Not that I didn't enjoy the class last semester, but I feel like I definitely got more out of this course. Having ethics always at the core of the class really enhanced the course. I have learned so much, and honestly feel like I have grown in a way from the many topics we talked about and discussed. Also, I always felt a conflict between my interest in media and entertainment, and my pursuit in that sort of career. I feel conflicted because there's also a part of me that wants to help other people, but this usually is only associated with doctors, social workers, teachers, etc. Media jobs on the surface seems like a self-involved career choice. I loved how this course help bring these two things I love together, and helped resolve the debate in my mind. I didn't realize how much of an impact and how much social change can be brought about through media and technology.
I really loved the open discussions we had in class. Maybe tie that in somehow with a class blog? I think some sort of whole class collaborative effort could be really effective.
I loved the TED Talks, but maybe something in even more in depth? Maybe students individually could pick out a website, social media, or organization that is taking in part in civic action. The student could follow the site throughout the semester, and keep classmates up to date periodically on their blog. Then they could wrap it up in their TED Talks.
Just some suggestions for what already is an awesome class! Hopefully it'll get even better in the future.
Monday, May 3, 2010
Monday, April 26, 2010
How To Become a Writer
I had to read this short story in one of my classes...and well...I love it. So I'd thought I share...
First, try to be something, anything, else. A movie star/astronaut. A movie star/ missionary. A movie star/kindergarten teacher. President of the World. Fail miserably. It is best if you fail at an early age - say, 14. Early, critical disillusionment is necessary so that at 15 you can write long haiku sequences about thwarted desire. It is a pond, a cherry blossom, a wind brushing against sparrow wing leaving for mountain. Count the syllables. Show it to your mom. She is tough and practical. She has a son in Vietnam and a husband who may be having an affair. She believes in wearing brown because it hides spots. She'll look briefly at your writing then back up at you with a face blank as a doughnut. She'll say: ''How about emptying the dishwasher?'' Look away. Shove the forks in the fork drawer. Accidentally break one of the freebie gas station glasses. This is the required pain and suffering. This is only for starters.
In your high school English class look at Mr. Killian's face. Decide faces are important. Write a villanelle about pores. Struggle. Write a sonnet. Count the syllables: 9, 10, 11, 13. Decide to experiment with fiction. Here you don't have to count syllables. Write a short story about an elderly man and woman who accidentally shoot each other in the head, the result of an inexplicable malfunction of a shotgun which appears mysteriously in their living room one night. Give it to Mr. Killian as your final project. When you get it back, he has written on it: ''Some of your images are quite nice, but you have no sense of plot.'' When you are home, in the privacy of your own room, faintly scrawl in pencil beneath his black- inked comments: ''Plots are for dead people, pore- face.''
Take all the baby-sitting jobs you can get. You are great with kids. They love you. You tell them stories about old people who die idiot deaths. You sing them songs like ''Blue Bells of Scotland,'' which is their favorite. And when they are in their pajamas and have finally stopped pinching each other, when they are fast asleep, you read every sex manual in the house, and wonder how on earth anyone could ever do those things with someone they truly loved. Fall asleep in a chair reading Mr. McMurphy's Playboy. When the McMurphys come home, they will tap you on the shoulder, look at the magazine in your lap and grin. You will want to die. They will ask you if Tracey took her medicine all right. Explain, yes, she did, that you promised her a story if she would take it like a big girl and that seemed to work out just fine. ''Oh, marvelous,'' they will exclaim.
Try to smile proudly.
Apply to college as a child psychology major.
As a child psychology major, you have some electives. You've always liked birds. Sign up for something called ''The Ornithological Field Trip.'' It meets Tuesdays and Thursdays at 2. When you arrive at Room 134 on the first day of class, everyone is sitting around a seminar table talking about metaphors. You've heard of these. After a short, excruciating while, raise your hand and say diffidently, ''Excuse me, isn't this Bird-Watching 101?'' The class stops and turns to look at you. They seem to all have one face - giant and blank as a vandalized clock. Someone with a beard booms out, ''No, this is Creative Writing.'' Say: ''Oh - right,'' as if perhaps you knew all along. Look down at your schedule. Wonder how the hell you ended up here. The computer, apparently, has made an error. You start to get up to leave and then don't.
The lines at the registrar this week are huge. Perhaps you should stick with this mistake. Perhaps your creative writing isn't all that bad. Perhaps it is fate. Perhaps this is what your dad meant when he said, ''It's the age of computers, Francie, it's the age of computers.''
Decide that you like college life. In your dorm you meet many nice people. Some are smarter than you. And some, you notice, are dumber than you. You will continue, unfortunately, to view the world in exactly these terms for the rest of your life.
The assignment this week in creative writing is to narrate a violent happening. Turn in a story about driving with your Uncle Gordon and another one about two old people who are accidentally electrocuted when they go to turn on a badly wired desk lamp. The teacher will hand them back to you with comments: ''Much of your writing is smooth and energetic. You have, however, a ludicrous notion of plot.'' Write another story about a man and a woman who, in the very first paragraph, have their lower torsos accidentally blitzed away by dynamite. In the second paragraph, with the insurance money, they buy a frozen yogurt stand together. There are six more paragraphs. You read the whole thing out loud in class. No one likes it. They say your sense of plot is outrageous and incompetent. After class someone asks you if you are crazy.
Decide that perhaps you should stick to comedies. Start dating someone who is funny, someone who has what in high school you called a ''really great sense of humor'' and what now your creative writing class calls ''self-contempt giving rise to comic form.'' Write down all of his jokes, but don't tell him you are doing this. Make up anagrams of his old girlfriend's name and name all of your socially handicapped characters with them. Tell him his old girlfriend is in all of your stories and then watch how funny he can be, see what a really great sense of humor he can have. Your child psychology adviser tells you you are neglecting courses in your major. What you spend the most time on should be what you're majoring in. Say yes, you understand.
In creative writing seminars over the next two years, everyone continues to smoke cigarettes and ask the same things: ''But does it work?'' ''Why should we care about this character?'' ''Have you earned this cliche?'' These seem like important questions.
On days when it is your turn, you look at the class hopefully as they scour your mimeographs for a plot. They look back up at you, drag deeply and then smile in a sweet sort of way.
You spend too much time slouched and demoralized. Your boyfriend suggests bicycling. Your roommate suggests a new boyfriend. You are said to be self-mutilating and losing weight, but you continue writing. The only happiness you have is writing something new, in the middle of the night, armpits damp, heart pounding, something no one has yet seen. You have only those brief, fragile, untested moments of exhilaration when you know: you are a genius. Understand what you must do. Switch majors. The kids in your nursery project will be disappointed, but you have a calling, an urge, a delusion, an unfortunate habit. You have, as your mother would say, fallen in with a bad crowd.
Why write? Where does writing come from? These are questions to ask yourself. They are like: Where does dust come from? Or: Why is there war? Or: If there's a God, then why is my brother now a cripple?
These are questions that you keep in your wallet, like calling cards. These are questions, your creative writing teacher says, that are good to address in your journals but rarely in your fiction.
The writing professor this fall is stressing the Power of the Imagination. Which means he doesn't want long descriptive stories about your camping trip last July. He wants you to start in a realistic context but then to alter it. Like recombinant DNA. He wants you to let your imagination sail, to let it grow big-bellied in the wind. This is a quote from Shakespeare.
ell your roommate your great idea, your great exercise of imaginative power: a transformation of Melville to contemporary life. It will be about monomania and the fish-eat-fish world of life insurance in Rochester, N.Y. The first line will be ''Call me Fishmeal,'' and it will feature a menopausal suburban husband named Richard, who because he is so depressed all the time is called ''Mopey Dick'' by his witty wife Elaine. Say to your roommate: ''Mopey Dick, get it?'' Your roommate looks at you, her face blank as a large Kleenex. She comes up to you, like a buddy, and puts an arm around your burdened shoulders. ''Listen, Francie,'' she says, slow as speech therapy. ''Let's go out and get a big beer.''
The seminar doesn't like this one either. You suspect they are beginning to feel sorry for you. They say: ''You have to think about what is happening. Where is the story here?''
The next semester the writing professor is obsessed with writing from personal experience. You must write from what you know, from what has happened to you. He wants deaths, he wants camping trips. Think about what has happened to you. In three years there have been three things: you lost your virginity; your parents got divorced; and your brother came home from a forest 10 miles from the Cambodian border with only half a thigh, a permanent smirk nestled into one corner of his mouth.
About the first you write: ''It created a new space, which hurt and cried in a voice that wasn't mine, 'I'm not the same anymore, but I'll be O.K.' ''
About the second you write an elaborate story of an old married couple who stumble upon an unknown land mine in their kitchen and accidentally blow themselves up. You call it: ''For Better or for Liverwurst.''
About the last you write nothing. There are no words for this. Your typewriter hums. You can find no words.
At undergraduate cocktail parties, people say, ''Oh, you write? What do you write about?'' Your roommate, who has consumed too much wine, too little cheese and no crackers at all, blurts: ''Oh, my god, she always writes about her dumb boyfriend.''
Later on in life you will learn that writers are merely open, helpless texts with no real understanding of what they have written and therefore must half-believe anything and everything that is said of them. You, however, have not yet reached this stage of literary criticism. You stiffen and say, ''I do not,'' the same way you said it when someone in the fourth grade accused you of really liking oboe lessons and your parents really weren't just making you take them.
Insist you are not very interested in any one subject at all, that you are interested in the music of language, that you are interested in - in - syllables, because they are the atoms of poetry, the cells of the mind, the breath of the soul. Begin to feel woozy. Stare into your plastic wine cup.
''Syllables?'' you will hear someone ask, voice trailing off, as they glide slowly toward the reassuring white of the dip.
Begin to wonder what you do write about. Or if you have anything to say. Or if there even is such a thing as a thing to say. Limit these thoughts to no more than 10 minutes a day, like sit- ups, they can make you thin.
You will read somewhere that all writing has to do with one's genitals. Don't dwell on this. It will make you nervous.
Your mother will come visit you. She will look at the circles under your eyes and hand you a brown book with a brown briefcase on the cover. It is entitled: ''How to Become a Business Executive.'' She has also brought the ''Names for Baby'' encyclopedia you asked for; one of your characters, the aging clown-schoolteacher, needs a new name. Your mother will shake her head and say: ''Francie, Francie, remember when you were going to be a child psychology major?''
Say: ''Mom, I like to write.''
She'll say: ''Sure you like to write. Of course. Sure you like to write.''
Write a story about a confused music student and title it: ''Schubert Was the One with the Glasses, Right?'' It's not a big hit, although your roommate likes the part where the two violinists accidentally blow themselves up in a recital room. ''I went out with a violinist once,'' she says, snapping her gum.
Thank god you are taking other courses. You can find sanctuary in 19th-century ontological snags and invertebrate courting rituals. Certain globular mollusks have what is called ''Sex by the Arm.'' The male octopus, for instance, loses the end of one arm when placing it inside the female body during intercourse. Marine biologists call it ''Seven Heaven.'' Be glad you know these things. Be glad you are not just a writer. Apply to law school.
From here on in, many things can happen. But the main one will be this: You decide not to go to law school after all, and, instead, you spend a good, big chunk of your adult life telling people how you decided not to go to law school after all. Somehow you end up writing again. Perhaps you go to graduate school. Perhaps you work odd jobs and take writing courses at night. Perhaps you are working and writing down all the clever remarks and intimate personal confessions you hear during the day. Perhaps you are losing your pals, your acquaintances, your balance.
You have broken up with your boyfriend. You now go out with men who, instead of whispering ''I love you,'' shout: ''Do it to me, baby.'' This is good for your writing.
Sooner or later you have a finished manuscript more or less. People look at it in a vaguely troubled sort of way and say, ''I'll bet becoming a writer was always a fantasy of yours, wasn't it?'' Your lips dry to salt. Say that of all the fantasies possible in the world, you can't imagine being a writer even making the top 20. Tell them you were going to be a child psychology major. ''I bet,'' they always sigh, ''you'd be great with kids.'' Scowl fiercely. Tell them you're a walking blade.
Quit classes. Quit jobs. Cash in old savings bonds. Now you have time like warts on your hands. Slowly copy all of your friends' addresses into a new address book.
Vacuum. Chew cough drops. Keep a folder full of fragments.
An eyelid darkening sideways.
World as conspiracy.
Possible plot? A woman gets on a bus.
Suppose you threw a love affair and nobody came.
At home drink a lot of coffee. At Howard Johnson's order the cole slaw. Consider how it looks like the soggy confetti of a map: where you've been, where you're going - ''You Are Here,'' says the red star on the back of the menu.
Occasionally a date with a face blank as a sheet of paper asks you whether writers often become discouraged. Say that sometimes they do and sometimes they do. Say it's a lot like having polio.
''Interesting,'' smiles your date, and then he looks down at his arm hairs and starts to smooth them, all, always, in the same direction.
First, try to be something, anything, else. A movie star/astronaut. A movie star/ missionary. A movie star/kindergarten teacher. President of the World. Fail miserably. It is best if you fail at an early age - say, 14. Early, critical disillusionment is necessary so that at 15 you can write long haiku sequences about thwarted desire. It is a pond, a cherry blossom, a wind brushing against sparrow wing leaving for mountain. Count the syllables. Show it to your mom. She is tough and practical. She has a son in Vietnam and a husband who may be having an affair. She believes in wearing brown because it hides spots. She'll look briefly at your writing then back up at you with a face blank as a doughnut. She'll say: ''How about emptying the dishwasher?'' Look away. Shove the forks in the fork drawer. Accidentally break one of the freebie gas station glasses. This is the required pain and suffering. This is only for starters.
In your high school English class look at Mr. Killian's face. Decide faces are important. Write a villanelle about pores. Struggle. Write a sonnet. Count the syllables: 9, 10, 11, 13. Decide to experiment with fiction. Here you don't have to count syllables. Write a short story about an elderly man and woman who accidentally shoot each other in the head, the result of an inexplicable malfunction of a shotgun which appears mysteriously in their living room one night. Give it to Mr. Killian as your final project. When you get it back, he has written on it: ''Some of your images are quite nice, but you have no sense of plot.'' When you are home, in the privacy of your own room, faintly scrawl in pencil beneath his black- inked comments: ''Plots are for dead people, pore- face.''
Take all the baby-sitting jobs you can get. You are great with kids. They love you. You tell them stories about old people who die idiot deaths. You sing them songs like ''Blue Bells of Scotland,'' which is their favorite. And when they are in their pajamas and have finally stopped pinching each other, when they are fast asleep, you read every sex manual in the house, and wonder how on earth anyone could ever do those things with someone they truly loved. Fall asleep in a chair reading Mr. McMurphy's Playboy. When the McMurphys come home, they will tap you on the shoulder, look at the magazine in your lap and grin. You will want to die. They will ask you if Tracey took her medicine all right. Explain, yes, she did, that you promised her a story if she would take it like a big girl and that seemed to work out just fine. ''Oh, marvelous,'' they will exclaim.
Try to smile proudly.
Apply to college as a child psychology major.
As a child psychology major, you have some electives. You've always liked birds. Sign up for something called ''The Ornithological Field Trip.'' It meets Tuesdays and Thursdays at 2. When you arrive at Room 134 on the first day of class, everyone is sitting around a seminar table talking about metaphors. You've heard of these. After a short, excruciating while, raise your hand and say diffidently, ''Excuse me, isn't this Bird-Watching 101?'' The class stops and turns to look at you. They seem to all have one face - giant and blank as a vandalized clock. Someone with a beard booms out, ''No, this is Creative Writing.'' Say: ''Oh - right,'' as if perhaps you knew all along. Look down at your schedule. Wonder how the hell you ended up here. The computer, apparently, has made an error. You start to get up to leave and then don't.
The lines at the registrar this week are huge. Perhaps you should stick with this mistake. Perhaps your creative writing isn't all that bad. Perhaps it is fate. Perhaps this is what your dad meant when he said, ''It's the age of computers, Francie, it's the age of computers.''
Decide that you like college life. In your dorm you meet many nice people. Some are smarter than you. And some, you notice, are dumber than you. You will continue, unfortunately, to view the world in exactly these terms for the rest of your life.
The assignment this week in creative writing is to narrate a violent happening. Turn in a story about driving with your Uncle Gordon and another one about two old people who are accidentally electrocuted when they go to turn on a badly wired desk lamp. The teacher will hand them back to you with comments: ''Much of your writing is smooth and energetic. You have, however, a ludicrous notion of plot.'' Write another story about a man and a woman who, in the very first paragraph, have their lower torsos accidentally blitzed away by dynamite. In the second paragraph, with the insurance money, they buy a frozen yogurt stand together. There are six more paragraphs. You read the whole thing out loud in class. No one likes it. They say your sense of plot is outrageous and incompetent. After class someone asks you if you are crazy.
Decide that perhaps you should stick to comedies. Start dating someone who is funny, someone who has what in high school you called a ''really great sense of humor'' and what now your creative writing class calls ''self-contempt giving rise to comic form.'' Write down all of his jokes, but don't tell him you are doing this. Make up anagrams of his old girlfriend's name and name all of your socially handicapped characters with them. Tell him his old girlfriend is in all of your stories and then watch how funny he can be, see what a really great sense of humor he can have. Your child psychology adviser tells you you are neglecting courses in your major. What you spend the most time on should be what you're majoring in. Say yes, you understand.
In creative writing seminars over the next two years, everyone continues to smoke cigarettes and ask the same things: ''But does it work?'' ''Why should we care about this character?'' ''Have you earned this cliche?'' These seem like important questions.
On days when it is your turn, you look at the class hopefully as they scour your mimeographs for a plot. They look back up at you, drag deeply and then smile in a sweet sort of way.
You spend too much time slouched and demoralized. Your boyfriend suggests bicycling. Your roommate suggests a new boyfriend. You are said to be self-mutilating and losing weight, but you continue writing. The only happiness you have is writing something new, in the middle of the night, armpits damp, heart pounding, something no one has yet seen. You have only those brief, fragile, untested moments of exhilaration when you know: you are a genius. Understand what you must do. Switch majors. The kids in your nursery project will be disappointed, but you have a calling, an urge, a delusion, an unfortunate habit. You have, as your mother would say, fallen in with a bad crowd.
Why write? Where does writing come from? These are questions to ask yourself. They are like: Where does dust come from? Or: Why is there war? Or: If there's a God, then why is my brother now a cripple?
These are questions that you keep in your wallet, like calling cards. These are questions, your creative writing teacher says, that are good to address in your journals but rarely in your fiction.
The writing professor this fall is stressing the Power of the Imagination. Which means he doesn't want long descriptive stories about your camping trip last July. He wants you to start in a realistic context but then to alter it. Like recombinant DNA. He wants you to let your imagination sail, to let it grow big-bellied in the wind. This is a quote from Shakespeare.
ell your roommate your great idea, your great exercise of imaginative power: a transformation of Melville to contemporary life. It will be about monomania and the fish-eat-fish world of life insurance in Rochester, N.Y. The first line will be ''Call me Fishmeal,'' and it will feature a menopausal suburban husband named Richard, who because he is so depressed all the time is called ''Mopey Dick'' by his witty wife Elaine. Say to your roommate: ''Mopey Dick, get it?'' Your roommate looks at you, her face blank as a large Kleenex. She comes up to you, like a buddy, and puts an arm around your burdened shoulders. ''Listen, Francie,'' she says, slow as speech therapy. ''Let's go out and get a big beer.''
The seminar doesn't like this one either. You suspect they are beginning to feel sorry for you. They say: ''You have to think about what is happening. Where is the story here?''
The next semester the writing professor is obsessed with writing from personal experience. You must write from what you know, from what has happened to you. He wants deaths, he wants camping trips. Think about what has happened to you. In three years there have been three things: you lost your virginity; your parents got divorced; and your brother came home from a forest 10 miles from the Cambodian border with only half a thigh, a permanent smirk nestled into one corner of his mouth.
About the first you write: ''It created a new space, which hurt and cried in a voice that wasn't mine, 'I'm not the same anymore, but I'll be O.K.' ''
About the second you write an elaborate story of an old married couple who stumble upon an unknown land mine in their kitchen and accidentally blow themselves up. You call it: ''For Better or for Liverwurst.''
About the last you write nothing. There are no words for this. Your typewriter hums. You can find no words.
At undergraduate cocktail parties, people say, ''Oh, you write? What do you write about?'' Your roommate, who has consumed too much wine, too little cheese and no crackers at all, blurts: ''Oh, my god, she always writes about her dumb boyfriend.''
Later on in life you will learn that writers are merely open, helpless texts with no real understanding of what they have written and therefore must half-believe anything and everything that is said of them. You, however, have not yet reached this stage of literary criticism. You stiffen and say, ''I do not,'' the same way you said it when someone in the fourth grade accused you of really liking oboe lessons and your parents really weren't just making you take them.
Insist you are not very interested in any one subject at all, that you are interested in the music of language, that you are interested in - in - syllables, because they are the atoms of poetry, the cells of the mind, the breath of the soul. Begin to feel woozy. Stare into your plastic wine cup.
''Syllables?'' you will hear someone ask, voice trailing off, as they glide slowly toward the reassuring white of the dip.
Begin to wonder what you do write about. Or if you have anything to say. Or if there even is such a thing as a thing to say. Limit these thoughts to no more than 10 minutes a day, like sit- ups, they can make you thin.
You will read somewhere that all writing has to do with one's genitals. Don't dwell on this. It will make you nervous.
Your mother will come visit you. She will look at the circles under your eyes and hand you a brown book with a brown briefcase on the cover. It is entitled: ''How to Become a Business Executive.'' She has also brought the ''Names for Baby'' encyclopedia you asked for; one of your characters, the aging clown-schoolteacher, needs a new name. Your mother will shake her head and say: ''Francie, Francie, remember when you were going to be a child psychology major?''
Say: ''Mom, I like to write.''
She'll say: ''Sure you like to write. Of course. Sure you like to write.''
Write a story about a confused music student and title it: ''Schubert Was the One with the Glasses, Right?'' It's not a big hit, although your roommate likes the part where the two violinists accidentally blow themselves up in a recital room. ''I went out with a violinist once,'' she says, snapping her gum.
Thank god you are taking other courses. You can find sanctuary in 19th-century ontological snags and invertebrate courting rituals. Certain globular mollusks have what is called ''Sex by the Arm.'' The male octopus, for instance, loses the end of one arm when placing it inside the female body during intercourse. Marine biologists call it ''Seven Heaven.'' Be glad you know these things. Be glad you are not just a writer. Apply to law school.
From here on in, many things can happen. But the main one will be this: You decide not to go to law school after all, and, instead, you spend a good, big chunk of your adult life telling people how you decided not to go to law school after all. Somehow you end up writing again. Perhaps you go to graduate school. Perhaps you work odd jobs and take writing courses at night. Perhaps you are working and writing down all the clever remarks and intimate personal confessions you hear during the day. Perhaps you are losing your pals, your acquaintances, your balance.
You have broken up with your boyfriend. You now go out with men who, instead of whispering ''I love you,'' shout: ''Do it to me, baby.'' This is good for your writing.
Sooner or later you have a finished manuscript more or less. People look at it in a vaguely troubled sort of way and say, ''I'll bet becoming a writer was always a fantasy of yours, wasn't it?'' Your lips dry to salt. Say that of all the fantasies possible in the world, you can't imagine being a writer even making the top 20. Tell them you were going to be a child psychology major. ''I bet,'' they always sigh, ''you'd be great with kids.'' Scowl fiercely. Tell them you're a walking blade.
Quit classes. Quit jobs. Cash in old savings bonds. Now you have time like warts on your hands. Slowly copy all of your friends' addresses into a new address book.
Vacuum. Chew cough drops. Keep a folder full of fragments.
An eyelid darkening sideways.
World as conspiracy.
Possible plot? A woman gets on a bus.
Suppose you threw a love affair and nobody came.
At home drink a lot of coffee. At Howard Johnson's order the cole slaw. Consider how it looks like the soggy confetti of a map: where you've been, where you're going - ''You Are Here,'' says the red star on the back of the menu.
Occasionally a date with a face blank as a sheet of paper asks you whether writers often become discouraged. Say that sometimes they do and sometimes they do. Say it's a lot like having polio.
''Interesting,'' smiles your date, and then he looks down at his arm hairs and starts to smooth them, all, always, in the same direction.
Monday, April 19, 2010
TED Talk
Kaitlin, a senior English major at Saint Joseph's University, discusses the ethics behind big corporation advertisements. She takes a look at tv commercials that promote and push products by adding a charitable incentive. For example, Coca Cola, KFC, and Disney.
Film vs Novel
So I've come to a conclusion...film adaptations of books rarely almost never work. There's always something that has to be changed. Whether it's the story, the setting, the addition or removal of characters...the list goes on. The only movie I have ever seen that was about 99% like the novel was the first Harry Potter.
(Look how young they look!)
I read the book when I was in 6th grade, so when the movie came out I was oh so very excited to see it. And even though not much changed in the film, it was still was nothing like reading the book. I was still disappointed. Hogwarts looked and felt completely different in my mind. Seeing the film just shattered these images.
There are film adaptations that are really good. Like Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory...
I grew up watching this movie without ever reading the Roald Dahl novel it's based on. I didn't read it until I was older, and I found out that there are a lot of differences! I can only imagine what impression of the movie I would have if I read the book first.
Now when it comes to the film, The Surrogates? The whole time I watched the film I thought, "This is nothing like reading the novel!" And it's not anything like the novel. It's a fabricated Hollywood movie that drones on and ends in a cliche fashion with a few shotty action scenes thrown in between. I mean I was looking forward to "The Prophet", but his role in the film was so boring. And he's a surrogate? Boo. I was not a fan of the movie.
(Look how young they look!)
I read the book when I was in 6th grade, so when the movie came out I was oh so very excited to see it. And even though not much changed in the film, it was still was nothing like reading the book. I was still disappointed. Hogwarts looked and felt completely different in my mind. Seeing the film just shattered these images.
There are film adaptations that are really good. Like Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory...
I grew up watching this movie without ever reading the Roald Dahl novel it's based on. I didn't read it until I was older, and I found out that there are a lot of differences! I can only imagine what impression of the movie I would have if I read the book first.
Now when it comes to the film, The Surrogates? The whole time I watched the film I thought, "This is nothing like reading the novel!" And it's not anything like the novel. It's a fabricated Hollywood movie that drones on and ends in a cliche fashion with a few shotty action scenes thrown in between. I mean I was looking forward to "The Prophet", but his role in the film was so boring. And he's a surrogate? Boo. I was not a fan of the movie.
Sunday, April 18, 2010
Surrogates
What if you could change everything about yourself? What if you perfect every flaw?
This is one of the many philosophical and ethical issues that arises in the graphic comic novel, The Surrogates. I have to admit, I really enjoyed having to read a comic book for class rather than some long novel with tiny text.
What is really cool is how this story relates to everything we've been discussing in class for the past couple of months. Currently people in our society are constructing a complete different identity seperate from themselves via the internet. Whether that be Facebook or Second Life. So who's to say that The Surrogates is simply science fiction. who's to say this won't very well be a possibility in our future lives?
This is one of the many philosophical and ethical issues that arises in the graphic comic novel, The Surrogates. I have to admit, I really enjoyed having to read a comic book for class rather than some long novel with tiny text.
What is really cool is how this story relates to everything we've been discussing in class for the past couple of months. Currently people in our society are constructing a complete different identity seperate from themselves via the internet. Whether that be Facebook or Second Life. So who's to say that The Surrogates is simply science fiction. who's to say this won't very well be a possibility in our future lives?
Saturday, April 3, 2010
The science of happiness.
I was just guessing/at numbers and figures,
pulling your puzzles apart,
Questions of science/science and progress,
do not speak as loud as my heart.-Coldplay
The above lyrics are from one of my favorite songs of all time. It's called "The Scientist" by Coldplay. The song has a lot of meanings to it, I think it was intentionally written to refer to the end of a relationship, but I like using the song to describe the way I think in general. There's always those people who use science, logic, facts, and data to explain everything. I'm not one of those people. Sometimes I believe there are some things that just go beyond science. Not everything can be explained. Not everything can be *fixed*.
In Nick Bostrom's TED Talk, he talks about the "problem" of death. He starts laying out statistics about how the one of highest causes of death is natural causes. He asks how do we prevent this? This is the part where I go...
Huh?
Prevent death? Wipe out suffering? Wouldn't that make us...not human?
Nick Bostrom I know is not the only one out there who are coming up with biological solutions to our natural human suffering. Drugs like anti-depressants...trust me I know that there are people who most definitely benefit from them. At the same time, I also know that anti-depressants are over-prescibed, and that people are looking to these pills as solutions to their sadness. Everyone gets sad. Everyone has problems. But there is a difference between people who actually are depressed, and those who have a difficult time handling a hard phase of life. They use these pills to make them happy, but that's not the way anti-depressants work.
All the other biological "solutions" that were listed on the handout, these are just band-aids. They cover up a problem. They can't possibly bring anyone happiness. Or at least the kind of genuine happiness we all desire.
pulling your puzzles apart,
Questions of science/science and progress,
do not speak as loud as my heart.-Coldplay
The above lyrics are from one of my favorite songs of all time. It's called "The Scientist" by Coldplay. The song has a lot of meanings to it, I think it was intentionally written to refer to the end of a relationship, but I like using the song to describe the way I think in general. There's always those people who use science, logic, facts, and data to explain everything. I'm not one of those people. Sometimes I believe there are some things that just go beyond science. Not everything can be explained. Not everything can be *fixed*.
In Nick Bostrom's TED Talk, he talks about the "problem" of death. He starts laying out statistics about how the one of highest causes of death is natural causes. He asks how do we prevent this? This is the part where I go...
Huh?
Prevent death? Wipe out suffering? Wouldn't that make us...not human?
Nick Bostrom I know is not the only one out there who are coming up with biological solutions to our natural human suffering. Drugs like anti-depressants...trust me I know that there are people who most definitely benefit from them. At the same time, I also know that anti-depressants are over-prescibed, and that people are looking to these pills as solutions to their sadness. Everyone gets sad. Everyone has problems. But there is a difference between people who actually are depressed, and those who have a difficult time handling a hard phase of life. They use these pills to make them happy, but that's not the way anti-depressants work.
All the other biological "solutions" that were listed on the handout, these are just band-aids. They cover up a problem. They can't possibly bring anyone happiness. Or at least the kind of genuine happiness we all desire.
Kees in Kenya
My group worked long and hard on our video, and I think we did a pretty good job in the end! I made a group video last semester as well, but this experience proved to be a totally different learning experience. I never had the chance to work with the editing last semester, so using I-Movie was definitely challenging. Getting every little piece the way we wanted it, became time consuming and stressful. But through a collaborative effort, I think we made a video that brings Kees' story to a wider audience, a story that might have not been told otherwise.
As challenging as it was, I'm glad of all things I learned through using the program, because I can hopefully use it to my advantage in my future career (whatever that may be). My favorite part was filming the interview itself. I loved just sitting there and listening to both Michael and Kees talk to us. The whole time I was trying to concentrate on the framing and trying not to shake the camera, all the while I was so engaged in the stories they told us.
Friday, March 5, 2010
Project Report
So I really enjoyed watching everyone's videos on Monday. It was cool to see what everyone came up with in the last two weeks. And I loved how each group had a unique subject. A man living with HIV/AIDS, a young girl overcoming OCD, and the lady at Bill's Market, all three of these videos illustrated a person who is making a difference in our society.
There are a lot of little technical mistakes that can be fixed in all the videos though. I know my group and I still have a lot of progress in perfecting our video. I know and hope we will, as Brit Keesling worked as a great profile to subject. Overall, my favorite part of the project so far was filming the interview with Kees and her friend, and listening to her story. I learned a lot of myself, and see Brit as such a huge inspiration to get off my butt do something! Maybe not go to Kenya, but something!
Thursday, March 4, 2010
Diversity
So we're asked to write a blog entry on diversity. Where do I start? Diversity...it's such a broad and "diverse" topic in itself.
Tomorrow I leave for the Apppalachian Experience. So I'm getting antsy. It's kind of all I can think about. For the entire week, me and a group of students from St. Joe's wll be headed to Roanoke, Va to do some good ol' community service.
This is the third year I'm participating. The other two experiences I have been on were so rewarding and life changing for so many reasons. One of the great things about these two trips was immersing myself in the culture in the southern Appalachian region, and getting to know the people in the town. Both trips were almost culture shocks for me, someone who grew up in Philadelphia her whole life. Traveling down south, personally for me, is like going to a different country. Yet these places aren't too far from where I live, there's still such a diversity between our ways of life.
I can't wait to go to Roanoke tomorrow, and hopefully meet and help a whole new group of people, and I know will learn so much.
Neon, Kentucky
Alleghany Highlands, Virginia
Tomorrow I leave for the Apppalachian Experience. So I'm getting antsy. It's kind of all I can think about. For the entire week, me and a group of students from St. Joe's wll be headed to Roanoke, Va to do some good ol' community service.
This is the third year I'm participating. The other two experiences I have been on were so rewarding and life changing for so many reasons. One of the great things about these two trips was immersing myself in the culture in the southern Appalachian region, and getting to know the people in the town. Both trips were almost culture shocks for me, someone who grew up in Philadelphia her whole life. Traveling down south, personally for me, is like going to a different country. Yet these places aren't too far from where I live, there's still such a diversity between our ways of life.
I can't wait to go to Roanoke tomorrow, and hopefully meet and help a whole new group of people, and I know will learn so much.
Neon, Kentucky
Alleghany Highlands, Virginia
Wednesday, February 3, 2010
Make yourself feel like crap in one easy step!
Beauty magazines. I admit it...I read them...often. I've been reading them as long as I can remember actually. Growing up in my awkward teen years I looked to all these magazines for solutions to all my problems. These magazines promised to make me beatiful and to make guys fall in love with me because guys love it when you're beautiful. But what these magazines define as beautiful is impossible and almost out of every girl's reach.
I've come to realize that every beauty magazine usually follows the same format:
1. First couple of pages are about gorgeous celebrities that I'll never look like.
2. Another section of pages of expensive beauty products that promise to buy you happiness.
3. Ways to please your man. How to make guys like you. Quotes from random guys saying, "I hate when my girlfriend does this...", etc.
4. "Health" section aka what kind of salads to make to lose weight. Because losing weight=happiness.
5. Skinny airbrushed model shoots.
6. Horoscopes. (I like horoscopes.)
I always buy and read these magazines, but I always feel like *crap* afterwards. I don't have money to buy all these clothes or buy all this makeup, so I will never be happy and guys won't like me.
As I grow up I realize that beauty magazines are a complete illusion and they rely entirely on false advertising. Just because I buy the clothes in the maagzine, this won't make me happy. Keeping guys do's and don't's of what they like in girls will only make me more insecure and not be myself around someone I like.
I just think it's kind of funny. We read these magazines and read to see what supposedly all guys like and try to change our ways. What do guys read? Playboy. Guys don't read magazines on changing their personalities and looks to get us to like them. They just look at naked pictures of us. It doesn't make sense, really.
*End rant.
Thursday, January 28, 2010
Sunday, December 20, 2009
TED Talk
A preview or review? I may be a little late on this. Anywho...
Kaitlin, a senior English major at Saint Joseph's University, discusses the film genre that has stood the test of time, musicals. She reveals her love for musicals and begs the question why these films are so popular. She discusses how musicals can communicate and tell a story in a way that no other film genre can.
Kaitlin, a senior English major at Saint Joseph's University, discusses the film genre that has stood the test of time, musicals. She reveals her love for musicals and begs the question why these films are so popular. She discusses how musicals can communicate and tell a story in a way that no other film genre can.
Saturday, November 28, 2009
Meaning in Musicals and All that Jazz...
SO...I think I finally landed upon an idea for my Final TED Talk.
I decided to talk about one of my favorite film genres of all time: musicals!
Musicals have so much more depth to them than what appears on the surface. The stories and songs have so much value and meaning to them, and I would love to share this with class in a 5 minute presentation. I figured one of the main components of any TED Talk is passion, and I am most certainly passionate about musicals. I am not passionate about public speaking in the least bit, but I always found it easier to talk in front of a group of people when it's something you actually care about.
Not too sure on the specifics of my talk yet, I'm still working out the kinks. But I can tell you that I am excited!
Tuesday, November 17, 2009
Case Study: Twitter
Here check out my slide presentation on Twitter:
So for the past month I have started using and experimenting with Twitter. Before I didn't really understand Twitter...at all. What's the point of having a total seperate site with Facebook statuses, when you can get that on Facebook? But alas I was proven wrong...Twitter ain't too bad. I've learned by writing my own little blurbs under 140 character or less for my classmates to read turned out to be kind of fun. Then again, I'm easily amused. Following my classmates as well celebrities ranging from Britney Spears to Mindy Kaling can actually be pretty entertaining. Also it's yet another website that will help me procrastinate and distract me from doing anything sort of productive.
Celebrities especially love to use Twitter and I emphasized that in my presentation. It's such an easy form of promotion! And I'm all of it, because it's kind of honest in a way. For the most part these promotions come from the celebrities themselves, and plus I choose to follow them in the first place. Nothing's shoved down my throat.
But Twitter can hold more value than just a form of entertainment. This is another point I stressed in my presentation. Twitter is becoming a whole news source in itself. Anyone can be a reporter through the use of the internet and I find that amazing. People can protest Prop 8 or Iranian elections. Victims of the 2008 earthquake in China can warn others quick and fast.
So is Twitter successful? Yes! Very much so. In fact, Twitter's success only continues to grow day by day. And honestly? If Twitter became the new Facebook like Facebook became the new Myspace, I don't think I would mind too much. After all, the only reason why I even go on Facebook nowadays is to read other people's statuses. I could do without the constant invitations to Farmville and the notifications of people being tagged in photo albums that I won't look at. Oh this girl I went to grade school with got drunk this weekend and took over 500 pictures of herself? I don't care. I've had my fair share of Facebook stalking, and I'm pretty over it by now. Twitter seems to be a more healthy and convienent way to stay in contact with other people.
And the only way to have fun on Twitter is to follow others and have others follow you! This is what I tried to illustate in my visual map.
Kaitlin Twitter Presentation
View more presentations from ksouth24.
So for the past month I have started using and experimenting with Twitter. Before I didn't really understand Twitter...at all. What's the point of having a total seperate site with Facebook statuses, when you can get that on Facebook? But alas I was proven wrong...Twitter ain't too bad. I've learned by writing my own little blurbs under 140 character or less for my classmates to read turned out to be kind of fun. Then again, I'm easily amused. Following my classmates as well celebrities ranging from Britney Spears to Mindy Kaling can actually be pretty entertaining. Also it's yet another website that will help me procrastinate and distract me from doing anything sort of productive.
Celebrities especially love to use Twitter and I emphasized that in my presentation. It's such an easy form of promotion! And I'm all of it, because it's kind of honest in a way. For the most part these promotions come from the celebrities themselves, and plus I choose to follow them in the first place. Nothing's shoved down my throat.
But Twitter can hold more value than just a form of entertainment. This is another point I stressed in my presentation. Twitter is becoming a whole news source in itself. Anyone can be a reporter through the use of the internet and I find that amazing. People can protest Prop 8 or Iranian elections. Victims of the 2008 earthquake in China can warn others quick and fast.
So is Twitter successful? Yes! Very much so. In fact, Twitter's success only continues to grow day by day. And honestly? If Twitter became the new Facebook like Facebook became the new Myspace, I don't think I would mind too much. After all, the only reason why I even go on Facebook nowadays is to read other people's statuses. I could do without the constant invitations to Farmville and the notifications of people being tagged in photo albums that I won't look at. Oh this girl I went to grade school with got drunk this weekend and took over 500 pictures of herself? I don't care. I've had my fair share of Facebook stalking, and I'm pretty over it by now. Twitter seems to be a more healthy and convienent way to stay in contact with other people.
And the only way to have fun on Twitter is to follow others and have others follow you! This is what I tried to illustate in my visual map.
Monday, November 2, 2009
Social Objects
Something that never fails to fascinate is how we're all somehow connected to each
other by some sort of fashion. From listening to Jyri Engestrom's lecture on social objects, I find he embraces the subject in a way I've never thought about before. He believes we're connected through "social objects", whether it be through photographs online or potatoes. It's very interesting and something I will love to talk about once I get the chance. Until then, here's a video of his lecture:
other by some sort of fashion. From listening to Jyri Engestrom's lecture on social objects, I find he embraces the subject in a way I've never thought about before. He believes we're connected through "social objects", whether it be through photographs online or potatoes. It's very interesting and something I will love to talk about once I get the chance. Until then, here's a video of his lecture:
Thursday, October 22, 2009
Imma do the things that I wanna do
I look back at my use of the internet since I was a wee lil' 8 year old, and realized that my main purpose of using the internet was for social purposes. Remember the days when people still used and paid for America Online? I do. I especially remember not even being able to instant message people, because my dad unfortunately signed me up for "Kids Only" settings. So I had to resort talking to my friends through e-mail and chat-rooms. Ah...memories.
Anyway, I guess what I'm trying to say is that what seemed like a useless form of entertainment at the time, now serves as a permanent form in memory. Why? Because my use of the internet and the social tools out there have made major and not so major impacts on my life. I can still remember some conversations that took place 5 years ago through IM. Some of these conversations back in the day would have to take place face to face, but I resorted to having these conversations online. I can still remember unnecessary "drama" that took place between my friends that came up in the first place because of MySpace.
My generation pretty much grew up online. We most definitely part of the "Content Nation". It's fun to think of what we were able to experience as a result of social media, but at the same time it's still a whole new frontier to take on as there are no mistakes from previous generations to learn from. The Star Wars Kid we talked about in class is a perfect example. Another incident is about this one teenage girl a couple of years who committed suicide over a cruel prank played on her on Myspace. It's really no question that social media has brought both positive and negative consequences into our lives.
One good thing about YouTube? Music videos. Like this one from Weezer...
Anyway, I guess what I'm trying to say is that what seemed like a useless form of entertainment at the time, now serves as a permanent form in memory. Why? Because my use of the internet and the social tools out there have made major and not so major impacts on my life. I can still remember some conversations that took place 5 years ago through IM. Some of these conversations back in the day would have to take place face to face, but I resorted to having these conversations online. I can still remember unnecessary "drama" that took place between my friends that came up in the first place because of MySpace.
My generation pretty much grew up online. We most definitely part of the "Content Nation". It's fun to think of what we were able to experience as a result of social media, but at the same time it's still a whole new frontier to take on as there are no mistakes from previous generations to learn from. The Star Wars Kid we talked about in class is a perfect example. Another incident is about this one teenage girl a couple of years who committed suicide over a cruel prank played on her on Myspace. It's really no question that social media has brought both positive and negative consequences into our lives.
One good thing about YouTube? Music videos. Like this one from Weezer...
Sunday, October 18, 2009
Group Videos
So I'm really upset that I wasn't able to go to Friday's class and see everyone's videos! I was really looking forward to seeing what all the other groups were doing and how their hard work paid off. I know me and my group worked hard on our video, "Beauty". I'm really proud of my group and our video, and I wish I got to see everyone's reactions and their feedback!
Xtra Cool Interview
Hey y'all. I really dig this website where it lets you make movies for free (Mostly). Check out my group's video:
Thursday, October 8, 2009
This is adorable.
So, I never like most people haven't seen or heard of this Youtube video until tonight's episode of The Office. (Pam&Jim married! Yay!) So I had to look up this video, and I can't enough of it. I think it's hilarious. I don't see myself doing this at my wedding, but never say never.
Thursday, October 1, 2009
Group progress
So far me and group, Amelia and Kai, are making pretty good progress on our digital story. We have decided together on a question, "What is beauty?". We feel that everyone has a different definition of beauty and we want to illustrate it. We keep changing the exact storyline, but we have some definite ideas in place. Namely, we want to compare models and celebrities to everyday people. By doing this, we want to put down the general defintion of "beauty", and show that everyone makes up the meaning for themselves. "Beauty is in the eye of the beholder"...kind of what we're aiming for. I was able to meet with Amelia today, and we're hoping this weekend to all get together and film footage for the video this weekend!
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About Me
- kaitlinsouthron
- Welcome to my blog, "rants and ramblings". The title is pretty much self-explanatory, I just to like rant and ramble about I things I learn in my communications class and elsewhere. I'm a senior English major, and I love write. I'm hoping to find a career after I graduate where I can employ this love someway somehow!