"Writing Through Snapshots"
Sydney Salloum
English 1102-062
January 22nd 2014- "Randy's Last Lecture"
One point that really stood out to me in Randy’s Last Lecture was the statement of how brick walls are put in the way of goals to stop the people that don't want to achieve their goals bad enough.
This point connected with me because it can be applied to my grades in school. The major that I am wanting to achieve in is Biology, which is a very difficult major. The classes that I have to take are difficult, and I have to get high grades in all of them to achieve my goal. A lot of people go into school wanting to be a biology major, but only some stick with it all the way through. The heavy workload and the difficult classes are the “brick wall” and although it is difficult to achieve, if you want it badly enough, you can achieve it.
I believe the reason why Randy gaven his lecture in person rather than writing was so that he could appear as an average person. This way, the audience was able to connect with him, showing them that anyone can achieve what he did.
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January 27th 2014- "Write About Something You Believe In"
My strongest belief is equality. There was never a certain moment in time that made me have this belief, but rather, I was raised with it. However, certain moments in my life made it more prominent. One of them being seeing how a lot of my friends with a different sexuality were harassed in school. I can easily get offended when someone makes a rude comment about homosexuality.
By meeting many different people in my life, I experienced people from different cultures of ways of living. From this, I saw how people can be different from the popular stereotypes and how we shouldn't judge people or treat them differently before knowing them.
My belief of equality has never changed but has gotten stronger and has changed me as a person. Personally, I would like to call myself an accepting person because I never judge or treat a person differently. I dont think its right to act upon someone based on something that they cannot change.
February 26th 2014- Dexter Video
In the opening scene, images are shown that display regular actions or routines that many people follow. However, these scenes are shown in a very graphic and disturbing way so that the viewer sees these ordinary actions as dark and twisted.
It relates to Nacirema because, like the author, techniques were ujsed to display a regular action ain a very odd way that shocked the viewers/readers.
March 12th 2014- "Response to Bathe"
I do believe that we construct gender roles with what we give children and surround them with. In Bathe’s article, he writes about how girls are given dols that help them learn what responsibilities they will have as adults. By this, he is saying that the dolls that we give girls put put them in a gender stereotype, teaching them how they need to gown up to act and what they need to value as adults. By surrounding girls with baby dolls and pretty pink toy sets, we are teaching them to become the “motherly” figure, and to value “prettiness”, they’re making them see beauty as an important value as adults. This may lead them to value their image over intelligence or personality.
March 17th 2014- "Henry Rollins"
What I agreed with the most in this article was how Rollins wrote about how being “put away” in facilities does not necessarily teach people a lesson, but rather, makes them feel sorry for themselves, because separating someone from the outside world as “punishment” does not show them why they were wrong or in what ways they may have hurt someone. I believe that those convicted of crimes should serve punishments where they are forced to see the damage they may have caused and how it affects people.
Being made into a sex object is not the only problem female artists are facing.
Credit is not being given where it should. For many female successful female artists, the media did not focus on her achievements, but rather, how the man supporting her made it all happen. Lady Gaga’s ex-boyfriend, Fusari, claims that it was he “came up with the moniker “Lady Gaga,”” (Idolater) and therefore, her whole persona. Similar situations have happened with Adele and her manager Jonathan Dickens and Beyonce with Jay-Z.
Early April of 2013, “ indie darling” Solange Knowles tweeted: “I find it very disappointing when I am presented as the “face” of my music, or a “vocal muse” when I write or co-write every fucking song, How can one be a “vocal muse” to their own melodies, storytelling, and words they wrote?” (fact mag).
Yea, She's Good For a Girl
“Although Beyoncé, Lady Gaga, and Madonna are essential ingredients of our modern culture, women musicians have had a very difficult time breaking through and getting the credit they deserve.” -Abbey Phillips
Claire Boucher took to her tumblr to post “I’m tired of men who aren’t professional or even accomplished musicians continually offering to ‘help me out’ (without being asked), as if i did this by accident and i’m gonna flounder without them. or as if the fact that I’m a woman makes me incapable of using technology. I have never seen this kind of thing happen to any of my male peers,” she writes. “I’m tired of the weird insistence that i need a band or i need to work with outside producers (and I’m eternally grateful to the people who don’t do this).” (fact mag) "I don't want to be molested at shows or on the street by people who perceive me as an object that exists for their personal satisfaction, I'm sad that my desire to be treated as an equal and as a human being is interpreted as hatred of men, rather than a request to be included and respected." (huffington)
Both Knowles and Boucher were said to have not even written their own songs by the media. Female artists are not getting their due.