Post #20 3rd O-O

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

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

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

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

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.