$20 Thermos?

The other day in American Studies, Mr. Bolos mentioned a website that we could go to if we didn't want to see all the annoying ads that are omnipresent on every website on the Internet.  I was thinking about going to check it out, but the particular website is only usable on Google Chrome or Firefox, and my computer doesn't support either of those browsers.  The idea of ad-blocking made me think of a few weeks ago, when an ad on the side of the site had been helpful.

I was on my Facebook, like the typical teen who needs to procrastinate.  I was just scrolling through my News Feed when, on the side of the screen, there was an ad for a water bottle.  I had seen this water bottle before because my friend had one, and she had been trying to get me to buy one.  Unfortunately for her, the water bottle costs $20, and being a person who doesn't like to spend a lot of money, I just laughed at the thought of spending so much on a water bottle.  I already have perfectly good water bottles at home, ones that only cost $5.  But for some reason, when I saw the ad on the side of the screen, I decided to click on it.

The link sent me to a page on Target.com.  And what do you know, I got hooked on the water bottle and bought one.  It is now the only thing I use. I put ice water in it before bed, and when I wake up in the morning, there is still ice!  It's incredible.  And here I am, someone who always complains about the ads I see everywhere, but for once, they did what they were supposed to do and encouraged me to buy a product.

Meta-Post

As I went back and read all of the blog posts that I have written this year I realized how much I actually enjoy blogging.  It gives me the incentive to look into current events and to dig deeper and make connections from discussions in class to my daily life.  I think that my enthusiasm towards blogging is shown in the range of blog topics I have had.  I have gone from race to politics to oral histories to analyzing pictures.  A variety in my blog post types has, in my opinion, been a strength of mine because I am exploring multiple paths that I wouldn't have if the topics hadn't been discussed in class.

I think that my writing style can be a little bit predictable because I seem to start off each blog with, "In American Studies this week..." or something along those lines.  My last two posts have held off on the connection to AIS in order for my posts to have some sort of hook to draw the reader in.  I think that is something I can continue to work on, even though it seems small, I think that a post becomes much more interesting and fun to read without a standard "what we did this week" introduction.

Another thing I need to work on is leaving my blog posts open-ended so that somebody else can respond and offer an opinion.  I have been trying to avoid using the ask a question method at the end of each post, but it's not really such an awful thing to do, and it's hard to end each post with an open-ended statement.  I think I did manage to do that in my post, "The Way She Was".  I was happy that I was able to present two sides to a topic that I was having trouble with as well as my opinion, but at the same time I must have left enough room for people to take the opposite stance.  This is shown by the comments on the post, when people said that they agreed but then also showed how taking the other point of view on the topic wouldn't necessarily be a bad thing.

In my opinion, the post that most represents my growth as a blogger thus far is Green Eggs & Ham.  I was proud of the way that I connected race to a childhood book as well as to an article that appeared on my Yahoo! e-mail homepage.  I don't think that I provided an arguable topic, but I think I left enough room for people to add their own opinions, because I had two commenters who agreed with me, but then added how they felt how the topic effects their own lives, or further justification.

My Diptych

I'm not a very creative person, but I decided to attempt to create my own diptych using images from the Internet.  In AIS this week, one of the things we did in class was to look at a diptych by Josiah Priest.  (A diptych is two pictures side-by-side).  One side of his diptych was captioned, "THE NEGRO IN HIS OWN COUNTRY" and the other "THE NEGRO IN AMERICA."  In class we made observations, inferences based on the observations, and then we justified our thinking based on observations.  I had a lot of fun coming up with inferences and then proving them with Priest's diptych, and I think it's fascinating to to try and figure out what the artist was thinking when creating the diptych.  So I thought I would try diptychs from the other side and try to be the creator...  I chose my images carefully, so hopefully my point comes across!

Right above this is my diptych.  If you can't read it, the title at the bottom says "my seasons."







Here is the diptych that we looked at in class by Josiah Priest.

"Green Eggs & Ham"?

As I was checking my e-mail today, one of the news stories that appeared was that a Florida company is introducing "red celery."  My immediate reaction was that it's disgusting.  I can't imagine eating ants on a red log, (that's celery with peanut butter and raisins for those who were deprived of this tasty childhood snack) or seeing red celery in my tuna fish salad at lunch.  The red celery is supposed to hit supermarkets in early December, in order to have a holiday appeal, which I don't completely understand, because green is already a holiday color.  Then again, neither red nor green is festive for any winter holiday other than Christmas.

The idea of red celery brought to mind a favorite Dr. Seuss book from when I was younger, Green Eggs & Ham.  In the book, the character Sam is trying to get a friend to taste the green eggs and ham.  The friend claims to not like them, and he won't try them "here, or there, or anywhere."  His mind was made up even before giving the food a chance.  But at the end of the book, he ultimately ends up trying the green eggs and ham, because Sam wears him down enough to the point of exasperation.  And, to the surprise of the friend, but not to Sam, he likes green eggs and ham!

All of the colors made me think of American Studies, and how we specifically looked at the difference between black, white, brown, red, and yellow, and how each of them seem to correspond to a different race.  It ties in perfectly with our study of Frederick Douglass and slavery, and how just because the slaves were a different race, they were forced into slavery.  And they were a different race, because their skin was a different color.  It's that same idea of not liking a food that isn't its "normal" color.  The white people thought that white was "the norm" and anything different was inferior.  Just like I immediately thought that red celery would be way worse than green celery, despite the fact that the article said that red celery tastes the same and has the same "crunch" as green celery.

It's all in your head.  Green Eggs & Ham is proof that just because something is a different color, doesn't mean it's any different.

Not Synonymous

In American Studies last week, Doc Oc mentioned how annoyed he gets when people interchange two words that are really, completely different.  He was referring to the difference between intelligence and being well-educated.  As I thought about it, I realized I agreed with him, and I decided to see what the dictionary said.  According to the Oxford English Dictionary, the definition of intelligence is, "the ability to acquire and apply knowledge and skills."  The definition of well-educated is, "having or showing a high level of education." 

So having intelligence means that a person has the "ability" to learn skills and knowledge and then use them.  And well-educated means that a person has been taught at a high level of education, an example being that a well-educated person has been through college.  It seems to me that a person who is intelligent has most likely been well-educated, but a person who is well-educated is not necessarily intelligent.  Just because a person went to college doesn't mean that he or she uses and applies what he or she learned there.  

It reminds me of how when I was younger I would tell my sister, who is four years younger than I am, that I was smarter than her just because I could do a harder math problem.  But she would always tell me that it wasn't true or fair because I had learned it in school and she hadn't yet.  She would say that if she had learned it she could have done it, too.  I guess that makes her the more intelligent one, because she realized the difference.

This One Time at Band Camp...

In AIS this week we have been talking a lot about race and how to determine race.  We have talked for multiple days and still don't have a solid answer, if that's even possible.  One of the possible ways to determine race that we came up with was "area that a person is from."  We categorized this as being from a continent or a country like "European" or "French."  In the world, people from the United States tend to be viewed as Americans, generally with a negative connotation.  But within the United States there are clearly multiple regions, and each region has different attributes and characteristics.

The summers after fourth and fifth grade I went to a fine arts camp for playing the flute.  I remember how on the first day I was so nervous.  I had a few friends with me, so I wasn't too worried about making friends.  But I had heard other friends at home talk about camp friends and all of the great times that they had with them and how much fun they were, and I wanted that kind of experience.  So I started to go around and talk to some other kids, while my mom went to go talk to a counselor or another parent.  I went up to this one girl, we exchanged names (I don't remember hers), and then she asked where I was from, just as her mom walked up behind her.  I explained that I was from the Northern Suburbs of Chicago.  There was no way that the mom or the girl would have known if I hadn't said it.  I wasn't dressed differently because we had to wear a uniform, I didn't have any fancy electronics with me, I looked like a normal fourth grader.  But as soon as I said the North Shore, the girl's mom looked me up and down and then told her daughter that she wasn't allowed to talk to me.

I didn't ever find out where she was from, I didn't even fully understand what had happened.  I still haven't really come to terms with the fact that the North Shore can have be viewed so negatively, to the point that a woman wouldn't let her daughter talk to me because I'm from here.