So long and farewell English 103 bloggers!

Oh gosh. Week sixteen blog! Wow, I can’t believe we made it here. I can’t believe I’m still alive. I can’t believe my computer hasn’t quite on me from pure exhaustion, that keys aren’t falling off the keyboard as I type this. Just a little bit further, my precious MacBook. We have made it.

When I first started this class I was really nervous. My first attempt at an online English class ended in my professor dropping me. I don’t blame her, I was extremely far behind. For some reason, working at Target had become the priority. Needless to say, I quit the company shortly after. I didn’t work this semester, just went to school full time. And that was a job in itself. All of the things that I’ve had to do, in the last few weeks alone have been insane. But now I know that I can take an online class. I know that even though it’s harder it really can be done. 

I’m kind of going to miss this class. I was a little bummed that the discussions are over, that writing this blog is over. I’m probably going to keep blogging after this - maybe not on this site, but I think my New Years Resolution will be to write more. That saying “use it or lose it” has to be said for a reason, right? 

The work load was daunting but I think it helped us. I see it in all of your writings, in the blogs and in the group essays. I see it especially in my own writing. I can see how much I’ve grown, how much English 103 online has helped me understand writing in a new light. 

I’m proud of us all. And I am thankful for Jennifer for always being there for us should we ever need it. I have professors that could have office hours and for whatever reason, they are impossible to find when you need them. But Jennifer is quick to get back to us, to remind us that she is there, and to actually be there. That kind of support was essential to this class. Even though I never really went to Jennifer for help, knowing that she was there if I did was just a little boost of confidence for me. 

And then, there was the support from all of you. When it felt like this class was just too much to handle, looking at how well everyone else was doing and the improvements they were making was great motivation. I feel a little connected to you all. I know that might be strange as we’ve never even met each other in person, but in reading the blogs I feel a connection. I feel like we know the same sorts of experiences and we understand the pressure that this particular class has put on us. We’ve seen others points of views and maybe accepted them and let them become a part of our thoughts too. 

Anyway, it was really great to read all of your blogs and to be able to understand you all, even if we never have and maybe never will meet. No longer is this class and these assignments just a screen full of words, but rather a screen full of understanding and growth. 

Good luck to you all in these final weeks of the Fall 2010 semester and in the rest of your educational pursuits! 

Time to Vent!

Vent about the Research Project? And not get in trouble for it? Why yes, yes I will! First of all, I hate Research Projects, but what did I expect? The title of English 103 is “Critical Thinking and Research”! I knew when I signed up for this that this part - the researching part - would be difficult for me. Anyway, this specific project is kicking my butt. 

I took seven classes this semester. Plus, if you think about it, this online class adds about another three-ish classes. Honestly, with all of the other papers and projects I’ve had to do in the past few weeks, I haven’t had enough time to really focus on this paper. I’ve been collecting sources, mentally preparing for the hours I’m going to spend this week simply sitting in front of my computer typing out the pages. So essentially, everything has been extremely difficult with this paper. 

My hardest thing to deal with is the thesis. I’ve chosen to do the second prompt, to talk about women’s rights in relation to Reading Lolita in Tehran. I know that Jennifer said this would be harder, but I feel like it will be easier because it is something that interests me. Lately, I’ve been having trouble with any of the thesis’ I’ve done in this class. Mostly, I lose track of my thesis while writing my essay. I forget that I’m proving a point because the facts are more interesting to me. I just keep writing. This is something I know I have to pay more attention to with this essay and hopefully it will come out the way that it is supposed to.

My game plan is to finish everything that is due for my other classes by Monday night. I am going to write out the outlines for this paper, weed out the unimportant or less useful sources that I’ve gathered and see if I can find any that might be more relevant. By Tuesday afternoon I will start the writing process and write until my brain explodes or my hands fall off, which ever comes first. Then I will re-read it. I will take out pieces here, add pieces there, and look away from it. After Thanksgiving and some well deserved time off from school with my family, I will come back and read it once more. If there are still areas that I am having trouble with, I will tackle those areas in my best efforts of not confusing my group members during the peer draft review. 

I am most excited for the PDR. I feel like by reading my peers papers, I will get a better sense of how I am doing myself. Sometimes when I read what the others are writing new ideas form for me. Also, getting the criticism and advice from my peers is an amazing tool that I don’t take for granted. So hopefully with some help from my group my paper will be worthy of an amazing grade. As frustrating as this paper, and this whole semester is, I’m excited for the time I’m going to spend actually writing it and all of the things I am going to learn in the process. 

Good luck to you all as well! 

Online Embarrassment.

Social networking has become huge. Today it seems like everything is online. You can order a pizza, take a class, do you Christmas shopping, read the newspaper, apply for jobs, listen to music, and watch TV shows all online. So it shouldn’t be so shocking that our social lives would be online too. Unfortunately, I don’t think that we are always aware of the things that we are sharing online and down the road there may be some things that we regret. 

I’ve had an account on almost any social networking site you can name of. When I was fourteen years old, my favorite was GreatestJournal. It was a clone site of LiveJournal (which I use now). I’ve always had a journal, a written one since I could write and it always astounded me when I would come across one of my journals from when I was 10 and read the things I wrote about. Embarrassing things, to say the least. But I always took comfort in the fact that no one but me could read these ridiculous things unless they were violating my privacy. Then I got the bright idea to start writing in an online journal. An unlocked, open and out there journal. Did I mention I was fourteen? The smallest things are so dramatic when you are a fourteen year old girl. Let’s not even go into the way that I typed because that alone was embarrassing (apparently, when I was fourteen spell check never crossed my mind!). 

This all probably didn’t matter except that people could read it. They were my very personal thoughts being read by someone. Things that I could forget about were things other people would use to form an opinion of me. They could be things that these people would bring up to me at a later time. If they were smart and I said something insanely idiotic, they could take a screen shot and share it with the world again. 

After a few years of me being a very active member of the site, GreatestJournal closed down. I moved on to LiveJournal with the thought in mind that whatever I posted would be locked, and in addition to that I would really have to censor myself. I would have to edit my post to make sure it wasn’t something that I wouldn’t want others to read. Those types of things belonged in my handwritten, hidden away, journal. 

Lately, I don’t think people do that. I have a Facebook, which I’m constantly logged into. From my Blackberry, I’m always plugged in. But some of the things people choose to write on Facebook make me wonder what they were thinking when they wrote it. If you need any more proof that people really aren’t paying attention to what they’re writing, I suggest you visit Failbook (http://failbook.failblog.org/). It contains screenshots of what some people see when they log on to their Facebook accounts. Things that you probably shouldn’t share with the world, spread to the masses. Things that your future employers could find, your future husband or wife’s family can find, and even things your mother can probably see. I’m not saying we can’t express our ideas online, but my goodness, can we think twice before pressing the “share” button? 

Political Comics

Politics tends to be one of those subjects where you’re constantly running into lose-lose situations. What can start as a simple, friendly debate can take become and ugly session of bashing and name calling in a matter of seconds. It’s all our faults. On the one hand, we get so invested in identifying ourselves as belonging to either one party or the other, we never look at the grey area. Simple conversation has become so offensive, it seems as if we’re better off not even talking about it. 

And then there are the political cartoons. Putting a comical twist to very serious situations, making light of problems in our society. And because we’re so invested in our separate parties, even if the comic depicts an animal (i.e., a donkey or elephant - who chose those anyway?) we feel hurt. Especially, if we feel that they are lying or exaggerating something to make “our” party seem awful. I’ve seen comic strips of Obama ushering pregnant women into abortion clinics or holding a gun to a baby carriage and telling the mother, “It’s never to late to make the choice!” I’ve seen comics that compare Bush to Hitler. 

What it comes down to is that they’re comics. They’re meant to be funny and I feel that quite often many people don’t see the humor. I know that in concern to this comic, I didn’t:

Now, I didn’t vote for Hillary. She was my second choice. She would have gotten my vote had Obama lost the primaries. To some degree I did support her. I support her as the Secretary of State and for all of the amazing things she’s done. With that said, I am a bit of a feminist. I don’t think that women need men, I think that much of the time women are stronger than men and nothing makes my blood boil faster than a man saying that a woman should be in the kitchen making him sandwiches - even if he is joking. Obviously, I admire Hillary for all of the things she’s done for our country and for the world. She is a strong mother and devoted wife, but on top of all of that she is smart and educated and a high powered career person. 

So for this cartoon to suggest that Hillary Clinton was incapable of being President of the United States simply because she is a woman is ridiculous to me. The idea that a woman could not hold her own in a group of world leaders and more importantly a group of men, is ludicrous. Do people really think that faced with the problems of our country and the complicated relationships our country has with other countries, a woman would just break down and cry? As if she’d never been in front of these leaders before, when her husband was President? Was she seen crying when her marriage was hanging on a thread in 1998? 

And then, to add insult to injury, they bring on the issue of PMS. Beside the fact that Hillary Clinton is at an age where PMS probably isn’t a concern, the idea that PMS is so disabling that a woman could probably do nothing more than cry an eat chocolate is horrible. In all, I found this comic to be sexist and offensive and not very humorous at all. 

Perhaps I’m being too sensitive about it, perhaps I am overreacting. It is all in fun, no? I laugh at other political comics. I’m not sure what it is about this one that upsets me, but the fact is that it does. Granted, it is not something that will ruin my day or promote me to find the artist and protest his house. Sometimes, things are offensive and we’ve got to brush it off. At the same time, we need to know when not to cross the line, even if we just want to call it a silly drawing.

Writing Improvement

My writing style has changed quite a bit since we started English 103. I actually think I’ve come full circle and my writing has finally grown up with me.

When I was younger I used to be a great writer. It was the one thing that teachers and family always commented on and it was the one thing I thought I could do well. For a while I thought about becoming a writer. Well, more specifically a screen writer. Then something changed.

Sometime in high school I lost my writing ability. I became embarrassed to show my work to anyone and started dreading writing essays for fear that I would have to show them. I obsessed over what my teacher’s remarks would be to the point where I just felt sick to my stomach. And this carried into college.

Although I passed my English 101 class, it wasn’t with the grade that I expected. I wanted so desperately to be good at writing again, but those same fears kept inhibiting me. I even feel those fears to this day, but I think they’re better. Something about this class has made me feel better about myself and my writing. I think that is shown in my writing as well. I feel that what I write is stronger and more confident, although there is still some work to be done. Sometimes the things come out of my head one way and wind up on the paper another way. It makes for a confusing read. But with the help of my classmates in the PDR’s and the comments left on my blog posts I find that I’m seeing easier ways to express my ideas. Through all the reading we’ve done on language I’m more understanding of the power it holds and what I can do with it. 

My vocabulary has strengthened as well. For a long time I wrote the way in the same manner that I spoke which, if we’re being honest here, doesn’t always make sense. Thanks to this class I think that I’ve found a way to have my voice in my writing while at the same time coming across as more coherent. I feel that now, after having been in this class for the past eleven weeks, that I can better communicate with people. 

The fear that I had when it came to writing to people was nearly disabling in the first few weeks of this class. I was worried every time I posted a blog and spent 30 minutes staring at the submit button before posting my first draft for the peer review. My palms got sweaty and my heart raced a little. Today, I do not hesitate. I take what my peers say about my writing and I use it to better myself and slowly but surely I am becoming more proud of my writing. The people closest to me have gained the ability to read my writing and the best part is that they can understand it better. I’m grateful for what this class has done for my writing skills and I can’t wait to see what the next five weeks will do to enhance my writing. 

Getting the News in 160 Characters or Less

In this day and age news travels fast. Thanks again for that one, technology! It seems that no matter where you turn the hot issues of today are glaring you in the face. On your e-mail’s homepage, the front page of the news paper and the top story on your favorite news station. Sometimes, you don’t even need to look to those things to get your information. A lot of things I find out about are via the ever popular Facebook. Oh, and let us not forget the trending topics on twitter. 

I was eleven years old on September 11th, 2001. I distinctly remember watching the first tower burning on the news that morning. I remember going to school and my friend asking why all of the teachers were freaking out. “A plane hit a building in New York,” I told him. To which he told others. When we sat in class that day we asked our teacher if we could watch the news. He took a moment before deciding that we could and called the other 6th grade teachers and asked them to bring those kids into the classroom and we would all watch together. All day the 50 or so 6th graders sat in a room on the floor with the lights off watching the media coverage. It’s what my family watched when I got home. We were glued to the TV for a long time and that’s exactly how that news came. Person to person and through the news station.

I was eighteen on November 4th, 2008. I was in my women’s history class at AVC. My friend and I were anxiously waiting the results of the presidential election, which I’d voted in early that morning. Finally, during our break we left our class early. I dropped her off at her home and started driving home. Half way there, my phone rang and I read the text message, “Obama wins!” I watched the coverage the rest of the night, now awaiting the results of Proposition 8. I went to bed before those results and woke up the next morning with the news station on but still no results. Finally, I went online to see that it had passed. Full of disbelief, I kept searching the sites and checked back again that night after work. After several of my “trusted” sites and finally the news stories on it, I could believe it. 

I learned of the death of pop icon Michael Jackson through a text message, the resignation of Rahm Emmanuel from twitter, the repeal of Prop 8 on Yahoo. While this is the way that I learned of news, this isn’t the way that I confirm the news. I check over and over again, watch several news programs, check the news papers and read online articles before I can decide what is real and what isn’t. I find that in general I can still with a few reliable sources and somewhat ignore the others. But in these times we need to be careful of simply believing what we read. Not only is there a large amount of bias but sometimes I feel that these sources steal from each other and facts get misinterpreted. While it is good to be informed, it’s better to be properly informed. 

Hate speech in the Media

I’m sure that we’ve all experienced in some way someone hating you for something you could not control. Perhaps you are a woman with some authority over a man in the work place, or you are a person of color in a town that is predominantly white. These day to day life experiences are already hard to deal with without the media continuing to bring these ideas into our mind. 

Often things like movies, television, books and music tell stories of such hardships. Fortunately enough, for the most part it seems that you can find the affects of prejudicial language can go each way in the media. For example, a movie like The Hurt Locker can bring about fear towards arabs and spark the interest of racial slurs against them. The movie G.I. Jane, however, can bring up the idea that women can do something as good, or even better than men.

It does seem to me that more often than not we find the more negative effects of it. Rap lyrics for example, seem to have a lot of this. There are the rappers that talk about how women are unfaithful liars, use the n-word constantly, talk about how the white man puts them down. I’m a fan of rap music, but in general, not this kind. Yet, there it is, played on the radio at least once every two hours because it’s a big hit. Which begs to ask, who is listening to this? And what ideas are they getting about people from it? 

The most viral place for hate speech in media however, is probably the internet. I only say this because of how quickly things get posted around and because everyone has access to post anything they want about it. You can see it in almost everything, even right down to news articles. My e-mail account is with Yahoo, so I get YahooNews. When I read an article about something that President Obama has said or done it somehow turns into how he is a black man. The article may be talking about the new White House dog, but the people writing comments below call him a “socialist nigger who should be shot.” The article might be talking about how the repeal of Proposition 8 is progressing in court, but the people in the comments are talking about how “those faggots should burn in hell.” It’s hateful, and it isn’t simply in people’s minds anymore. It’s in a forum online where hundreds of millions of people can access it and read it. 

So yes, media plays a huge part in the way that hateful speech is being used or promoted and I think this mostly has to do with the fact that it isn’t just a small group of people controlling the media any longer, it is anyone and everyone. While the drama of such language makes for great entertainment, there is a fine line that I think we’re often crossing over. It’s something we as a society have to work against so that our already diverse country can somehow carry on in peace. 

Finding happiness in self-respect.

Self-respect. The knowledge of one's own worth, valuing one's self; pride

Happiness. state of well-being characterized by emotions ranging from contentment to intense joy 

It’s really funny to me, after having read the definitions to each of these terms, that you can have one without the other. Before I read them, if someone had asked me which was more important, I’m pretty sure I would have said that you cannot possibly have one without the other. And the concept of happiness and self respect is something I struggle with so much. 

My mother raised me to be a strong woman. She raised me to be independent and to know my own worth as a person, to not depend on anyone. She taught me to especially never depend on a man. So to me, self-respect is the most important thing. I’m sure you know that saying, “You have to love yourself before anyone else can love you.” I live by that. I don’t take things lying down, I never let people walk all over me. I used to, but then I learned to love myself and respect myself. I respect myself more than I respect almost anyone else. And I am a happy person. Before today, I thought I was a happy person because I respected myself. After thinking about it for a while though, I realized that while it’s good that I respect myself, it isn’t what makes me happy. 

I have a friend who has some serious self-respect issues. She has some abandonment issues due to some family problems and unfortunately it’s carried out into her adult life. She’s chosen someone to love who does not respect her. She does everything for this guy and within the first 6 months of being in a serious relationship with her he cheated on her with her best friend. And she stayed with him. Everything in my body at that time told me to scream at her, that if she had even an ounce of self respect in her body that she would leave him and never speak to him again. She didn’t. She stayed with him and to this day (three years later), although he constantly disrespects her and makes her feel awful, she stays with him. When I ask her why she stays with him after every midnight phone call I get with her crying about how mean he’s been, she replies to me, “Because he makes me happy.” If you were to ask her this question, she would say happiness is more important. 

This brings me back to the definition of happiness. Everyone’s idea of what happiness is will be different. My idea of happiness is loving myself and being surrounded by people who love me. While my boyfriend may bring me happiness, he isn’t the only this that determines my happiness. In general, I think people will always at one time or another find happiness. But I don’t think that everyone will find self-respect, which makes it more important. However, the goal should really be to have both because when you have both, I think anything is possible. 

Willingness To Be Disturbed

At this point in my life I find that I’m very into politics and religion. I care a lot about what I believe in. I’m too passionate, in fact. At times I think that I become blind to the other side and believe there is really only one way. But I’m trying to get over these biases I have because I realize now that no matter what I believe in politically or religiously this shouldn’t get in the way of friendships that could form. That said, it took me some conversations to figure this out.

When you’re young you don’t think twice about what other people may believe in. I always assumed that yes, maybe people believed in God, but as I grew older I started to assume everyone had figured out what I had figured out about it. It wasn’t until about my senior year of high school that I started to see these differences. In fact, there was one defining moment of realizing how differently our views were. There was a party at my house maybe a year ago, and we were playing a game. You write the name of a famous person and tape it to someone else’s forehead and they have to figure out who they are (if you’ve ever seen Inglourious Basters, it was the game that was played in the bar scene). My friend, Alex, was given “Jesus”. His first question was “Am I real?” To which there was mixed answers. After a moment of arguing with each other we settled on “It depends on who you talk to.” 

In my college prep class, freshman year of high school, we had a debate for gay marriage. This is an issue I stand by to the point where I can’t even listen to the other side’s thoughts on it. To me, gay marriage is not harmful. In fact, I think it can boost our economy. Marriage isn’t sacred between men and women anymore, especially with a divorce rate of 50%. I think people should love whoever they love and that others should remember that our country is built on the idea of separation of church and state. I have friends who think differently. To them, the bible clearly states that homosexuality is wrong. And while I’ve heard this view point over and over again, it’s the one conversation that I can’t understand the view point of. 

This brings me to Wheatly’s essay. She says that we enter conversation with a “willingness to be disturbed” but I find that when I have this particular conversation with people, I don’t have a willingness to be disturbed. I don’t even want to have the conversation at all because to me, it leads no where. I think with this issue in particular it is hard for either side to really understand the points of view from the other. On the one hand, the whole point of even talking about it is to perhaps see some insight from another walk of life but at the same time if you start to change your mind about it and be persuaded by them you’re compromising your faith or beliefs. 

After reading this essay I would like to say that the way I have the conversation about gay marriage with those who do not believe in it would change, but I don’t know that I’m telling the truth. In the end, that is probably something I’ll need to work on for myself so maybe the other party can try to understand me as well. Conversation is tricky and while we should go into it with the willingness to be disturbed and have our views challenged, it is easier said than done. 

Past, Present, Women, and Men.

Sometimes, especially when you’re a twenty year old in today’s day and age, it is difficult to understand just how much things change. That’s a really obvious statement isn’t it? Life is constant. But when I think about change I think of it in such short periods of time. I think about how there were days when I didn’t have my BlackBerry at my side twenty-four/seven. I think about how my mom used to be so afraid of the internet in the 90’s that she refused to have the computer in the house. It’s so funny how she has her own Facebook account now. 

I’m aware that things change. But I wasn’t aware of exactly how these changes have affected our media. I took two articles from People Magazine. The first one is from an issue on March 25, 1974. It’s about Cher and Sonny’s divorce (http://www.people.com/people/archive/article/0,,20063893,00.html). The second one is from last month, August 30, 2010. That one is about Tiger Wood’s divorce (http://www.people.com/people/article/0,,20415582,00.html). 

The first thing I noticed was that the article about Cher was long. It also told of the issue and date that the article was released. Also, the article was set up more dramatic. The author of it described the place where he interviewed her, the way she wasn’t wearing her make up and that her fingernails were long and purple. Along with this more dramatic language, the article is mostly quotes from Cher rather than the author reporting on what she said. As a reader, the article made me feel some what sorry for her. The article gave the tone of remorse that it didn’t work out between them. Even though there was a hint at her relationship with another man I never got the feeling that people at that time thought of her as a home wrecker or a cheater.

Tiger Woods’ article does not give me the same feeling of remorse, even though he is quoted as saying he was sad about it. There are a few reasons why I think this as well. First of all, this article is significantly shorter. This may have to do with the fact that it probably wasn’t actually published in their magazine (there is no volume number). The Tiger Woods scandal was all over the news for quite some time, with mistresses coming out left and right so nothing about this divorce was shocking as it may have been for Sonny and Cher. The story also focused more on what Tiger had said rather than setting up the scene of what he looked like when he said it. With Cher, you can see her sitting at a table with the reporter having in dept conversation about it, but with Tiger it feels as if People Magazine just took some quotes here and there from places where they may have heard him talk about his divorce. 

I think this may have something to do with the way people view men and women in divorce. Often, people assume it is the mans fault that someone divorces. Perhaps in the case of Sonny and Cher (though I have no idea as I was born 16 years later) even if she was cheating there was probably a reason - she was unhappy, he was much older than her and maybe she wasn’t as ready as she was to be tied down. Even though there were hints about her being with someone else, it was never brought against her in the article. But in Tiger’s case, being that he is a man, he must be a sexist pig who just uses women. If he hadn’t been such a horrible cheating lying scumbag of a husband, they wouldn’t have divorced, and even the reporters won’t let it go. It’s just one of those double standards that we see with men and women and the way that people treat them. 

English Is A Challenge

English is my first, and only, language. I took Spanish in high school, my junior and senior year. My Spanish II teacher was hardcore. She spoke English, Spanish and French. She taught all of these too, even to the AP level. And her classes were hard. The homework was hard, the tests were hard, remembering the “yo, tu, usted, nosotros” forms were hard. I was not the only one that saw this either. Every pop quiz came with protests from my classmates and groans followed behind every homework assignment she wrote on the board. 

Finally, she was sick of our complaining. She sat down on a desk in front of the class and told us, “This is not hard. You are making it hard. English, the language you guys speak is hard.” She explained to us that Spanish, along with many other foreign languages, has a set list of rules. For the most part verbs end the same way based on the tense and who you’re talking about. Once you get the rules down (like in math) the only things that change are the words (like the numbers of a problem). English however, has all sorts of crazy rules. “I before E except after C” and there are three different meanings for the words “there, their, and they’re”. She told us that English is one of the hardest languages to learn. 

Which gave us all some perspective on how non-native speakers feel when they come to this country - a country where we primarily speak English. I feel that often they’re looked down upon. Often people ask, “Why can’t they just learn English? They’ve come to OUR country, they should learn OUR language.” While this would probably make life a little easier, I find it ridiculous that in a country that has no official language and is considered to be the melting pot of countries that we would say this. 

There is no doubting that English has become a very globalized and important language. According to an essay by Mauro E. Mujica (pg. 168 in EL), 66,000 people from 50 different countries were asked if they thought that you needed to know English in order to be successful. Ninety percent or more of the people surveyed in countries like India, China, and Japan, answered yes. Which comes at no surprise considering that America is known as a superpower in terms of countries. 

People come here for a better chance at life. But is the better chance at life really worth the risk of losing your language simply to conform? Is it worth not being able to read signs posted in your workplace or being able to properly communicate with doctors when your health is in trouble? Imagine if you have a severe allergy to something and you go off to visit Japan. Except you can’t read the label on the packaging because it isn’t in your language. Now you’ve eaten it and broken out in hives and are getting sicker and sicker. And what does the rest of the country say? "Oh, you should have learned Japanese.”

Having English be such a prominent language has to be difficult for non-speakers. I think it's something we as speakers don't really think about. There's such an expectation for everyone to know what we're saying that at times we don't think to accommodate them and at other times it is just too difficult to accommodate them. I feel like other cultures are trying to be more English proficient but there's no denying it - English is a difficult language to learn.

Two sides to EVERY story.

Often the media twists things around to push a political agenda. In turn, one event can be retold several ways. It is kind of like that game “telephone”. There is one person that saw it one way and then told someone else and that person told someone else until the whole thing doesn’t even sound right anymore. The problem with the news media is that the people who watch it tend to hear something and take it as fact just to spew it out again. Let’s take for example Glenn Beck’s Restoring Honor Rally. For this, I took two internet articles from two news companies - CNN and Fox. Traditionally, people think that CNN is liberal and that Fox is conservative. Then there are those that argue that one or the other is “fair” and “balanced”. 

Whatever you believe, here are the two articles:

CNN - http://articles.cnn.com/2010-08-30/politics/glenn.beck.rally.monday_1_conservative-commentator-glenn-beck-rally-king-anniversary?_s=PM:POLITICS

Fox - http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2010/08/28/thousands-expected-glenn-beck-rally-civil-rights-leaders-protest-event/

If you happened to be following this story at the time there was a huge controversy over how many people actually showed up to Beck’s rally. People estimated that there were tens of thousands to hundreds of thousands. Fox’s article simply states “tens of thousands” showed up, while CNN devoted several paragraphs to cover the controversy of the actual numbers. Also, if you’ll note, CNN’s article was much longer and hit on many points. Not all of which were important to the event. They touch on how Glenn Beck said some very criticizing things about Obama, and touched on the idea of a Glenn-Palin campaign for 2012. 

Both articles also touch on Al Sharpton’s thoughts of the rally. Sharpton lead his own demonstration, saying that Beck was being insensitive for having the rally on the same day and at the same place as Martin Luther King Jr. made his “I Have A Dream” speech.  While Beck urged that the rally was not political, Sharpton seemed to attempt to turn it into that. It seemed to me though that Fox turned Sharpton into the cynical villain who tried to crash Beck’s rally. On the other end, CNN does the same thing with Beck. They say that he seems to be trying to become some sort of religious movement leader, teaming up with Evangelicals, but the criticizing him for being Mormon. If you can’t tell, this is where I get the idea that the two companies are a little more one sided than they want to let on.

For the most part however, both CNN and Fox’s viewpoints on the situation seem to be the same. They both note that the rally was meant to be religious, not political. They also seem to cite the same things - the presence of Sarah Palin, the input of Al Sharpton, the date and place being the same as Martin Luther King Jr.’s “I Have A Dream” speech and that there was a large amount of people attending. The main difference seems to be the writing style. CNN seemed to be all over the place, pulling old information and bringing it into something it didn’t have a lot to do with. Fox, while it stayed on track, seemed to me that they were more over trying to glorify Beck than simply report on the rally. Which makes sense, since the guy works for your network and brings in amazing ratings. 

I suppose that there are always two sides to the story and that overall we should be doing a lot of research before we take anything as fact. 

(Blog Wk 4, Pg. 140, Prompt 2)

Status Quo

In relation to the community that I live in, I often go against the status quo. At least when it comes to the majors - politics and religion. I’ll say it right now, just to get it over with. I’m a Liberal Atheist. Now, see, I’m pretty positive I just lost a few readers! Calm down before you click on the x to leave the screen though. Please, hear me out.

I was born into a Catholic family. That is, my mother’s entire side of the family, though mostly Lebanese, is Catholic. People think that just because you’re an Arab, all of the sudden you’re a Muslim. Oh, sorry. I guess I left my hajib at home! My father’s family is also Catholic. Perhaps you would assume that I too, would be Catholic. Ah, but you are so wrong!

One day when my father and I were walking to the mailbox, I asked him if he believed in God. At the time I was going to a Wednesday night bible study with my friends - simply because of my friends, not because we ever went to church. My dad said no. I asked him why not and he said, “Because I can’t see him. There’s no one up there.” I looked up into the sky and thought to myself “Well, of course! That makes perfect sense!” 

Basically, ever since that day I’ve rejected God. From later elementary school on I’ve only stood for the Pledge of Alligence. I see it like this: I love my country and I love my ability to have freedom of religion. I love my soldiers and I have respect for them for risking and sometimes losing their lives to protect my right to not believe in God. This is why I stand. It is respectful. I do not put my hand over my heart because this to me, somehow, signifies my pledge to God. “One nation, under God...” is something I cannot agree with and so I do not repeat the pledge and I do not cross my heart. As an American, I have a right to do that. 

So now, to the picture. This depicts President Obama ALSO not putting his hand over his heart. When I first saw this picture, I didn’t think much of it because that is exactly what I do. But Obama is Christian (let’s not even get onto the “he’s a Muslim terrorist!” controversy) and his reasons would not be the same as mine. For me, he was going against the status quo. In a “Christian nation” and when running as President of this Christian nation, it was extremely wrong for Obama to not put his hand over his heart during the National Anthem. And shortly after that is when the political mess heated. This photo was used in ad campaigns to send the message that Obama is not patriotic, that he doesn’t care about or respect our country and my goodness, how can we elect someone that doesn’t even have the decency to put his hand over his heart? 

I’m not going to try to explain his actions because to be honest, I don’t know why he didn’t. But just as this section of the book has shown, there’s a level of expectance that people have for politicians. Obama didn’t have to say a word and already his image has been tainted. I go against the status quo by not putting my hand over my heart - this doesn’t mean I don’t love my country and that I wouldn’t back up my country until the end. It just means the way I love my country is different. And even though people may get attacked for not following the status quo, they should keep on doing what they’re doing or nothing will ever change. Change can be good. Change can lead to tolerance for all view points and I think now more than ever that is something that we need. 

Illiteracy in 2010

There are so many things that I need to do in my life that involve reading and writing. Everything from reading an article on the internet right down to reading a street sign. It’s so hard for me to imagine being illiterate. 

I used to find it hard to believe that in this day and age people don’t know how to read or write. I understand not being able to read or write in English, but not being able to do either at all is a completely different story. Which is why I was so amazed a few years ago to find out that my boyfriend’s uncle was illiterate. He can only sign his name.

This, obviously, has made it somewhat hard for him in life. He never had a very well paying job throughout his life, he’s never moved out of his parents house even though he is now headed towards his 50’s. When he gets a prescription of medication he needs to make sure that he knows which pill is for which because he can’t read the name of it on the bottle. He doesn’t read the newspaper. He never obtained his license because he can’t read the manual or take the written test. He can’t be alone to sign documents because he can’t read them. He can speak two languages but he can’t read or write in either of them.

When I heard all of this about his uncle, I just couldn’t imagine living my own life like that. I live in a community where most people I know can read. Even if they can’t read well, they can still read and sound out words. They know how to use a dictionary. I’d never heard of anyone dropping out of school in the second grade. Yet still it amazes me that he doesn’t want to learn how to read or write. Perhaps it’s the pride or maybe even shame, but I would think it would be better to at least try in order to be just a little more independent.

I think of it as what the slaves in the earlier history of America must have gone through. There must already be a feeling of being powerless because of the slave owners and all of the horrible things they put their slaves through but on top of that telling them that they are not allowed to read had to make life so much more difficult, especially when planning to escape. I know things are much different now than then and maybe reading is a bit more important now, but I think that if I weren’t able to read or write I would feel inadequate. Just by knowing that slaves would try to teach each other to read or that some white people would try to teach them to read as well shows exactly how important reading is to us as humans and to our culture. It is the easiest way of giving out mass information. It helps us organize our thoughts and can connect us even though at times we can be so different. I definitely feel that it can make us think more, understand the world a little better. It is unfortunate that people are still illiterate in this day and age and I think it’s a struggle that we really need to help people with. 

Thinking Critically

Ever since I've been in high school teachers have been telling me that when I got to college I'd have to be thinking critically. I remember that even in our language arts books we had to "think critically". What they failed to tell me however, is what critical thinking actually was. Yes, I've gotten through six years of school where I was thinking critically without knowing exactly what that meant. So today I googled it.


Via Wikipedia I found out that:


Critical thinking, in its broadest sense has been described as "purposeful reflective judgment concerning what to believe or what to do."


So basically, this means to think about something in a different light. Thinking with a purpose, to get an outcome. Well, heck. I've been doing that my whole life. I guess you can just call me Ms. Critical Thinker. Unfortunately, I don't think I've ever genuinely applied this to literature. Sure, I've read a book and reflected on it and how it related to my life but I'm not sure that any of these things have ever stuck to me. It's the stuff I see on a daily bases that I really think about. I constantly think of my past and all of the things I would change if I had the chance to do them over again. All of the things that I WILL do differently should I come across similar situations again. I even do it with politics. I tear apart every aspect of a politicians speech until I feel I understand what they're getting at. Nothing scares me more than walking into the voting booth uninformed about all sides. 


Is that really even critical thinking? Because it just feels normal. I think and I think often. But when the word "critical" comes in, it sounds hard. It sounds time consuming and it sounds like that's not what I'm doing. Maybe I'm even over thinking that though. 


I'm hoping that keeping this blog will help me understand my life a little more. That when I read something I can maybe relate it back to my life and remember it for the future. That it might help me feel a little less chaotic and alone and a little more in control and together. I know that literature can help me. I know that we can express things through words except that I always seem to have writers block. Hopefully this whole experience will help me and that one day everything I write won't just be a screen full of words but rather a screen full of meaning.