Fourth Quarter Meta Blog

NOTE: my favorite 4th quarter blog is "Retaliation for Bin Laden's Death" from May 14.

Well, this is it.  The final blog of my junior year.  I certainly have had an interesting relationship with my blog throughout this school year.  Before I talk about how my blogging style has changed, let me talk about how my view of blogging in general has been changed throughout the past nine months.

My relationship with blogging has been a wavy one, figuratively and literally.  I enjoy blogging when there is something newsworthy to blog about.  For instance, I truly enjoyed writing the blog about Bin Laden's death.  It allowed me to voice my opinion on something that was, and still is, a hot topic.  Blogs like these don't happen weekly, though.  There are some blogs that I write purely for the sake of my grade.  When there isn't anything big happening in the news and I don't have anything meaningful to say, blogging can be a pain.  I have to force words and ideas that i may not necessarily believe, and it is evident in some of my blogs.  None of my blogs are masterpieces by any means, but I am proud of them nonetheless.  However, there are a few where it is crystal clear that I half-assed the blog, and did not enjoy writing it at all.  At the end of nine months of blogging, my view is this: blogging is a great way for one to voice their opinion, but the blogger should not be forced to blog.  I feel that blogging is all about freedom, and the blogger should blog when they have something to say.  One blog per week is, in my opinion, a tad bit constricting.  There might be a week where nothing interesting happens, so what does the blogger do?  Write a post that they are not passionate about.  So, to generalize, blogs are great when the writer can control when to write them.

Now on to the content of my blogs.  To be honest, not a whole lot has changed since my last meta post.  I see a trend in my blogging style.  During the first quarter, my blogging style went under massive change.  Second quarter, I changed a fair amount, but considerably less than I did first quarter.  Third quarter may have consisted of one or two changes in my blogging style, and that helped me settle in to the style I have now.  Throughout the fourth quarter, my blogging has not changed at all.  Rather than a comparison of my blogging style at different points throughout the year, I would like to critique the style that I have now.

If I could describe my blogging style with one word, it would be "unrefined".  I know that this word has a somewhat negative connotation, but I view this aspect as a positive one.  In my opinion, blogs aren't meant to be refined, polished, or perfected.  They shouldn't be written in perfect English, and they shouldn't be too formal.  As corny as this may sound, I think that a blog comes from one's heart.  When people form thoughts and opinions, the don't do it with others in mind.  You think what you feel, and your blog should mirror your thoughts.  If you comb over your blog to get rid of grammatical errors, your blog will lose some of it's meaning.  It won't be what you truly felt at the time you wrote it, so it won't be true to your thoughts.  I feel that blogs are meant to be unrefined, and I am proud that my blog is not perfect.  If a blog was perfect, than it would not be true to the author. No one is perfect, and hiding behind a perfect blog rather that showing who you are is a huge mistake.

The Kentucky Cycle

Last week, we started reading/acting plays from The Kentucky Cycle by Robert Schenkkan.  On Wednesday, I acted the part of Dragging Canoe, and did a less than impressive job of reading his Cherokee lines. My Great-Great Grandmother (a Cherokee) probably would have not been satisfied.  Anyways, I was not at school on Thursday or Friday.  I read the next two plays over the weekend, and noticed one thing in particular...

The "Rowen Watch".  This watch has been in all three of the plays that I have read.  The only other thing that has accompanied the watch throughout all three plays in Michael Rowen.  Now that he is dead, however, he will not be in any more plays, other than perhaps a memory of him.  I expect the watch to keep traveling through the plays.  I wonder if we talked about the meaning of the watch on Thursday or Friday.  What does the watch mean?  Is it merely something valuable that the characters want, or will it be revealed to have a hidden meaning?

An American Dream

I was not at school last Friday, which was when our class received a packet titled "American Dreams and Nightmares".  Since I did not get a chance to read it and speak my thoughts in class, I thought that I would share them in a blog post.  The first question asks us to state our five goals/dreams in life. Here are mine (in order of when they would happen):
1) Get accepted and attend a good college
2) Get a job that I enjoy
3) Get married
4) Have kids
5) Raise my kids to be good people
The next question asked us to identify which dream is most important to us.  For me, it was a no brainer.  I chose number five.  I may have a lovely wife, a high paying job that I enjoy, and great children.  But if when I die my kids aren't able to live good lives as good people, then I will have failed.  My parents have done an incredible job raising me.  I am very privileged to live with the amenities that I have, and the economic freedom that our family has.  I feel that when I am an adult, it will be my duty to follow in my parents' footsteps and raise a new generation of children, who will then in turn raise their own children, etc.  I want to leave a mark on this world when I die, and the best way for me to do that is to leave several new human beings who are ready to help the world and tackle any problems that may come their way.  I personally feel that no matter how great of a life one lives, it is meaningless if one cannot somehow leave something behind to further help after one's death.

Social Class Markers

Earlier this week, we discussed things that marked social class.  Mr. Bolos showed us a video of a class of his analyzing the Kennilworth train station. Students commented on a huge variety of things, from what newspapers were being sold to what cars were in the parking lot. Ever since there were mentioned, I could not help but notice aspects of my surroundings that may hint at social class.  When I took a trip to downtown Chicago this weekend, I noticed some major differences, that could be class markers.  First off were merely the sides of the streets.  In the North shore, nearly every road has grass by its side.  In downtown Chicago, on the other hand, the only vegetation that can be seen on the sides of roads are the trees that are planted in holes in the concrete sidewalk.   Another class marker are the shops that are on the sides of the road.  In downtown Wilmette, some of the shops are Lad and Lassie (clothes), The Crystal Cave (glass sculptures, plates, etc.), and CJ Arthur's.  None of these shops are part of a chain, and all are expensive compared to what I found in Chicago.  McDonalds littered the streets of downtown Chicago, and nearly every restaurant was an inexpensive chain restaurant.  One final thing that I noticed was this: the duration of a yellow light on traffic signals.  I noticed that yellow lights last significantly longer in the North Shore than they do downtown.  Maybe they are longer in the North Shore to prevent accidents, and shorter in Chicago, to prevent traffic jams.  I am honestly not sure, but I just wanted to get this out there.  Do you think yellow lights are social class markers? Also, please share any other class markers that you may find

Retaliation for Bin Laden's Death

I know that by now, this is old news.  But for those of you who have been living in a hole for the past two weeks, Osama Bin Laden died on May 2nd.  When this news hit, mixed emotions spread throughout America.  Some were ecstatic about the death of this monster.  Others acknowledged that he was a cruel person, but did not celebrate his death.  Others felt a sense of closure; many innocent Americans who died on 9-11-2001were now avenged.  Others were worried about possible retaliation from Al-Qaeda.  As for myself, at first I felt relieved that he died.  However, now that the initial shock of this death has passed over, I feel worried. Al-Qaeda has already threatened to retaliate against the US.  To learn about this threat, read this article.  Also, I am worried about what might happen to further anger Al-Qaeda.  For example, take the video game Call of Duty Black Ops.  In this game, there is a mission where the player assassinates Fidel Castro.  Here is a YouTube video which shows this scene (caution: even though it is a video game, it is still gory).  After Black Ops was released back in November 2010, Cuba was furious.  An article was published in a Cuban news paper, and the article said that Black Ops "glorifies the illegal assassination attempts the United States government planned against the Cuban leader."  The article went on to say that the video game "stimulates sociopathic attitudes in North America children and adolescents."  I fear that other video games and television shows may follow in Black Ops' footsteps, and have Bin Laden as the target rather than Castro.  Cuba only published an angry article, but I fear Al-Qaeda will want blood if millions of American kids are killing Osama in a video game.  I hope that other Americans realize how serious this situation is, and that if we keep celebrating Osama's death, things could get ugly in the near future.

Junior Theme Blog #5. ITS OVER!!!!!

...for now.  As all American Studies students know, hours of revisions are looming ahead of us in this upcoming month.  These torrential April showers we've been having better bring some really pretty May flowers, because I'm going to need something positive while I revise my paper.  This is the second major research paper that I have done in my life, and the two could not have been more different.  The first one was just around this time last year, and it was a research paper for geography.  This paper was 6 pages single spaced, whereas my theme was seven pages, double spaced.  One might assume that with half as many pages in the theme, it would seem easy compared to my geography paper, right?
WRONG.  In my geography paper last year, I probably had about ten sources, and a half page single-spaced to explain my source.  This meant that I could elaborately explain my sources with ease.  In my theme, I had about 20 sources, and much less space to explain them in.  Anyone can explain a quote if given enough space to explain it, but it takes an extremely skilled writer to analyze a quote in a limited amount of space.  I fear that this may be one of the problems with my paper.  I applied much too lengthy analyses to some quotes, and that means some quotes were not explained enough.  Regardless of this problem,. I am still happy to be temporarily done with my theme, but I fear that happiness won't last long.

Junior Theme Blog #4

Well, as a follow up to my last blog, I DID schedule and hold an interview, which took place on this past Sunday.  I interviewed Neil Golden, who works for McDonalds.  It ran quite smoothly.  I asked all three questions that I planned to ask, and he was not reluctant.  He answered all of my questions fully, and gave me some great info that I know I will be able to use in my paper.  The interview lasted about seventeen minutes, and I was able to record the interview with my laptop.  The only issue was that, as Franklin Roosevelt might say, he "[spoke] softly, and [carried] a big stick". The big stick would be all of the info he provided, but he did speak quietly.  I had a little bit of trouble understanding him at some points.  I have finished transcribing the entire seventeen minutes, and have already selected a couple of quotes that might fit well into my paper.  Also, in terms of the paper itself, I have an outline that contains some quotes.  My plan is to start the essay itself in the second half of this period.  Hopefully in blog #5, I will be talking about how smoothly the paper is going, but one can never be too sure...