Reading Lolita in Vegas

When I go over my notes from "Reading Lolita in Tehran", and think about writing a research paper about it, I get a feeling of anxiety, partly because of the sensitive subject. This book is a look into a facet of the human struggle I am not familiar with. I knew that this was going on in Tehran, but this book gives a much more personal account. As a psychology major, I am intrigued by how they used books to cope. I hope to be able to capture this in my research paper. 

I am doing my research paper on the illusion created by Gatsby and the women in Reading Lolita in Tehran. Gatsby was actually a great book. It had drinking, smoking, partying, and sex, all the things that make for a great reality show. For some reason The Great Gatsby reminds me of the Jersey Shore. Fitzgerald never really shows them doing anything other than hanging out. It was pretty easy reading, it took me about 2 days.

I recently came up with an idea that would kill two birds with one stone. I have a 10-page paper due at the end of the semester for my Psychology 201 class. I decided to do it on depression and how people cope with it, so some of my source can be incorporated into my Reading Lolita in Tehran paper. I first thought, well they never actually say they are depressed, but there is an overall feeling of depression though it is unspoken.

Does anyone else have to give themselves peep talks throughout the day? I just keep telling myself in two more weeks it will be all over, and bribing myself with a Vegas trip after the semester. This has by far been the most challenging semester of my college experience. I chose the worse possible combination of classes. I have Statistics, and it is not the class where the professor writes the formulas on the board during the test. I also have Psychology 201 class, which is more like biology without the lab, my favorite part. And I have a black and white photo class, which I thought was going to be easy, ha.

I fear doing this paper wrong. On my first essay, I did not do it correctly at all. I wrote about the subject and did not focus on critique and analyzing the article.  Then on my synthesis paper, I did not include enough sources, on me second draft and my header font was not the same as the rest of my essay. I think I did better on my timed essay than I did on these that took me days to write. This paper has to be perfect, not great, but done perfectly.

I am going to let all the slackers, like myself, know that the five sources does not include Reading Lolita in Tehran or the other book you choose(if you are doing option 1). I already emailed Jennifer to clear that up.

In conclusion, we all have been here before. We can see the finish line, let’s make these two last weeks productive and mistake free. Then we’re going to Vegas.

What's REALLY on your mind?

Social networking captures the qualities of a persons spoken language style. Are you a chatterbox that can spend hours just shooting the breeze? Well, chances are you are one of the people that have a paragraph on your Face book status. Personally, i am not into small talk, and that is reflected in my online communicating style. If I find something interesting or funny, I post a status update about it. Leaving a status update like, “Just left the gym, I’m feeling extra hungry, about to hit up Subway”, is just not me. Status updates like this make people seem desperate for conversation.

 When I comment on someone’s status or receive a message in my inbox, my conversation is in much more detail. I know that I have the reader’s complete attention and my entire response will be read because we have a mutual interest.  Also, my responses tend to be wordier, because I do not want to be misunderstood, which seems to happen often when communicating through social networks.

My apprehension to write a long Face book status reflects a lack of faith in humanity

(I may be reading too much into it, but for the sake of conversation and the five hundred words limit let say they are related). We live in the microwave generation; everything has to achieve its purpose while taking up as little time, space, and effort as possible. This is evident in everything from the preparation of food to cell phones. I really doubt the attention span of most people can endure a couple paragraph of you ranting about something that is unimportant to them. In the rare case that they actually take the time to read your MLA formatted, double-spaced, three page Face book status update, will you really be satisfied with a comment like, “:-( Wow that’s bad.” In certain cases, a person writes a status just to get something off their chest, but most of the time you want a response that is thoughtful.

I believe that communicating through social networks and text messages has a negative impact on students writing style. We are forced to squeeze our thoughts and feelings into 140 characters, and God forbid, a person has to hit the “read more” button on Face book. In social networking, people are conditioned to compress, if they want to be heard. Now compare this to the most important dynamic of an essay, which is expanding on ideas. The essay writer is attempting to answer every possible question about a subject before it is presented. Since most students spend more time sending text messages and social networking than writing essays, they subconsciously condense, leaving out details.

Social networks are a fun way to keep in contact with friends, but are not a good vehicle for meaningful conversation. We need to take time out of our busy schedule and talk to the people we care about. At least 50 percent of communication is nonverbal, so half your conversation is lost when social networking.

Blog on Blogs

I start my blog today by saying I have in no way reached my potential as a writer. I believe that we all can relate to this statement, but English 103 with Jennifer has definitely put me on the right path. I believe that I have written in this class more than I have in all of the courses I have taken combined. What I learned is the only why to be a good writer is through repetition.

Writing can sometimes be a difficult process. The blog takes away some of the pressure of writing. The blogs that we write allow us to create without the boundaries of thesis statements or MLA formatting. This form of free writing allows you to be creative. It has enhanced my writing because it captures the flow of thoughts similar to the way they come to you. I must say that is one of the parts of the class I actually enjoy.

The ability to receive comments from your peer on your blog is awesome. I like to know that my writing is effective and captivating. When you receive a comment it lets you know that you blog sparked an interest in someone, that is much more gratifying than the professor which is paid to read your writing commenting. The feature of comment excels your righting because it makes you strive to create writing that excites the reader.

I was having a talk with one of my friends about the blogs we write, he was amazed that sometime we have to create blogs as a response to only a couple of sentence. I believe this is the most challenge, yet valuable part of the blog. It teaches you how to expand upon ideas that you would usually express in a paragraph. Expanding on these ideas makes you a better writer because you create a better understanding between you and your audience.

Thinking critically is a vital part of writing. The subjects addressed in our blogs are always force you to take a second and third look, not only at the subjects but also at your attitude towards them. One of the essays we read talked about writing not to express, but to understand how you feel about a subject. This is the essence of what blogs and this entire class allows us to do.

Blogs capture the emotion of writing. If you wanted to compare blogs to a form of speaking, it has a lot of the aspects of standing on the front porch having a conversation with friends. Blogs are where you bounce ideas, and create your attitudes about a subject. You do not have to establish your argument and stand on it throughout the entire writing. It allows an openness to waver from you feeling on a subject and explore.

Blogging is a helpful tool in becoming a better writer. I hope that some of my future classes will include a blog and allow me to express my though and feeling through this way.

Fear and Vulgarity

Today when I turned on the news there was speculation of bomb like devices found on a cargo plane. It was suspected that it was shipped from Yemen, which is a hot bed for terrorist. Next, the news warned of bed bug in hotels and dorm rooms.  To top it all off, the news cautioned that people may give your children marijuana laced treats on Halloween. Papaganda that was most like perpetuated by those against prop. 19. Everyday we are inundated with subjects that evoke fear. These subjects represent a truth of society, there is evil amongst us. Why then is vulgarity taboo? These two components of life may seem unrelated, but let's take a deeper look.
Fear is an undeniable part of life as is vulgarity. If there was a scale that measure immorality I am sure fear would rank much higher than vulgarity. An example of this is the court of law. If you threaten to hurt someone you can be charged with a terrorist threat. In comparison a person can call someone ever bad name he can think of and be charged, at the most, with disturbing the peace.
Fear lingers on a persons mind longer than feelings of offense from obscenities. Think of the last time you were offended by obscene language. The feeling usually passes within minutes. Now compare that with the false fear of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq which left the nation paralyzed with terror for years. Fear is not censored, why then is vulgarity?

Vulgarity is part of the speech of everyday people. A storyteller can not create realistic stories that involve everyday people, and leave out the way they communicate. For instance, if a story about a teenage that has family issues describes how one day the character was so upset with his parents that he told them to “go f**k themselves”, how would you alter that without loosing the emotion and anger? It would be virtually impossible.

Art imitates life. We do not attempt to take away the right for people to say vulgar words or to do vulgar things. Why then do we want to censor vulgarity out of media?

I believe that censorship comes from a combination of religion and democracy. Religion created groundwork for what is thought of as moral. Any thing that does not meet these religious standards is censored because the amount of leverage religion has. Gay people’s right to marry is an example of this. Marriage is thought of as the union between a woman and a man in almost every religion. Gay marriage went against this religious standard, and since the majority of Californians are religious it was struck down. They did not take into account that there are gay people that have been together for years, which value their relationship as much as the next couple, and want to make it official.

Censorship of vulgarity is a denial of the truth. When we create a false sense of reality for our comfort we create an ultra-sensitive society.

When Keeping it Gangsta Goes Wrong

Rap music is a genre formed in the urban slums of New York and Los Angeles. It gives people that would not usually venture into these neighborhoods a sensationalized glimpse of what is occurring in these places.

The stories told in rap music became a controversial issue when the group NWA, which means niggas with attitudes, came on the scene. They started the trend, which is still prominent today, of using curse word in there music. NWA gave you a gritty account of there surrounding and the people within them.

The issue of prejudice came about when the general public began taking these over exaggerations of urban life as factual everyday occurrences. It is important that we take a step back and get a concrete definition of prejudice. Prejudice is defined simple as an opinion formed without knowledge. A large percentage of the listeners of rap had no knowledge of what was going on in Compton California. The public took NWA as musical journalist and not a group of young man seeking notoriety through shock value.

Even the people within these cities begin to glorify language that perpetuates prejudice. This language changed young black man into niggas that could not be trusted. They would rob, steal, kill, and sell drugs in their pursuit of money, hoes, and clothes, cause that is, as proclaimed by Biggie, all a nigga knows. Women became bitches that would have sex with anyone and create problems for niggas out of spite. These bitches, as Three Six Mafia warned, could be a niggas worst downfall. But Big Boi, of Outkast does admit reluctantly that niggas love these bitches or at least like them a whole lot.

Art is made to imitate life, but also to capture the attention of the observer. A movie about a character waking up, going to his classes, and eating dinner would not draw any attention from the masses. But if we exchange our character for a wizard in training and the classes for magical training sessions, we can sell millions of movie tickets. Essentially, this is what rap music does, but there embellishment shaped the perspectives of the listeners much more believably.

Most rap artists are African-American. In a culture that already has to fight a ridiculous amount of prejudice, rap music adds even more fuel to the flame. It gives the impression that if these people do not respect themselves then why should anyone else respect them.

My conclusion for this blog is more of a disclaimer. I do not believe that NWA or any other rap group has the power to create an issue that was not present before the creation of the genre. Rap may have perpetuated and glamorized the use of foul language, but they sure did not invent it. As humans we are born with the greatest ability among all the animals, critical thinking. If we allow media to shape our perspective to the point of prejudice we are just wool-less, upright walking sheep, with a lot more variations to our baahs.

Free Doom

We as Americans, live in a country that is rooted in freedom. As we progress through time we lose appreciation for the qualities that make our nation great. We begin to believe the freedom’s we have in America are mandatory and universal, but to many around the world the United States is the promise land. My blog this week will attempt to display the conscience effort put forth by our forefathers and the lawmakers that came after them, to make America “the land of the free.”

A person can not truly be free unless allowed to take part in the political process. The United States government is put in place to act on the behalf of the citizen. If a large percentage of the citizens are not allowed to vote, the political representative is not getting a valid opinion of the citizens. The left out percentage of the population still falls under the jurisdiction of the law, but has no say in the passing of the law. This is a form of slavery that does not need whips and chains; it is control by exclusion, and legislated oppression.

America took notice of this injustice and amended the laws of the constitution. Freedom to vote for African Americans came in 1965. Many of our parents were born in a time when African American people were not allowed to vote. Our current president was born in a time when people of his ethnicity could not vote. Ironically, African Americans still have low voter turnout. You would think, with all the time and effort people put into gaining civil rights, a person would at least take advantage of it.

The most surprising aspect of freedom is that people take it for granted. Not only do they not take advantage of it, they complain about how the country is ran after the fact. I feel that people that do not vote make the decision, through indifference, to accept what ever they are given. It is much easier to point fingers at the problem, than to get your hands dirty searching for a solution.

Imagine living in a country like Saudi Arabia where women can not vote, drive, or even walk the streets alone. When compared to the United States, Saudi Arabia is not another world, it is another universe. At the same time a woman walks into Starbucks, wearing tight jeans, to order an over priced latte, a woman, in Saudi Arabia, is baking in the dessert sun, in a thick black robe with nothing exposed but her eyes and hands. 

We, as American’s, need to develop a sense of pride in our country. The United States may not be perfect, but it is still the world leader in freedom. We need to be conscience of what is going on in the world around us. Everywhere is being Americanized. This is a show of admiration. When we compare America’s problems with the problems of a country like Saudi Arabia our complaints seem petty and ignorant. It’s funny that everyone sees how great a nation we live in except us.

Read Me

The projection of nonverbal cues is a multifaceted topic. It varies with the observer's background, culture, gender, and age. The image a person portrays can often be far from who that person truly is. My nonverbal cues are just morsels of me, but are still worth examination.

 I usually sit in the very front and center of a classroom. This is not an attempt to get in good with the professor or to make myself seem more driven than other students. Gaining knowledge amuses me. My seating selection is a nonverbal cue of interest in what is been taught. When a person goes to a boxing match they would always prefer to sit ringside, this is the same principal I apply to school. Also it allows me to block everyone out except the professor. 

The way a person walks sends nonverbal cues that can be interrupted many ways. I walk with my head up looking around taking in my environment. The nonverbal cues in the way I walk are awareness yet comfort in my surroundings. My way of walking does not change weather I'm walking down Crenshaw Boulevard in, Baldwin Hills or Rodeo Drive, in Beverly Hills. I express confidence when I walk.

The most interesting nonverbal cues are facial expression. A person is often unaware of their facial expression, so it gives you a more honest cue. I usually have a squinted-eye look of inspection. I want to have ample knowledge of everything I come in contact with. My facial expression signals my curiosity and a need for understanding.

In addition I am consumed with introspection. I think about how I am affecting everything I come in contact with. How does a person perceive me? What am I doing to help people? Am I setting a good example for my family and young black men without father figures? These and many other questions cross my mind, as I sit wide-eyed staring off into space.

Style of dress is the most fickle nonverbal cue. It is the cliché of judging a book by its cover. My style of dress hints at many things from day to day. Thursday's I usually wear sweats or basketball shorts. It is my last day of class for the week. I just throw on some clothes I do not have to iron and go. On a Saturday if I'm going to hang out with friends I may wear creased jeans and a button down shirt. This style is still comfortable, but also dressed to look nice.

Nonverbal cue are useful, but can be very subjective. If you are interested in whom a person is you should go up to them and start a conversation. When we allow nonverbal cues to dominate our perception of a person we create a mental description that may not be true. How a person walks, talks, and looks should not be speculated on to the extent of dislike or fear. Heavy dependence on nonverbal cues is the seed of prejudice.