Water World: A Fictional Narrative

This is Water, was a commencement speech given by David Foster Wallace at Kenyon College in 2005. Ever since this speech has been given it has become well known. Because of the length, it can be hard to read through the speech while trying to understand the whole idea of it. Wallace fills the speech with stories, examples, and vivid ideas while trying to convince these college graduates how to view life in a positive perspective. While this speech is packed full of ideas he manages to give it in a way outside of the norm for commencement speeches. Yet still gets all the information to the graduates and anyone else who listens to it.

The article Into the Dark Water by Lauren Tarshis is about when the most massive, high in technology, indestructible ship sunk. The Titanic of course. Also when passenger and survivor Jack Thayer shared his journey, through his writing with author Lauren Tarshis. It makes the article more intriguing to use quotes because it makes you feel as if you are on the ship on that night.

You, a single individual, are not the center of the world; contrary to the belief many people are fed as children. This Is Water by David Foster Wallace continues well into detail about such. It is a natural human instinct to care more about your personal situation than that of others. We choose to place ourselves first because of the fear of vulnerability. When fellow human beings become obstacles in our lives we label them as any condescending adjective under the sun; often the terms stupid, annoying, infuriating, pig-like, and slow make their appearances. This is only because the individuals have become hindrances to your daily life however most pose no threat. It is difficult to break the mold but it is indeed possible. Every human has

An old Chinese proverb says to fish for the moon in the water. In Lan Samantha Chang’s short story “Water Names”, a grandmother tells her granddaughters a story as a way to introduce them to their cultural heritage. This frame story was about Wen Zhiqing’s favorite daughter whose fascination with water escalates after she claims to see a prince in the reflective water. The daughter comes to the conclusion that her prince is real, wants to marry her and wants to take her away to his underwater kingdom. Her parents try to convince her otherwise and keep her from going to the river but after a flood, they lose track of her and she disappears. The grandmother ends the story and leaves the girls to wonder about what actually happened to the

Water is a clear, colourless, odourless, and tasteless liquid; an essential substance for most plant and animal life, and vital for human existence. In his novel, The Wars, Canadian author Timothy Findley uses water, one of the four elements of nature, and discusses its role in the nightmarish world of trench warfare and in a world gone mad. Water imagery serves an important role and it’s meaning evolves throughout the novel. Water symbolizes life, Robert’s transitions, and Robert’s shattered innocence, as well as the change that comes along with it.

The West Without Water After finishing reading the book The West Without Water: What Past Floods, Droughts, and Other Climatic Clues Tell us About Tomorrow by B. Lynn Ingram and Frances Malamud, I was left very amused yet concerned for our current climatic situation on the West, neverless I thought ever existed (2003). In this book one sees how Ingram and Malamud use not only paleoclimatology, which are “scientist who study the past climate,” but also other related fields like anthropology, to documents and discuses our future climate and what it may mean for those in the future living in the West (Ingram and Malamud 1). Therefore in this paper I will touch bases on some of those main key points that I came across which I found very informative

At the start of my journalistic investigation I stumbled upon a 2010 documentary by the explorer Wes Skiles titled Water’s Journey. The short film is available online free of charge and follows a scientific team of four as they traverse the Florida aquifer in real time. The goal of their mission was to explore and extensively map the inside of the Florida Aquifer for the first time. The four individuals on this groundbreaking mission included Tom Morris, a cave explorer and biologist, Jill Heinerth, a technical dive specialist, the Wes Skiles, and electromagnetics expert Brian Pease. Pease designed a revolutionary transmitter that was able to send signals through Florida’s solid rock and water below, which allowed for him and Skiles on the surface to actively track Morris and Heinerth as they explored the depths below.

Grunting over the long and hectic traffic at 8:00 AM, arguing about birth control with the Republican co-worker near the water-cooler machine at 12:00 PM, thinking about heading home and eating supper in the busy office room at 4:30 PM—the college graduate, now a white collar worker, lives in his “default setting,” a term David Foster Wallace, an American author and an English professor, coins in his commencement address, “This is Water” (Wallace, 2005). Embedding itself into the graduate’s mind as “hard-wired” and “natural” (Wallace, 3), the default setting programs the college graduate to only see the world through the lens of himself. Therefore, the graduate becomes angry when the world challenges his self-centeredness. So Wallace suggests

How should you be thinking? The author The topics and arguments This is Water brings up to contrast your beliefs and ideologies.

I am very interested in interning at Water Hero. I recently graduated from Smith College and my courses in environmental science have led me to want to pursue a career in clean energy. Reading about Water Hero, I see the importance of the work which is being done in the company to provide affordable, user friendly ways to monitor pipes and, as a result, want to help with the sales and marketing of Water Hero’s products. As someone that has lived in old houses all her life, I understand the danger of leaky pipes and the frustrations that pipes leaky pipes create for many people.

“This is Water” by David Foster Wallace focuses on finding the silver lining in challenging situations. However, Wallace does not try to create the false illusion that life is always happy-go-lucky. By way of using a bleak diction and cynical tone, Wallace creates a very realistic view on the adult life for his audience, a class of graduating seniors. Wallace reminds the future alumni life can become a ‘day-in and day-out routine’, therefore they must remain optimistic in testing situations and try to find the silver lining when it’s hardest to do so.

In his commencement speech “This is Water” at Kenyon College, David Foster Wallace deeply explored the concept of education and its fundamental purpose. Wallace challenged the conventional view of education simply as a means of acquiring knowledge and expertise in a specific field. Against this, he argued about the true purpose of education, illustrating how it can transform consciousness and shift the mindset from a self-centered to a more open-minded and empathetic, through embracing a more thoughtful approach to living. Thus, by sharing these arguments, Wallace supports the concept that liberal education does indeed affect personal growth and perception of different viewpoints. However, the impact of such education largely depends on individuals' personal autonomy, along with their engagement

At the 90th Academy Awards, or simply the Oscars, the typical fanfares were underway as many celebrities graced the red carpet and prepared themselves for an evening filled with cinema’s best films of the year. From Call Me By Your Name’s heartrending reminder of love and loss to Lady Bird’s all too familiar coming-of-age, there were many amazing movies this year. Yet of all the great contestants for Best Picture, none surpass Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri, a film about a mother angered by the police’s inaction to find her daughter's rapist and killer. Unfortunately, the movie was snubbed of its well-deserved Oscar, for the Academy granted the award to The Shape of Water, a film about a mute woman who falls in love with an amphibious man.

This situation takes place in a car with two children, a boy and girl, along with their mother. In the beginning, the mother says “Okay, here we are second to last day of vacation and here we are having a meltdown on what movie to watch in the car”. In the back you can see the children crying. Then she points the camera at the boy and says “will it be McQueen” and laughs a little, then moves the camera to the girl and says “or will it be Toy Story?”. Then she asks the boy what he wants to watch and laughs at him, she continues to laugh and says “Oh we’ve had such a good vacation”. Then she tells the children they won’t watch a movie if they can’t decide on a movie to watch and continues to laugh.

I chose the title “Waterlogged” to describe my poetry collection because it truly represents the topics discussed in the poems. Both the poems “Flushed Away” and “Engulfed” utilize water as a metaphor to carry a greater message. I chose to use water as the part of my metaphor because of the inherently fluid and ever changing nature of water. Water can also be used as a metaphor to describe time and progress, as the progression of time is quite similar to the motion of a river’s current rushing forward, which connects to the poem, “Timeless”. The “logged” part of waterlogged refers to “Pull the Plug” and the nature of the constantly monitored data of the internet. Much of the poetry in this collection uses metaphors to describe a greater message