Q2 Post 7

In chapters 13 and 14, the team does their final section of the journey to the top of the mountain. A lot of the team members are feeling sick from lack of oxygen and from the high altitude. They enter one of the deadliest parts of the climb, and area called the Death Zone. It's almost the last push before the summit, and normally people's oxygen runs out if they don't do it quickly. The climber has to be focused on that part. Several of the team members decide to turn around at this point because they don't have enough oxygen. They have to make the decision themselves if they are well enough to summit. Often a climber can be blinded by the fact that they are so close to the top, they ignore their body and go anyway. These decisions have led to death on Everest before. Later, Krakauer reaches the summit, but turns back right away. When Krakauer returns back down the mountain, he comes across a friend at the top of the traffic-jammed Hillary Step. He has his friend turn down the oxygen flow on his tank so he saves more. His friend accidentally opens the tank more so Krakauer gets too much oxygen and is wasting it. I think that in situations like that, when everyone is a little delusional I would've been more careful and protective of my oxygen supply than Krakauer. In these chapters, Krakauer indirectly explains to us how vital oxygen is. Most people don't even think about it or even notice it. On the mountain, it is the most important factor in determining the climber's survival. 

Q2 Post 6

In chapter 11 of Into Thin Air, the group does thier final attempt at reaching the top of Everest. On their way up they pass a climber from Sweden who is decending the mountain. The climber, Goran Kropp, almost summited, but decided he was too tired and it was likly he could've died if he tried. Kropp came within a couple hundred feet of the top when he decided to turn around. He could even see the top and made that decision. I believe the type of people who can make that type of decision are hard to come by these days. Most people would've thrown caution to the wind and gone for summit anyway. For most people it's too hard to give up a chance like that one. They wouldn't care about the consequences and go for it anyway. I think this is especially true in America. Americans don't seem to be very rational in realtion to the rest of the world. This is true because of how fortunate most Americans are, relative to the world. Life here is always easier, and safer, and a very stable and supportive government that makes many Americans feel secure. I hope that Americans can stop thinking and living this way, but still have the great quality of living that America provides.

Q2 Post 5

In Chapters 9 and 10 of Into Thin Air, Krakauer's team continues with their acclimatization by climing from Camp 2 to Camp 3. Krakauer is feeling terrible the entire time, and so is Doug Hansen, suffering from things like frostbite and migranes. To me, it seems impossible that someone would want to climb the mountain with those symptoms, even if its just to do their acclimitization. I know they have to in order to climb the mountain, but it still seems that they would turn back if someone had the types of symptoms Krakauer and Hansen had. Later on on their acclimitization trip, the weather becomes bad, and they have to turn back. May of them got frostbite, and Hansen got an infection in his lung, so he thinks he is going to have to go home. Again. After the last time coming within a couple hundred feet of the top, now he has to turn back. THese events would really turn down the morale of the team, and I can't imagine continuing the climb after these events.

Romatosky, Becky. "Pirates." http://www.omw.mit.edu/. 13 May 2002. 8 Dec. 2008.

http://ocw.mit.edu/ans7870/21w/21w.731-3/cultureshock/becky_1.htm

Bibliography post 1

Burke, Jack. "Argh: Pirating Music isn't Bad." http://www.sjuhawknews.com/ 23 Apr. 2008. 8 Dec. 2008.

http://media.www.sjuhawknews.com/media/storage/paper763/news/2008/04/23/Opinion/Argh-Pirating.Music.Isnt.Bad-3341137.shtml

Q2 post 4

For post 4 I read chapters seven and eight of Into Thin Air. In this section the author talks about inexperience in the other teams climbers at base camp, such as the teams from South Africa, Taiwan and a solo Norwegian climber. He thinks that these groups are foolish and will probably get into trouble high on the mountain and that his group will have to go save them and ruin their opportunity of reaching the top.  Rob Hall also agrees with him and says, "I think it's pretty unlikely that we'll get through this season without something bad happening up high." (p. 100).  If I didn't know how the book ended, then I would see this as some major foreshadowing, which is another reason why I find Krakauer's journalistic style of writing annoying. This section makes me think that Krakauer learned something from his experience writing Into the Wild and researching Chris McCandless. From that experience, he learned how unprepared and unexperienced Chris was, and how he didn't realize what he was getting himself into when he went to Alaska. He now writes the same ideas in Into Thin Air about the South Africans, Taiwanese, and the Norwegian. He learned that ignorance can lead to terrible things, and I would've expected him to try and stop the groups because of what he learned from Chris' story.

Q2 Post 3

In chapters 5 and 6 of Into Thin Air the group travels up to the 17,000 ft base camp. Within a few days after arriving, some of the members of Krakuer's group get sick. Krakauer gets altitude sickness himself and is worried. He talks to Rob Hall, the guide, about it and how he feels he doesn't have enough experience to climb. Hall says not to worry about it and that it doesn't take much experience, and from this I think more that Hall is more reckless and thinks he can do anything or guide anyone to the top of the tallest mountain. Krakauer also introduces the legendary Scott Fischer. Fischer was another guide guiding a different group on the same dates, and he knew Hall well. Hall had beat out Fischer's offer to Outside magazine, the magazine Krakauer wrote for and who was sponsoring his trip, to send Krakauer on their trip, but that didn't cause any hard feelings betwixt any of the three men. Krakauer tells of Fischers incredible strength and drive. He was always known for his endurance and his ability to ignore pain and continue up the mountain. When Fischer worked at NOLS, he worked out so hard in the gym everyday that he would throw up after every work out. He has also been know as a survivor. He has fallen 70 and 100 feet to the ground and got up virtually unhurt, except on one of these falls an ice axe punctured his calf, and he had a clean hole there for several months until it healed, but he still had a massive scar there he showed Krakauer. Even so, that type of injury isn't too bad, considering that he should've died on each fall. Its events like these that cemented Fischer's status as a legend.

Q2 Post 2

I read chapters 3 and 4 for my second blog. During these two chapters Krakauer tells more of his preparations for the trip, and tells of the very beginning of his journey and the main characters on joining him on his journey. The author introduces the main guide from his trip, New Zealander Rob Hall. Over the course of the past two chapters he has become my favorite member of the group. He has completed the "seven summits in seven months" challenge, which is climbing the tallest mountain on every continent in seven months. Hall is admirable to me because of all his experience as well as his personality. I really enjoyed a passage when he laughs at his own joke. "Launching into a story involving a French tourist, a Buddhist monk, and a particularly shaggy yak, Hall delivered the punch line with an impish squint, paused a beat for the effect, then threw his head back in a booming, contagious laugh, unable to contain his delight for his own yarn. I liked him immediately" (p. 31). I also feel I would've liked Hall immediately given the description by Krakauer. I like the fact that he can laugh at his own jokes, even when the others didn't. He seemed to be a person secure of himself, an admirable trait in my opinion. What is upsetting to me, however, is that I already know Hall will die in the end. Its part of Krakauer's journalistic writing style that I am going to have to deal with throughout the rest of the book. 

Q2 Outside Reading Post 1

For my second quarter outside reading I am reading Into Thin Air by Jon Krakauer. Its the story of the author's disastrous experience climbing Mount Everest. I choose to read it because last quarter I read Into the Wild which is also by Krakauer and I really liked it. Its the story of Chris McCandless, the young man who gave up a comfortable future to live off the land in Alaska. I read the first two chapters of Into Thin Air, and they tell the reader right away what happens on the trip: Five of the climbers in Krakauer's group die, and others get severely frostbitten and get amputated. In the beginning of Into the Wild, Krakauer also tells what happens in the end of the book: the main character dies. I think this is Krakauer's style of writing, and it comes from his journalistic back round. His books are not so much a story as a analysis of a story. Another similarity betwixt the two books is that they both have side stories to support the main story. In Into Thin Air he writes about the discovery of Everest being the tallest mountain in the world, the first expeditions to summit it, and his past climbing stories. In Into the Wild Krakauer writes about various other idealistic young men and their stories, including a rope-less rock climber from the twenties and a crazy hippie who tried living like a neanderthal with no modern tools or technology. From my observations thus far, I believe I will be finding more similarities between the two novels.

ATPH POV

I think that Cm changes the pov just to switch things up a bit. He wants to try having the book be centered around Rawlins for a little bit. For once in the book we can compare Rawlins' inner thoughts to John's. This is done at this time in the novel because Rawlins is getting beat up because of John's actions. It is interesting to see the effects of his actions and good to see it from Rawlins' pov because he is the effected person. It is the first major really bad thing that has happened to them, so wee need to see this event from every angle.