Pop Culture 12/1

This weekend was, in a word, ridiculous. My family (my younger sister, mother, and older sister) "kidnapped" me and took me to Gatlinburg for two days---no cell phone reception, no computers, and LOTS of hormones. So here I am, arriving back at home, after experiencing a weekend DEVOID of all things current, hoping that my late pop culture post will still be accepted :(
For this to happen, however, I feel like I need to mention something pop-culture-y. Thus I will relate my feelings on a movie recently (I think?) put out...Cabin in the Woods. My boyfriend and I are both a little too anxious for our own goods--he, about things that might actually happen which could endanger us, and me, about the utterly theatrical and far-fetched. We chose this "scary" movie because, while we both had the inclination to watch a scary movie, we felt like this was more of a farcical scary movie than an actual scary movie. We used this logic and ventured forth. I think it turned out all-right. I was fine with the level of scary it was, but I am torn concerning the ending. Don't worry, no spoilers here, I'm just finicky about movie endings, and I'm just not certain this was the best fit. One of my thoughts was, "So this is what passes for 'Theatrical Cinematography' these days..."
Aw well, we got what we paid for, and had a fun time--I s'pose I have no room to nit-pick.

November 15

I hope the point of my paper comes across as being informative--proving that inequality still exists in the workplace for women in the entertainment industry. Although there are several top artists, producers, and directors in the business, they are far fewer in number, and far less respected as a whole, than their male counterparts. I will be utilizing an article as my primary source, and I will be capitalizing upon the author's point that although there are successful women in the entertainment industry, there are fewer of them, they are paid less, and they are less respected on the whole.

November 13

My organizational skills are somewhat lacking (meaning that I usually simply keep all of my online sources in my favorites bar and all of my copies of print sources on my desk, in no certain order). But I will say that the one method I carry with me, no matter WHAT, is that of an outline. In my experience, if I have an outline, I can organize my paper in my mind and be more emotionally prepared to write than in almost any other circumstance. I'm certain there are other ways that could work more efficiently, but I rely upon the outline more than anything.

November 10

This week has been crazy, since I have a new job, nannying. And with my household, they are just the side of politically correct. They are terribly comfortable with expressing their opinions, but they take care not to push their ideals onto those around them. But I got to thinking...these might be the first employers I have ever had who try to be politically correct.
Is our pop culture politically correct, or is it the move against being politically correct?
I know that while I try not to generally offend people around me, when it comes to acting and my close friends, I get too annoyed with political correctitude that I simply go for it, caring not whom I offend.
So, what is it? Politically correct, or not so?

November 8

I think it's fairly evident that we as a class will be using the researched essay method. We will be using this message, myself included, because it is the primary method of writing an essay based on research, and not persuasion. The example given was terrifically detailed, and so organizationally savvy. This is something like what I want to model my paper after, and not lay over into the areas of a narrative or persuasive speech.

Pop Culture

I have a question? What is the food of our decade? Or perhaps I should say our pop culture. Is it chinese?
I only ask because I'm eating Chinese...and I got to thinking about it. Which food is it that always makes it onto the silver screen, or into our homes during primetime?
(Americanized) Chinese food.
Hamburger--the ridiculously horrid movie from the 80s, Pretty Woman of the 90s, and New Girl from current pop culture all feature Chinese food scenes.
What do you guys think--Chinese food as the food of our culture?

Pop Culture, November 3

This week I got to rediscover a favorite Disney movie of mine, and one I quote quite frequently, The Aristocats!
I watch this movie and I always remember how great it was to lounge around eating Grandma's grilled cheeses and watching Disney movies all day and how much I have changed. Not only do I now spend my days up early working or in class, working during the day, and skyping way too late into the night, but I worry so much more than I did then.
Don't get me wrong, I didn't suddenly blossom into the worry wort I am today. I was a worry-wort child, as well. But now I feel like I am moving at the speed of light, and have no time to resolve the worries I have.
For the moment, I am going to enjoy watching one of my favorite movies, and I suppose I'll pick my worries back up in an hour and a half.

Pop Culture Oct. 27

This week I have been thinking about today's "pop culture" and I've become stuck on one question: what is our pop culture?
I mean, we can most of us clearly identify the icons of the 20s, 50, and 70s, but what will our icons be? Does anyone else feel like we are simply drawing from so many outlets that we have lost our pop culture identities?
I visited the costume shop of a different college and realized that the students working inside absolutely encompass some completely different fashion fads. One girl looks as if she's stepped from the 50s, one girl looks like a punk version of Pretty in Pink, and one guy looks like he stepped out of a poster I saw depicting Woodstock. Which one of these is our identity in 2012?
And did people in the 20s, 50s, and 70s, etc. have the same questions that I do?
What exactly is our style and will other cultures and generations recognize it?

Source

I found a source in the library, write it down, AND sent it to myself, and I still cannot find it. It was my inspiration for the thesis and I might be wiggin out the tiniest bit :/

Pop Culture

I'm currently on a babysitting gig and now that the chillins are asleep, I am free to blog and find something to watch on tv. Unfortunately, none of my options are appealing to me. It makes me wonder where the hilarious but well written dramas like M*A*S*H are hiding? And why can I not find the re-runs anywhere? Some of you reading this may have just wondered if maybe, this might not be the objective editorial on the changing trends in popular tv shows, but rather, a rant, isn't it? And if you were one of these people, you'd be right. I just want M*A*S*H back, man.

Citations: the Spiderselse of the Literary World

I don't know about anyone else, but I am not one who boasts of her love of spiders. They are icky, occasionally hard to deal with, and I try to avoid them. Which is odd, because I find myself saying the exact same thing about citations.
However, after putting myself in the position of being a plagiarized author, I realized that the only things I despised more than spiders were flies, especially of the slimy, plagiarizing variety.
So, just like spiders (who eat real flies for breakfast), citations allow us to capture the flies of plagiarizing in our web of in-text and footnote citations and prevent them from annoying us.

Pop Culture

Working in a restaurant, I hear pop music all day long and hardly ever end up turning my car radio any more. So when I do, I expect not to hear anything I know (because the pop music at work is between 6 months and a year old), and I am always surprised to realize that I still know a good majority of what is on. Does this mean that pop culture isn't all that relevant or that time just seems to move a little faster than we expect it to?

Pop Culture Post

"Yesterday, all my troubles seemed so far away..."

Whatever happened to intelligent cartoons? I am currently visiting my person in Huntsville and while lounging on the couch a Spiderman cartoon came on. What has happened to American cartoons?

I felt like I was watching a train wreck in slow motion--it was drawn out and helpless. I also have to ask, have cartoons become this asinine because viewers prefer dumbed down versions of  the archetypes we know and respond to, or is it because no one is watching any more and tv stations must now appeal to the low-intelligence, easy to grab audience members? Is this what many people enjoy? An I simply being too persnickity concerning my cartoon entertainment options? 

So many questions, so few answers.

Blog 10/4

I am not particularly blessed when it come to organization (which I realize is a skill rather than a natural ability), and I have to believe that I just have some good luck when it comes to finding sources. Know which words to put in a search engine or librart catalogue spent hurt though...
And as for the Shadow Stalker? He is not the reason people cheat. People will always cheat, if they want to do so. Shadow Stalker might be the way they accomplish their goal, but he's not the motivation to cheat as well.

"Feels Like the First Time"

Having come from a private university, being here at MTSU is a completely new experience. And I feel like what I took for granted there, what I skimped on (and of course, hindsight being 20/20, if I had to do it all over again, I'd give it my all) is what I feel like I'm putting more effort into now.
Sewanee is where I attended last year and, it being a liberal arts college, there's an artistic or cultural flare to everything we did, everywhere we went. I think that allowed me the freedom of exploration (and here I'm talking specifically about my writing), whereas MTSU has forced me to focus on the realities of a situation, and put the effort in the first go round.
So perhaps, rather than picking up a skill, I feel as if I'm learning how to apply myself more studiously, and do what I have to, even if it's not necessarily what I want to be doing.

Joyful Noise or Religious Cacophony?

It seems (to me) that more and more television shows and movies are centered around religion and spirituality. I have to wonder, does this mean that America is making a swing back to religion after its vacation to "demoralization-ville?"


(Quotation provided by pastor I met in passing at work, Farmis Johns.)

Johnson v. Stevens

Case Briefing

Parties: Steven Johnson (Defendant), Dana Stevens (Plaintiff)

Facts of Case: Steven Johnson, the defendant, argues that modern television makes you smarter. Dana Stevens, plaintiff, argues that Johnson is wrong (that he may have a misguided point or two, but that he is wrong).

Procedural History: The Court of General Opinion, sitting with a jury of modern society's ideologies, awarded plaintiff a judgement for the strength of her argument, and hence this appeal by Steven Johnson.

Legal Issue: Various points are discussed in the briefs, but to us the dominant and conspicuous inquiry in the case is, was the defendant, during the period of this transaction, an author of scientific theory, correct concerning his unusual thesis?

Reasoning/Analysis: The testimony of Ms. Stevens makes it manifest through credible evidence and strong counterpoints that Johnson was the author of false scientific theory in the full extent identified within his work, “Watching TV Makes You Smarter,” of the New York Times, and that her position, upon well-settled grounds of her feelings and opinion, required her to attest to the fact that Johnson is wrong via written rebuttal.


The services she rendered, in this instance, must be presumed to have been rendered in pursuance of her will, and for its performance she was met with support from the public.

Rule of Law: Society has heretofore shun the idea that television could be educational, thinking of it instead (generally) as a privilege, reward, waste of time, medium of entertainment. 

Holding: The judgement therefore must be that Dana Stevens is correct.

Blog for 9/13

I completely agree with the final idea within this piece of advice: the paper and argument you wish to write will never be as great on paper as it is in your mind. It may be because we lose focus easily, or because we are too inarticulate and have the problem of making an argument fully believable, but no matter the reason, the outcome is the same.
And I would like to say that my writing style alters and changes to yield more well-written, well-argued papers, but the truth is that my style alters very little, and is hardly affected by advice or ideas such as this.

9/11 Class Blog

I feel as if the idea behind Anne Lammott's ideas regarding students' first draft are a bit freeing in theory, but I simply cannot accomplish them in reality. I end up getting too caught up in errors to simply allow myself to keep pushing through a draft. It may be a crutch, but I depend on keeping things as structured and grammar-friendly as possibly to help get me through the paper. As for the sample? While rough (given, as it is a draft), I feel like the author had the evidence they needed to support their thesis.

Pop Culture Blog 2

   I don't know about a "pop-culture" experience as for this week, but I've experienced the effects pop-culture can have on a small town. Red Boiljng Springs is a small, sleepy little town. Located in north eastern Tennessee, and claiming less than 400 residents, this charming community thrives upon tourism to survive. Tourism, you ask? Well, as I have discovered this week, this town is also a historical landmark. RBS use to be a huge tourist attraction, home to sulfer springs and a billion hotels (this is an extreme exaggeration), it was very popular up until 1959.
   Now RBS is a run down town, overrun with historical enthusiasts and a generation of wangster wannabes. I traveled there for a car show and discovered that the new generation carries slider phones and sports MTV endorsed clothing labels. In a city that seems to be living half a century in the past, the twelve year olds in gang gear mar the landscape even more definitely.

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/04/24/magazine/24TV.html?pagewanted=1&_r=1

Hypothesis: Watching TV Makes You Smarter

     In his article, Watching TV Makes You Smater, Steven Johnson argues that instead of decreasing the brain function of its viewers, modern television is instead increasing cognitive brain function, thus making participants smarter. Mr. Johnson goes on to explain the Sleeper Curve theory to his audience. This hypothesized learning curve suggests that modern viewers demand more of television programs, and push to interact and involve themselves in the intricate movements of plot and theme within today's programs.
   Personally, I feel that Mr. Johnson, in his attempt to answer the question of whether or not humans are getting dumber, incorrectly identifies a pre-existing characteristic of the human learning and preservation process as a new method of learning and development.
   All species have come to understand that they must observe and adapt in order to preserve the continuation of their species. Learning to corretcly identify emotions and motives, and committing behavioral patterns to memory to formulate a pattern for predicting outcomes (or what Mr. Johnson is proposing modern television enables viewers to do) is a device humans have had for centuries. Modern television has simply become the newest classroom in which it can be observed and tested.
   In short, while I feel that Mr. Johnson has a good point (that modern television allows viewers to actively participate in the watching process), I feel that it is a well known one, not a revolutionary, scientific thought.

Oh Gosh! Just Now figuring all of this out...Pop Culture Encounter #1

I do apologize,
   I realize that it is now Tuesday morning, but I just recently (within the past hour) realized what all blogging assignments encompassed. I didn't quite understand what all we were suppose to have in and by which dates (but I now have them all in my google calendar, so maybe I can keep track...).
   My major pop-culture run-in of the week (ok, last week) occurred while watching Wall-E with my guy. It struck me that we are living in an age wherein it is plausible that two computers could manage a love match! In fact, developers were not only able to convince audience members to empathize with the robots' simulated emotions, but also completely ignore the fear of what might happen if robots were able to think and feel, and essentially outsmart the human race (now this is not to say that  can speak for all audience members, but one has to assume that, since there has been a large and positive response to the animation--).
   When I was a youngster, it was innovative to create a (Disney) world in which cats could sing and have adventures across Paris, even learning to play musical instruments and communicate with one another to plot revenge against (in my opinion) deserving humans.
   Does this mean our age is extending the grasp of our imaginations, or are we simply reapplying old techniques and thought processes to modern day relevancies?
   In short, is asking children to believe robots can feel more, less, or equally as far fetched as asking them to believe toys or singing cats can do the same?

Pop Culture

As far as reading for pop culture--do I post it here?

Pop culture is what we are experiencing and effects how we see and interpret everything in the world around us.
A skill that I have developed is cake baking and decorating. I am highly influenced by popular baking shows and websites of today, such as Cake Boss and websites like Pinterest.
I think that if I were living a hundred years ago and doing the same thing, I'd be looking at the Ladies' Home Journal or Prufert's Cakeing Tips into to gauge my level of proficiency and success.
Pop culture does affect us, and essentially, makes up a part of each of our personalities, regardless of our intentions.

Getting to Know...Me

   My name is Amanda Nellie Jane Wright. I am a transfer student this year; I am coming from Sewanee, University of the South. I came to MTSU because it was more affordable and accessible.
   A little bit about me...
       I have been doing musical theatre for 18 and 1/2 of my 19 years, I play the violin, I am learning to speak Russian and German (Russian because I am fascinated with the culture and German because one of my closest friends comes from Germany but studies here in the U.S.), and I'm looking to find my way into a business degree here at MTSU so that I may one day open my own bakery.
      My current playlist on my iPhone includes (but is not limited to) Vivaldi, Bach, the Black Keys, Linkin' Park, Mumford and Sons, Julie Andrews, Fiddler on the Roof Sountrack, Les Miserables Soundtrack, Weezer, Two Cellos, and the Cranberries.
      My current Hulu queue includes (but is not limited to) Monk, Once Upon a Time, Bunheads, Drop Dead Diva, Gossip Girl, New Girl, GCB, NCIS, 30 Rock, the Colbert Report, and Beverly Hills Nannies.