cultural experiences 2 & 3

#2

For my second cultural experience, i went out and rented Shakespeare In Love. While I have never been a huge fan of Mr. Shakespeare's literature, it was one of the few movies on the list that I had actually heard of so I thought I'd give it a shot. After watching it, I must say that it was actually rather interesting. Perhaps it was the fact that listening to Victorian English is a bit easier than reading it.

One of the things that I found to be interesting was the overall plot of the movie. The movie is about Shakespeare writing Romeo and Juliet, and the events of the actual movie unfold along very similar bases to Romeo and Juliet. If anything, this helps explain the actual play to those who couldn't quite comprehend it in 6th grade, which most kids probably couldn't. The way the creator of the movie intertwined the plot within the plot was very well done.

Another more cultural aspect of the film was the role of women back in Shakespeare's day. Back then, women were not even allowed to act in a woman's role in plays. Instead, boys with high voices played the part. Other than the Queen, women really had little to no significance in society. In the film, the princess, or whatever type of royalty she was, was forced with the task of getting married to better relations with a royal family from another country. Roles such as this were basically the only major contribution women had back in the day. I'm not saying it's a good thing, but that's how it was.


#3

Last weekend I went to see the play Pygmalion performed at Eureka College. I went with my two buddies because their sister was the lead female role and I needed another cultural experience. First off let me say the play was very good and all the actors performed amazingly. Pygmalion is the story of a psychologist who bets his fellow colleague that he can take an ordinary girl living on the streets and turn her into a proper woman in six months. However, he comes to find this is no ordinary girl. She is crazy and talks with sort of a hill billy British accent. One would think there is no way she could be turned into a proper woman. In the end, he ends up winning his bet, but gains more than the stakes. He discovers how his psychological "experiments" can affect the other person.

The aspect that struck me most about this play was the undermining moral of the story. Even though the professor made the girl into a proper lady, he took away the one thing she had. Happiness. Even though she was living on the streets and poor, at least she knew who she was and was happy. After being changed, she was gorgeous and wore only the finest garments, but that wasn't who she was. What I took away from this play was that a person should never try to change who they are or another person, simply to fit in with society. To find true happiness, you only have to look inside yourself.

Christmas is in December, not October

Something that has crossed my mind this past week is the obsession this country has for preparing for Christmas so freakin early. Every year well before December, all the Christmas songs start playing 24/7 on radio stations and people decorate for Christmas as early as possible. One of my neighbors has had their Christmas tree up since before Halloween. They skipped two holidays to set up their tree!! Now this year I suppose since the weather has been rainy and cold most of November I can see why some people might put lights up outside early, but there is no need to put up a Christmas tree 2 months before Christmas. But you know what, I could deal with the decorating if it wasn't for the songs. Not only do they start playing WAY too early, but every good holiday song has been butchered by various artists who try to incorporate their own style into it, which I guess is necessary if you are gonna play songs every minute of every day for a month.

Don’t get me wrong, I have nothing against the Christmas season. I enjoy the holidays just as much as the next guy, but people have made Christmas too materialistic. I believe it was Jordan who posted in their blog last week about this subject, and if it wasn’t Jordan than I apologize to whoever it actually was. It’s not about who can set up the most lights and have the brightest house on the street. If it was, my house would get last every year because my family is too lazy to ever put any lights up outside.

Terrorists in Central Illinois?

Tonight as I was flipping through channels, I heard the words terrorist coming to central Illinois on one of the local news stations. As you can imagine, those words intrigued me a little so I stopped to listen what was actually going on here. Apparently an idea is being thrown around to bring some of the alleged terrorists and place them in a prison in a small town of about 800 people I believe around 30 miles outside of Peoria. As they were interviewing some of the local town’s folk, many of them were against the change. As you can probably guess, their reasoning was they didn’t want convicted terrorists so close to home. I can understand that, seeing as most of the people were elderly individuals who tend to keep safety their number one priority. But then they showed Aaron Shock and Dick Durban, two of Illinois representatives, saying the exact same thing. This made me a little uneasy. Perhaps they are unaware of the economic boom a prison can bring to an area. Not only would the government federally fund this facility, but think of the jobs it would create. Maybe Mr. Durban and Mr. Shock are oblivious to the current financial problems we are having. And don’t tell me safety is the issue. There are several correctional facilities located all across Illinois that haven’t reported any mass break outs last I heard. If there are ex-terrorists locked up, think of the security that is going to be required. It’s not like we are just going to meet the bare minimum on this one. And the more security needed the more jobs that will be created. What’s the hesitation here? Sure, Grandma Smith doesn’t want the prison because safety comes before employment for her. Plus she hasn’t been elected to represent our state and looking out for the best intentions of Illinois as a whole.

Diving Deeper

The ad analysis that we recently wrote has been one of my favorite activities we’ve done so far this year in English 110. This paper didn’t simply require you to just give you opinions on what you saw or observed, but rather it made you think deeper into some hidden message. This allows each person to dwell on his/her own thoughts about their specific topic. To me, this is more rewarding to a writer. In our previous papers, we pretty much had to just give our opinions about certain aspects. For the ad analysis, not only did we have to give our opinions about what our ads were trying to convey, but also what evidence we could uncover to support that opinion. While I’m not saying that my other works of writing were simply written half heartedly with no conviction, I felt that this paper took the most thought to write. I feel that this bring a new level to the paper, or at least it did mine, that compels the reader to keep reading to find out what message you are getting at.

Not only did the assignment make me dig deeper into the ad to write a quality paper, I also found it sort of entertaining. To be honest, if I had never heard about this assignment, I probably never would have looked deeper into any ad to find some hidden message. But now that I’ve completed it, I think it’s kind of cool to see what a seemingly simple magazine ad can really be saying or conveying.

Battle for Terra

Yesterday I had to baby-sit my two little cousins and to keep them from fighting like they always do, I decided to rent a movie from the library. Since my knowledge of children’s movie isn’t as great as some, I asked which movie would be good for smaller children? With a little assistance, I picked out the movie Battle for Terra. As we started to watch the movie, I was surprisingly drawn into the movie. For a kids movie there was a good amount of action to keep the older viewers involved with what’s going on. I was really impressed with that because most of the time children’s movies just seem to dwell on the younger viewer’s needs and desires. If a movie appeals to older people, whether it be through subtle jokes that go over younger people’s heads or other tactics, the movie appeals to a much broader audience. A movie that does a great job of this is Wall-E. Battle for Terra uses action for older people to focus on while it involves a heartwarming plot for those who do not prefer the action scenes. Most movies I watch seem to bore me rather quickly, but surprisingly this movie meant for 10 year olds was able to keep my attention for the entirety of the film. While I won’t say this is a blockbuster by any stretch of the imagination, nor would I expect you to even watch it if you were bored and alone one day. But if you ever have some younger kids and need to kill time, I would definitely recommend you go rent this movie.

Travel Essay

When Stephanie assigned the travel essay and handed out the travel essay example packets, I thought to myself well damn, this doesn’t sound like much fun. First of all it took me about a week to decide what to even write about, and by that time I had hardly any time to actually go to my place and conduct my research. I put the assignment off as long as possible because I really didn’t want to do it. So as I actually wrote my paper, I did my best to make it interesting and effective but I just felt like it lacked in areas where my others works were fine. Finally I had a “rough” draft done and it was something to work with I guess.

However, as I look back on the assignment and reading over my paper, I’ve decided that the travel essay wasn’t that bad overall. I’m not entirely sure why I had such a negative connotation when it actually wasn’t half bad. I still wouldn’t go as far as to say it was my favorite assignment ever, but things still flowed relatively smooth. During my peer response as I was reading my paper out loud, I was surprised that it sounded as good as it did. Even though it still has its areas that need some major improvement, I don’t think I’m as far away as I originally planned. Granted there is still a chance that it sucks and my expectations were low, but I’m going to assume that’s not the case. I feel better this way.

Obama's Peace Prize

As you have probably already heard, last week President Obama was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. While I don’t want to say that our president has done nothing to earn some regards for improving our country and our world, I am a bit skeptical about giving him such an honor when to be perfectly frank, he hasn’t done much to earn it. Sure, he has told us what he hopes to accomplish and how he wants to improve conditions, but he hasn’t done it yet. The nominations for the Nobel Peace Prize are due by February 1^st, which means he had been president for two weeks before the deadline. Two weeks! I don’t care how much you hope to get done in four years, but even still he didn’t accomplish anything world changing in two weeks. In two weeks, he told us that he wanted to accomplish a list of things. On that list were reducing nuclear weapons throughout the world, easing tension in the Middle East, and fighting climate changes by reducing the amount of fossil fuels used. Ok, so let’s see what he has done so far. I’ll even give him the benefit of being evaluated to today, October 12^th, instead of February 1^st. No countries are reducing their nuclear weapons build up, not even the U.S., we are still at war with Afghanistan and who knows what is going to happen with Iran, and I will give him credit for trying to be more energy efficient. So that is one out of three things accomplished that he won the award for. And I’m not being critical of Obama here, he never said he would get all this done in half a year. I commend him for the work he has been putting forth to try to improve the world, but why did he win the Nobel Peace Prize?! You can’t say it’s for good intentions, you just can’t. Even I have good intentions yet I’m not winning an award. If you ask me, they should have given the award to someone else and in a couple years if President Obama has accomplished a bit more, than we give him the award, but he hasn’t had enough time to actually deserve it.

Improvements in writing

Now that we have been writing for about six weeks, I have started to notice significant changes in the way that I write. One of the most drastic improvements in my writing habits would be the usage of “seeing” and not “telling.” When I would write a paper for high school, I focused mainly on getting all of my information or ideas out for the reader to read, but I never really worked at finding the best way to convey that information. If I were to go back and read some of my older pieces of work, I would probably get bored halfway through and quit. It’s pretty sad when even your own writing isn’t exciting enough for you. But now I’ve learned how to spice things up in my papers and make it much easier to read through.

Another major change I’ve seen in my writing habits is how I go back and make revisions. Before, I would simply go back and make the minimal amount of changes that the teacher brought up because I thought that was the only way to improve the writing. However, now once I make changes I go back and read through the paper to make sure it flows smoothly and isn’t all choppy. I’d always lose points because my paper didn’t flow well enough for the teacher’s liking and now I realize why. I think I always took for granted how effective transitions between paragraphs and even sentences were. I feel like I’ve already become a much better writer and it’s not even the midterm yet. Who knows what’s next.

nuclear weapons

Since Barack Obama has been President of the United States, he has constantly pushed for a world without nuclear weapons, with the United States leading the charge. While I would agree with most people that the amount of nuclear weapons the U.S. possesses (enough to destroy the entire face of the earth 5 times)is a bit extreme, I believe it would detrimental and down right absurd to completely scrap all of our nuclear weapons, even if the rest of the world followed suit.

First of all, I can almost guarantee you that every other county that has possession of nuclear weapons would not follow our lead. Take North Korea for example. They are lead by a short little man who seems to be obsessed with showing that he is not afraid of anyone and refuses to cooperate with anyone. And now he has control of nuclear weapons and seems intent on using them whenever necessary, so it’s safe to say that he won’t be giving them up anytime soon. With North Korea being only an ocean away, why would we want to give our nuclear weapons up? Even if we don’t actually use them, which we probably won’t, at least they play into the decisions made by the Koreans. They aren’t just a physical weapon, but a mental weapon as well.

Even if you could somehow get every single country in the entire world to agree to scrap nuclear weapons altogether, I still would be against the U.S. getting rid of theirs. Having nuclear weapons are one of the things that make our country a so called super power. They show that our technological, chemical, and other related skills play a key role in defending our country. And most importantly, I feel safe knowing that if some country tries to threaten my safety or the safety of any other American that our government can use just about any extreme to defend us.

Just let me write

Growing up, I have written a good amount of papers for school or other functions. Many of those papers had specific guidelines on exactly what needed to be included. Now writing is not my favorite activity in the world, but when I do write I think it should be in a personal manner that allows the author to express his/her opinions in his/her own way. I remember practically all throughout grade school and even through part of junior high, my teachers would make us create an outline before we could even write a word of our paper. Some teachers would make us draw bubbles and boxes to make try and make us believe it could be fun, but I didn’t buy that. I hated that. I wasn’t sure of everything that I was going to put in my paper yet, so I would always just make something up and then loosely tie it in with my paper or just leave it out altogether. I understand that teachers probably wanted to make sure students were organized and thinking about their papers before writing them, but that doesn’t work for everyone. I have found that I write the best when I can improvise halfway through a paper and don’t have to stick with an idea that is set in stone. This doesn’t mean that I don’t plan ahead before writing a paper. I’ll still think about what I’m going to talk about, but I am open to change to make the paper better.

Cultural Experience #1

A few days ago, my brother and I went out to eat at Khana Khazanah, a little Pakistani restaurant on Knoxville in Peoria. At first I had my doubts about the place because it did not offer the best first impression. Right by the door there were smoking wires coming out of the wall which I though must have been in violation with some safety code. Even though this had nothing to do with the food, I worried about the quality of what I was about to put in my body. However, I soon discovered that I could not have been more wrong about my opinions of Pakistani food.

As I looked at the menu, I realized I had absolutely no idea what anything on the menu was. The one thing that looked remotely familiar was something with chicken, so that’s what I ordered. When we got our food, it came with the main course (whatever that was), a type of bread, and rice with a spicy sauce. If you like spicy food, then this is your type of place. The food was absolutely delicious. The chicken that I had ordered came in its own special sauce that burned the inside of your throat, but in a good way. It also came with these little balls that had absolutely no taste for like 5 seconds, but made your eyes water from the spiciness. I’m not quite sure what my brother had but by his facial expressions I could tell his was just as spicy as mine. All in all it was one of the best things I have ever eaten.

Obama's speech to schools

Last week, President Obama gave a speech to schools all across our country. In response to this, many parents reacted by threatening not to let their children go to school that day, apparently to keep their sons and daughters away from democratic propaganda. Personally, I thought this was absolutely absurd. I don’t care if you are a Democrat, Republican, independent (like myself), or part of any other political standpoint, Obama is the President of the United States and he is owed a certain level of respect from all people of this country. To be honest, I am not a big fan of Obama, but if he wants to make a speech, then far be it from me to say he can’t.

The thing that really got me about this was not that parent’s didn’t want their kids to listen to the speech. They are not my kids so I have no right to say how they should be raised and what they should be subjected to. What really got me was the message this would send to students. Speaking from experience, kids looked for any excuse to miss classes and stay home from school. All of a sudden, their parents are saying since they don’t believe what the president is doing is right, they don’t have to go to school. So does that mean if I believe that science is going against my religion, I can just skip it and blow that class off? Before anyone gets on me, I do believe science is important. But anyways, parents letting their kids stay away from school because the person elected to be the leader of this country wants to talk to students does not benefit student. Let’s be honest, when you were in grade school, when you got to watch a movie or T.V., you were pumped. My guess is a good amount of kids didn’t pay attention to what Obama had to say, they were just glad they weren’t taking a spelling test.

myself as a writer

I write in some way, shape, or form practically every day. Whether it be writing papers for English class, talking to people on instant messaging programs, or even texting “lol” on my cell phone. However, each situation has its own approach to its writing style. When writing a paper for school, I make sure to be as careful as I can and to follow all the grammar rules as best as I can. Though this is not my favorite way to write, it gives me clear guidelines as to how to accomplish the task. I am the type of person who prefers to be taught a clear right way to do things rather than figuring it out for yourself, so have a clear prompt to follow is fine by me.

I also write quite a bit at my job. I work at the public library in my town and writing is of key importance. My handwriting is not exactly the easiest thing to read and many of my letters can sometimes be mistaken for other letters, for example my “e” tends to look like a “c”. No doubt this is because I tend to write fast. Working in an environment where everyone has to be able to read your writing has started to make me slow down when writing so it appears legible. This isn’t easy for me because the only time someone really needed to read my writing, I usually typed in on a computer anyway. I guess you could say my sloppiness is what makes my writing personal to me.

Letter of Introduction

August 26, 2009

Dear Stephanie Scott:

For the first assignment of the year, you have instructed us to write you a letter that provides you with important or interesting information about ourselves. In the next few paragraphs, I will try my best to inform you of any facts that will make for a more exciting and fun semester in English 110. If I fail, well then I guess it will just be a surprise for you to figure out as the semester goes along.

I was born in the state of Texas on the first of November in 1990. Though I only lived there for three years, I like to consider myself as a Texan at heart. I’m not entirely sure why though. The 100 degree weather would not suit me well. I am much fonder of weather between 60-80 degrees, so the weather right now is perfect in my opinion. But other than my brief stint in Texas, I’ve lived in a small town called Tremont the rest of my life. Tremont is a nice little town of 2,100 people that reminds me of the little bar in Boston called Cheers. Everybody seems to know your name.

I’m not exactly what you would call an athletic person, but I do love to watch sports on television so that has to count for something. I do golf a little but that is about the extent of my athletic abilities. One of my favorite activities to do is watch St. Louis Cardinal games either on TV or actually going to games. I’m glad that this class is in the morning because the playoffs are coming up soon and I might have to skip class if there was a big game on.

Throughout this semester, I hope to be able to improve my overall writing skills. I know that sounds very bland and not particular at all, but I do want to strengthen my writings in all areas. English has never been my best subject so sometimes it can come as a struggle. Hopefully I can pick up on a couple of key concepts that will stick with me as my life goes on because I know that I won’t get away from writing.

Another goal of mine is to improve on my peer response abilities. If I am responsible for making another student’s paper better, then I feel I should understand where he/she needs help and how best I can offer my help. I know I would want someone to check my papers who knew how to grammatically improve the overall flow of my paper.

Well hopefully this paper has given you a little better understanding of who I am and what I am kind of about. I’m sure as the year goes on you will discover more about me and hopefully I will learn more about you. Being that I am more of a math kind of guy, which to me is like the opposite of English, I am actually rather excited about this year in English 110

Sincerely,

Jack Stout

Baseball + Congress = No Good

If you are a baseball fan like I am, no doubt you are aware of our United States Congress’ involvement in the steroid investigations in Major League Baseball. Steroids are slowly but surely turning baseball into a witch hunt to see who has taken what drug and how should we punish them for it. Our Congress felt they could help solve this problem by getting involved and I guess trying to prove to the world that they could handle baseball’s problems. It is my firm opinion that Congress never should have gotten involved in the first place and should leave it be before they completely kill the sport.

Congress’ involvement all began a few years ago with what was known as the Mitchell Report. This involved spending millions of dollars and 20 months to compile a list of 89 baseball players who had failed drug tests. That’s all fine and good, and now that we know who took steroids we can leave it at that, right? Wrong. After that Congress spent even more time by interviewing players in the report. The actual game of baseball was not what most people were associating with the sport of baseball. Everyone thought of baseball as a game of athletes who needed to inject some type of substance into their body to become better. Thank you Congress, you did a peachy job.

As if that wasn’t enough, I have more. Just recently, Congress seized a new list of players who had failed drug tests. In our current economic situation, is the topic of steroids in baseball seriously high up on our list of priorities? Let it go Congress, leave baseball alone and start fixing this economy so I won’t be up to my ears in debt for the rest of my life.