<p>Section 1 : Essay
Directions: Think carefully about the issue presented in the following excerpt and the assignment below:</p>
<p>Full Prompt: Tyler Durden, protagonist of the movie Fight Club, postulated, "The things you own end up owning you." Jennifer Lopez, on the other hand, espouses the theory, "Don't be fooled by the rocks that I got / I'm still, I'm still Jenny from the block."</p>
<p>Assignment: What is your view on whether your possessions and education define you? Plan an essay in which you develop your point of view on this issue. Support your position with reason and examples taken from your reading, studies, experience, or observations. And it's okay to write about Fight Club...just this once.</p>
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<p>Humans go through life with a constant desire to purchase more and more items in order to make themselves appear as if they have fulfilled a hidden purpose. This purpose often stems from either a will to achieve and fulfill a personal goal, or to make people jealous. </p>
<p>Jennifer Lopez, for example, claims that she indeed has many rocks that can fool you. Apparently rocks can be deceiving. Her life's goal was to obtain as many rocks as possible, sort of like those old Mario games. However, her next line repeats "I'm still, I'm still", insinuating that the conquest for material acquisition leads to an inherent stuttering of one's voice. Does this create a logical link between a desire to own things and an eventual downfall? Jennifer Lopez still claims to be from the block, which seems to make no sense in relation to her earlier claim of possessing rocks. For one thing, rocks are fairly heavy if acquired in large sums. How they can be deceiving is an esoteric philosophy that only she knows, but of course the standard human will never understand such a concept because of her mental downfall resulting from the large rock acquisition.</p>
<p>Tyler Durden, on the other hand, feels like things you own end up owning you. I dare ask what owning is. Owning is merely another way of borrowing things while you're still alive. I would be scared if something I was borrowing turned around and started to own me out of revenge. For example, in third grade my friend let me borrow his cat for a week to play with. I'd be terrified if, during this brief period of feline ownage, the cat turned around and suddenly felt as if he owned me, rendering me the pet; him, the owner. I have never had such a case occur. Therefore I feel that Tyler is incorrect in his assumption.</p>
<p>Let's try to combine the two cases, shall we? What if Tyler Durden owned Jennifer Lopez's rocks while they were still, still [sic] from the block? According to Tyler Durden's hypothesis, Jennifer Lopez's claims would probably create a universality pertaining to the observation of acquisition deriving from the inherent comparisons between the two cases, which, when examined under a more literary perspective, yields superfluous verbosity meant to vex the observer. </p>
<p>Take a circle, for example, encapsulating two more circles, creating almost concentric circles but not quite. Pretend that this innermost circle did not exist. Now, if I were to ask Lopez to find the area of the region inside the big circle but not the little one, do we include the medium circle or exclude it? What defines a "circle" in this case as opposed to a region? We obviously have a flaw of disagreeing semantics here which is why Durden is, again, incorrect. Things can own you without you owning them, such as this question.</p>
<p>In conclusion I would like to say that many people have owned things and many people have been owned by other things probably owned by others, but I'm still, still from the block, just like Jennifer Lopez said. People also show courage under fire like Martin Luther King and Malcolm X, who both made great decisions when racial equality was in danger.</p>