OuTsIdE rEaDiNg - week 4 post A

It's not about the bike by Lance Armstrong

VOCAB!
Atrophying (142): a wasting away of the body or of an organ or part, as from defective nutrition or nerve damage.
Peloten (276): a small ball or pellet

APPEALS!
1.) "Maybe there's a protective mechanism in our psyche that prevents us from accpeting out mortality unless we absolutly have to"(112). This is an emotional and logical appeal. Lance was feeling the emotional pain of having cancer at this point, but it's logical because it's true that it happens to everyone. No one really wants to accept their death until its absolutley necessary.

2.)"We are so much stronger than we imagine, and belief is one of the most valiant and long-lived human characteristics"(113). This is an emotional appeal because Lance is describing what he believes in. This is his opinion, but i also agree with him. At this point in his illness, he is thinking about the possiblity of death, and his emotions are going on a roller coaster!

3.) "I didn't fully see, until the cancer, how we fight every day against the creeping negatives of the world, how we struggle daily against the slow lapping of cynicism"(114). This is an emotional appeal because Lance is realizing how much cancer will affect him. He is realizing that other things are very small compared to the frightining scare of cancer.

QUOTE!
"I was alive enought to be mad"(119). This quote is interesting because right after Lance's brain sugery, he starts to get frustrated with the fact that he has cancer. He wants to blame it on something, but there's nothing to blame. Personally, i would be mad also. I mean, you cooped up in a hospital practically on your death bed, and how can you not feel just a little mad. This quote also says that Lance is only human. Even though he is a world champion cyclist, and a cancer survivor, it does not mean he can be angry. I'm proud of Lance to keep going, and even though he had doubts and moments when he was frustrated, he never gave up.

THEME!
THe theme of this memoir is to not resent the fact that an obstackle might be in the way, but to keep working until you get around it. That is what Lance did, and he did not resent a moment of it!