Some of the things I have noticed about Shanks writing is how detailed he is. While reading a piece about the 2009 Sherlock Holmes movie, he spent time not only talking about the basics, he took the time to mention the lighting and colors they used to make sure to reflect the Holmes' time period. I have also noticed with his other blogs that he uses the concept of academic inquiry. Usually, the beginnings of his blogs start with a question to make you think, and then he will get into the "answer part." Shanks makes sure that every little detail is not left out, by doing so he is helping the reader become more conscious. Also, he uses a lot of imagery, i.e. links to videos and pictures.
A site that I found that had a bunch of blogs was blogs.com -creative I know..haha
But anyways, the blog that I read had to do with Tiger Woods return. The stakeholders for this blog would have to be his fans, enemies, non-supporters and of course mistresses. Overall this particular blog did not entertain me as much as I had hoped. Unlike Shanks' blog I found no relative, interesting or scholarly information it was basically a waste of my time. There were no questions that were asked, it was basically there to fill up space.
After my failed attempt in finding a blog that will test my inquiry skills, I found one that has to do with top ten reasons to make you rethink cooking! hurray! I clicked on the eggbeater blog just because that title was funny and I was expecting some weird blog- I was wrong. It's all about cooking. However, Lydon Shuna Fish (haha that is her name) started off with her blog by asking "how many restaurants have you worked in your career and how many brought in butchered whole animals?" Well those type of questions made me want to keep reading unfortunately. She even used the word "inquiry" in the first paragraph and that she would post the answers to them at the end. Any-who as I was saying, I felt the urge to read her blog, I was scrolling down the page when all of a sudden these grotesque, horrendous, graphic pictures of whole dead animals appeared. It was terrible, but she did get her point across so I guess her blog was a success.
Since this assignment isn't due until next week, my spring break post will be updated next week. But due the fact that I am on a 4 hour plane ride, I have some free time so i decided to get ahead of schedule and do my homework. I am currently on my way to Los Angeles with my roommates for spring break. I CANNOT wait to finally land there in the 70F degree weather.! Some of the things we will be doing include going to a live showing of Chelsea Lately. We will also be going to universal studios, walk of fame, Marilyn Monroe memorial, Rodeo Drive, and the stalker tours (tours of celebrity houses) and of course shopping!
Saturday, March 20, 2010
Shanks
The way that Shanks writes and presents his blog made me think that at first he was trying to sell something and for a minute, I thought he was an artist rather than an archaeologist. I think that this can be academic inquiry if the blog is used to gather and share ideas based on facts rather than opinions and if the people who use the blog actually are trying to better understand something. There might not be a difference from writing on a blog and an academic paper depending on the subject. A blog could be helpful to be presented with new points of a subject that your paper will be about from the readers of the blog and it can also give the author of the paper can just place the info from the blog, after confirming it is usable, to their paper.
Shanks uses his blog as a secondary class room to show students real world examples of what his field does I guess because I really don't see any other reason for him to use it other than to use it to allow his students to speak up because in a lecture hall with hundreds of people, there might not be many chances.
I feel that the blog is reflecting Shanks as a person because he is more concerned with the content of the blog rather than the presentation. I know it kind of looks weird, but he's an archaeologist, not a website for a charity, and I would not expect an archaeologist to worry much about what the blog looks like, just the info that it is circulating.
The Dooce blog was just telling about what happens in her life rather than informing the public about something that she does for a living. Well, they both inform their readers of what they do, so I guess that is one similarity, but the Shanks one seemed more educational. I think that their subject frame the way they write and its presentation because when you think of a housewife, you might think of a suburban, minivan driving, stepford wife and I think that is why the blog looks so calming, and so organized rather than the cluster of thoughts that the archaeologist presented. Using the computer affects the blog in many ways such as the type of pictures that are on them, the words used, and even the background. These matter because they both have stakeholders. Shanks' stakeholders are his employers, Stanford I believe, so he doesn't put anything that can hurt his career or his work. The Dooce blog stakeholders are the advertisers on the blog. The author, with her housewife image, cannot have a blog entry about something controversial or something that goes against the whole image of the suburban wife or her advertisers will pull out and she will lose her profitable carrer from home.
Shanks uses his blog as a secondary class room to show students real world examples of what his field does I guess because I really don't see any other reason for him to use it other than to use it to allow his students to speak up because in a lecture hall with hundreds of people, there might not be many chances.
I feel that the blog is reflecting Shanks as a person because he is more concerned with the content of the blog rather than the presentation. I know it kind of looks weird, but he's an archaeologist, not a website for a charity, and I would not expect an archaeologist to worry much about what the blog looks like, just the info that it is circulating.
The Dooce blog was just telling about what happens in her life rather than informing the public about something that she does for a living. Well, they both inform their readers of what they do, so I guess that is one similarity, but the Shanks one seemed more educational. I think that their subject frame the way they write and its presentation because when you think of a housewife, you might think of a suburban, minivan driving, stepford wife and I think that is why the blog looks so calming, and so organized rather than the cluster of thoughts that the archaeologist presented. Using the computer affects the blog in many ways such as the type of pictures that are on them, the words used, and even the background. These matter because they both have stakeholders. Shanks' stakeholders are his employers, Stanford I believe, so he doesn't put anything that can hurt his career or his work. The Dooce blog stakeholders are the advertisers on the blog. The author, with her housewife image, cannot have a blog entry about something controversial or something that goes against the whole image of the suburban wife or her advertisers will pull out and she will lose her profitable carrer from home.
Revision
So far everything is going good and I found some new info that can help me with this "critical inquiry" thing. My subject is a pretty popular subject for many sports writers and fans to write, blog, and talk about so I have been having trouble really finding a alternative point of view or creating new insight because every time I use the sources, I feel as if I had come up with an alternate view that no one had thought of. Then, I check Ebsco Host and all the other scholarly websites to see if someone else had already created an article about my new revelations, and most of the time somebody has, so I am kind of getting frustrated about using the sources to come to a real, for the most part, unbiased alternative, but every time I use some of the sources, it feels as though I am reporting someone else's thought because my topic has been spun around in debates for over sixty years and for the most part, most of the alternative views have already been presented numerous times over.
Just don't know when to quit sometimes
Somehow I ended up at Potowatomi tonight, really don't know how that happened, I remembered some douchebag in a cobalt, then doing some scratch offs at speedway, and the next thing I knew I was in Poto. Now the one bad thing about Poto is that even when you're extremely tired they pump oxygen(i think) into the air to keep you perky, so I'm fucking wiped but I don't quite realize how bad it is.
I have a pretty sweet ability to feel out slots, and I have incredible ability when it comes to dice, 7 out of 10 times I'm able to call it. So I had twenty bucks that I won off a two dollar scratch off when my slot nose began hunting out the weak and old from the flashing ecstatic herd. Within 15 minutes I was up to 50, I'm feeling pretty good and then I saw her.
She had a golden glow about her, she flashed at me a few times flirtatiously, then I asked her name. All at once everything that my life is built upon shone upon this one beautiful golden nickel slot that cried out to the very essence of my soul and stroked my heritage that I'm so proud of(Viking not penis) as she spoke the word, "Valhalla," to me. So I slipped my ticket into the machine and one 17 times in a row walking away from my 30 minute stand with 300 dollars.
You think at this point I would've been smart enough to call it quits, but the cute roulette operator seemed be calling me, so I put 100 on red thinking that my luck would hold out. It didn't. So I walked out with 200 and only spent 2 the entire night(minus gas, drinks, cigs, qdoba). The night went from me being bored out of my mind not having anything to do, being pissed at how stoned my roommates get on an hourly basis, to feeling like a loser going to Qdoba by myself at 7pm still with no clue as to what I was doing. Followed by people flaking out left and right, to getting a magical phone call that gave me the opportunity to put some moron in his mom's car out of his misery and coming home 200 bucks richer.
Unfortunately, the magic air vents and flashing lights and adrenaline rushes of the casino are wearing off and now I'm horrified at the fact that I have to be up in four hours for a ten hour shift at the wonderful fucking airport....was it worth it? I'll see in the morning. Is my spring break off to a kick ass start? Abso-fucking-lutely!
I have a pretty sweet ability to feel out slots, and I have incredible ability when it comes to dice, 7 out of 10 times I'm able to call it. So I had twenty bucks that I won off a two dollar scratch off when my slot nose began hunting out the weak and old from the flashing ecstatic herd. Within 15 minutes I was up to 50, I'm feeling pretty good and then I saw her.
She had a golden glow about her, she flashed at me a few times flirtatiously, then I asked her name. All at once everything that my life is built upon shone upon this one beautiful golden nickel slot that cried out to the very essence of my soul and stroked my heritage that I'm so proud of(Viking not penis) as she spoke the word, "Valhalla," to me. So I slipped my ticket into the machine and one 17 times in a row walking away from my 30 minute stand with 300 dollars.
You think at this point I would've been smart enough to call it quits, but the cute roulette operator seemed be calling me, so I put 100 on red thinking that my luck would hold out. It didn't. So I walked out with 200 and only spent 2 the entire night(minus gas, drinks, cigs, qdoba). The night went from me being bored out of my mind not having anything to do, being pissed at how stoned my roommates get on an hourly basis, to feeling like a loser going to Qdoba by myself at 7pm still with no clue as to what I was doing. Followed by people flaking out left and right, to getting a magical phone call that gave me the opportunity to put some moron in his mom's car out of his misery and coming home 200 bucks richer.
Unfortunately, the magic air vents and flashing lights and adrenaline rushes of the casino are wearing off and now I'm horrified at the fact that I have to be up in four hours for a ten hour shift at the wonderful fucking airport....was it worth it? I'll see in the morning. Is my spring break off to a kick ass start? Abso-fucking-lutely!
Friday, March 19, 2010
SPRING BREAK!
Spring Break is here! So I am going to try to get my posting & revising done now so I have no worries while on vaca.
Spring Break
So it begins, 9 days of drunkness. 9 days of doing fairly little homework and a lot of partying. 9 days to get away and enjoy the amazing weather. Sitting on a beach with sand in my toes, and a case of beer in the cooler. Amazing clubs and bars and thousands of drunken college kids running around. Im pumped. I cant wait. 3 o' clock cant come fast enough.
Spring Break
This Spring Break is horrible, I NEVER EVER get sick, and what am i, SICK!
im sooo behind in all my classes, who knew that you could get behind from missing 3 days???!?!?!
jesus college. anyway my family is off in cancun right now, while i am at home, dying, okay not really but i am a mess. i messed up my foot ripsticking awhile back and now i can hardly walk on it. i ran into the wall awhile back while running away from someone. *you can laugh* and i have a huge bruise from that. but im so glad im home and im going to rest and take this nasty medicine. and hopefully do some homework. okay. hmm. spaghetti sounds good but idk
im sooo behind in all my classes, who knew that you could get behind from missing 3 days???!?!?!
jesus college. anyway my family is off in cancun right now, while i am at home, dying, okay not really but i am a mess. i messed up my foot ripsticking awhile back and now i can hardly walk on it. i ran into the wall awhile back while running away from someone. *you can laugh* and i have a huge bruise from that. but im so glad im home and im going to rest and take this nasty medicine. and hopefully do some homework. okay. hmm. spaghetti sounds good but idk
Moms blog vs Shanks
Upon entering the site, I felt like this was more of a blogging website then Shanks professional organized blog of thoughts. These blogs are completely different. I feel like Shanks was more thought provoking and mindful whereas in the blog about the mom being a mother was more like watching an episode of desperate housewives. the material issues with each blog differs. I had to look up what medium meant, but now i know its the means for storing information and communicating. The moms means seems to just get her boring everyday mom thoughts out on the internet. I believe the mom is using the internet for SHOWING and BROADCASTING rather then Shanks WANTING and showing new ideas. Also, they are set up completely different. Shank seems like Adam Andrews writing for our Emailed assignments, varies spaces, and thoughts flowing on the page in how to do our assignment to really get the best thoughts down. The mom's blog was like how the English 102 class blogs. Some are kind of interesting to read but most are just everyday things that every average teenager goes through- " im sooo hungover" " im sick of this class" " im lost" "i lost my phone but know i found it" "my boyfriend is immature" (me :) ) ha. I believe they both use images in hopes to make a person feel the way that they are feeling. One example of Shanks is a picture of a mask, he wants to show how interesting and enduring it is. Contrastingly, the mom shows a picture of her "turdball" (referring to her child). She wants people to see the screaming child that of course she will still love because "how can you not love em". I believe the blogs are too different to even be categorized as BLOGS. Like stated before, Shanks is interesting and academic whereas the mom's is feelings, emotion, and blabbering. I feel like the mom is using the internet to draw attention towards herself rather then the work (writing) she is producing. People won't take the mom's blog as seriously. The mom's writing cant even be categorized as academic writing. Yes, indeed she does bring new ideas to the topic but its not really academic. Its more just inquiry. Shanks takes other information and asks questions and dissects it. Analyzing each subject, some that might not be important that he makes important. Whereas the mom just believes all her writing is important so doesn't use other sources to be critical
Michael Shanks
Upon entering the website I was very impressed. This is a neatly set up website that is one persons organized thoughts. Everyone has feelings, thoughts, concepts, arguments. Creating a blog website that lets you remember every thought and have it written down for record was something I thought was quite neat. They material and how it is presented reminds me much of how Adam Andrew writes his emails for the class assignments. I don't believe that the internet affects his writing. It only makes it more interesting that he is sharing his views on cultural literacy, change, innovation, imagination, which are all interesting topics. Another Shanks trait, is sometimes he leaves just pictures as posts to and for his blog. This could mean that he was thinking about the meaning or depth of the picture or wanting to inspire someone else to blog or create! I as a reader just try to get a sense of what he is getting at. One cannot read this with a closed mind. Thoughts need to be flowing freely. He also provides background information like videos from youtube for readers to really get the jist of the topic.He is such a good writer that it seems as though it is not a blog you are reading. This is academic inquiry. In our english 102 blog i believe most of the submissions are not academic inquiry and the writing we do on their much differs from our academic inquiry papers. But the blog is useful for getting out aggression on frustration. But in a sense isnt academic inquiry the notion of "getting something out" on paper. Getting your feelings and thoughts across. So in a sense they are the same. It seems to reflect Shank as a person with his peaceful and meaningful pictures all throughout the website. You get a sense of peace and just a person trying to figure things out in this complex World. So i believe that is is both representing Shank as a person in a professional way.
Thirsty
Damn, last night was the best thirsty thurs i've had so far. we went hard. i met a lot of people that are in my classes which was pretty cool. the only bad thing was i puked a couple times, and i have a quiz in a few min. Anyone else have a good thurs? was anyone else at that house where the girls got on the bar and took their tops off? haha gotta love college.
Life is too short
Well I woke up this morning to a phone of 10 unread text and 3 unheard voice mails all saying Kenya Mr. Dropp died of an heart attack call me Nessa. Mr. Dropp was one of my high school teachers, a really great one at that, he always had the students heart and education at best. He was a teacher that I would never forget because of him I am successful today. Now Mr. Dropp wasn't a young teacher, but it wasn't his time to leave this world he had mines to shape for our future.
Mr. Dropp R.I.P. you will be missed by many!!!!
Love, Kenya your very grateful student
Mr. Dropp R.I.P. you will be missed by many!!!!
Love, Kenya your very grateful student
Thursday, March 18, 2010
spring breakk time!
Okay, so today was productive i guess..
Worked, packed a lil, and worked out with my favorite person! stephhh :) tanned and am packing once again, cuz los angeles is only 2 days away!! pheww! if only I didnt have so much english hw to do over spring breakkkkk :(
but anyways!
i hope all you guys have a great spring break!
Worked, packed a lil, and worked out with my favorite person! stephhh :) tanned and am packing once again, cuz los angeles is only 2 days away!! pheww! if only I didnt have so much english hw to do over spring breakkkkk :(
but anyways!
i hope all you guys have a great spring break!
...Someting else that bugs me...
How the fuck does facebook know so much about us?! I understand things like dating site ads, since my profile states that I'm single. I kinda get the part about "Are you vet who needs a job?!" since I have the Air Force in my employment history, or "Milwaukee coupons"...but its the other things, things like:
"COME MAKE THE NEXT FINAL FANTASY!" -my roommates don't get these, and I'm the only one of them who plays the damn games.
How does it know that I play the stupid thing, but the most creepy one that pops up is:
"Subaru insurance!
STI owners can insure their car for as low as $37.60/month!"
How in the blue fuck do they know what kind of car I drive?! That's not on my profile anywhere, there's a picture or two of it on my profile, but do they go profile to profile digging through pictures of cars seeing who drives Subie and who doesn't and then applying the ad? I don't believe that for an instant. But it's really really weird, makes you think about how little privacy you have in the end.
"COME MAKE THE NEXT FINAL FANTASY!" -my roommates don't get these, and I'm the only one of them who plays the damn games.
How does it know that I play the stupid thing, but the most creepy one that pops up is:
"Subaru insurance!
STI owners can insure their car for as low as $37.60/month!"
How in the blue fuck do they know what kind of car I drive?! That's not on my profile anywhere, there's a picture or two of it on my profile, but do they go profile to profile digging through pictures of cars seeing who drives Subie and who doesn't and then applying the ad? I don't believe that for an instant. But it's really really weird, makes you think about how little privacy you have in the end.
So this has been bugging me...
While I was piddling around on facespace, writing some useless post about how awesome the show "Doug" was, I noticed on a sidebar two advertisements:
"Want to meet cute girls?"
and
"Get a cougar tonight!"
I'm sure we've all run into these things at one point or another in our internet surfing lives, we've all seen commercials for match.com and eharmony, even beer commercials have begun making parodies of eharmony's commercials. So being the high and mighty and self-righteous bastard I am, I scoffed at the ad and continued my facespacing adventure. I mean who would be so pathetic that they could walk up to the girl they like and say "hi" right? I use "girl" only because it seems to be set in stone that a guy has to do all the approaching, move making, etc...and that we're supposed to be able to tell from a passing glance, a certain giggle, or from some minor movement of a hand. Which is fine, until she starts bitching that "he doesn't like me/want to talk to me" from a guy not taking advantage of that cute little pretend "oh our eyes just met haha *blush blush*" When half the time I just think we're unsure of ourselves(on both parties) and don't know what to say in fear of looking like an ass in front of the person that's caught our eye...
But I'm going off on a tangent. So I'm facespacing laughing at how people actually fall for these dating sites and assume they're going to find true love, based on a picture, or a test or interests. How can we have become so disconnected as a society that we can't have a physical and personal interaction anymore, that it all has to be based doing it while hiding behind a screen. Maybe I'm just old-fashioned and this IS the way of the future, but where's the fun in all of that? While I think most people are liars and especially on the first few dates will say anything to make you happy with them and want them, and I know that's an unfair judgement to pass but I have a strong reasoning behind it. But behind the safety of your monitor, you can say whatever you want "Yeah I can bench press 6800 pounds and I threw a knock out punch at a Kodiak bear while I was on a secret mission for the government in Alaska hunting for Russian elk spies...did I mention I LOVE Grey's anatomy!"
While all that is false and a very exaggerated statement, it's still similar to something you could pull off and gain a few believers with when none of them have ever met you. So this is all swimming through my head, when I suddenly couldn't find my phone and the realization that I could have missed some text messages, or *gasp* even a phone call sent me on a quest to discover where I left it. That's when I realized how much of a hypocrite I'm being. I walk around campus all day with my cell phone in my hand, texting away, sometimes to people I haven't even seen in two or three years keeping up with their lives, when I have thousands upon thousands of people on campus that I could talk to everyday.
I didn't receive unlimited texting on my phone until about two years ago when I was getting of tired of people texting me and me having to pay for it, when I could just spend 5 bucks extra a month to not worry about my phone bill crushing me. In that period, I went from being anti-text to super mega text. For example, looking at my last phone bill I have 7069 outbound and 11259 inbound text messages. For fucking February! That means I sent out 10 an hour for the month. The problem became more substantialized when I began thinking about how many people I know in my classes and how many I talk to or hang out with on a regular basis. And I realized how bad it is.
In my math class, I have a few people that ask me for help during class, but I don't know their names nor do I ever want to hang out with them, three of them were in one of my math classes last semester as well...still don't know their names.
In my Astronomy class, I talk to one person that's also in my English class, and the professor. So we're at two people I stay in contact with out of two classes.
In my history class, there's a girl I used to work with and one other dude that I talk to on occasion but don't hang out with. So we're at three people that I actually talk to.
My English class, is a talking class though, so I've met a lot of these people, and hung out with a couple of them outside of class once or twice, but again I don't really know any of them, I like them but I wouldn't say they're friends exactly.
So that's pretty pathetic when you think about it. Out of a thousand and some people in all of my classes this semester, two people have my phone number, and I've only hung out with maybe 4 or 5 of them, yet my text messages are still ridiculously high.
I also, don't really talk to anybody on campus, I walk out the front door of my house, make a beeline to my classroom then scurry back to my house doing my best not to make eye contact with anybody. I usually do this by, pretending I'm reading something on my phone, to avoid the eye contact and the often inviting smiles thrown my way. I have no idea why though. While my section of the English class would probably have a hard time believing it and call me a liar or say I'm full of shit, but I've become horribly horribly shy over the past couple of years. I'm not behind the safety net of my cell phone, or facespace out here. I have to deal with real people and real emotions. While it's easier than judging from a 3 word sentence ending in :-/ what they're thinking, especially since I consider myself to be extremely empathetic, I'm still horrible unsure of what to do or say, though I seem to rarely be disliked or unsociable once I get going.
It goes back to what I was laughing at with the dating sites, I don't know what to say to people, if you give me an opening I end up stalling out from adrenaline and just stand there completely silent. Several times a week I get put into situations where a girl I find interesting is standing next to me or sitting by me or making the "say hi!" eyes at me while passing in a hallway, and while I have tons of things to say, none of them seem to come out, it turns into a look straight ahead and pretend like you don't notice. And of course there's very negative ramifications to all of this since it makes me look like an arrogant ass and does nothing for me in an attempt to meet people that actually interest me. Is it that empathy thing kicking in? I have an adrenaline rush, i pick up on their adrenaline rush and in turn it overpowers my mind from anything witty/cute/funny thing I have flashing through my head?
And after observing other people at school, work, and just out, I notice that a lot of people do this. They're focused on their cell phones, my history class is so loud that from the back of the room it can be hard to hear the professor of the "clack clack clack" of texting, even though there's a perfectly good person sitting right next to them that they could whisper their thoughts into. Or even going back to me, I'm posting this on a random blog site to be viewed publicly by strangers that will most likely never meet me, minus the 15 people in my class and Adam, yet I haven't talked to any of my roommates or any of my friends about this. It just all seems so odd to me...
So tomorrow I may just leave my phone at home and make it a goal to ask five people to hang out over spring break, and say "Hello" to five people I've never met and continue with a conversation with them. I don't want this to become a norm for our society and especially me....goddamn facespace making me think too hard and realize how stupid I am sometimes.
/end bitch and moan
"Want to meet cute girls?"
and
"Get a cougar tonight!"
I'm sure we've all run into these things at one point or another in our internet surfing lives, we've all seen commercials for match.com and eharmony, even beer commercials have begun making parodies of eharmony's commercials. So being the high and mighty and self-righteous bastard I am, I scoffed at the ad and continued my facespacing adventure. I mean who would be so pathetic that they could walk up to the girl they like and say "hi" right? I use "girl" only because it seems to be set in stone that a guy has to do all the approaching, move making, etc...and that we're supposed to be able to tell from a passing glance, a certain giggle, or from some minor movement of a hand. Which is fine, until she starts bitching that "he doesn't like me/want to talk to me" from a guy not taking advantage of that cute little pretend "oh our eyes just met haha *blush blush*" When half the time I just think we're unsure of ourselves(on both parties) and don't know what to say in fear of looking like an ass in front of the person that's caught our eye...
But I'm going off on a tangent. So I'm facespacing laughing at how people actually fall for these dating sites and assume they're going to find true love, based on a picture, or a test or interests. How can we have become so disconnected as a society that we can't have a physical and personal interaction anymore, that it all has to be based doing it while hiding behind a screen. Maybe I'm just old-fashioned and this IS the way of the future, but where's the fun in all of that? While I think most people are liars and especially on the first few dates will say anything to make you happy with them and want them, and I know that's an unfair judgement to pass but I have a strong reasoning behind it. But behind the safety of your monitor, you can say whatever you want "Yeah I can bench press 6800 pounds and I threw a knock out punch at a Kodiak bear while I was on a secret mission for the government in Alaska hunting for Russian elk spies...did I mention I LOVE Grey's anatomy!"
While all that is false and a very exaggerated statement, it's still similar to something you could pull off and gain a few believers with when none of them have ever met you. So this is all swimming through my head, when I suddenly couldn't find my phone and the realization that I could have missed some text messages, or *gasp* even a phone call sent me on a quest to discover where I left it. That's when I realized how much of a hypocrite I'm being. I walk around campus all day with my cell phone in my hand, texting away, sometimes to people I haven't even seen in two or three years keeping up with their lives, when I have thousands upon thousands of people on campus that I could talk to everyday.
I didn't receive unlimited texting on my phone until about two years ago when I was getting of tired of people texting me and me having to pay for it, when I could just spend 5 bucks extra a month to not worry about my phone bill crushing me. In that period, I went from being anti-text to super mega text. For example, looking at my last phone bill I have 7069 outbound and 11259 inbound text messages. For fucking February! That means I sent out 10 an hour for the month. The problem became more substantialized when I began thinking about how many people I know in my classes and how many I talk to or hang out with on a regular basis. And I realized how bad it is.
In my math class, I have a few people that ask me for help during class, but I don't know their names nor do I ever want to hang out with them, three of them were in one of my math classes last semester as well...still don't know their names.
In my Astronomy class, I talk to one person that's also in my English class, and the professor. So we're at two people I stay in contact with out of two classes.
In my history class, there's a girl I used to work with and one other dude that I talk to on occasion but don't hang out with. So we're at three people that I actually talk to.
My English class, is a talking class though, so I've met a lot of these people, and hung out with a couple of them outside of class once or twice, but again I don't really know any of them, I like them but I wouldn't say they're friends exactly.
So that's pretty pathetic when you think about it. Out of a thousand and some people in all of my classes this semester, two people have my phone number, and I've only hung out with maybe 4 or 5 of them, yet my text messages are still ridiculously high.
I also, don't really talk to anybody on campus, I walk out the front door of my house, make a beeline to my classroom then scurry back to my house doing my best not to make eye contact with anybody. I usually do this by, pretending I'm reading something on my phone, to avoid the eye contact and the often inviting smiles thrown my way. I have no idea why though. While my section of the English class would probably have a hard time believing it and call me a liar or say I'm full of shit, but I've become horribly horribly shy over the past couple of years. I'm not behind the safety net of my cell phone, or facespace out here. I have to deal with real people and real emotions. While it's easier than judging from a 3 word sentence ending in :-/ what they're thinking, especially since I consider myself to be extremely empathetic, I'm still horrible unsure of what to do or say, though I seem to rarely be disliked or unsociable once I get going.
It goes back to what I was laughing at with the dating sites, I don't know what to say to people, if you give me an opening I end up stalling out from adrenaline and just stand there completely silent. Several times a week I get put into situations where a girl I find interesting is standing next to me or sitting by me or making the "say hi!" eyes at me while passing in a hallway, and while I have tons of things to say, none of them seem to come out, it turns into a look straight ahead and pretend like you don't notice. And of course there's very negative ramifications to all of this since it makes me look like an arrogant ass and does nothing for me in an attempt to meet people that actually interest me. Is it that empathy thing kicking in? I have an adrenaline rush, i pick up on their adrenaline rush and in turn it overpowers my mind from anything witty/cute/funny thing I have flashing through my head?
And after observing other people at school, work, and just out, I notice that a lot of people do this. They're focused on their cell phones, my history class is so loud that from the back of the room it can be hard to hear the professor of the "clack clack clack" of texting, even though there's a perfectly good person sitting right next to them that they could whisper their thoughts into. Or even going back to me, I'm posting this on a random blog site to be viewed publicly by strangers that will most likely never meet me, minus the 15 people in my class and Adam, yet I haven't talked to any of my roommates or any of my friends about this. It just all seems so odd to me...
So tomorrow I may just leave my phone at home and make it a goal to ask five people to hang out over spring break, and say "Hello" to five people I've never met and continue with a conversation with them. I don't want this to become a norm for our society and especially me....goddamn facespace making me think too hard and realize how stupid I am sometimes.
/end bitch and moan
st pats day
so i rly dont see the big deal in st pats day..its rly stupid i think for a holiday.. why not just call it get drunk until 6 in the morning and do complete shit..and then complain about the headache the next day. seriously..people are ridiculous.
Wednesday, March 17, 2010
So I blew my wireless adapter up...
Don't know how, not going to investigate it too much, it's just a charred hunk of melted plastic sticking out the USB port of my desktop...so until I feel the urge to go for a drive to Best Buy or something to replace it, I doubt I'll be using this shit too much.
Cigs and WW1
just a funny thought from the discussion in class today. Well we went over the whole giving a cig a charity or not and then mention in WW1 and how it would be then if 9 out of 10 people you knew will die. What if the person you gave the cig too survived the fighting? would it still be charity than or just charity for the moment and not so in the long run? posting this just for fun
My Day so far
Happy St. Patrick's. so i was in the union walking around, and i saw a girl wearing a blogger.com shirt. I thought that was pretty funny. Anyways, whats up for tonight? anyone doing anything cool or exciting?
Tuesday, March 16, 2010
bummed out;
So, i just finished commenting on 5 student's essays, and after reading theirs and comparing it to mine, HOLY ashdsjnjka; my paper looks like crap compared to theirs :|
But hey; it's only the first rough draft, so I'm not too worried ... for now that is.
But hey; it's only the first rough draft, so I'm not too worried ... for now that is.
Monday, March 15, 2010
OMG! this paper sucked!!!!!
So I defineately had just about 7 pages of my paper, when I started reading it over and reviewing it this morning when I realized that the fifth and sixth pages of my paper went totally in an opposite direction then I aiming for and I did not want to turn it in like that so....yeah had to delete those pages and now I only have four. I'm super bummed and pretty pissed off at myself that now I only have four pgs to turn in, hopefully this doesn't hurt my grade in the long run...
SO GLAD THAT IT'S DONE!
OMG! I cannot stress how happy I am with this paper! OH wait! I mean how happy I am DONE with this paper! It's been on my back this whole week and THIS WHOLE NIGHT! I am done with it and have already uploaded it onto Google Doc! I'm not even sure if it's right or not, but it's all good to be because 1) this is the first draft and 2) at this moment, I only care that I finish with it! That's the HONEST truth that I've giving! I have class at 9:00 today and I'm ready for it! :)
Fun first draft
Well, considering I just poured myself a drink... the writing process has been going ever so smooth.
This is the first paper where I feel that I don't know where the hell I am going with it. Usually I can write a paper and say hey, thats like A or B work.. not with this. Started off strong in my opinion, and ended up with hey... this is starting to get boring at 9pgs lets add a works cited page and print it off.
I did a lot of rambling and add lots of tidbits of bullshit in this paper just for the sake of being done. I have some feeling that it went alright but no sense of direction... if it went in the right place or not. I guess i'll figure that out once I get comments on it.
Anyways, same old shit just another day. Speaking of same old shit working every friday, saturday, and sunday. Today, I was helping a guy who came in replace a taillight in his chevy truck. He was deaf and had a hard time speaking... cause he couldn't hear himself. Anyways, this guy actually got pissed off at me because I couldn't understand the words coming out of his mouth. So I did the best I can and went out to his vehicle to assist him. He had a burnt out taillight... so I replaced it for him. He came in to pay the dollar and quarter for the light and left.. didn't even mutter a thanks or thank you. I usually never go out to help people with something as simple as a burnt out bulb. Shit like that pisses me off, I go out to help someone and they don't even thank me. So much for being a nice guy. I work at NAPA by the way, the place where dreams come true.
Fun research paper.
This is the first paper where I feel that I don't know where the hell I am going with it. Usually I can write a paper and say hey, thats like A or B work.. not with this. Started off strong in my opinion, and ended up with hey... this is starting to get boring at 9pgs lets add a works cited page and print it off.
I did a lot of rambling and add lots of tidbits of bullshit in this paper just for the sake of being done. I have some feeling that it went alright but no sense of direction... if it went in the right place or not. I guess i'll figure that out once I get comments on it.
Anyways, same old shit just another day. Speaking of same old shit working every friday, saturday, and sunday. Today, I was helping a guy who came in replace a taillight in his chevy truck. He was deaf and had a hard time speaking... cause he couldn't hear himself. Anyways, this guy actually got pissed off at me because I couldn't understand the words coming out of his mouth. So I did the best I can and went out to his vehicle to assist him. He had a burnt out taillight... so I replaced it for him. He came in to pay the dollar and quarter for the light and left.. didn't even mutter a thanks or thank you. I usually never go out to help people with something as simple as a burnt out bulb. Shit like that pisses me off, I go out to help someone and they don't even thank me. So much for being a nice guy. I work at NAPA by the way, the place where dreams come true.
Fun research paper.
Sunday, March 14, 2010
I am confused
I finished my paper. 15 pages.
And I have no idea if I did it correctly. But now I cant upload my paper onto google docs. I made a new account with my UWM ID, but it doesnt show me any sharred files. I am confused. And that pisses me off because I just want to be done with this paper for right now. I just got home from work and I am tired and I want to go to bed. I am going to upload it anyways and if it doesnt work then I will have to try again tomorrow. Some things should just go my way.
But I am proud of myself for writing this paper and I actually do feel like I accomplished something, however, I think that has yet to be determined.
And I have no idea if I did it correctly. But now I cant upload my paper onto google docs. I made a new account with my UWM ID, but it doesnt show me any sharred files. I am confused. And that pisses me off because I just want to be done with this paper for right now. I just got home from work and I am tired and I want to go to bed. I am going to upload it anyways and if it doesnt work then I will have to try again tomorrow. Some things should just go my way.
But I am proud of myself for writing this paper and I actually do feel like I accomplished something, however, I think that has yet to be determined.
Random trip to Monterey next week.
While, I'm still on here continuing to procrastinate on this paper I have to write, just thought I'd throw out there. If I've talked to you before or if you're going to be realllly bored over spring break and can behave yourself for 4 hours on an airplane me and a few friends are hitting up San Francisco/Monterey for spring break and I can get you tickets for 110 dollars, I know it's random but let me know we're leaving at 6:58pm tuesday and coming back Friday at 2:30pm. Once again let me know if you're interested and I'll handle the hotel room and rental car reservations once I have an idea of how many people are coming.
hopefully done for now
just about done with my paper but a little worried that it will all be wrong and have no "academic inquiry" in it. it is only 7 pages right now but im not overly worried i stopped cause i know i will just be writing to fill space and hit that 8 page mark but i also dont have my introduction in there cause im not sure of my exact question yet so i hope that isnt a big deal right now but i guess we will find out tomorrow
finally finished but still...
so after many hours of work and thinking I have finally finished my paper for tomorrow. Yet I still know I'm not reaching the academic inquiry writing I'm suppose to be in. I know what I'm suppose to be doing and understand what is being said i still cant seem to be writing the way i need to be doing. I really feel stuck in my old mode of writing and unable to get out of it as if it was quicksand. hopefully i will finally be able to break out of it and fine mind set i need for this new way of writing.
Finally
so after hours of work i am finally done with this beast of a paper. now my only concerns are whether or not i did it right and all that. but its a rough draft so i guess whatever is wrong with it i will have to change eventually, no matter what the outcome i just feel good having this burden off my shoulders.
Not Done!!!
Definitely not up to 8 pages yet. I have about 6 that I really like, however I'm having a hard time coming up with a controlling purpose. I'm not sure whether or not I should actually say something like "in this paper I want to ..." or not.
The other thing I'm having a problem with is whether or not I should stay neutral on my topic (net neutrality) or pick a side. The debate is very polarized and I will probably end up having to pick a side for the sake of my paper.
so.... that's where I'm at?
....Fuck
So I had one of those weekends...you know one of those. I'm fairly certain I've committed seven or eight felonies over the past three days, most of it I'm drawing a blank on, but I do remember getting my car airborne at one point, and I know most of it ended up being with complete strangers, and I'm pretty sure somebody may have died last night. I don't know at all. I'm pretty sure it was fun though. I only know a few things completely. My plans to have a quiet weekend of writing a paper and playing video games alone....didn't quite work out. I didn't go to work at all this weekend...my home has grown by 6 pairs of shoes, but there's only the three regular people living here(me and my two roommates). My car has a bunch of construction signs in the back, I don't know where they came from but I'm going to decorate somebodies yard with them. I also received a copy of Pokemon that came out today from the Wal-Mart supercenter in Mukwonago...I really am confused and pumped about that. Like I don't know where, when or why I went to Mukwonago to get it, I just know it's in my backseat and I'm totally going to play it without any shame at all. There's other tidbits here and there that I remember that I won't post here that's what class is for...but here's the main issue with all of this.
1) I'm pretty sure there's a warrant out for my arrest
2)I don't want to get arrested
3)It's 10:49pm and I just realized I only have about a page and a half written on this paper
So....FUCK!
Let this be a lesson kids, when you have an 8 page paper due monday and you tell yourself that you're going to do that and just relax all weekend, don't let your friends convince you to go to a bar of questionable standards. Things end blank at those places, I don't even drink or do drugs anymore and this all happened...so shit. Section 025 if I'm not in class tomorrow it's because I'm hiding from Adam because I don't know how to explain all of this and bullshit my way through how I didn't have time to do this assignment in a week and a half. But I'm trudging along....
Thankfully, there were no raccoons this time....
1) I'm pretty sure there's a warrant out for my arrest
2)I don't want to get arrested
3)It's 10:49pm and I just realized I only have about a page and a half written on this paper
So....FUCK!
Let this be a lesson kids, when you have an 8 page paper due monday and you tell yourself that you're going to do that and just relax all weekend, don't let your friends convince you to go to a bar of questionable standards. Things end blank at those places, I don't even drink or do drugs anymore and this all happened...so shit. Section 025 if I'm not in class tomorrow it's because I'm hiding from Adam because I don't know how to explain all of this and bullshit my way through how I didn't have time to do this assignment in a week and a half. But I'm trudging along....
Thankfully, there were no raccoons this time....
DONE!!!!
Sooo happy I just finished my ROUGH draft!!! I feel like it still has a ways to go, but I am so glad to have my rough draft completed. I am really excited to get feedback to what I wrote so I can edit it and make it better.
I still have to work a little bit on my bibliography, but that should be easy...
But question... do we need to use the annotated bibliography or can we just use a normal one????
Done!
Just finished my paper, finally! It is defiantly a ROUGH draft. Also as a big Badger basketball fan I defiantly think we got a good deal with the seedings and possible match ups. I thought we could get a 4 but I was expecting a 5 seed possibly even a 6.
Unfinished paper
I am still currently writing my paper and I have a little over 7 pages typed but still a ton of information that I can put into it but I can't bring myself to continue with it because no matter how I continue with it I feel like it is just making my paper worse, I dont know if it is writers block or I am just sick of working on this damn thing either way tonight I am going to have to finish at least another page, and then I can hand it in and feel as a bit better about it... hopefully
Research Paper
So I finished my paper Friday ended with about 10 pages, I didn't like it I didn't think there was a purpose so I took all Saturday to rewrite the whole thing, I did so now I have about 10 again but I'm just confused about which paper is better. I feel that no matter which one I turn in they're both going to need work.
Overload
So a really good guy friend of mine passed away. I really don't understand why things like this happen to such amazing people. I've been out of it the past couple days because of it which has set me back. On top of this I have the lovely eight page paper to write, three exams to study for, a lab practical to prepare for, and one hundred biology questions due. Fabulous. This week can hurry up because come Friday I'm off to Florida :)
finally done
i am also done with my 8 pages, it was a pain in the ass. but at least now i can relax and not have to worry about getting it all done tonight like my suite mate haha. it would have been a lot easier and more manageable to get done if we would have been assigned like 2 pages per time, not just 8 all at once. but its not up to me i just feel that would be better for the students because I'm sure half of the students put it off till today, i was one of them, and will finish their paper around 2 am tonight.
Done
I am done with my eight page essay. Now I cant wait until spring-break and being drunk everyday.
friday
On friday night I went to my friend's house with numerous ppl. On saturday morning I woke up and I still don't know who's pj pants i was wearing. What an interesting night.
Hard Core Writing
I haven't been really good with doing this paper and the fact that this paper is due tomorrow, I DEFINITELY have to crack down on some business! (LOL)... But so far, I have all my books and my outline of the paper is set. I do of course, HAVE about 4 pages down so I'm half done! I'm ready for this to be done and over with just because I have other homework to do! x/ ... I will be back later as an overview of my paper! :)
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