World Wide Web

While trying to figure out what I should write my post on today, I visited the usual sites like Yahoo! AOL, CNN, FOX, etc.  But I couldn't find anything I wanted to blog about.  Then I tried looking at some classmates blogs, commenting on a few, but I felt like a comment was sufficient in most cases and I didn't need to make a whole post on it.  Then I saw the "Next Blog" button in the upper left-hand corner of the screen, and I clicked it.  It took me to a random blog, which I would link but something made me think twice about it.
I understand that the internet is the world wide web and that blogs can be viewed anywhere, but I felt like some of the blogs I viewed should have been more private.  There were family pictures and details of how and where Thanksgivings were spent, and there were teachers posting pictures of their students who were in second grade.  I wonder if those students parents know that there children's pictures are on the internet... Seeing that made me realize how people really do have to be careful about what they post on the internet.  I found this picture and it made me laugh, but it is also pretty accurate.

Lies to Protect

Why do people to lie?  It's a simple question with many answers.  To cover something up, to protect someone, or even just for the heck of it.  In The Crucible, Elizabeth Proctor lies in order to protect her husband and his reputation, because she doesn't know that he has admitted to lechery. We talked a little bit about why people lie about a month ago in class, but it's not really a topic that goes away.  In the book, Elizabeth is the image of purity and a saint.  She forgave her husband for cheating on her, she knows the 10 Commandments perfectly, and, according to her husband, she can't tell a lie.  But then she does.  And her whole image of being a saint should shatter, but when I read about her lying, it made me think of her as an even better person.  She was willing to protect her husband over telling the truth and hurting him.  The truth hurts, it's true, but a good person isn't necessarily someone who always tells the truth.  I think the lie that Elizabeth told was a noble one because of the way that she put her husband first.  But then again, had she told the truth and said she had known of her husband's lechery, then the whole plot of book would have changed.  Her solid no-lying status wouldn't have changed, her husband had already admitted the lechery, and the court's ruling would have most likely changed.  So maybe the lie wasn't a good idea...

Yale's Elect

The other day, while we were going over some background information on the Puritans in a Power Point, we talked about predestination.  The Puritans believed in this concept created by John Calvin which claimed that it was determined whether a person would end up in heaven or not before birth.  The way it was made known to the people on Earth if a person was part of "God's Elect", or one predestined to go to heaven, was known as the conversion experience.  A person would literally get up in front of the congregation, or the people who were already chosen as part of God's Elect, and present an enlightenment experience.  Then the congregation would vote on whether the person's experience represented the person proving to be a saint, thus joining God's Elect.

DocOC brought up a very interesting point in the middle of this, he compared the conversion experience to the college application process.  And after thinking about it for a few days, it makes complete sense.  In every single college essay, a person is writing a story about themselves, trying to explain what separates them and makes them unique.  If their essay is "good enough" (as well as other things like grades and standardized test scores) then a person is accepted into the college.  It's much the same with the Puritans conversion experience.  The Puritans would tell a story, hoping it would spark something in the minds of God's Elect, in order to allow them to be "accepted" as an additional member of God's Elect.

It seems that today a majority of students I talk to have been told that it's necessary to get into the "right" or "best" college because that's what is going to make their lives easier as they get older.  I think that people also seem to think that a person who graduates from Yale is much more respected than a person who graduates from a community college.  This is probably very similar to what the Puritans were told, or what they saw: that the lives of people who were part of "God's Elect" were superior to those who weren't, and that they were given more social privileges, like sitting in the front pews at church.  The fact of the matter is that there is more than one "right" college so one college's admissions board shouldn't determine your future, and "God's Elect" was a group of people judging another human being to determine his or her fate.

$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.