ENG1020

This Is How We Live, by Ellen DeGeneres

2006-07-11T14:10:00.000-07:00

DeGeneres states the point that technology has become a real big problem in the daily life of human beings. It makes people lazy and decreases the amount of physical work required by people to stay healthy. She mentions a few good examples to solidify her point. The car window and a microwave, both of these just require one push of a button and voila! Task complete. The moving sidewalk is another major thing’s that has affected people. Located right in the middle of airports, making people cover distances twice as faster.

Other things not mentioned by the author which I think have affected us are the treadmill, the bluetooth cellphone, computers, internet, automatic transmission cars, and the bathroom flush. With the treadmill you can just stay home walk downstairs to your basement and walk for miles and miles and yet at the end of your walk you are still at the comfort of your own home. No need to hold your hand up to your ear for hours while talking on the phone, the bluetooth technology can even answer your phone calls for you without you having to look at who is calling you. People don't even have to walk to libraries and look through hundreds of books thanks to the internet. No more switching gears to go faster or slower in cars, instead you can use the now free hand to hold a cigarette. And lastly, you don't even have to flush your own crap because technology will do it all for you.

Pop-A-Shot by Sarah Vowell

2006-06-27T15:15:00.000-07:00

#4. Difference between NBA and Pop-A-Shot

Pop-A-Shot is a game that involves shooting basketballs for 40 seconds straight. Sarah Vowell plays the game with her friends anytime she took a break from work. It is a game which is played by kids and can be found at many arcade venues. She uses the game as a good way to waste time and in turn gets a lot of enjoyment and satisfaction from it.

Sarah compares Pop-A-Shot with NBA basketball. She states that a game of basketball is a lot of “wasted running and throwing and falling down on cameramen in between baskets.” But Pop-A-Shot is a game of sheer concentration. NBA basketball also is very time consuming, but in a game of Pop-A-Shot, the same shooting skill is put in use in less than 40seconds instead of a 48minutes. This is the main reason why Sarah refers to Pop-A-Shot as the crack cocaine of basketball. So much is done is so little time, and to top it all off, it is very addictive. And at the end of a Pop-A-Shot game, one does not have to gulp down on Gatorade, but instead sip on margaritas and munch on cupcakes.

In Class Writing Assignment #3 : TARNATION

2006-06-20T17:27:00.000-07:00

Tarnation is a self-made documentary about Jonathan Caouette. It is a movie about how he is raised as a troubled adolescent. The movie mainly revolved around himself, his mother, and his grandparents. It starts off focusing on his mother who was involved in the entertainment business at a very early age until she got involved in a little accident where she fell off a roof and landed on her feet with out bending them. This resulted in her paralyses and going through a treatment called shock therapy, which her parents thought was appropriate for her. Instead of helping her recover, the treatment made her life more miserable. Once she started walking and slowly recovering, she came across a man who she fell in love with and eventually married. When things didn’t quite work out, they separated, and not knowing that she was pregnant, her husband had moved away. This is how Jonathan was born. Since his mother used to frequent the hospital a lot and had many issues, his grandparents adopted Jonathan. He was a very disturbed kid and didn’t quite understand what had happened to his mother. He came across many things while he was growing up and eventually learned about his own homosexuality. He developed interest in underground films and got himself engaged with a video camera at a very young age. He started filming his entire life and moved to New York City. Away from his grandparents and his mother, he falls in love with a man who he started living with. Soon his mother got very sick and suffered from brain damage. Toward the end of the film, he is reunited with his mother and father, which is very strange for him and his mother. Jonathan closes the film exposing the love for his mother and scared that he will have the same illness his mother did.

In my opinion, the movie was very disturbing and yet revealing. It is very similar to a chemistry experiment where different elements are mixed and a final resulting compound formed. In this case, the result was Jonathan. His tactical ways of filming also made the movie very interesting. The use of images and background music gave life to his film.

Petophilia by Jon Katz

2006-06-20T12:54:00.000-07:00

Katz describes three types of dog love: Partner love, Victim love, and Surrogate love.

Partner love, as described by Katz, is a connection of the dog and the owner thru numerous years of spending time, training and working together in a working environment. Katz gives an example of his border collie Rose who he spent months with herding sheep. The bond between Katz and his border is Partner love.

Victim love is described by Katz as the love between a dog that has been rescued from some sort of suffering or disaster and those that heal the dog and take good care of it since the injury. This bond is the suggested to be as the strongest bond between the dog and the owner and is called Victim love.

Surrogate love is the love in which the dogs are treated like one of the family members. They are sometimes even considered as substitutes to children for the couples that don’t like or have children. These dogs usually benefit from all the luxuries that little children are supposed to receive. A good statement that Katz has used to describe this kind of love is, “…dogs don’t talk back, drink and smoke pot in the basement, or discover and point out our stupidity and failings.”

Personally, the theories that Katz has about dog love are very much understandable and make a decent amount of sense. I don’t own a dog, so therefore I cannot relate to any of the kinds of theories proposed by him. I agree with how the love is formed between the owner and the pet, but I still think that a pet shouldn’t be used as a substitute to a human. A human is one of the best creations in this world and by far the smartest one. Yes, it can bring many problems and has many wants, but it all depends on the way the human is raised. The same goes for the pet.

In Class Writing Assignment #2

2006-06-06T17:10:00.000-07:00

Network Connections: Mapping your social identity

Many elements connect me with the people in and around my network. Most of it has to do with culture and background. Some of the people I regularly associate with are either from the same place I have grown up or from the same ethnicity. Since we have grown up at the similar places and share the same backgrounds, many of our interests are also common, which in turn strengthens our bond even more.

A good example is that I love soccer, and so do many of my friends. We might play one game of soccer, and at the end of the day, we will be sitting there and talking about it for days. Another similarity is the way most of the people in my network talk. We use words that might not make any sense or are not even in the dictionary, but with the network of people I live around, they make complete sense. Many more qualities are similar like the kind of video games we play, the music we listen to, the clothes we wear, all account for our social identity.

Mapping out these social connections is indeed a good way to think about ones social identity. Most of these things are gone unnoticed but when you analyze yourself from an outsider’s point of view and notice the network, a lot about your social identity will be revealed.

Study Groups (peer pressure)

2006-05-30T13:47:00.000-07:00

Study groups can be very helpful in many ways, but at the same time they can also be a huge distraction. A good study group, in my opinion, has to come with no close friends or family. Basically, a group of people that are not a part of daily life and are only associated with you through school, will make a better study group.

Study groups can help students accomplish their objectives a lot faster. If a group of people get together and share their individual skills, instead of working alone, a lot can be achieved. It supports the well known saying, “Two heads are better than one”. Study groups keep you up to date on many things and help avoid procrastination. There is a reasonable amount of peer pressure in a group. But most of the time, it is a good thing. Every individual is assigned a task, and is pressured to have it complete. This kind of peer pressure is really good for the whole group.

Study groups can also be an enormous distraction. They can turn into a long, interesting and an unstoppable conversation instead of what is to be accomplished. Peer pressure can be a pretty big factor in a downfall of a study group. For instance, a group wants to meet on a certain time on a certain day. Part of the group agrees, and the other part doesn’t agree. Now the group has to make a decision and the larger part that agrees on a certain time and date will dominate. The part of the group that did not agree, will now be pressured to attend, and will be least interested to participate. Therefore, decreasing the amount of work that can be put in together as a group.

In Class Writing Assignment #1

2006-05-23T17:33:00.000-07:00

Nietzsche talks a lot about identity in this quote. Firstly, he distinguishes human beings and human herds with each other as if they were two very different creations. Human herds in the quote are referred to as family groups, communities, tribes, nations, states, churches, etc. He also quotes, “nothing has been practiced and cultivated among men better or longer than obedience.” This statement also describes identity by talking about men. Sex is a big part of identity and men are very huge on obedience. Many men have rules that they live by, by which they are kind of commanding themselves. This is a form of obedience and therefore relates to Identity. Identity can be anywhere from how a person eats, the kind of manners he has on a dinner table, to the way he walks on the streets. The definition of identity is broad and Nietzsche touches on it with his quote.

The notions of leaders and followers are complicated in this digital age. People have different opinions on different things and they might not be the same as what the opinions of leaders. Many of these people abide by the rules of these leaders even though they might have different opinion, and thus become followers. The very few that don’t have to take a stand, and in some part of their lives they have a shot at that Leader title. In my opinion, these leaders need to adapt themselves to the follower’s environment. If this is attained to a certain degree, then things between leaders and followers wouldn’t be as complicated.

Firoozeh Dumas, The "F Word"

2006-05-23T13:37:00.000-07:00

Dumas conveys many messages about american culture through this article. The article starts

out talking about how immigrant kids going to school were made fun of just because of their

names. A good example is listed in the beginning. The name "Farbod" became "Farthead".

Dumas also talks about how Americans are missing some guttural sounds. Sounds which are

usually a part of many immigrant names. Dumas is tryin to convey the message that Americans

in some way or form judged you by your name. She talks about how she had two names:

Firoozeh and Julie. Her non american friends called her Firoozeh and her american friends called

her Julie. And when both of those friends got together, it was a disaster. Finally, she did decide

to go back to her real name, but by then she was already a stay-at-home mom. She concludes

that now things have changed. Americans now are trying to learn new names and willing to look

into other cultures.

What makes us who we are ?

2006-05-16T12:18:00.000-07:00

Is it our name, age, gender, race, height, weight or is it the way we walk, talk and dress? Regardless each one of these qualities somehow relates to our identity. Without identity we would all be identical. Imagine living in a world where all of us look exactly like each other, all of us drove the same car, had the same wife or husband, all of us had the same house, and all of us wore the same exact clothes. Just imagine all that. Would you want to live in a world like that?

We all want to be different. Personal identity is an addiction. But however different we think we are, we can all be traced back to the same ancestry. In today’s world what makes human beings so different from each other are two main factors: sexuality and race. For example, however much a male tries to be like a female or a female tries to be like a male, there will always be some quality in that male/female that will never be changed. The same goes for race. A black individual can’t look white, or a white individual can’t look black. Identity is what makes us different and without identity nobody would be recognized or known for.

We have to try to accept the diversity of Mother Nature, hug each other and accept our differences. After all, our differences compliment each other.