Social Media

The socially acceptable may not always be the socially acceptable. Major social media outlets as well as popular movies are overflowing with intelligent messages about current issues,  nothing like the radio as it sings on and on about getting high and fucking girls or the Victoria's Secret lingerie adds on every family's cable stream. It poses a question, for can these two opposing social media leaders be reflecting the same society? American society is bordered by extremes high and dipping lows. It encompasses the liberal and the conservative, the poor and the rich, and the everything in between. With this great divergence comes a price, though and that is that social media cannot cater to everyone's wants. Thus, certain outlets focus on certain types of people, maybe with the thought that the more people are loyal to it, the more the mindset required to agree with it spreads. In order to become popular, this mindset has to be adopted to some extent, and peer pressure continually knows at the individual until they either give in or go to a different social media outlet which shares their own mindset. And so, it is by this theory of expansion that one might argue that society is represented by social media as a whole, and not by the major social media outlets. Much like how entertainment attempts to encompass all of society with its genres of music and movies, social media does as well, but through conveying information via alternative mediums and mind sets. Thus, the socially acceptable to one person is not to the other, deeming the term socially acceptable to be fallacious.

   

Was emotional suppression the permament signature of wealth?

There was a certain coldness to the characters within Great Gatsby, this desperately insistent need for emotional suppression that by the time my fingers delicately held the last page, I felt as if my emotion had been wasted by someone who pushed on the accelerator too hard for too long and my emotion came out in the form of polluted air. It wove itself into the oxygen within Mr. Gatsby's lungs and he choked on the warmth of it because no icicle can keep itself from melting once the temperature has risen no matter how strong. It punctured his lungs as it fell, impaling his heart with the kind of dramatic flair that you only see at a badly done Shakespeare modern revival. Three days romances were never my thing, yet Gatsby intertwined his entire being with it except his Juliet wasn't willing to wait for him let alone to drink a potion so they could try to be together. No, Daisy faced Gatsby with the kind of coldness that splits you into two because you once knew what warmth was like and without it, you're lost (Fitzgerald 95, 96,145). Gatsby based his life around who Daisy used to be, resulting in his emotional well being being utterly dependent on the idea that he would have her once he actualized his wealth ( 78, 110). His emotional expressiveness was significantly higher than that of anyone within the book due to his depending on hope and other wealthy characters on the stoic coldness that wrapped their hearts in glistening ice cases like overpriced plastic wrap. With just a tug, some characters came unraveled such as Tom when Myrtle taunts him by saying Daisy over and over again (37). Others, like Daisy, could only be temporarily emotional after the building up of difficult situations involving people she cared for, specifically Gatsby (132) but in the face of emotionally traumatic events, she did not care (144). On the other hand, Myrtle is so open about her emotions that you would think her emotions were talking, not her thoughts and her husband has little emotional restraint if any. There seems to be this idea that the wealthy are emotionally suppressed and the poor emotionally out of control. Gatsby went from the poor and emotional to wealth without ridding himself of emotion, yet he became most successful through a business that required emotional suppression and extreme logic. Making his dream realistic is what made Gatsby fall because his emotion clouded his judgement so extremely that he sacrificed everything he'd ever worked for for a girl long gone. If Gatsby's dream of having Daisy wouldn't have been touched on the surface, he still would be financially successful because his emotions were still reserved since only Daisy could evoke them. In the end, it seemed that emotional suppression and coldness was the only way to maintain power because the more emotion someone held over you, the more they could control you which could result in financial and emotional loss. Being less emotional allowed for order, but it was the kind of order that was utterly revolting, like the beauty of a lethal disease. Gatsby died because he actualized his hope, and lost it. Being emotional killed him, and when Daisy became extremely cold at the end, it allowed her to save her marriage and move somewhere else without a hint of a bad reputation.

Wake Up, America

1. What is your definition of The American Dream? Describe some examples of people you know, have heard about, or have read about that have dreamed an American Dream.
Maybe it's how saying Dr. before a person's name immediately adds 100 points to their IQ level that used to make me think that the American Dream could only be achieved through hard work and a killer education, specifically a PhD. However, when I entered this realm called reality I found that that was a complete lie. My abuelos came from Mexico to the United States with a hundred dollars, rudimentary English, and a newborn baby that would grow up to be my mother. I'm sure the thought of how that happened would have horrified my abuelos had they not been so busy working. They found jobs in the jewelry industry at Foley's before they created their own jewelry business when my mom was a child. By the time I was born, they were making $200,000 a year, lived in a nice house, and still didn't have a degree higher than a high school diploma. It is from them that I learned that education isn't the key to success. It's hard work.That's until I met trust fund babies, who's sole job was not to work hard but to simply maintain the money. They were the nanny for their many dollar bills, and these dollar bills liked to go on vacation and buy nice clothes. But, with the nanny's kids came a lack of appreciation for where the money came from and so by the time they were old, the money was gone and the grandparent who worked hard to make the money was dead. Both the money and the relative were gone, one with the Earth.It was from this that I concluded that money was what kept the American Dream going and that a need for money is what gave the American Dream that initial push. Money that the current generation can spend and apply to their own lives came from an old relative who achieved the American Dream makes it that much more real in the mind of the new generations. This money directly affects us and we notice that, and when we're told that it's because of the American Dream, then the idea of the American Dream becomes real. And so, the American Dream is created, but whether it died or not is unknown because the idea of it lives on. I think the American Dream is that hard work can take you anywhere, but whether the American Dream is the American Reality is yet to be known.

ELA (Fall Semester 2014-2015)

ELA is my favorite class. It has just about everything I want in life: a good book, interesting discussions, the occasional laugh, and lots of writing. But, most of all, it makes me think critically. It makes me question my surroundings, instinctually analyze media, find deeper meaning in the world around me, and stay honest. This mindset of this class is very straight forward, which I like. The books we have read this year have not been so straight forward, but that allows for the novels to let us personally invest time thinking and debating about them both within our minds and with our fellow peers. Seminar wise, I think that there are a select few who talk so much that everyone else either a) feels like they can't follow b) is intimidated or c) is anxious enough at the mere idea of speaking, let alone doing it while trying to bud in between two dominating folks. As someone who tends to be a bit overbearing and way too talkative, I try and step back from the seminar to allow for others to speak. I like that we are proactively pursuing individuals who speak less but this is utterly unnatural for those who are called upon considering that people tend to speak if they have something to say. I think that the individuals who choose not to speak or feel as if they cannot are just as much to blame as those who are unaware and talk too much. With both of these parties actively and effectively communicating how they feel, both parties can be satisfied. In terms of blog posts, I'm just bad at those. It's not the class, it's me. Vocabulary needs help in my opinion. I think that having a announcement about a quiz a week before would really help because personally, I often turn in my vocab the day before or day of the quiz and only upon reading the assignment am I informed that I do, in fact, have a quiz. If there was an announcement or a separate assignment for it that ran biweekly or weekly, that would be AWESOME. Besides that, ELA has been great(z

R2D2

1. Discuss how the trauma that Art Speigelman's father experienced in the Holocaust trickled down into Art's life as the son of a Holocaust survivor.

Considering that Art's father beautifully fit the Jewish sterotype, it was no wonder that Art seemed to encompass the exact opposite of the stereotype. Art seems to have analyzed his father's ways and decided to never possess those traits for himself. As a result, he is nothing like his father and yet, somewhat similar. Both of them possess that same stubbornness and passion, but they direct towards different things. They both complain a lot, but about different things. Perhaps this could be said of most humans, but I am not sure. Both Art and his father maintain simple lives. Art lives a simple life, and he seems to value that because of his father's experiences. He is grateful for having food, a bed to sleep in, and a person to share his life with but not to the extreme his father does. I think that part of why Art chose to pursue a career in art was not just because of his father but because he saw how trivial material things are and how short life is so he decided to pursue what made him happy even if it didn't bring him that great of a paycheck.

Illustrations .vs. Text: Maus

1. Art Spiegelman has chosen to tell a very sad and serious story in a form that is not often associated with this kind of story telling (illustration). Do you think the use of illustration as opposed to just written text is an effective way of delivering this story? Why or why not?

 I think the illustrations provide a comic relief that would be unattainable to the reader if the book had been expressed purely with words. Had Spiegelman chosen to write this tale of his father's life in words, he wouldn't be able to control the images in our mind to the extent he does and the seemingly unbearable sadness that would trace every word. The illustrations and the horrific events balance each other out and Spiegelman from here is able to tip the scale to play with our emotions however he wants. It's brilliant, actually, but kind of scary.

Symbolism (And Other Pretty Things)

I wonder what I am supposed to whisper to myself before I go to sleep to make the voices go away.

“It's going to be okay,” I'll say, but I'm not so sure. I don't know what comforting quote to recite over and over again. It reminds me of the first couple lines of my memoir that I wrote a couple months ago.

“What’s the point? At the end of the day, I’m still under the covers clutching my polar bear sheets with supposedly iron fists but truth be told, I’m just a butterfly pinned to some pretty piece of paper in an overpriced glass case waiting for someone to set me free but that’s never going to happen and I’m still sitting here, smiling.”

No one interpreted it right. It reminds me of the rain droplets staining my window, their beauty the cause of the endless conjectures of symbolism.

“It's just rain,” I'll mutter to myself, turning to yet another TV screen for a way to block out reality.

But, every once in a while something like The Alchemist comes along and I'll wonder what if symbolism isn't just pretty bullshit but something real, something I can grip with my hands? What if symbolism isn't just another idea that gives people like me a thousand potential realities to contemplate? I wonder.