Reflection

I really liked having a blog for class, it was interesting and I think it allows students to better express themselves along with school work. I would rate it a 10. I liked how posting a blog and customizing it with pictures and colors was easily set up. Nothing was really difficult for me, except sometimes getting stuck on what to write on my posts or naming the titles for them. My favorite posts were the ones with pictures, cartoons, and advertisements. I didn't really have any least favorite posts. I would do another blog if I had the choice for school, but other than that I wouldn't have one just for fun because it is another time consumer and is like having a Facebook, and Facebook is already enough for me. The whole semester was upbeat and kept me interested because we talked about recent topics like media and how we identify ourselves and connect with society. We were able to share our ideas and opinions on this Blog which opens up our minds to learning more academically, about ourselves and our fellow classmates.

What Friendships Could be Like Without The Media

As I can remember, the first I heard of MySpace was in the 8th grade. I had met my best friend Theresa in the 7th grade, before we were experiencing the hype of online social networking. Throughout the years, Facebook came along and became more popular than MySpace. As the years passed by, Theresa and I gradually made the switch from MySpace to Facebook, as all of our other friends were doing as well. Although it was becoming the "new thing" to chat and socialize with friends online, Theresa and I didn't really pay attention to it much, instead we did things that we will never forget and had some of the best times together. We don't always care with what's going on online, although we do sometimes post things and share pictures on Facebook, this is an example of friendship WITHOUT over consumption of the media. Theresa and I are still best friends to this day, and yes even though we both have Facebook accounts, we keep on making great memories together face-to-face. We'd way rather be out doing something, than being online! Why have friends if you only socialize with each other online? What fun is that anyways?

Here is Theresa and I at the Sonoma County Fair Summer of 2011 riding on the "Tilt-a-World."Smiling having a fun time, NOT online. ;)

Here is Theresa and I on New Years 2012 partying, having a great time, celebrating the New Year! NOT on Facebook updating how much fun we are having.

Theresa and I in our first apartment together. Equipped with wireless internet but we definitely don't need the internet NOW. Haha

Theresa and I swinging enjoying the park and re-living the child in us. Weee! NOT Tweeeet!

And to end it, this picture describes our relationship in a nutshell. Goofy, funny, and GETTING each other because we aren't having a friendship only online, we have one in real life. WOW! ;) Theresa and I have managed to stay close over time, unlike my other old friends to whom I have lost contact with, even when they are still my friends on Facebook to this day. Being active offline, is time well spent, and makes a good friendship last.

I Tweet, Therefore I Am

In the essay I Tweet, Therefore I Am, by Peggy Orenstein, the author talks about how Twitter has changed her way of thinking. In part of my media essay I portrayed how I thought that people were too caught up in their online social networks and that more and more people spend a significant time out of the day to think of their next status update on Facebook. Well this essay is about the same topic, except with Twitter. I personally do not have a Twitter account, but I do think that it is having the same effect as Facebook. In the beginning of, I Tweet, Therefore I Am, Orenstein starts off with describing a summer day outside with her daughter, and how she would have fully present for the moment, but instead she was thinking about how that moment was the perfect opportunity for a tweet. Because of Twitter and Facebook, I think that people aren't completely all "there" when it comes to spending time face to face with others. Don't always think about your next status update or next tweet, because you might start to miss out on some significant moments.

Quote from The Secret Life of Bees

"When you're unsure of yourself," she said, "when you start pulling back into doubt and small living, she's the one inside saying, 'Get up from there and live like the glorious girl you are.' She's the power inside you, you understand?"

- This quote is from August, talking to Lily in the last chapter in the book on page 289. It is a powerful quote and it not only represents the close relationship between Lily and August, but the faith and courage Lily had gained by the end of her journey at the calender sister's home. In this quote August is referring to Mary, who the sisters worship and"Our Lady Mary", as the power inside Lily. August explains how Mary is inside of us all and that Lily has to find her within her own heart, and hear her tell herself to get up and live like a glorious girl deserves to live and to not doubt yourself. I think many people can relate to this quote even if they aren't religious, because we all have that strength inside of us that can help us become uplifted. 

Movie Review

The movie I chose to review is Shark Tale. The directors of the movie are Vicky Jenson, Bibo Bergeron, and Rob Letterman. The main characters of the movie are Will Smith who plays Oscar (main character), Robert De Niro who plays the most feared shark, Renee Zellweger who plays Angie, Oscar's best friend, and Jack Black who plays Lenny the vegetarian shark. I picked this movie to review because I am a fan of funny kids movies. They seem to have adult humor in them, which kids wouldn't understand but are entertaining for adults. I don't have any younger siblings, but I do have a lot of younger cousins who I would watch many kids movies with. The genre is comedy and kids. There is a definite message in the movie, that if you use lying to get to the top (the top of the reef in this case) and you eventually reach stardom, you don't feel good about yourself because of the lies you used to get there. But if you tell the truth to those that love and care about you, then you will have a better life then you pictured and be happy after all. I really liked the movie's style because it was funny and thrilling, and sentimental at the same time. I thought it was funny how they had a vegetarian shark,(Lenny) and his family of sharks were portrayed as an Italian mafia and were major meat eaters (as obviously sharks are in real life). Oscar of course falls in love with a pretty yet shallow fish, but realizes his true love is Angie all along. There are many more characters that are very entertaining in the movie too but you have to watch it! It is a cute story line and I think teaches kids a good lesson also. It's a good movie to watch with your children because an adult can enjoy the humor as well. I would say thumbs up and watch it! Not a waste of time if you like humorous kids movies.

Comparing and Contrasting Cartoons

Fear the Media!

I chose these two cartoons to compare and contrast with each other. These cartoons have similarities but are also different. The similarities between the two is that they both involve fear. The first cartoon is about how media can promote a culture of fear and violence and how it effects certain people over time. Just like you see, over the years the media is promoting fear and violence on the parents, since their son is too young to understand what is going on. Then the cartoon changes in the last square as the child grows up ends up becoming fearful, instead of his parents and he is more involved in the media than his parents are at this point.

In the second cartoon the man is fearful of the cute little twitter bird, meaning he doesn't want to fall into the trap of media. It's like the man is saying "stay away, I don't need to have a Twitter!" It's funny how such a big guy is afraid of the bird, but the bird means so much more since it represent Twitter. The tiny exclamation point next to the bird also says more about the cartoon, as if the bird is saying "I'm going to make you want me!" The second cartoon isn't really about fear and violence in the media, but more of a person who someone would consider to be an anti-consumerism, which relates to our media essay. 

The Way to Somewhere: Book Review

Author Angie Day

The Way to Somewhere, by Angie Day, was published in 2002 by Simon and Schuster. Pages: 302

What I learned from the book is that to not let anyone come in your way when you want to branch out, travel, experience, and figure yourself out as a person. Whether it means leaving home and family, getting in a little trouble, finding out people's true selves, it's you who's making your own decision in life, and through the obstacles you overcome you learn something new about yourself each time.

The main character of the book is Taylor Jessup who starts out as a twelve year old girl, and at the end of the book ends as a twenty seven year old woman. 

The book is about Taylor's journey through life and what she went through to get where she wanted to go. Although Taylor didn't know exactly where she wanted to go most of the time, (which supports the title The Way to Somewhere) she went through some interesting things that were learning experiences for her. From her mom being an alcoholic, her dad admitting he was gay and leaving the family, her older "cool" brother J.J., to whom she looked up to, her best high school friend Maria, and Joe, Taylor's carpentry boss, each played a significant part in who Taylor eventually grew up to be. Also from love, lust, and adventure helps Taylor find herself.
Taylor went through many jobs, apartments, schools, and boyfriends, throughout the book, and even dated her college teacher, Jeff, who she had her first house with. Taylor ends making a few moves around the country, leaving people and meeting new people, and finds out her passion is carpentry and that her favorite part of it is restoring old furniture.

Through moving, digging up old antique pieces from random trash cans, becoming pregnant, and coming close to a bad marriage, Taylor ends up in a place she'd always wanted to get away from; home in the state of Texas. Although, in the end, she's happy with where she's been, the decisions she's made, who she's had relationships with, and where she ends up. It's not about who people want you to be, it's about who you want to be. 

"You have to stay focused on yourself, because in the end, nobody else will."-Taylor. I chose this quote because it really is one of the big themes of the book.

I really enjoyed reading this book because it brought out emotion of my own life and how growing up can be exciting and scary at the same time. This book allows the reader to think and have their own opinion about real life situations and uses language that each a young person and an older person could relate to and it also had good flow. It was a definite page turner for me and I would recommend reading this book if you would be interested in a good story about a girl who transforms into womanhood through her corky and sometimes sad life challenges. I wouldn't have changed anything about the book, it had enough surprises to keep the reader interested but didn't go over the top. There was also nothing that I did not like about the book, because it mainly portrayed that decisions made by a strong women who are able to lead her own path in life, is something that not many people can do and it's something people should admire. I can't disagree with that. Thumbs up on this one.

7 Spelling and Grammar Mistakes that Make You Look Dumb...

I really liked reading this article and I think a lot more people should read it. I feel like there are too many people out there who make stupid spelling and grammar mistakes, especially when it comes to trying to look professional. It is annoying seeing signs out front of some places that has a misspelled word, or that uses the wrong word in context. Just like the picture, shown in the article, of a board that says "we are committed to excellense." Wow, now that's embarrassing; they couldn't even spell the most important word right! It's like hello people, this is some second grade stuff! And people shouldn't be making these easy mistakes so often. It can make a person, business, or company look bad, just because of these simple spelling and grammar errors, and it can also be a deal breaker when it comes to getting hired. People are smarter than this, but maybe some of us need to go back to elementary school to get our minds refreshed of proper spelling and grammar so we stop looking dumb, because we really aren't! Don't let this happen to you, read this article!

Extra Credit: The Neuroscience of Your Brain on Fiction

I really liked this article because I never knew how reading could really effect your brain in positive ways. For me, I was never big on reading, but after reading this article it intrigued me to read more so therefore I can more fully understand the complexities of my social life. In this article, it stated that reading can "produce a vivid simulation of reality" and "the opportunity to enter fully into other people's thoughts and feelings." Who knew that reading (even fiction) and engaging with characters in a book can help us relate to our real life. That is amazing to me. As stated in the article "individuals who frequently read fiction seem to be better able to understand other people, empathize with them and see the world from their perspective." Before reading this article I was already convinced that reading enhances a persons academic success and broadens their prior knowledge of many things, such as historical events and facts. But reading not only serves as entertaining purposes and teaches you things you never knew about before, it can also (as talked about in this article) produce more sensory details and feelings in your brain and aids you to learn more about yourself and about others that surround you in life to therefore better understand things going on in the world.

PBS Culture Shock

On the PBS website, Victor and I were partners in deciding whether or not a violent video game image should be used on the homepage. It wasn't hard making certain decisions together, based on the image, because we actually had the same view points. It was almost instant for us to disagree with violence in video games and the exposure to children at a young age. Violence doesn't solely come from violent video games, but it can be influenced depending on the environment you live in and the age of the viewer. Our final decision was that we don't think that the video game image should be used on the websites homepage. Victor and I were part of the minority vote which was 7% compared to 92% who said that image should be used. With the question of video games being a form of art, we agreed because of the graphics and fantasy part of it, but not the violence part being considered as art. I personally found some of the other images on the website to be offensive, not necessarily the image chosen for the homepage, although I still didn't think it should be shown for a PBS website. During the exercise, none of the quotes swayed our decision because to us the quotes weren't very powerful in changing our thoughts or perspectives on it. Only except for the last quote that says, "what if it just shows the world as it actually is", because violence is a reality of life, even though we don't think about it all the time. We think that yes, video games are there to entertain but on the other hand, violent video games are not meant for young immature children. Kids get way too into video games, let alone violent ones are even more intense, and it seems they get more angry when they lose the game. Therefore it is not an outlet for aggression, and doesn't reduce murder and mayhem. Violent video games would most likely increase crime.

Significance of people in life-Alexie post.

Name at least 3 mentors in Junior's life. Tell who they are and why they are important to him. Also explain how they help (or mentor) Junior in his journey.

-In The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian, the three mentors in Junior's life are Oscar the dog, Mr. P, and Junior's sister Mary. Even though Oscar wasn't involved in the story very long, I think he still had a big impact on Junior's life. When Junior's father had to relieve Oscar of his suffering, Junior did not agree with it at all and didn't think that it was fair, just because his family didn't have enough money to take Oscar to the vet. Junior doesn't want to have to live life like that, and feel guilty because of his families poverty.  Oscar was always there for Junior not matter what and never judged him. Oscar was Junior's best buddy over anyone else in Junior's life. And he wanted so badly to take save Oscar, but had no control over it. Mr. P is another mentor for Junior because he was the one that pushed Junior into leaving the reservation and telling him that he is better than what he thinks of himself. Without Mr. P, Junior would have never gone to Reardan. Junior's sister is also a mentor to Junior. Living her whole life in the basement then getting married and moving out of state showed Junior that she was living out her dream of a romance novel, and that Junior can live out his dream as well. These 3 mentors remind Junior that he can succeed and can conquer anything he wants in his journey.

Another Six Word Memoir I randomly came up with...

Laughing is the best ab workout. 

Six Word Memoir

If you wanna let loose, dance.

How much information do you think is out there about you?-Class topic: Privacy

Privacy is something that someone is entitled to. Whether it's online or not, we all deserve it. I personally agree with Shafer's essay in, What Matters in America, that online tracking has gone too far. But I am also on the fence about how much information a person should be able to find out about someone else, through a searching engine online. We should be able to find out information about bad people, like criminals; but others, like myself who have no criminal record, shouldn't have much information come up when we are "searched." Privacy is all about staying safe, and when it comes to other people, we want to know all about them, but we don't want them knowing anything about us. Interesting...

Which A.T.D. cartoon stood out to you?

Analysis of The Absolutely True Diary Cartoon

“What are you drawing??” Rowdy and the latest issue of Casper the Friendly Ghost. “He hates when I draw him! Never lets me finish.” Cartoon Page 23

- I picked this cartoon because it really drew my attention. At first glance it looks like this crazy drawing of an angry face. But when you take a closer look, it is actually Rowdy calmly reading comics in the background. His face is “ghostly” hidden behind the crazy angry face. The message is that on the outside, Rowdy mostly looks like a normal boy, but at times when he gets angry, his alter ego comes out and he looks quite scary. That drawing of Rowdy’s face is how Junior portrays him when he gets mad. Even though this picture is ballistic, I like this cartoon because it symbolizes the friendship that Junior and Rowdy have together. Rowdy gets so upset when Junior draws him, but yet he still supports him drawing. 

Who would you target?

I chose the Burger King and the Stolichnaya ad's because they both really stood out to me from the others, and I could immediately tell the ad's were trying to portray. The hooks were the images, and what is going on in them. The target audience for the Burger King ad is most likely busy Mom's. The audience for the Stolichnaya ad are probably young men and women who are old enough to drink alcohol.

Burger King: The Lunch Battle Is Over
1. Who is the woman in the ad? What is she wearing, and why?
-The women in the ad looks like a middle-aged busy stay at home mom, who takes care of her kids everyday. She is wearing what looks to be like a viking suit, but which is made out of cooking utensils instead. She is wearing it because she is "battling" what to plan for lunch.
2. Where would you expect to see an ad like this, and why? If you were an advertising executive, where would you place this ad? How would you target your public? Explain.
-I would expect to see this ad at sports fields or kid related areas, like parks because the ad is trying to attract people who want to buy an "adult" meal and also feed their kids with the free kids meal. I would put this ad at park benches or on fences surrounding sports fields, because most moms are involved with their kids' activities. Therefore they will see that Burger King is a fast, easy, cheap way to get lunch, without much trouble.
3. What connection does the tag line, "The Lunch Battle Is Over" have to the product? What association or product image is the company trying to promote?
-Feeding your kids lunch can be tough because usually families are on tight schedules, and don't have much time to figure out lunch plans. And most kids can't agree on one thing. So the tag line means that there is not going to be any battle trying to get lunch together; you can just go to Burger King and the problem is solved. The association or product image the company is trying to promote is a simpler and more stress-free lunch time.
4. What is Burger King trying to do with this ad? Who are they targeting? Is there a primary audience and a secondary one? Explain.
-Burger King is trying to target and lure busy mom's in to eating something cheap and fast, so they have time to worry about something else, which is appealing to them instead of having to worry about lunch. And I don't really see a secondary audience in this ad.

Stolichnaya: Flavored Russian Vodka
1. How do the young women in the photograph connect to the product being promoted in this ad?
-The young women will most likely attract both sexes; because they are pretty and "seductive" looking and people like to look at that. The women are trying to reel you into buying that vodka cause it comes off as being "cool" and "classy".
2. Who is the likely target audience for this ad? In what magazines would you expect to see it? Is it an effective ad?
-The target audience is younger people who are at that age where they want to drink and party. I would see it in a magazine like Cosmo or a mens magazine. I think it is effective, it caught my eye.
3. What are the young women doing in the ad? What lifestyle does this ad promote? What is the product's implied promise? Explain.
-The young women are drinking different drinks at a bar or club while looking sexy. The lifestyle the ad promotes is mysterious, fun, and sophisticated. The products implied promise is that if you drink Stolichnaya vodka you could get different "flavors" (types) of russian women attracted to you.
4. What does the text below the photograph say about the product? Who do we presume the reader to be?
-It says that you never know what your going to get with the different flavors of vodka; if you don't experiment how do you know what you will like or what will happen (in a sexual way)? We presume the reader to be men.

Are you Faceless on Facebook?

In Kate Beals essay "Faceless on Facebook" she makes the point that Facebook is a website that gives her anxiety for several reasons. Why Kate feels this way is because she had trouble thinking of what to write to fill out her profile page. From her profile picture, activities, interests, music, and books, she came to realize that her mind came to a blank; not because she didn't have anything to share, but that she was fearful of how she'd be judged by others. Kate ends up not having a Facebook page in the end and claims it's not for her. I do not disagree or agree with this essay. Having a Facebook is solely a persons choice, and whether or not you want to be "involved" in the online social world. Facebook does share a lot about yourself, and many people are not comfortable with having one.

Do you wanna get gelled?

Hey I'm Cheryl, but all my friends call me Cherbear. This is my blog for my English 100 class. I've never had a blog before, but I've always wondered what they were all about. They seem pretty interesting, and I'm curious to see how it works with this class. In the past I have enjoyed posting ideas or thoughts online for previous classes, so I am looking forward to using this blog. I also like how you can customize your blog name and profile, which makes it more personal. So here I go with my first blog post! For our homework, we were supposed to choose an advertisement and talk about it. The picture above is the ad I chose from the February 2012 Cosmopolitan magazine. The product being sold is the new Gel color from the nail polish brand OPI. The message here is that if you want to have a nice manicure, be up to date with the new Gel color, and be stylish and pretty, you should use this (gel) nail polish. The audience, for this ad, is young and mature women who are sophisticated, like to look classy, and that like to get pampered. Besides the product, beauty and individuality is being sold because the celebrity (Anna Paquin) is wearing a certain Gel nail color. She is also pretty and blonde, with long curled hair, flawless skin, a cute dress and well done make up. Who wouldn't want this new nail polish right?!