On dinosaurs, cockroaches, and pokemons.

I could not help but wander throughout the whole text of "Q as in Quotation" and "Survival of the Fittest", since the arguments both essays present are somewhat controversial. But then again, my mind wanders again, into what is exactly the definition of controversy. And I might state, that this is not just quite the case. There isn't really controversy in what constitutes the english language, unless we're talking about the oxford comma... but that's a different story, involving bright green kermit frog shoes and sarcastic graduation speeches.

But returning to the text, I brainstormed over the fact that my language teacher somehow despises semi colons. Maybe due to the fact that they're relatively new, compared to dinosaur commas, which have existed since, well, dinosaurs. But then I realized that dinosaurs went extinct, and weren't really the first creatures to inhabit earth. So maybe, I can name semi colons dinosaurs, and commas cockroaches.
Yes, that's better.

After all, the text is called "Survival of the Fittest", and commas, like cockroaches, can withstand an atomic bomb. Maybe this is why my teacher hates semi colons. Maybe they won't survive a meteorite crash. But then again, we won't either. So if the homo sapiens species goes extinct, semi colons will go extinct with it.

There's also the discussion on how apparently everything has been abbreviated up to now. Maybe we'll end up writing in abbreviation form. Maybe my granddaughter will type in abbreviations and I won't understand what she's writing about. She'll be able to dirty talk... Maybe evolution wasn't a very good idea. It leads to bad parenting.

And then, for "Q as in Quotation", my mind wandered into Pokemon, the 90's animated television show I used to watch when I got home after school in second grade. There was this pink blob animal-like thing. It was adorable, and it's name was Ditto.

That's Ditto. And he can imitate Pokemons, but his eyes and face never change. For example:

As you can see, that's not really Pikachu's face. And that's how I feel about quotations. We're extracting a sentence that isn't ours, and implanting it in our own writing. It will never be exactly the same, and as much as we try to explain what we feel when we read the original text, nothing's gonna compare to the original.

And as Ditto tries to imitate others. he's much more adorable in his original version.

Silvana Paternostro's Diction

It is easy to identify Silvana Pasternostro's register, as it is informal, while still following all common rules of grammar and spelling throughout the memoir. Obviously, during dialogue, her register is familiar. On the other hand, while she still uses informal register, her writing lacks sophistication and appropriate word choice.

But this time there was one phrase that shocked me, and completely froze me. It confirmed how my feelings for Pasternostro aren't as exaggerated as I thought.

"The ladies who frequent the park wear brand-new matching athletic outfits bought in Miami..."

And this is not just a one time reference to Miami. This could easily be the fifth reference to Miami in the past five sentences. She talks about how only she wore Miami-bought clothes and uniforms in her school, and that everything she saw, ate, breathed, wore, and just existed in her life, derived from Miami.

Not only is what she's saying bothering me, it's also how she's saying it. This woman really never fails to surprise me. 

I bet she didn't find a sophistication and word choice course in Miami... 

Silvana Pesternostro

This time, while reading Silvana Pesternostro, she wasn't that annoying. I was lucky. She began by describing how she was flying back to Colombia, but again went completely off topic and started ranting about her thoughts, casual and acceptable, relatively. But wait! Surprise! Paternostro does it again. She states that Colombia was still recognized as a cocaine nation, instead of a FARC nation. If she only knew that drug lords still exist, and still smuggle cocaine easily into the United States. What a gullible, innocent woman. She's only trying to build up a good story, she just wants the show. Like a reality TV show, but scripted. She wants to make up the script for the nation, condemn it into something more terrible, worsen its image. Again, the attention-seeking and unprofessional journalist proves to the world how talented she's not. She continues ranting on and on about how she recognized the "Gringo" in the airport's gate, while they waited to board the plane. Also, remarking how she sits as far away as possible from the Colombians that return to Bogotá, so she isn't considered "one of them". I could only think of how stupid her comments were, but this is just a mere redundancy. But what really amazed me in this chapter of the book, was how she compares her sense of patriotism, to that of Pablo Escobar's. And once you analyze it, you realize that it's true. Pablo Escobar, the man who killed the innocent, the man who ordered Luís Carlos Galán's murder, Rodrigo Lara Bonilla's murder, Guillermo Cano's murder, Avianca's flight "accident", and well, the list could practically go on forever. But back to my point, the fact that THAT man, that caused so much damage to our nation, the man who caused Silvana Paternostro's impression of Colombia, is more of a patriot, than what she is. "Colombian writer Fernando Vallejo, whose novels and essays capture the Escobar-induced culture of killing in his native Medellín, has said that Colombia is, and has always been, a country of killers and that it should change its name to Violencia. But don't tell that to Colombians. They are furious at Vallejo's proposition." I'm just glad she's starting to realize how things work in the real world. But what I find most amusing, is how she's writing a quote that she shouldn't tell to Colombians, but she is Colombian. So then, she wouldn't be able to tell that to herself? Or maybe, she's admitting how she's not quite Colombian, and the only thing she carries with, is a brown passport. She finishes up by describing how excited she is at looking at AK-47's, or cocaine. I'm sorry to destroy your dreams, Silvana, but I've lived in Colombia for seventeen years and eleven months, and I have never seen an AK-47, or cocaine. In terms of tone, she's surprisingly neutral, but sometimes positive. She fluctuates between the two. When the story is talking about something horrid, she seems to be almost even satirical, exaggerated, and positive. When it's boring, she's neutral.