ENG 001: Language & Writing

Writing Project #3

2008-12-18T16:40:00.014-06:00

***I would like to first point out that I personally do not enjoy country music very well and had to cringe while uploading these videos to my blog. With that in mind, this project helped me to realize how big of a “hick” any small town kid is, whether they embrace it or not.

Growing up in a small town, my friends and I had to be very creative when coming up with activities to keep ourselves occupied. The following videos display some of the interesting objects we used to create entertainment so we wouldn’t loose our minds in a small town.

The Spill Canvas: All Over You: This Spill Canvas video focuses on a boy spending a lot of his time in a small town park. The park seems to be fairly tiny, only showing a few swings and a little set up containing a slide, monkey bars, and a few benches. This park is very similar to the park in my hometown that my friends and I would spend countless hours sitting in, trying to scheme up our mischief for the day. The park seems to have a fairly green tone to it, suggesting that the season is somewhere around spring or summer. The lack of children on the playground equipment is almost comically similar to my hometown park because they seemed to be more teens who used the park than children. Later in the video, the main characters are found in the back parking lot of a grocery store playing with a shopping cart. The cart is pretty average metal wire with a red handle for pushing, probably rusty and unwanted in the front of the store. The parking lot is pretty deserted with a large number of extra boxes laying outside. In the shopping cart is a girl with a bunch of colored balls around her. As the boy swings the girl around, she throws the balls at her friends. Taking the extra shopping carts from behind the grocery store was a specialty of my friends. The unwanted carts created hours of fun as we rammed into each other and ultimately destroyed the carts

Red Hot Chili Peppers: Can’t Stop: Throughout this video, The Red Hot Chili Peppers are shown playing around with a bunch of random objects. The objects such as plastic one gallon buckets are very ordinary and seem like an everyday object but when the musicians pick them up, they find different uses for them. For example, the simple, yellow, plastic one gallon buckets that anyone else would see for only practical use, automatically become the head, arms, and legs of a character similar to a robot. This same idea represents how many times I would use an object around the house to create a new game. During the breakdown of the song, the guitar player is doused in small, pink, foam packing peanuts. The peanuts fall slowly to the ground almost as if they are lighter than air. This light quality made them ideal for protecting items that are being shipped far distances in boxes. Although these peanuts are very common objects that are usually viewed as more of a nuisance than anything, they create an cool effect as they fall onto the floor. The excess amounts of peanuts that would come in any package that was sent to my house instantly were thrown onto the floor in an intense peanut battle. The same effect seen in the video could be found in my living room as the war waged on.

White Stripes: Icky Thump: Although the whole theme of this video tends to be a little creepy, there was one part that hit close to home. As the singer is shown traveling through different parts of Mexico, he stumbles upon a small carnival where the girl had led him to. In the carnaval, you can see a variety of animals wandering around, sparkalers shining all around him, and different stations set up to play games. The creepiest part about this carnival are the people who are lurking around it. The “carnies” have a very vicious aura around them that seems to make a person shiver. These people, who choose to have a profession traveling around small towns working with carnival rides seem to always be very unhappy with their lives and want to makes others just as unhappy. The whole carnival itself doesn’t look very clean and definitely doesn’t look very safe. But even after all of these negative factors, it also seems to be the place to be! A large group of people are seen around this creepy carnival and they all seem to be enjoying themselves a great deal. This demented carnival reminds me of my town’s once a year county fair. No matter how creepy the carnies were working the rides, it was still the place for all of the little children to go. Farm animals would run around and people saw no problem with it. Although your chances of getting murdered was much smaller than in this video, the creepy factor was still just as high.

Mud On The Tires - Brad Paisley

Brad Paisley: Mud on the Tires: One of the main focuses for this video is the cars driving around. Many different versions of trucks and Broncos can be seen ripping up fields in flashes of this video. This is called the art of “mudding.” Throughout clips of the video, trucks can be seen flinging up mud many feet in the air as the truck spins wildly out of control. The higher the mud flies, the more successful the run was. This idea of mudding comes about after a large rain when the fields and country roads are pretty much impassable. So the boys with their supped-up trucks and broncos head out to the minimum maintence roads and tear them up. Getting stuck in the mud is only a plus because then you have the adventure of being creative enough to get yourself free from the mud’s sticky grasp. Many times, your truck was seen as a trophy as you drove back into town completely caked in mud and grass. Sometimes you wouldn’t even wash it off, just to let others know that you had a good time last night. Just like clockwork, every day after a big storm, I could expect my friends knocking on my front door with their truck in my driveway. We’d do as much damage to the roads as we could before shipping off to find some other mud to terrorize.

Shoot The Runner - Kasabian

Kasabian: Shoot the Runner: Standing in front of an all black background, the members of Kasabian are seen in different color scheme outlines jamming on their instruments. Each color scheme changes as the music continues until the splashes of new color enter. As the video goes on, the members are constantly being splashed with different colors of paint. The colors of paint are very bright and range from pink, to blue, to green, and so on. As the song continues, the splashes of paint become more and more frequent. Towards the beginning of the video, the colors seem to just trickle on the musicians or maybe like someone was painting the color on them. Later in the video the color becomes much more vicious and violent, almost like someone is throwing it at them or it was splattering out of them. This simulated paint fight is similar to the paint fight that occurred between a bunch of my friends. What started off as a simple painting turned into a full blown, dodge for the sake of your clothes, paint fight. In the video, as the paint fight continues, the splatters become larger and larger until it looks like they too are having a full on war. Each key beat is accented with different styles and sizes of splattering.

The Black Keys: Strange Times: At the beginning of the video, the audience is taken into a laser tag arcade where a girl who doesn’t seem to really enjoy her job is explaining all of the rules and the safety precautions within the arena. She points out all of the exit places in case of emergency and lets the children know how to be safe inside the arena. As the game starts, the children are running around laughing and playing but the quickly changes when the two members of the Black Keys break into the arena and start using real lasers against the children. The children start screaming and running in many different ways trying to escape the actual laser’s blow. As the lasers shoot past the children they blast the walls and create rummage throughout the course. This whole concept of bringing actual lasers into a child’s play-place reminds me of how my friends would take laser tag way too seriously. It seemed as if they believed they were in real war. We even created our own version of laser tag that includes tinfoil and pointer lasers. To save myself from further embarrassment, I’ll refrain from further explanation.

Sum 41: Fat Lip: A main theme of this video seems to be rebelling against the norms of society. One of the major things that these kids are shown doing that fits under that stereotype is skateboarding. The kids who are skating go back and forth on the half-pipe doing tricks. The half-pipe, made of plywood, creates the perfect shape for the skateboarders to roll back and forth and do different tricks and jumps as they reach the top. The name of the half-pipe came from the distinct look of the shape of this object. It seems as if someone took a giant pipe made out of wood and cut it in half in order to create enough angle for the boarders to keep up their speed and also be able to travel over the same area again and again. A large part of my high school career was spent sitting on the top of the half-pipes watching all of my friends skate back and forth on the half-pipe trying to attempt the best tricks they could. The tricks weren’t really that impressive but it was a great way to pass the time and most definitely a social activity.

Final Evaluation

2008-12-11T14:11:00.003-06:00

Writing might be one of the most fluid ideas of college. There is no set standard for what is right and what is wrong, unless you professor tells you there is. Over this semester, I feel that I have become a much more mature writer. I am able to create successful works without my instructor telling me exactly what to do and how to do it. I see myself as a very independent writer but I have been so restricted in all of my previous years of school that I am too accustomed to having exact guidelines that when I am set free I tend to just stand there and think to myself, “Well, where do I go now?”

Because of this, my writing has grown. I have been able to view objects is a much different way than I ever could before. I learned how to dig deeper into the ideas and come out with an interesting idea. Our first major essay, focused on an observation, helped teach me to look at others and not focus on myself as much in my writing. On my first draft, I included a large amount of what I did during the observation and how I reacted to everything I saw. As I revised the piece I was able to let the reader know exactly what I saw without making the main focus of the piece be on me.

I also have learned to appreciate my peer’s ideas on my writing a lot more. When I was in high school, I was considered one of the best writers in my class (pathetic class, I know) so I really didn’t pay much attention to what my classmates had to say about my writing because it was usually something to the extent of, “Wow! This is so good. Um…I don’t know. Don’t change anything.” That didn’t do me much good. But now, as I am starting to be surrounded by much more successful writers than my previous chums, I am realizing that the peer reviews are very beneficial and the other writers tend to have some very good input that helps expand my writing. In fact, the reviews that I recieved from my professor and my peers during the peer review really helped turn my second writing project, focusing on rhetorical analysis, into the masterpiece it became.

The definition of good writing is still is very vague. I think that any writing that the author gets across an idea while informing or entertaining the audience. As long as someone has learned something from the writing or finishes the piece and are glad that they spent the time to read it, I believe that that paper can be considered “good writing.”

Post #20 3rd O-O

2008-12-07T22:14:00.007-06:00

Thinking back to my high school memories, I can always remember some pretty amazing times with my friends. But when I really start to think about it, a large majority of those memories happened while we were all sitting on my giant, amazing couch. This couch, originally purchased sometime in the seventies, back in the day when so one had style, triumphs me in age by a long shot. The shape of the couch is very original and I have never again seen the same style, although the big couch idea is coming back in style. The shape replicates one half of a stop sign, or an octagon and separates into four different sections that you can arrange in whatever way you desire. Originally, this couch was a light tan color with darker brown stripes traveling through the cushions and pillows. Each of the pillows is outlined in a long brown fray that just screams seventies style. Because of its interesting shape and mammoth size, my couch is easily able to hold eight or nine teenagers at a time with no problem.

Now that description helps you imagine what this couch looked like in its prime. Thirty years later, the couch hasn’t moved from my living room but has altered in appearance. The once light tan color of the couch has now slowly turned to a dark dingy brownish-gray from the dirt accumulating over the years. The fray on the pillows has slowly started to rip away and separate itself. Each side of the couch has many different sets of stitching from different children of the house trying to sow the pieces back together to stop our mother from threatening to just throw it out one day while we are at school. It’s true, this couch has seen better days, but it also has seen an amazing amount of memories as well.

My house was always the place for all of my friends to hang out and whenever we walked through my door, the first place we always headed for was the couch. We could sit on that couch for hours just talking and playing video games until we found something more productive to do. This couch was so famous around my school that my senior class came to my house and picked up the couch just so that we could put it on the senior float for the homecoming parade. Not too surprisingly, the couch held almost 20 kids that day. When another one of my friends came to my house and found that his beloved couch was missing, he created a tape out-line of the couch like a body was found dead there. For the rest of the day that the couch was on the float, that friend of mine was in denial and pretended that the tape outlines were just like the real couch.

There will never be another couch that can replace my couch in my heart. No matter how much my mother rants about how much she hates that couch, she’ll never be able to throw it away because she knows how important that couch was to each of my siblings childhood.

Post #18 2nd O-O Writing

2008-12-05T19:47:00.009-06:00

No matter how far away you go, you’re always going to remember where you came from. That saying is no different to me. Even though I have spent many years away from my home and have traveled countless miles around the world and miles away from David City, there is always one object that can sweep my back to my bedroom in that rural Nebraska town with just one smell. That object is my big, pink blanket.

Now, I know that many children grow attached to blankets at small ages and it is customary that they need to become detached from that blanket by the time they enter middle school. I had that blanket and we separated paths in my childhood but it was not the same as my big, pink blanket. My big, pink blanket was more of a comforter than just a throw towel. It’s a very faded and dulled pink color that used to match the sheets of my childhood bed. The edges of the blanket are trimmed in a simple white lace that has threads dangling off of it is many different directions and little holes cut through it in patterns of four to look almost like flowers. If you were to look over it very carefully, you’d find a large darker stain on the corner of one of the blanket’s sides, this came from a spilled pop on a long vacation drive with not very many napkins to wipe it up.

Another very interesting fact about my big, pink blanket is that she has a twin. My older sister who left the house many years before me had kidnapped her blanket from my parents house as well. When we were younger and shared a room, we each had our own twin size bed with our twin sized blanket. After we abandoned the beds, we never could tear ourselves away from our precious blankets. One year, on our way to a family vacation skiing, my sister and I both brought our big, pink blankets to sleep with in the car. At one rest stop, we both threw our blankets onto the car’s floor and ran inside. When we came back, we got into a huge fight over who’s blanket was who’s and which one smelled like ours. Surprisingly, we each believed our big, pink blanket carried a very distinct smell that we wanted back. After that feud was settled we decided that we needed a way to be able to tell our blankets apart. Ever since that day, my big, pink blanket has gained the addition of a very small permanent marker dot on one of her corners.

Every night when I cuddle up to my blanket, I’m always reminded of my sister and her blanket, and the days we used to spend together in our little room. It’s almost like we each have one side of the locket that keeps us connected back to our roots.

Post #17 1st O-O Writing

2008-12-03T17:13:00.004-06:00

As long as I can remember, I’ve always grown attached to certain objects. I give many odd materials special meaning and then they seem to almost become a part of me. The most important of these would probably be the piece of jewelry that many have coined as my “hoodie string.” Now, to say that this is object is a piece of jewelry is probably a far stretch because it looks the same as a shoe string, but to me it means so much more. The black lace entered my life about two years ago, when I started dating my present boyfriend. We were on a walk together on a brisk night and he started picking on me, playing around and tickling me. In my defense, I grabbed whatever I could to get him to stop and accidentally pulled the string out of the hood of his favorite hoodie all the way out. I froze and stood down at my hand, knowing how much he loved that sweatshirt and when I looked up at him he was smiling. “Way to go! You ruined it,” he said tauntingly. I smiled back and said, “It’s not ruined. It’s now a…bracelet!” From that day on, I’ve worn that string on my wrist like a religion. Now, two years later, it’s worn down, shorter from pieces breaking off, and dabbed with random dots of paint. It seems to be just another part of me until someone gives me a really weird look as they watch me tie it on my wrist. I had to learn an odd way to tie it on because there is no way that I’m going to ask for help to tie on this string everyday for two years. The knots tied onto the end are to help the string to prevent from fraying even further and to help it from untying as well. There was a chunk of time in those two years where I thought that I had lost my hoodie string for good. I was heartbroken and felt like I had almost let myself down. It’s always amazed me how attached I can get to something that seems so insignificant to others.

Post #16 Rhetorical response

2008-12-02T12:37:00.003-06:00

The idea of good verses bad has always been a theme for many movies throughout time. But what about those movies where good and bad aren’t so black and white? America has started to learn that people aren’t always what they seem and you can’t judge a book by it’s cover. Now we have movies where the audience falls in love with the character who is supposed to be “bad” by definition of what they are doing. For example, The Outsiders, the book that Atreyu’s video is based off of, makes the audience take a view into the life of the rebel kids. We learn that the jocks that the city loves and believes are so good are actually bigger jerks than the greasers who the community views of hooligans. This whole theme calls to the readers pathos because we all have been misread at least once in our life. We all sympathaize with the idea of being mislabeled and not given a true chance to prove who we are. A person’s logos would be intrigued by the interesting way that the band used the story to tie into their song. It’s an obvious comparison and they tend to follow the plot pretty closely. The audience’s ethos are tended to be because of the interesting ideas they put into the movie. The camera angles add cool effects and the idea about the rain getting harder and harder as the conflict grows also draws the audience in. Not to mention it is a very well made video. Everyone wants to see the underdog win every once in a while. In this video, all of those needs are satisfied.

Post #15 Music Video

2008-11-25T11:49:00.003-06:00

The video that I have chosen, “Falling Down,” by Atreyu, mocks the storyline of the famous book The Outsiders by S.E. Hinton. The members of the band portray the characters in the book who were called the greasers. Throughout the movie, the members of the band are shown doing many different acts that the kids who were considered rebels would do. They are smoking, stealing, and fighting. For the majority of the time you see the band actually playing they have set up their stage right in the middle of a drive-in movie. Obviously purposely trying to obstruct the movie-goer’s view, the band continues to play. While they are rocking out in front of the screen, the people seem to get more and more annoyed with them but the band doesn’t seem to care. Later in the video, we see one of the characters stealing alcohol from the general store while his friend distracts the cashier. Other aspects let the viewer know that these greasers are not the goody-goodies that the boys in the letterman jackets and the girls in the poodle skirts are. The band members are also linked together by their leather jackets, which they seem to wear with pride. At the highest tension point of the video, we see all of the greasers meeting up with the jocks in a large field at night. When they are confronted, the leader of the jocks taunts the leader of the greasers by saying, “Hey, Alex, long time no see!” From here we learn that they used to be friends back in the day and when they started fighting, the Alex character decided to join the greasers side while his old friend joined the jocks. At this point a huge fight breaks out and punches are thrown everywhere. The fight ends with the jocks’ faces in the mud and the greasers shouting victoriously.

These greasers were viewed somewhat as social outcasts in the public’s eye. But this was only the stereotype that they were given. They were also seen as the rebels of their era. I believe the members of Atreyu chose to replicate this setting for their music video because they were able to relate to the greasers in that book. All of the members of Atryeu had hard times fitting in when they were younger and all of their lyrics tend to attract kids who have struggled through the same problems. They group has always had a rebel tone to it, with all of the heavy music, screaming, piercings, and tattoos. Throughout the video, a light rain starts to come down on the band as they are playing. This creates a really cool effect when the drummer hits his cymbals but I believe it has a deeper meaning than just for looks. As the video continues, the rain gets harder and harder until the point when the fight breaks out and the tension is incredible. At that point, it isn’t just raining, it is straight down-pouring. The leather jacket that each of the band members wear shows a bond between them and also an acceptance to the rebel stereotype. A leather jacket has always been viewed as a rebel article of clothing, and by them all wearing it proudly, it seems as if they are proud of the stereotype that the rest of the town has created for them.

Writing Project #2

2008-11-20T13:14:00.023-06:00

Art has been a part of every society since the beginning of time. Pictures were found carved into walls of caves by primitive beings, some cultures such as Egypt used art as their form of communication, and countries like Italy express their art in every angle that you look. But the topic of art is a very vague idea. Who is to be the one to determine what art is and what it isn’t? Typically thought of, art is when an artist sits down with their blank canvas and adds to it. He continually adds and adds layers of paint to the picture until the masterpiece is complete. But is art only addition? What if art was created by the idea of subtraction instead?

The piece of artwork pictured above, “All we are is dust in the wind…,” shows the artist Alex Orion working away at his creation in a subway tunnel in Sao Palo, Brazil. To create this masterpiece, Orion has taken water, sponges, a variety of scraping tools, and GreenWorks, an organic cleaner to clean his creation out many layers of the dirt and suit that have covered the walls. The black walls that surround him are covered in years of grime that no one has bothered to clean off, until now. But Orion is only one of many who follow this tradition of the Reverse Graffiti Project, which is believed to be originated by Paul “Moose” Curtis. Curtis started this project in San Francisco after he had spent many years working in very dirty restaurant cleaning pots and pans. One day he leaned over to clean a dirt spot in the wall and after he wiped it up he realized that the clean spot he had left was much more noticeable than the dirt to begin with. His statement for why he works so hard to create these clean creations is that he wants people to realize the matter at hand. When trying to explain his occupation he struggles. “I’ve never found that easy way to explain what I do. I tell a person that I make pictures by cleaning…the whole core of what I do is based around drawing in pollution and writing in nature.” ("The Reverse Graffiti Project") Many of his creations depict settings of the ancient types of trees that used to be planted there before these tunnels were created. His idea is trying to remove the dirt to reveal the past.

Alex Orion, on the other hand, took a much more morbid approach to the mission. Instead of creating images of life that used to inhabit the area where the tunnels are, he has created a mural of what will be there in the future if people don’t learn to respect the earth or each other. His title for the creation represents the irony of the ideas that when our bodies decay, we return to the dust state, but dust is also represented to be dirt which is the original problem. By naming this piece, “All we are is dust in the wind…” Orion is sort of stating that we are the only ones to blame for our own future. This photograph instantly calls to the reader’s pathos from the simple image of a skull. People relate skulls to death and that is a topic that most people tend to be sensitive with. The skulls seem to bring a shocking factor to the problem of pollution. The audience’s pathos were also considered because of the large amount of dirt. Most people tend to care enough about the world to realize that that’s pretty bad and guilt is one of the strongest pathos that hit humans. On the other side, a person’s pathos are called to because many people appreciate the art of taking something ugly and turning it into something beautiful. The process of erasing and cleaning symbolizes a new life and a second chance. In turn, this creates a contradiction. The skulls bring up the idea of death and the ultimate end but the cleaning reminds the audience of rebirth, hope, and that there’s still time to change.

The ethos of the picture are very well put together. Each of the skulls display a very bright white that creates a contrast from the black suit. This drastic contrast is very esthetically pleasing to the eye and makes the skulls really stand out. Each of the other murals that were created from the grime look like a great amount of time was taken to be sure that the images appeared as clean as possible. In fact, many people walking past the murals have said that they don’t realize that these images are wiped away until they get up close and personal with the shapes. This technique creates an optical illusion that offers the idea that the white images were added on top of the black, not the black being pulled away to reveal the white.

Finally, this portrait calls to the audience’s logos because it offers straight facts that make them realize what this world has come to. These tunnels are obvious pieces of evidence of how horridly our planet is polluted. There is no better proof than standing in front of these murals and realizing how white these walls used to be. The cleansing process shows people the steps to fix the problem at hand. Many people have called this work urban graffiti but it offers a totally different element. Graffiti has always been considered as “markings, as initials, slogans, or drawings, written, spray-painted, or sketched on a sidewalk, wall of a building or public areas.” Graffiti has also been coined as a derogatory statement of a group of people defacing public property. But are these grime artists really hurting any property? If an image is viewed as offensive, could it not just be washed off? Maybe this is what it will take for the city to learn to clean itself. If someone put up an image that people found offensive, the city would send a crew over to erase it and ultimately clean the tunnel and solve the initial problem of the pollution.

The Reverse Graffiti Project helps create a variety of visual rhetoric that helps open the eyes of the public to the problems that are all around them. These images also help motivate the people to make a change and realize that life is more enjoyable when one is surrounded by beauty instead of dirt. The cleaning of the tunnels help people learn to take pride in the cities where they live because it’s part of their home too. As the creator, Curtis, states in defense of the environment, “Nature’s voice, if you like, is written in dirt as if it were written in blood.” ("The Reverse Graffiti Project")

Works Cited:

Lithgow, Michael. "Reverse graffiti turns city grime into art." Art Threat. 17 Nov. 2008. http://artthreat.net/

"The Reverse Graffiti Project." The Reverse Graffiti Project. 2008. Oil Factory Inc. Production Company. 19 Nov. 2008. http://www.reversegraffitiproject.com/

****There were a couple of complications with creating the correct style of MLA formatting. The blog wouldn't allow me to put in any underlining so I replaced it with italics. Also, the taps are off because when I made them on the regular page, they got all screwed up on the actual blog. Finally, I couldn't put the website address in the "<>" because every time I did, the website address wouldn't show up on my blog at all. If there is any trick to fix it, please let me know.

Writing Project #2 - Rough Draft

2008-11-17T23:37:00.002-06:00

Many artists have created pieces of work that focus on the idea of love and passion. In fact, the kiss is considered the most universal and obvious signs of love. But no artist has depicted this kind of passion and this much tension all in one picture. Political cartoonist, Ben Heine’s picture, “I Love You, But…” offers the viewer a somewhat Romeo and Juliet type setting. Shown in the loving embrace is a young woman with her hear draped in the national flag for Israel, and a young man whose head is covered by the national flag of Palestine. The material covering each of their lips doesn’t stop their kiss but we quickly learn that they plan to betray each other as well. Hiding behind each of the lovers back is a grenade about to be set off. This irony displayed in the picture as well as the name “I Love You, but…” shows the struggle of the constant war between Palestine and Israel.

The war between the two countries burst into action closely following the end of World War 1 when the United Nations gave land back to Palestine. In around 1946, Palestine received most of her original land except one chunk, referred to as the West Bank and Gaza strip, which the United Nations decided would be best to stay with Israel. To Palestine, this was one of the most important pieces of her original lands because the land contained the city of Jerusalem. Jerusalem is a major city to the Jewish faith because it is the center of where the whole religion began. Because many of the Palestine people practice the Jewish faith, they felt robbed that they weren’t being returned their precious city. However, Israel offers Jerusalem the same respect as the Palestinians because they name it as their “eternal city.” Palestine was furious that they weren’t granted all of their original lands and began a war so that they might gain hope in retrieving it. Palestine continually harasses Israel with constant terroristic acts and eventually Israel becomes sick of it and retaliates, which fuels the war. To help prevent these fights, the United Nations proposed that Jerusalem be an independent zone so no country owned it but soon enough Israel captured it even though many Arabs believe that it should be a the capital for a Palestinian state. After many years of feuding, Israel agreed to give back part of the land that Palestine lost but refuses to remove their troops from the area. Recently, Israel also decided that they wanted to put up a wall between Palestine and Israel to keep their people separated. That separation creates the romantic scene that Heine depicts here.

Romeo and Juliet were separated by their family’s deep hatred for each other; much like this couple’s love would be because they are from feuding counties. The biggest difference between each of these stories is that in Heine’s picture, we see that the lovers are also willing to betray each other for their country. The clever title, “I Love You, But…” shows that each of the character’s loyalty lies with their country first and not with their love. Unfortunately that is the truth for many people who are struggling through this war. Many families who lived on the border between the countries are being torn apart because an Israel woman came together with a Palestine man and their countries no longer wanted them to have any contact.

The fact that the artist decided to cover the faces of the lovers has made them unidentifiable. The fact that the lovers have no face makes it easier for them to represent each and every person in those countries who are begging for peace and an end to the war. The armies of Israel who occupy the West Bank and Gaza strip are ordered by Israeli officials to make any Palestine’s live as hard and horrible as possible. They raid houses and plunder villages for whatever they want.

As I looked through Heine’s work, I noticed that he had taken a great interest in this war. He was very pro-peace and said it loud and clear through his drawings. I could tell that he mourned for the people who struggled through this difficult life every day. Because of his passion, I thought that he might be from one of the battling countries. After looking awhile I learned that he is actually from Abidjan, Ivory Coast in Belgium.

But the more that I study this drawing, the more that I wonder and the more I try to view it from other sides. Possibly this is the Romeo and Juliet story and they have decided that if they can’t live together, they don’t want to live at all. Perhaps the fact that Heine decided to put them in a silhouette of light is supposed to symbolizes some hope in their otherwise dark world. The drawing can be seen from a peace angle or a statement of trust with each of their countries.

This drawing screams out the idea that the war isn’t over and it’s going to take a lot for the people to learn to get over the land and start learning how to get along with their neighbors. Yes, Jerusalem is very important to the Jewish faith because it is where it all originated but much blood has been shed just for the sake of land. We need to learn to put down the grenades and just get lost in the joy that being together and being peaceful can bring us.

Writing Practice

2008-11-09T20:18:00.008-06:00

I choose this image because I think that is displays a great amount of irony. When I typed into the search engine “21st century,” this was one of the pictures that was offered to me. It automatically called to my attention simply because it was such and artistic piece of work but it was also just a toilet.

After I clicked on the attachment, I read more about the origin on this strange “statue.” This was a toilet created by an American designer for some new age housing contest. Further on I read that while touring in America, the toilet received much positive attention but when the show traveled overseas, the toilet didn’t get quite the positive review.

After reading those points, I realized that there is so much to this picture that most people aren’t even going to consider. I started to think of other ironies that were connected with this painting. For one, it was created by an American man. What other countries look at toilets like that? Another point is how the American’s ideas of the toilet totally clashed with the ideas of all the foreign countries.

One other point that this toilet reminded me of is how many old time art critics constantly say that we have lost all good forms of art in these days. Many critics believe that nothing created now is art because it’s so far from where art started. It’s so far from the traditional ideas that they don’t believe it is truly art. This present day toilet portrait seems to symbolizes the old critics ideas that recent day art has gone into the toilet.

Post #14 The Boy's House

2008-11-02T17:53:00.005-06:00

I have a certain group of friends that mean the world to me. The problem is, each of them are spread out all over the place, so it’s hard for me to visit them all. But I do see one group of my friends pretty frequently. They are a group of boys that I hung out with a lot in high school. I call them my “Lincoln Boys” only because of the place that they live. They're home is my home away from...well, shitty dorm, actually. (On the sidie you can see a picture of what their living room looks like but I've realized that I've never really taken a picture of just their house, only the people inside of it.)

I go visit them every time that I need a little time away from Wesleyan, so pretty frequently, actually. They own a house around 27th street and it is nothing short of a stereotypical bachelor pad. They have the beer posters on the wall and the very reveling posters of girls. I mean, this house is exactly what the movies make all those boys who live together in college look like. Everything is perfect.

The only thing that could make it better was if their house wasn't directly located in the middle of one of Lincoln's ghettos. But, I'm not going to lie, every day there is pretty exciting and no two days are alike.

So many people ask me, “why in the world do you like hanging out in this environment?” The answer is simple. I love it because they are my boys. I’ve always gotten along better with boys than I do with girls and I’ve hung out with these guys long enough that they don’t look for anything in me. They see me as just another one of the guys and I love that feeling. I love the fact that they don’t act any different around me. When other girls come, they all act differently, each trying to impress her, but when I’m there, it’s like all the boys don’t even see me as a girl. I feel so open and free there, like I don’t have to impress anyone.

It’s nice to have a place to escape to every once in awhile.

Post #13 Halloween

2008-11-02T17:35:00.003-06:00

I know, I'm taking the cop-out subject for this writing but there is nothing I want to talk about more than Halloween!

This last week was Halloween, one of my favorite holidays. Halloween gives anyone who wants to participate the opportunity to be anything you want to be. This is the day where you can be whoever or whatever you want with no restrictions. Have you ever wanted to be Superman? Well, here’s your chance! Ever dreamed of being a doctor? Grab your stethoscope and have a ball! What about your life-long dream of becoming a star? Well, Sugar, today is your lucky day.

Halloween is a holiday that someone of any age can enjoy, but in very different ways. The children get to go out and ask people for candy while adorning themselves in whatever the latest TV or movie character is. The teenagers get an excuse to dress promiscuously (as can be seen by SOME of the girls in the picture above) or for the guys, a time to dress in drag and, for once, be considered cool. The adults get the joy of taking their kids out trick-or-treating and watching their faces light up with every new piece of candy that is dropped into their bag. Not to mention, the wonderful joy of getting to deal with their sugar-high a few hours later. The amount of candy that is created for this holiday is insaine. Did you know that 35 million pounds of candy corn will be produced this year? That's pretty much 9 billion pieces and if you laid them end to end it would be enough to circle the moon 4 times. See, isn't this holiday just amazing?

October 31st is the day where you can scare anyone you want without the fear of getting slapped or yelled at. No one can call you weird, no one can say that you’re not normal, no one can tell you that you can’t do that because it’s Halloween. It’s the day for freedom from the norm.

Personally, I believe that this is one of the greatest holidays ever. You get to have a great time dressing up as whoever you want to be and doing whatever you want to do without the judgment of the rest of the world. Not to mention, you don’t have to worry about buying presents for anyone else before this holiday comes. Another thing, this holiday is totally optional. No one is going to think you’re a bad person just because you don’t celebrate Halloween. Do you think you’d get the same reaction if you told someone that you don’t celebrate Christmas?

Joe Biden's Ethos

2008-10-29T15:29:00.002-05:00

Throughout this essay, Biden shows many examples of different styles of ethos. Some of the most obvious examples that can be found in this debate are the simple ideas such as when he is constantly critisizing the opponent's character. Even though the question proposed what "What are some of the promises that YOUR campaign made that they aren't going to be able to uphold?" He speaks about Obama and his plan for about five seconds and then continues to talk about how horrible McCain's plan is for the rest of his time. He talks about what McCain is doing wrong with his plans and how all of the tax cuts are ridiculous and not what America needs right now and so on. Then at the end of his time to speak he says that he WOULD say many more things about what his campaign would do but the light was blinking at him and telling him that he was out of time to talk. He spent so much time ragging on his opponent and making him look worse that he couldn't even properly answer the proposed question. This is a perfect example of Ad Hominen.

Biden also trys to make himself look like a "regular old joe." He wants to be seen as just another citizen who cares and wants to make a change in the world. He works to create the correct image with his suit and the flag pin properly placed on his collar. I remember when the press had a huge fit with Obama when he wasn't wearing his flag pin because they wanted to all be able to pull the card and say that he isn't patriotic. I think that Biden understands that he is already behind other people in the ethos race because many people know about his outspoken personality and many aren't too huge of fans of him. He has to create a guarded character to make sure that he can be what the people want from their Vice President. So throughout the whole debate he tries very hard to keep his cool and not offend anyone because he knows that many of the critics are just waiting for him to slip up so that they can slit his throat in the media.

Post #11 Presidential Elections

2008-10-21T21:14:00.002-05:00

In this clip, Senator John McCain brings up the idea of Senator Barack Obama's tax plans and how that would effect small business owners. He uses the example of "Joe the Plumber" by saying that he has worked at the same job for many years and worked many hours, probably 10 to 12 hours a day, and now he wants to buy the business and become it's owner. Because of Obama's tax plan, McCain fights that Joe the Plumber didn't get the chance to own the business because his taxes would become so much higher that he couldn't afford to pay his workers. Obama fights back by saying that he's cutting the taxes for over 90% of the people in America and that Joe the Plumber wouldn't be as effected as McCain said. Pretty much, it's two men arguing over the same thing again and again.

McCain appeals to logos when he says the line "nobody likes taxes so why raise them." It's a pretty, "well duh..." kind of statement. Obviously no one likes taxes and all the people would love to be able to beleive in that statement. It's only logical that the people don't like the taxes so it will make the people happier if you promise not to raise the taxes. I think he makes this statement because he just wants to be able to say what everyone's been thinking all along. Why raise them any higher? Everyone is already stressed enough about what they have to pay now, why in the world would to people be happy to hear that they are yet again going to have to pay more.

McCain appeals to pathos here when he says the line "why would you want to raise taxes now? when the economy is so horrible?" This appeals to pathos because many of the American people are very scared with the economy and the recent stock crashes. It really plays of people's emotions when the each senator talks about taxes because they are all scared of loosing all of their money. with things being so bad as they are right now, the last thing the American people want to hear is that their taxes are going up. By doing this McCain is making Obama out to be the bad guy in the situation because McCain makes it seem that he is the only one who is going to be raising any taxes.

Both candidates appeal to ethoes when they talk about each other. They seem to never stop criticizing each other and what the other stands for. Neither of the men seem to be able to even see the other man's point of view. I hate it how in politics they talk down each other by calling them hypicites and liars. It makes it seem as if the men for get that they even have any beliefs in common. In this situation they use ethos in a very negative and degrating way towards each other. All they focus about is the other person's flaws.

I think it's so hard to not be jaded in these present day elections because of all the slander the politicians use against each other. I wish that there exsisted some person who what truely unbiased who could just come on and say, "This is what McCain stands for and doesn't stand for and this is what Obama stands for and doesn't stand for. Now you make your decision." I want the facts without all the crap and petty topics. I just want to know simply what YOU want to do for our country, not what your oponent DOESNT want to do.

Post #10 Envasion Questions

2008-10-15T18:14:00.007-05:00

Chapter 1

1. When there are so many different versions of writing and different interpretations, how are you sure that you are getting the authors main idea?

2. Can different groups of people interpret a political cartoon differently? how does the artist ensure that he's getting the point HE/SHE WANTS across to the audience?

3. When you are trying to connect with your audience, what tactic do you think it the most successful? Are you more interested in their logic or their emotion?

Chapter 2

1. Where do we see visual rhetoric in our everyday life?

2. What are some of the ways that people trick others and create false needs?

3. Why do you believe that arguments set up in a cause and effect format are so successful? Do these types of questions appeal more to our emotions or our logic?

Writing Project #1

2008-10-12T20:13:00.007-05:00

I have always been a strong believer that a child’s greatest adventure is discovering everything that this world has to offer, and as I passed the statues of children playing in marching band and stood before those great doors painted with bright greens and reds and blues, I realized that this place could be one of the greatest discoveries for any adventurous child. “The Children’s Museum,” stated the door very bluntly with a cursive font that curled and twisted to suggest that the mood of this place was much more relaxed than the door of a business with a Times New Roman entrance. The moment I walk in, I’m instantly greeted with the smiling face of a young woman working behind the red, blue, and yellow ticket counter. She seemed very nice and caring but a little bored with just sitting all day. Looking around the towering hall I thought to myself, “Wow! You can’t put a price on how many memories a child could make here!” At that moment the young woman stated shortly, “Six dollars please.” I was wrong, I guess you can put a price on it.

Once you pass the primary colored counter, you are suddenly overwhelmed of all the options and adventures. It almost makes you realize that if an adult can be stunned with the opportunities of this place, imagine how the children would feel. The three story building was packed floor to ceiling with varying opportunities for each of the kids to explore. The children had the option to explore space, fly a hot air balloon, become a newscaster, and live in a tree house all in one day. At the center of the building sits, what I remembered to be one of my favorite attractions; the prairie dog exhibit. Here, the children were able to crawl into a series of tunnels that intertwine together, much like a prairie dog town. Children would eagerly crawl in one side, vanish for a few moments and then suddenly reappear on the complete opposite side of the mound, smiling from ear to ear. As many different children popped their small heads out of holes and imitating Timon from The Lion King, I realized that I wasn’t just seeing the same few smiling faces over and over again, they were each different kids. It’s almost incredible when you realize how many children those tunnels even hold! The children became more and more ecstatic every time they popped their head up and shouted “SURPRISE” to wherever their otherwise occupied parents were sitting. The kids were so excited every time they came up and went back down, as if every time they entered the tunnels again, they thought they would discover a whole new adventure.

After awhile, the difference between the way each parent watched their kid became more interesting. Many of the mothers were sitting together and chatting about the latest thing their child did or whatever the newest drama on the soaps, but one father in particular caught my eye. He was sitting alone staring at his little girl as she sprinted into the tubes like all the other children, almost tripping, and before she disappeared he shouted to her, “Anna, be careful!” but she just waved him off. As he sat down, it seemed that he had given the warning more as a comfort for himself than her. During the time she wound about the tubes, he never took his eyes off of the exit he was expecting her to come out of. After seconds turned into minutes, the father scooted farther forward on his chair. A few minutes longer he seemed like he couldn’t take it anymore and he stood up. Not wanting to be too hovering, he took a lap around the mound. After still not being able to see her, a flash a panic crossed over his concerned face and right as he opened his mouth to call her she popped out the opposite side. “Daddy!” she squeaked, “There are so many tunnels! It’s so cool!” And with a sigh of relief the father grabs her by the hand and says, “It sounds like fun, but let’s see what else there is.” He scooped her up into his arms and tickled her to make ensure that she didn’t vanish into the tubes once more and scare him all over again. As the little girl, Anna, skipped away in her princess Velcro shoes and twirl her already curly hair, she begged her father to take her over to the grocery store section of the museum.

At the Children’s museum the kids have the option to temporarily become almost any profession they wanted, with the exception of pimp and drug dealer of course. The grocery store section draws in a lot of the children’s attention because it’s something that they are familiar with. Every kid loves going to the grocery store with the mom and helping her pick out what to eat for supper and in this module, the children are in control. They shop for whatever groceries they see fit and when their cart is full and they’ve gone through check-out a volunteer kindly takes the cart and puts all the food back in the correct location. On the far side of the tiny store, a small girl in a plaid dress and pigtails cleared every item off of the pretend produce self and packed it into her midget-sized cart. She scooted her way past a young boy who seemed to be comparing two pieces of plastic meat much like he saw his mother do before. The children were so engrossed with the hollow food that they seemed to totally forget that it was all just make-believe. At one point, another little girl dropped a neon yellow banana to the ground and promptly picked it up, handed it to a volunteer, and stated, “This food was on the ground. It’s too dirty to sell now.” The volunteer struggled to stifle her laugh to make sure that she didn’t discourage the small girl’s obviously serious statement and the girl continued on her merry way. As a volunteer scanned the food for the pigtailed girl, she made small talk about the weather and other “grown-up” things. After she bagged her fake food into little plastic bags she pushed the cart about five feet out of the store. Once she was out of the store and back into the walkway, she stopped and turned to volunteer and said, “What do I do with this now?” Then it was back to reality. She wasn’t really a grown-up going grocery shopping for an insane amount of vegetables; she was just a little girl on a big adventure.

A further tour of the giant museum offers a great variety of adventures for the children. Just walking down a single hall, you pass a pizza bakery where a boy stopped making the messy pepperoni pizza to pick his nose, a police car where the small boy was informing the other car that they were going a “bazillion miles per hour,” and a veterinarian where, if that stuffed dog were real, PETA would definitely make sure the little boy lost his veterinary license for what he was doing to it. Each of these tiny rooms offered a new discovery for the children but they saw each of these tiny rooms as just another adventure. It was amazing to me how excited these kids were just for the future. Things that the adults in this world take for granted or even dread doing, are the same exact things that these children dream about. Each of these kids were using their creativity and also their memory to play these grown-up games. They were reenacting all the moves that they saw on TV or that they had watched their parents do before. But another point that this museum offers that is very important to the children is the fact that they are able to be much more independent. Throughout the whole time I was there, there was never a crying face. I did however, see children with the freedom to paint each other’s face instead of letting a grown-up do it, children telling their parents all the dreams they had for when they grow up, and children taking the time from a somewhat hectic world to create their own adventure and to just stop and discover.

Writing Post #1-Rough Draft

2008-10-07T12:05:00.002-05:00

I have always been a strong believer that a child’s greatest adventure is discovering everything that this world has to offer, and as I stood before those great doors painted with bright greens and reds and blues, I realized that this place could be one of the greatest discoveries for any adventurous child. “The Children’s Museum,” stated the door very bluntly with a cursive font that curled and twisted to suggest that the mood of this place was much more relaxed than the door of a business with a Times New Roman entrance. The moment I walk in, I’m instantly greeted with the smiling face of a young woman working behind the red, blue, and yellow ticket counter. She seemed very nice and caring but a little bored with just sitting all day. As I looked around the towering hall I thought to myself, “Wow! You can’t put a price on how many memories a child could make here!” At that moment the young woman stated shortly, “Six dollars please.” I was wrong, I guess you can put a price on it.
Once I passed the primary colored counter, I was suddenly overwhelmed of all the options and adventures. I realized that if I was even stunned with the opportunities of this place, imagine how the children would feel. The three story building was packed floor to ceiling with varying opportunities for each of the kids to explore. The children had the option to explore space, fly a hot air balloon, become a newscaster, and live in a tree house all in one day. First, I sat myself by what I remembered as one of my favorite attractions when I was younger, the prairie dog exhibit. Here, the children were able to crawl into a series of tunnels that intertwine together, much like a prairie dog town. I watched as children would eagerly crawl in one side, vanish for a few moments and then suddenly reappear on the complete opposite side of the mound, smiling from ear to ear. As I watched and noticed many different children popping their small heads out of holes and imitating Timon from The Lion King, I realized that I wasn’t just seeing the same few smiling faces over and over again, they were each different kids. At this point I wondered to myself, how many children did those tunnels even hold? The children became more and more ecstatic every time they popped their head up and shouted “SURPRISE” to wherever their otherwise occupied parents were sitting. After awhile, I started watching the parents more than the kids. Many of the mothers were sitting together and chatting about the latest thing their child did or whatever the newest drama on the soaps but one father in particular caught my eye. He was sitting alone staring at his little girl as she sprinted into the tubes like all the other children, almost tripping, and before she disappeared he shouted to her, “Anna, be careful!” but she just waved him off. As he sat down, I realized that he had given the warning more as a comfort for himself than her. During the time she wound about the tubes, he never took his eyes off of the exit I’m assuming he was expecting her to come out of. After seconds turned into minutes, the father scooted farther forward on his chair. A few minutes longer he seemed like he couldn’t take it any more and he stood up. Not wanting to be too hovering, he took a lap around the mound. After still not being able to see her, I saw a flash a panic cross over his concerned face and right as he opened his mouth to call her she popped out the opposite side. “Daddy!” she squeaked, “There are so many tunnels! It’s so cool!” And with a sigh of relief the father grabs her by the hand and says, “It sounds like fun, but let’s see what else there is.” I laughed to myself and realized that this was his way of ensuring that she didn’t vanish into the tubes once more and scare him like that all over again. As I watched the little girl, Anna, skip away in her princess Velcro shoes and twirl her already curly hair, I decided it was time for me to move on as well.
But again, I struggled with the problem of the unlimited choices. The children had the option to temporarily become almost any profession they wanted, with the exception of pimp and drug dealer of course. I strolled over to the grocery store section and watched while a small girl in a plaid dress and pigtails cleared every item off of the pretend produce self and packed it into her midget-sized cart. She scooted her way past a young boy who seemed to be comparing two pieces of plastic meat much like I’m sure he saw his mother do before. The children were so engrossed with the hollow food that I’m not sure they didn’t forget it was all make believe. At one point, another little girl dropped a neon yellow banana to the ground and promptly picked it up, handed it to a volunteer, and stated, “This food was on the ground. It’s too dirty to sell now.” I had to stifle my laugh to make sure I didn’t discourage the small girl’s obviously serious statement and she continued on her merry way. I then stood next to the volunteer and inquired if the children always took these modules this seriously and she smiled and said yes, all the time. As a volunteer scanned the food for the pigtailed girl, she made small talk about the weather and other “grown-up” things. After she bagged her fake food into little plastic bags she pushed the cart about five feet out of the store. Once she was out of the store and back into the walkway, she stopped and turned to volunteer and said, “What do I do with this now?” Then it was back to reality. She wasn’t really a grown-up going grocery shopping for an insane amount of vegetables; she was just a little girl on a big adventure.
As I kept on touring the museum, I passed a pizza bakery where a boy stopped making the messy pepperoni pizza to pick his nose, a police car where the small boy was informing the other car that they were going a “bazillion miles per hour,” and a veterinarian where if that stuffed dog were real, PETA would definitely make sure the little boy lost his veterinary license for what he was doing to it. Each of these tiny rooms offered a new discovery for the children. Each of these tiny rooms was just another adventure. It was amazing to me how excited these kids were just for the future. Throughout the whole time I was there, I never saw a crying face. I did however, see children with the freedom to paint each other’s face instead of letting a grown-up do it, children telling their parents all the dreams they had for when they grow up, and children taking the time from a somewhat hectic world to create their own adventure and to just stop and discover.

Blog Post #6- Movie Interp

2008-09-28T18:38:00.004-05:00

My music video, The Sound of Truth by As I Lay Dying, holds a plot within the movie. There are many music videos out there that have no story behind them at all. They just show the band over and over again in different settings. For me to truly enjoy a music video, I think that there needs to be something more than just the music. There needs to be a meaning.

At the beginning of the movie, we are given a scene of a woman obviously about to be pushed off of a large cliff to her death. Behind her stand two guards dressed in complete black. The black alone symbolizes that these men are working for the bad side, whatever they may be. Right away, the viewer notices the color scheme for the video. Everything shown in the video is gray, black, or rainy. The color scheme symbolizes the dark story that the video is about to unveil. After we see the lady on the edge, the video shows the rest of the people forming a small mob. At this point, we are introduced to the villain of the story. He is standing in front of a video recorder sending a video to all of the people of him wearing black gloves and black clothes shouting his demands of the citizens. This point reminds me a great deal of 1984 where they had Big Brother who watched over them and sent out the daily hate to the people. We quickly learn that he has taken a dictatorship position over the people and the people don't seem to like it. As the story goes on and the mob grows more and more crazy, we learn that the dictator wanted to kill this woman because of some defect on her hands that he thought was unholy. As this one man rallies everyone against the dictator, the man starts to lose his power over the people. At this exact moment, two people dressed the exact same as the black men pictured at the beginning of the video show up to the dictator but when they take off their masks we can see that one of the men is the man in charge of rallying everyone. These two men grab the dictator and take him in front of the mob, who at this point are going absolutely mad. They take a vote from the mob and everyone wants him to be sacrificed like he did to all the people with the small defect. The only one who wasn't yelling for him to be murdered was the girl that we originally saw in the beginning of the video. She seemed to be the only person who had any compassion for the man who tried to kill her. When a couple of men throw him down to the ground they also strip him of his gloves and the entire mob freezes when they see that this dictator had the same defect that he hurt all of these other people for.

The main point of this video is to point out the irony of life. The only person who wasn't fighting for the dictator's death was the same woman who he was trying to kill before. Not only that, but this man was trying to get rid of every person with this defect when he himself suffered from the same problem. All of these create a dramatic effect to the story. As the movie goes on the rain gets harder and harder until the very end when the dictator is exposed. At that point, the rain stops completely and so do the people. I think that the rain could symbolize the people's hate. As they get more and more pissed, the rain gets harder and harder but when they realize that the dictator was just like them, the hate stops, and so does the rain.

Blog Post #5- Free Topic- My dorm

2008-09-23T12:07:00.004-05:00

I believe that everyone has a certain place that is their center, their place to get away, their place to relax. As we move to college, many students lose their beloved serenity spot. They are moved into an unfamiliar place with many unfamiliar people. Where do they go to get away in a place they don’t even know? Last year, during my first year of college, I struggled with that very same problem. I never knew where to go to be purely in Zen. Every place I went was strange and not mine. So, one day I got fed up and decided that if I couldn’t find a place to be my own, I’d make one. From that point on, I worked on covering all the walls with memories of things that made me happy. I used pictures, old letters that I had kept, a giant pirate flag that I commandeered from a friend and many different band posters. From that point on I felt the year went by much more smoothly. My room here at Wesleyan is no different. I have taken all the creativity I have in my to create a room that makes me smile every time that I walk in it. Even though I was supposed to be living in an apartment on campus and got moved into Burt Hall which is notorious for their extremely tiny rooms, I still enjoy every inch of my dorm. On the North wall you’ll find that you can’t even see the color of the paint on the walls because they are covered from ceiling to floor in my favorite pictures and favorite memories. The East wall, which houses the only window to my cell, has a large Beatles poster and other random letters or notes that I cherish. The South wall is completely covered in band posters including Led Zeppelin, The Doors, Jimi Hendrix, the Ramones, and Pink Floyd. The west wall, where our closets are found, is far from bare as well. Underneath my loft you can find a groovy Buddhist tapestry that my roommate brought. Underneath her loft is the pirate flag that I so cherish. If you look on the ceiling, you’ll find an abstract version of the sun and moon made out of construction paper. Everyone always tells me how my room looks like they just stepped into the 60/70s. My room is definitely my comfort place. All I can say is that I’m glad my roommate has the same hippy style as me!

Blog Post #4- Free topic--PAIN

2008-09-21T22:35:00.006-05:00

Everyone knows that there is no real definition of pain. Some think that pain comes from a paper cut; others say that you have to go as far as any serious injury requiring surgery and even others say that that isn’t even true pain. It’s all based on one’s pain tolerance. Recently, I’ve learned that my pain tolerance is not very high. But then again, this comes as no surprise to me. I’m not going to pretend that I’m comparable to Rambo because, let’s face it, I’m not. Recently, I’ve been required to wear a brace because of the, what I consider to be, severe pain. It’s not broken, it’s not sprained, in fact, I have no clue what’s wrong with it. Last Wednesday, I was forced to go to the doctor, who happens to be my own dad, so that they can run every test under the sun to find out what in the hell is wrong with me. Their leading guess is that I am suffering from a pretty bad case of carpal tunnel so they started me off with that test. If you don’t know, the carpel tunnel screening is a test that hooks you up to a series of wires that connects you to a machine. The purpose of this machine is to shock you over and over and over again to determine how your nerves react to decide if you do have the symptoms. Each test consists of ten shocks to the hand. They start by connecting the wires to the wrist and up to you middle finger. After ten shocks to feel very similar to grabbing on to an electric fence multiple times, they continue by shocking the opposite hand to compare. For some reason, the tests to my left hand weren’t being read by the machine so we have to retry it three different times. Now my hands have gone through 40 shocks. After this test the nurse returns to my right hand and connects the wires to my pinky finger. Ten more shocks. After sitting in the minor surgery room for 15 minutes, waiting for the results, the nurse comes back with a guilty look on her face and informs me that the results from the very first test didn’t come out either. So we proceed to torture my hand for two more tests. After the nurse had successfully shocked me 70 times she comes back to tell me that the results came back negative. Great! All of that for nothing! Even though the tests were negative, my dad didn’t want to take any risks so he informs me that they are going to inject a steroid into my wrist to help with the pain. To make this story complete, I think that you need to realize that I might be the worst patient to give shots to. For some unknown reason I have gained a huge phobia to needles. Believe it or not, the pain in my wrist was so horrid that I was willing to go through anything just for the hope that it may be better soon. As they injected the steroid into my nerves I could feel the pain shoot up all to the way to my elbow but the doctors promise me that that was a promising sign. I really didn’t understand how more pain was promising but I wasn’t in any shape to argue. So how does one define pain? Can it be described as any physical discomfort to the human body or is everyone’s definition of pain just what they can or can’t take? If each of our definitions are different, mine would be short and simple. For me, pain is everything in my right hand.

Blog Post #3- Movie Clip

2008-09-14T11:49:00.005-05:00

My video, Das Rad, or The Wheel in English, shows the development of the world from a rocks perspective. Winner of the best short animated file, this German video has been translated and accepted to be part of the Animation Show 3. In this video, we see how a couple of "rock people" live life and how they view the development of the world. Some interesting points that I noticed from this video were the materials that the animators used to create the rocks. i can't tell if this film was made by advanced claymation, or if it was all created by digital animation, or even if they actually used real rocks. that shows how believable the animation was for the video. The super speed of the movie is very important to the plot because I believe that it symbolizes how quickly time moves for the rocks because of how long a rock lives. a day to us, feels like a second to them. throughout the clip, we see small villages appearing in the background while the rocks go about living like they always had. eventually, one of the rocks starts playing with a circular rock that he had found and we can see that he starts to realize the power of a wheel. at this point, an early caveman comes and sees the circular rock that the rockman had been playing with. from this point, man creates the wheel and once the wheel is created, the development of the land around the rock men is sped up twice as much. we see a road appear, and soon the villages grow larger and larger. At one point in the video, the speed of the development becomes so extreme that the rocks don't know what to do. this clip is very symbolic because it shows the progression of man and how it's just been getting faster and faster and never slowing down. Another ironic point was the billboard that was put up by the rock men that said built to last and eventually just broke down. By that, the creator is showing that he believes nothing is "built to last" As the development went on, the sky grew darker and everything became much more polluted until everything just stopped. I believe that the creator of this movie was trying to get a point across of how much our world has changed but I don't think the creator is quite a fan of how much we've developed lately. He makes a statement about what he thinks will happen in the future about how mankind will be the end of mankind. After all this development, everything is just swept away and everything starts over again as new. The movie tends to have a negative point at the end that makes you think. To me, that's what makes a good video/essay. It has to make you think deeper about a part of your life or some experience you've had.

Blog Post #2 - Diagrams

2008-09-11T00:25:00.005-05:00

My diagram, which pictures a volcano in full blast, is probably viewed as a more elementary example in the world of diagrams. As I was searching for a diagram that interested me the most, I realized that many diagrams now-a-days aren’t very visual at all. Now, maybe I’m wrong here, but I thought that one reason for even creating a diagram was so that a person could put their information in a more visual set-up. But, when I looked at all the examples, they were all pretty much just a bunch of words in a bubble. To me, that’s not visual at all. Now, I may sound somewhat perturbed here, but that’s only because I am such a visual learner. Diagrams were how I survived many or any science class. So when I see people just putting the same boring notes into little bubbles or squares and calling them diagrams, I have to disagree.
So today, we are going to learn about volcanos! This wonderful diagram, which I have so gratefully taken from the Education World Website (http://www.education-world.com/a_tech/techlp/techlp039.shtml), shows a volcano at full eruption. We also learn each of the different parts that work together to create a volcano. We can see the craters, the vents, and even learn where the sill is located. To me, this is very informational. I think that the labeling on this diagram is very basic, but it also needs to be because the whole diagram itself is basic. I also like the fact that the diagram has a cartoon look to it, almost as if someone had doodled it on the paint application. I believe that this factor is important to the diagram as a whole because it helps the diagram connect to its audience who is obviously fairly young. I’d say early to middle grade school to be exact. One of the biggest differences that this diagram has had to suffer now that it is on the world wide web instead of in a fourth grade classroom is that it is very limited. It can always only be a drawn diagram. Maybe, if the designer gets creative, they can add some animation to it and make the volcano actually explode over and over again, but it will never be the same as some 3-D model that a little kid stays up all night working on. We will never be able to see the combination of baking soda and other ingredients that make a chemical reaction that spills over the edge of the volcano and makes an exciting mess all over the classroom table. We lose all of that, but I think we are starting to get used to missing all of these things with the internet. We are starting to become too digital and wrapped up in technology that we forget to get our hands dirty with the real diagrams. I know that this isn’t very close to the idea of what you wanted for the blogs but still…it needed to be said.

Blog Post 1

2008-09-04T14:18:00.008-05:00

"I want to see a piece of the essayist. I want to see a mind at work, imagining, spinning, struggling to understand. If the essayist has all the answers, he isn't struggling to grasp, and I won't either. When you care about something, you continually grapple with it, because it is alive in you. It thrashes and moves, like all living things." (Atwan 22)

-Alan Lightman

My quote, by Alan Lightman, really hits home with me. I think his abstract wording and ideas help me to relate to him. When I read an essay, I too want to learn a little bit about the writer, not just the topic. For me, an essay is truly successful if it makes the reader want to go out and search about the topic on their own. A good essay should bring up all the questions lingering in the essayist’s mind but doesn’t always have to answer them. They may possibly leave some of the answering up to the reader to discover. Another good point that Lightman brings up is how a reader should be able to feel the passion of the writer through the ink and pages. Its chain reaction, when the writer is truly excited or interested in the subject, the reader tends to feel the same. An essayist who really struggles with a topic, almost to the point where it seems to haunt him, will automatically become a better writer because he pours his emotions, frustrations, accomplishment, and more onto the page. If the writer isn’t struggling, in a good way, the reader won’t either. Thus, if the writer isn’t interested in the topic, there can be no hope for the reader. Again, the wording is brilliant and it caught my eye, especially the line, “When you care about something, you continually grapple with it, because it is alive in you. It thrashes and moves, like all living things.” I believe that when you stumble across an amazing essay, or any piece of writing, you will be able to feel the words trying to thrash themselves off the page. They scream at you, grab your attention, take you along for the ride and don’t let you go until the writing is finished. After you finish reading, take a deep breath and all you can do is mutter, “wow..” Now, I know this doesn’t happen very often, but isn’t it amazing when it does? Those are the pieces of writing that you’ll remember.

Test Post

2008-08-28T14:47:00.001-05:00

TEST POST

WOOT WOOT!!!!