Thursday, January 15, 2009

Finale

Something tells me this final post should be important or... something.  I mean it's the last one, should go out with a bang and all that right?  But there's nothing special about this one, I'm still listening to some of my favorite things (this time it's The Office), and I'm still stumped on what I should write about.  First I suppose I should boot up citrix so I can record this in the Blog Log, and then send it to Kunkle when I'm done.  Done, and now the student e-mail, and Word for my two favorites.

It's nice, one of my favorite episodes is on, Conflict Resolution.  One of the better episodes from the second season, and I think I need two or three more comments so I'll do that before the night's over too.  So how should this end?  I suppose checking facebook won't get it done any faster.  Regular readers will recognize this as my "Artificially make my blog post longer by rambling" method.  It works, and it's fun.

Alright, I need to do actual work, and finish Caucasia but that's beside the point.  Let's talk about Caucasia, I've made it a habit to not address the things we do in class directly, except for my comments, well normally.

So, Caucasia, the story of a half-black/half-white who is going through puberty.  She doesn't know who she wants to be/should be and her mom thinks the FBI is on her tail.  200 pages later we find out that there's no danger and that Birdie has an inexplicable habit to spend the first day in a new school the same way every time.  Everyone in Caucasia apparantly loves using music instead of their own voice to express themselves, and hair is the most important thing in the world to Danzy Senna.  Damn I just made fun of three motifs in two sentences, I'm on a roll.  On a more serious note, how do you make a run from the FBI boring or a girls first day of school?  I was more entertained when I tried to read Twilight, the differences here are that I had to buy Caucasia and that I'm not allowed to not finish it.  There's something wrong with a book when you get three quarters through the book without getting excited.  

I dunno, some rising action maybe, a conflict here or there?  Yes, Birdie and the girls at school were at odds, but then three pages later their friends, that's not character development that's being eclectic.  Yes the author is trying to make the point about how we change ourselves to fit in, but it's a tired message.  It's a good message, but there's a much better way to tell it (read The Fountainhead, it's roughly 700 pages giving that message among others in a much more entertaining and cohesive way).  Yes I mean cohesive, most books suffer from this symptom actually; the book gives a message, then another 50 pages later it gives the same message in roughly the same form.  It just gets boring and makes me take the message less seriously, you could have the best message in the world but it seems less so if you can't think of more than two ways to say it.

Mmk, I'm done with all this praying for another cold day and it looks like we'll be getting it.  Channel3000 says we have some kind of warning until 12pm on Friday, and Weather.com says it'll be around -25 at 9am on Friday.  So it looks like we'll have an extra long weekend and I won't have to take my math quiz until Monday.




Well, goodbye blogs, and it's early but, I'll be hoping that I see about 12 of you in more of my classes next semester (I don't not like any of you, but I do like some of you).

Let's have a chat about destruction

I recently got myself a game off of eBay.  The entire point of this game is to crash cars, there's an entire part where you just smash your car into an intersection and watch everything explode.  I've gotta ask, why do I find this so appealing?  There's apparantly something about destruction that's just very appealing.  I think I know what it is and so does everyone who enjoys destruction, at least they do subconsciously.

To build anything takes creativity, and courage.  And to build cars that go upwards of 200 mph that look like the coolest thing since sliced bread takes more than the average amount of both.  It gives a great since of power to know that you can destroy something that took so much to make in a matter of seconds.  It makes you feel as though you've equaled their power, when you of course haven't.  You may have found the one spot that destroys the whole machine, but what does that prove?  Even if you keep destroying someone's achievements you still haven't equaled the person.  Creativity and courage are not measured by what you have made (though I'll admit it's not a bad thing to measure by), especially if the things you make are being destroyed.

Anyway, I've got to go crash some more nice cars, I'll be back later to finish off my last blog.

Thursday, January 8, 2009

X-ism

Show of hands, who's tired of being told over and over again that racism and sexism is bad? I think Mr. Vonnegut says it best in Slaughterhouse Five, "I know, I know, I know..." I could understand if we were taught this once and then brought it up when someone says or does something stupid. But to send it at us over and over again is just lunacy. It's gotten to the point where me and my friends are as racist as possible when we hang out together just to make fun of it all. I'm certain it's a larger issue in major cities and anywhere that isn't our safe little white suburbia, but for God's sake, "I know, I know, I know!"

What it comes down to is, I just don't care anymore, I never cared. I never thought race or gender made any difference in the first place, I couldn't see how anyone thought it did. I'm not going to digress into the arguments made by sociologists that it should be taken into account because of the disadvantages X race or gender faced in the past. I couldn't care less for what they consider fair or just. Exceptions don't prove rules and many people have risen beyond what sociologists said they should have by doing their best for themselves.

As for the issue we're talking about with our journals, how the media defines women and changes their minds. Congratulations, you're right, well done... But don't spout it as though it's some profound statement that you found out on your own. We've known that the media's been doing this for years, ever since radios were created we've had advertising and ever since we've had advertising we've known they don't show the majority or the normal. It gets just as tiring as the advertisements themselves, listening to people talk about issues like these.

"But what I'm saying may help the girls change this time!"
That's what you want to say right? And sure, why not, maybe this time it'll be the thing they need to hear. Maybe this will be the trigger point making you change your consciousness. But changing your mind isn't something you do overnight, you don't get it from a goddamn seminar, and you certainly don't get it from reading a magazine article. It takes a conscious effort from the person to change their own mind, agreeing with an article doesn't do that. You have to think and consciously make the choice to not buy those designer jeans because that's what a model did.

Sure, it's the truth, and sure maybe people really do need that magazine article telling them to be themselves. But honestly, if something as inconsequential as a magazine article can change their mind one way what's to stop a different one from doing the same thing, changing them right back? If someone's mind is so willing to accept such a source without question then I'm not sure they're worth the message, truth or not.