Persuasions: Identities, Stereotypes, & Fights

I woke up this morning and I had trouble opening my eyes.  I thought to myself why does this happen every morning.  The moment I am conscious from my sleep opening my eyes is extremely difficult.  I feel like someone is trying to close them with tiny fingers and I have to struggle to open them.  Anyways after I woke up I took the train.  I wondered how many times have I been on the subway.  If I had to count it would be close to a million.  Than I wondered is their a guiness world record for the most time a person can enter a train.  If their is what is the record.  I feel as if I could break that record no matter how big the number is.  For some reason I chose to wear a scarf today.  I don’t usually wear scarves, but I felt cold and I thought a scarf would make my neck warm.  I began to think does heat leave my body through my neck the fastest.  I know many people say heat leaves your head the fastest, but since I have a lot of hair wouldn’t it leave my body through my neck the fastest.  This may be my last blog post so I will be writing until I get tired.  For thanksgiving I went to my aunt’s house with my entire family and relatives.  It was pretty fun.  I ate turkey without gravy because for some reason they FORGOT TO MAKE IT.  How can you eat turkey without GRAVY! They expected my to use cranberry sauce as my gravy for my turkey.   I ate string beans, apple pie(I love this), and cornbread.   Everyone was laughing and I taught my little cousins new things.  I hope everyone had a good thanksgiving and ate lots of Turkey WITH GRAVY!

I entered the room thinking “o man here’s another one of these boring baruch events, how am I going to sit through this.”  I was wrong.  The two people on the panel Siva and Anya were extremely insightful and had a genuine aspect to both there personalities.  They didn’t say how everything is fine and dandy both Siva and Anya spoke the truth.  That education is declining in comparison to the cost of it.  We spend thousands of dollars on an education when we could be at the library 5 days a week teaching it to ourselves.  I became interested towards 2 people who spoke during the debate.  The guy who said how his child had ADHD and that he has to pay 60,000$ a year for a special college that his meets his child’s needs.  Siva did agree that there aren’t enough colleges focusing on the special needs of kids and since there are so few the price of them rises.  There should be more colleges that tend to the needs of special kids.  I highly doubt that the father has enough money to pay 60,000 $ a year without taking loans and struggling finiancially.  

The most interesting person to me was the black lady(sorry I didn’t catch her name).  She spoke about how the education system didn’t suit “colored people”.  I felt as if she said this because this was her last stand.  The lady said she resignated this past year from teaching and that she felt “she has chains on her”.  Seriously lady come on your going to use the race card.  The education system isn’t biased towards one group of people.  You take the SAT’s to get into college.  Every high school student whether white, black, asian, or hispanic has to take the test and answer the same questions.  How is the education system bias we have white teachers, asian teachers, hispanic teachers, and black teachers.  If this lady is able to say “the education system isn’t suitable for colored people” why can’t other people say when they get bad grades “the education system isn’t suitable for asian people”.  Her argument had no validity and she was ranting on with no point or goal.  To me I feel as if she had some issues she wanted to get off her chest and this was the right time to do it in front of this many people and when the topic was related to hers.

The only thing I didn’t like about the event is when they turned the lights on randomly.  It hurt my eyes a lot.  Other than that the debate was nice. =)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aw4SUb2bZbg

This is the link to my video.  Greatness isn’t achieved easily. =D

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As most of you know for my project I’m focusing on violence in video games and how it affect kids negatively.  I can’t wait to start shooting.  I already have a visual idea of how my video is going to go down.  I already have a cast of people to shoot in my movie.  I used final cut and Imovie my entire senior year in high school so editing it won’t be difficult.   My video is going to be pretty funny even though it focuses on a serious topic.  I’m going to act situations in how Grand Theft Auto could make a teenager kill.  My thesis will be pretty clear through out the video.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-eica-_nnPs

Who hasn’t played video games as a child?  I know I did.  I first started off with games that dealt with mathematics and reading.  As I reached the age of 7 I started to play racing and more intense games.  Once I hit 9 I encountered violent video games such as Mortal Kombat and Grand Theft Auto.   I was able to handle guns and blow peoples heads off.  It was fun and made my adrenaline rush at the same time.  I would at times scream “die , die” and even start to curse while playing these game similar to how the characters in the game would curse.  As I grew older these games didn’t seem that exciting.  I became used death and blood splattering all over in games.  Also in reality I would see fights breakout all the time and not even care.  These game made me think that violence was fine and that everyone does it.  I realized that violence is a big issue and these video games have a negative effect on children.  Parents should stop their children from playing games such as these.

The topic I chose to work on is violence in video games . I want to focus on how such games such as grand theft auto, counterstrike, and mortal Kombat promote violence and encourage kids to some of the actions these character do.  Parents need to censor these game from there children. Children don’t really know right from wrong. Some may think since them murdering people virtually in these games and stealing money from banks to gain points it’s fine to do it in real life.  Distinguishing reality from fantasy is difficult at times. In these game blood is splattering all over and hookers slaughtered, children over time become desensitized to death and violence that when they encounter it in reality it doesn’t seem to phase them.  This is a problem it should phase them because death is a big deal.

For those of you that don’t know, I have a big interest in photography. I have the Nikon D3000 and just got my hands on a miniature polaroid camera. I’ve been planning a series for a while and I finally have the resources I need to make it complete. I’m calling it, “The Gender Division.” In these photos, I will be using polaroids as an artifact to depict what the male is thinking versus what the female is thinking in the same situation. I tried to start today but I don’t think I’ll be the female model. My boyfriend wasn’t capturing me the way I wanted and it ended in unpleasant banter. I ended up putting the attempts I took today together to make a cover which I will attach. It’s a scenario where the boy is thinking lustfully versus the girl who is thinking about love. Well, I’m going to figure this out as I go and hopefully not waste too many polaroids along the way!

Click the picture to access my flickr.

This is my first blog because I missed the other ones. I just woke up like 15 minutes ago and remembered to do this, since the baruch sites were/are still down and I thought this was too. It took me like 10 minutes of just looking around the site to find out even how to post. I hope this doesn’t go in the wrong section or something. I wonder if this is late… And I don’t even know what to write now, I’m just doing whatever. Is anyone going to read this? I’m gonna be late for class. And my mouth hurts. I’m so tired today, I wish i had no class I just want to sleep in today. I wonder if this is enough for the blog. Anywayyy, laterrrrs, I’ll probably be late to class a bit.

Lately I’ve been having the urge to film something, a short film or maybe even a series of short films. I guess its a step up from photography and editing pictures with the usual Photoshop and start moving on to things like Final Cut Pro on my mac. Theres nothing easier than to just show someone what you mean than telling them yourself because you get to react the moment.
There’s a problem though, what  do I film? I’ve heard people say they get their ideas from just talking with friends, wishful thinking, and dreams but if everyone was to do that, what ideas are left? I don’t want to film what been done already :\

I’m scared of what the future holds. I fear not life. I fear not my job. I don’t even fear my parent’s wrath. There is one thing that makes me shiver though and that is thinking about EXAMS.

I’m doing fairly well in school so far. I’ve been making an effort to cooperate, do my homework and classwork, and most importantly, show up daily and on time. None of this seems to really matter in the end, so I hear. I hear it is how you do on tests that determine your grade and this scares the (excuse my french) crap out of me.

This week starts the craze of studying and the caffeine overload. I’m hoping to finally learn (as the teacher says) the extreme basics of Pre-Calculus, which seems to me more like a combination of Physics and another impossibly difficult subject.

Into the realm of the unknown I go.

I have been thoroughly enjoying all of your post-Postrel posts, and figured that perhaps I should join in on these meditations on “attractive wrappings.”

So, who watched the VMAs? I tuned in purely because I am completely fascinated by Nicki Minaj, who performed during the pre-show with will.i.am.

Minaj is a Queens native, and one of few women associated with Lil’ Wayne’s Young Money. But, what does this have to do with “Surface and Substance”? Postrel writes, “we judge people, places, and things at least in part by how they look. We care about surfaces.” (458) Hip hop (as is the case with many music/media/art forms) is often associated with the objectification of women, “sex sells,” and a place where “image is everything” and in this case the image of women comes with cleavage, bling, and seductive dancing.  As Postrel points out, “we’re simply attracted to anything that helps us compete for recognition and dominance.” (459) In this case, it appears that “recognition” and “dominance” is achieved through money, fame, and girls.

But, then we have Minaj. A woman who refers to herself as “Barbie” and as a “bad bitch.” And, it seems like people (the public) do not know what to do with such proclamations.

In a recent interview, Minaj said, “I started making it my business to say things that would empower women, like, ‘Where my bad bitches at?’ to let them know I’m here for you.”

Minaj puts hip hop first (“substance”) and decidedly takes the “road less traveled” approach to “surface.” Do you think that Minaj’s real appeal is that she has changed the stakes for the hip hop industry? Is it possible to really change gender roles and the way “aesthetic value” is affixed to different sexes?

Why can’t I stop listening?