Blogging Around :)

The first blog post I read was Therese Snow's blog about cleaning her room. This blog post was relatable and her writing style made me happy to read it! The way she writes about this task makes me feel like I was inside her head durring the entire process. I was able to see her transformation in thought about the chore she had to accomplish. She took it from being something she dreaded to something she could create out of which I found really interesting. I wrote to her the following comment:




"Therese, I really loved this blog post! I found it both enjoyable and relatable to read! I loved the way you wrote like you were just talking to a friend and not writing an important English paper. I can relate to this blog post because I know what it's like to be constantly nagged to clean my room, and my reaction is just about identical to yours. But, like you, once I start something, I can begin to see all the possibilities that can come out of a clean room and all the new angles and ways to fix the things that bother me.
All in all, I think you did a really great job at portraying the teen struggle that is always trying to keep up with the simple yet complicated task of keeping a clean room."



The second blog post I read was Allie S.'s. Her blog post really related to my iMedia blog post, so I was easily able to relate and it sparked my interest from the moment I saw it. Allie did a really amazing job in writing this post and showed to much emotion throughout! I wrote her the following comment:




"Allie... Wow, this blog post is absolutely amazing. This blog post brings me back to my blog post, "iMedia: Women". The way you explained the way the video brings you through the photoshopping process and the affect it has on all the little girls and basically all the women in this country is outstanding.
This look and body type is impossible to achieve! Only 5% of the american population actually is naturally beautiful, tall and "fitting" to the way that all of us are apparently supposed to look! It's completely unrealistic and it's so terrible to know that all the little girls out there are being exposed and being over judgmental about their own perfectly healthy bodies.
I really couldn't agree with you more that the REAL woman should be put out there and not superficial fake barbie doll types so that the depression rate and the eating disorder rates go down. Our media is all around us and has the largest impact on us, so why can't they correct their wrongs? That would help so many people.
You did a great job, Al! This post really intrigued me and got me thinking! :)"

Get Organized: A tribute to Aristotle

As Mr. Allen and Sophie's World taught us- "Aristotle used logic and classification to organize what he observed in the world of nature." (Humanities website)


Well, Our challenge for this blog post was to find something to organize and then to record our thought process and answer a few questions.


My initial reaction:




My project was my, always messy, bedroom. Now before getting started, I wanted to push all the clothes I had thrown on my bed off, curl up, and sleep. Even thinking of doing such time-consuming work already exhausted me.


Then, I decided, well I have to do it for homework, and sanitary reasons, anyways. Why not just get it over with? And so began my endeavor to a cleaner, happier room.


I turned on my Pandora- Beyonce radio- and got to work. When I'm doing something I really don't want to do, like cleaning my room or doing homework- in this case both- Music tends to take my mind off of it.


While in the midst of cleaning my room, I began to organize.

-Short sleeves in one drawer- That will be my summer drawer

-Long sleeves in the other drawer- Winter drawer

-Sweat shirts in this drawer- fall drawer

and so on...


That's when I connected to Aristotle. He says that everything has it's place in nature, there is never an out of a category. Like how every shirt, sweatshirt, tank top and every pair of pants have a specific spot in my closet.


As I went on cleaning, I found my mind began to become more and more clear with other tasks and things I have to do. I felt more organized and less anxious and stressed.




Once I finally finished cleaning, for some reason, I didn't have the urge to sleep in my bed anymore... Mostly because I just finished making it and I didn't want to ruin my hard work so soon.


But, this project made me realize that Aristotle was 100% right that organization is just like classification in the world of nature. long-sleeves belong with long-sleeves as Zebras belong with Zebras. And if you mix your Long-sleeves with the tank tops, it's like putting a Cheetah and a Zebra in the same place. It just doesn't belong.

iMedia: Women.

I bet you're wondering, where on EARTH did I find this picture? Well, I'm not happy to say it, but I went on Google search, and typed in "The Ideal American Woman". What stikes me is how our media portrays women. They're telling us order to be beautiful in our society we have to be tall, skinny, tan and blond with blue eyes.

Now these are almost impossible standards to meet and is constantly putting women and young girls all around the world under the pressure of being perfect for their men. Statistics show about 65% of girls in the United States have an eating disorder.

Things we see in the media are constantly polluting our minds and taking us from what's real to whats unnatural. Because of the images of women portrayed in Playboy, pornography, anime, and video games, men and boys grow up to believe that those are the standards all women must meet.

Now, just to clarify, I'm not a feminist. However, I can see the issues of gender roles in todays society. Here in America, women are supposed to be "dainty" and "weak" while men are supposed to be "tough" and "strong".

Girls and women, including myself, see themselves as lesser because we don't have the perfect body. To our society, people believe that women just need to worry about their looks and not as much their education, because lets be honest, who cares if a girl is smart?

I recently read an article in Sociology class called "Why aren't we shocked?" in this article I read that Abercrombie & Fitch, a teens fashion store, recently released a T-shirt for girls that says, "Who needs brains when you have these?".

Now, when did it become okay to send that message to young girls?

Oh, wait, I know! When we were younger and Disney Princesses told us that, to get by in life, all we need is to be pretty and then a nice handsome man will take care of us.


The messages being sent to women from all over the world just teaches us that all we are good for is sex and house work.

Now many Feminists would argue that it's not fair that women have to take care of the children and do house work, but personally, I'll agree with feminists that, yes we deserve equal oportunities and equal pay for equal work, but if I so choose the natural path of a womans' life-to be a mother and not have a job but house work-that shouldn't be frowned upon.

I think that feminists were doing good up until they hit the 3rd wave of rebellion. To sum up my bantering, I believe that women should have the same power and opportunities men have in the business world, but I also believe that we need to respect our gender roles as well. We need to realize that just because our job as mothers doesn't pay, it's still an equally important job!

And to the boys- those bodies aren't going to look like that forever anyways, chose a smart gal with a good personality. That's what really matters in the long run. Also, keep chivalry alive, that's another thing feminists tried to ruin.

Best of the Week: Space and Myths.

Space. How did it begin? Where does it end? Why are we here? Who am I?

These are all questions that I constantly catch my self thinking about. There are so many things in the world that have no, or infinate answers.

I find space to be so facisinating, it's hard not to think about it. In class the other day, we watched this video, and all it was, was us traveling through space. The farther we went back, the older the music we heard. Then, the music began fading until it was just pure silence.

The interesting part about this, is that, even though the music ended, the video didn't. We kept going farther and farther through the galaxy until all we saw was nothing.

What this shows everyone, is that there are greater and bigger things than our universe, and although we may someday end, the universe never will.

One of my favorite things, when looking up at the stars, is finding the constallations. Behind every constillation is a myth. These myths were created centuries ago by the Greek people to tell stories of their gods.

We may better know this as, Greek Mythology.

Greek Mythology consists of so many different stories so that the Greek people could better understand life, even if these events were fictional. They consist of stories of people called Zesus, the God of the Sky, and Hades, the God of the Underworld, and so many more.

Like the universe, I think that mythology is so facsinating and it just expands our imaginations and our wonder to know what's truely out there. Like Mermaids, or Bigfoot. These are all interesting topics that people love to learn about.

I've caught myself several times in "that weird part of YouTube" were I'm looking at UFO sitings or "Mermaids washed up on the Austrailian cost". Now, I know many of these things may well be a hoax,  but I think it's fun to be able to imagin if they were real.. and who are we to say they aren't?

Like space, possibilities are endless. Imagination is endless, so if you want to believe that mermaids are real, who's stopping you? No one is to say you're wrong.

Metacognition: Buying into Creativity Essay

 

As first quarter comes to a close, my Humanities class and I had to write an essay about school. But this was a different, more divergent essay. This essay was all opinion on how we would change our most despised class so that it would be less dreadful to attend.


I wrote about my Consumer Education class, which I'm currently serving a detention for, and how my teacher's work ethics don't help me in learning the material I need to know.

So, while writing this essay, I sat down, and I thought. The first thing that came to mind while writing this essay was, of course, "What class am I possibly going to write about?" Then, once that was done, I thought, "What makes this my worst class?" Well, aside from getting my only detention EVER from this teacher, was the lack of student to teacher relationship.

What helps me learn the best is having a good bond or understanding with my teachers, it helps form a comfortable envoirnment where I can grow and learn. A flower can't grow without warmth from the sun, right?

Well, writing this essay wasn't too difficult for me to write because it was an opinions piece, and oh, how I love throwing my two cents in. The only difficult thing for me was having to attribute three quotes from three different creativity articles to better understand where I was coming from.

While writing an opinion piece is generally easy for me, I realized I need to work on my form. I need to be able to take all my jumbled thoughts and put them in a better, more understandable manner.

One thing that surprises me about my writing, is re-reading what I have on paper and seeing how certain things can make me feel. What I see, personally, in my writing is my tone, I can hear my voice and hopefully all of you who are reading my blog can hear me, too.

All in all, this was an interesting paper that helped me organize my thoughts and writing in a creative way.