I found the Rip Van Winkle insert in the last chapter of the book very interesting. Bauerlein says "The signs place the moment roughly in time. Rip has slept through the American Revolution. He leaves a colonial village and returns to a new nation, missing out on a providential sequence in world hisotry. Independece has been declared, a bloody war has been fought, a government has been formed, and a consitiution has been ratified. The villagers have lived through a cataclysm, but Rip knows nothing about it." This little excerpt reminded me of teenagers today. It's like we are so engrossed in technology like social networking, television, and music that we have no idea what is going on in government and politics. At least i know i don't. How many of you are voting in the next election? I know I'm not. Is it because I'm too lazy? No. I just truly have no clue what is going on in the world around me. I could just pick one way or the other because my parents do, but I'm not going to. This chapter really hit me and showed me that i really need to listen more and try to learn about the world around me.