Persuasions: Identities, Stereotypes, & Fights

The semesters almost over and I’m shocked at how fast it went. It really feels like I just started my time here at Baruch and I cane believe that I’m almost done with the first semester already. I have to say I really enjoy the atmosphere of the classrooms in college, in MOST of my classes (*cough political science *(cough) I actually feel like I’m being treated like an adult. Being allowed to eat or go to the bathroom during class makes things a lot easier on me, I no longer fall asleep in class that often ;D. I also liked how I ended with so many great teachers, I hear all these stories about some other freshman teachers and I really do feel that block LC06 lucked out. As the first semester comes to a close, I feel that I’m enjoying my time here at baruch.

Last week when i was leaving the history class i lost my cell phone somehow and i was very upset. On top of this my family and i just moved and we still don’t have internet. at first i thought that it was the end of the world, being that i would lose all communication with EVERYONE. a week later, i realized that it’s not that bad. i actually enjoy living my life and having nobody keep tabs on me. not only that, but i get to see who really wants to speak to me being that they’ll send me messaged on facebook and whatnot.

anyway you put it, i’m giving people a reason to miss me 🙂

I am late to almost everything. My mom is always lecturing me about how time is money and that I should value it more. She knows my bad habit of leaving things to the last minute but I can’t seem to break it. Whether it is waking up, meeting someone, going to an event, I’m just about never on time. I’ve been having a lot of trouble getting to class on time. My first class is at 8:40 AM and I’m always late. Next semester, my first class is at 7:25 AM. If you’re wondering, I didn’t want to chose this 7:25 AM class. There were no more decent teachers left by the time I registered as I’m sure most of you guys also encountered so I’m stuck at the moment but I have a plan! I know it’s not new years yet but I already know my new years resolution. I hope to be able to have better time management and be on time to every class next semester! I want to become a morning person. I feel like the day is wasted when I wake up at 3:00 PM on the weekends. I realize the things I could’ve done with the time I decided to just sleep with like … reading The New Humanities Reader … right, thats definitely it! 🙂

I love reading lyrics. I would tear songs apart and analyze them all day if I had the time. The last one I digested was “Calling All Cars” by Senses Fail. Read the first verse and chorus:

“Calling all cars we’ve got another victim,
‘Cause my love has become an affliction,
What did you expect from me? What did you expect from me?

I’m sorry but I think I failed to mention
That I lied at my very first confession
What did you expect from me? Well What did you expect from me?

‘Cause this has been building since I have been breathing,
And I know how it’s going to end.

So will you scatter my ashes where they won’t be found?
I kept my word when I swore that I would let you down.
(And now that I’m gone) Try to forget me and just move on.
So will you scatter my ashes where they won’t be found?
I kept my word and you hate me for it now,
(But you knew all along) Try to forget me and just move on.”

It’s about a long overdue relationship that finally came to end; one of the partners is relieved (the one who can’t seem to commit), one is obviously not. I’m sure we’ve all felt this way before. Don’t you feel what the writer feels when you read it? Try doing that to other songs you never gave the time of day to and you’ll be surprised.

According to Merriam Webster’s Dictionary, sound is a  “meaningful sound as produced by the action of the vocal organs (2) : a systematic means of communicating ideas or feelings by the use of conventionalized signs, sounds, gestures, or marks having understood meanings”. Interesting…Something we already know right? Something that really interests me about language is the fact that it has so many aspects, its not just vocal as one may presume… Its a ”  a systematic means of communicating ideas or feelings by the use of conventionalized signs, sounds, gestures, or marks having understood meanings”. This means that people don’t really have to communicate through the use of sound. Something interested that I read was the fact that “People cannot communicate without the use of gestures”. I find this to be SO true. Gestures are such an important part communication. Keneally makes a compelling argument when she brings up that gestures exist amongst mammals, making it a primitive feature. I have never thought about that this from such a perspective. Could it really be true that humans have not evolved enough to leave our primitive nature? It makes me wonder if humanity will ever evolve far enough to leave its primitive ancestry… For some reason I cant help keep thinking about Maslows Pyramid of Hierarchal needs…

I hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving! I’m glad we had that day off even though we had to miss English class, haha, but that was the first day in a while I got to see everyone in my family and my other relatives. I spent the rest of the weekend working, but I got off early yesterday to hotpot with my family 😀 I actually got to go Black Friday shopping for a little bit before work! I picked up some stuff but today was Cyber Monday and there was sale EVERYWHERE online!! I got at least 20 emails with stores advertising the Cyber Monday deals they had on their website. But guess what?! Even though I browsed and browsed, I didn’t buy anything! I was actually contemplating buying a new netbook because I kind of broke my dad’s, but he doesn’t know yet, and I ended up not getting a single thing. Yay for me. 🙂 I hope other people enjoy what they ordered though!! And that they get their orders quick. 😉

Not that what I’m about to say has anything to do with my not ordering anything online today, but it’s relevant. About a half hour ago, I was on tumbler going through updates on my dashboard, and I came across this post by someone I’m following. She was talking about Black Friday and Cyber Monday madness and then she mentioned how ironic it is that Thanksgiving is a holiday meant for appreciating and being thankful for all that we have, and then in America, right after Thanksgiving, we have Black Friday and Cyber Monday, where we go and buy luxury items that we don’t actually need. Definitely says something about the society we live in.

Thanksgiving is so commercial now, its ridiculous. I spent my Thanksgiving dinner at home with my family having a big dinner. It was great. Afterward, my boyfriend called and asked me if I wanted to go shopping at Woodbury Commons and as a girl who loves shopping and shoes, I obviously said yes. We went to Tanger Outlet though and it was packed. I didn’t even end up with anything great AND it was cold and raining. It was a long drive home in the rain.
Now, it’s Cyber Monday and I still haven’t bought anything. I’m running to a bunch of cyber shoppers on DSW.com and it’s just not working out. This why I never attempt to shop Thanksgiving weekend. It never works out!

It is cyber monday and everything is loading so slowly 🙁 Our psych. class was cancelled and I did not find out until after I was dressed and ready to head out so I could not go back to sleep. I decided to shop online at Express in my sister’s room, unfortunately the site would not load so I couldn’t order the things I wanted. Now the site is working, but I don’t know if I want the tank tops I wanted this morning anymore.

I’m probably one of the most indecisive people you can ever meet. I spent this whole semester contemplating whether or not I should transfer to SUNY Geneseo. I spent a great deal of time complaining and talking about it with everyone and posting about it on this blog. It wasn’t until last Wednesday that I finally realized why I’m even thinking about not going and staying in the city. I have been wanting to go away since junior year and I never considered staying in the city. I basically forgot this until I talked to sister and my friend, both who know me very well. They both snapped at me for wanting to stay and asked me why I would. After much consideration I sent in my orientation and deposit.

I hope that I will become less indecisive in the future whether it’s big things or small things. I’m still deciding whether or not to order from express 🙁

This semester in English 2100, I have learned more than I expected to. Compared to High School English classes, I feel college English classes are more open and broad. We did not have to read old texts and analyze some still literary elements and techniques. We simply had to do readings to formulate our own opinions and and from time to time talk about them and debate a for a while. Reading essays in the New Humanities Reader was more of a chance to connect and and get to know some things I did not. I enjoyed the wide selection of readings, especially Meat and Milk Factories and Power of Context.

The class taught me how to write college essays, which I feel have more of my voice and analysis than anything other type of paper I’ve written. Without a doubt, I will be writing shitty first drafts from now on because it just gets ideas down on paper and no one cares about the first draft as long as you do it. These last 2 weeks will be hectic, writing the final paper and balancing the other course’s works as well. Writing papers are shouldn’t be a problem but I know Pre-Cal is something to worry about :[

First off, I really enjoyed this debate seeing that education is among one of my favorite topics to discuss. However, attending this debate further made me realize how useless it is to debate, and that it doesn’t contribute to the general welfare of knowledge. What I saw was room full of people rooting for either Anya, or Siva. Personally, I thought both candidates were great and fairly concise in their judgment on education. The thing that shocked me in between the two is the fact that there own arguments possessed extreme amounts of similarity. For example, Anya’s idea of “Informal Education”, is essentially the same as Siva’s “Anarchistic Communities”. From what I got, Anya’s idea of “Informal Education” consisted of an education that is “Cut out for the real world”, or a liberal education. Siva’s “Anarchistic Communities” shared the same idea accept he utilized the notion that it was “Not controlled”. Essentially, they were just arguing over the fact that one was better than the other when they both were the same thing.

Something else interesting that Siva mentioned was a quote from Karl Marx that stuck in my head. “Everything is contingent, and everything is up to us”. I really like this quote because I think that it is very relative to us. Although Karl Marx is considered radical for his ideas, he has a point here; Education is contingent upon us! This could seem a little arbitrary but it’s true!

Something else that stood out to me was when a questioner referred to Paulo Friere and spoke about Market Fundamentalism and educational Fundamentalism. It seems a little clear now, but I would still like someone to clarify this and how it relates to education.

In the end, something I observed was that the moderator said “Lets have a Reflection”. I immediately thought about Jean Twenge because the moderator was trying to make the crowd feel good after that African American woman harshly sullied Siva. Lol =)