what would be best for this campus.

The Forever War: Beginning the Book

Tonight I purchased the book Forever War by Dexter Filkins for our book club. When I got it home I skimmed through the book and looked at some of the pictures and titles. I am very excited to begin reading this book. The reason why I chose this book over the other ones is that I feel like I need to learn more about the war. I am living through this war that I really do not even know about. I hope this book gives me a little insight on what is going on in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The titles of the chapters in this book are very interesting. They go from "I Love You", to "Kill Youself", to "Fuck Us". I like this technique. It is making me very curious to see how the titles go along with the writing in the chapters. Titles are very important to a story and as a jounralist, Filkins has caught my attention. I hope his writing is as shocking and interesting as his titles.

Blog Post 1: Simplicity in Writing

In Zinsser's book On Writing Well, he explores the idea of simplicity in writing. He talks about the importance of writing simply and not overdoing it. I feel that I struggle with this concept very much. I am very guilty of using extra adjectives and trying to make my writing sound better than it does. Everyone enjoys reading detailed writing here and there but it is very common to loose readers with this kind of writing. Zinsser focuses on the idea of keeping writing so simple that readers do not have to search for the main ideas and points of the writing. I have to disagree with this a little. I feel that writing sometimes needs that extra imaginary scene or interesting adjective to keep it interesting and engaging. As a reader, I am more likely to loose interest in a simple, boring story than something with imagery and intriguing language. I hope this course will help me find a good balance between simple writing and elaborate writing.