In class this week we have been going over Modernism and Postmodernism. An idea of postmodernism that we discussed more in depth was corporate space. The name is pretty much self explanatory. As postmodernist humans we have allowed business and networks to control our own personal space. Everything we do and everywhere we go is all controlled by corporate space. I feel so oblivious to the whole idea, it never had really crossed my mind.
The light bulb in my brain immediately went on, the whole realization of corporate space has just made me think about my surroundings so much more. Every piece of clothing I wear has the name of the company somewhere on it. My iPhone is corporate space. I am connected through so many different networks that are controlled by businesses like Apple. What is sad to me is that it has taken me 18 years to realize that I am just a walking advertisement. Everything I do and say has all been a result of a corporation. It is just how people are raised. No one ever even knows that they are being raised in a certain way controlled by a large network. Maybe once you are older, but by that time you have already been brain washed.
This whole idea brings me back to free will. In Sophie's World we discussed not having free will based on nature, or a god. In postmodernism, free will is based on networks and corporations. The whole idea of fashion and what people wear is a perfect example of the lack of free will. People want to wear whatever the models are wearing, and all models are just advertising the biggest designer names. So when girls go to a store, they look for something that looks like what the models are wearing. We think we are choosing our own clothes and our own style, but really we are just designing ourselves to be the way corporations want us to be. Even slang terms like "swag" or "yolo" has become a way of advertising. Companies take advantage of unaware teenagers and put these words into TV shows and movies. Without even realizing it, we are using these terms in our everyday life. We think we're saying whatever we want to whoever we want on our own time, by choice. Meanwhile, there is a business making loads of money off of these words, who could care less about your free will.
I could say that I'm going to be more aware of what I am doing and how I am being used as corporate space, but I won't. I know that I am 18 years too late to try and change the only way of life that I know. I can't even think of where to begin to change. This is the reality of the world, and this is how we have created it to be. So while I'm sitting here frustrated about corporate space, everyone else continues their daily routine having no clue what they are really doing with their lives. Or the reality, what corporations have chosen them to do with their lives.
Sunday, February 10, 2013
Monday, January 28, 2013
Connections: Time Traveler's Wife
In class we are reading "Einstein's Dreams." So far I have enjoyed the different ideas that the author makes you think about. One idea that stood out to me was people being transported back in time. Not the cliche version of that, but a more realistic view of what it is. The guy being transported back in time is quiet and hidden, but watches everything happen all over again, trying not to disrupt the past.
This idea further elaborates how much tiny things can affect our future. For example, if I wouldn't have sneezed a week ago, I wouldn't have wasted time I could have used for other things. It can be one second situations that have the ability to alter everything. Life literally happens by the millisecond. It all happens so fast that none of us have even thought of how a sneeze or an itch has affected our lives.
One of the first things I thought of after reading was the movie "The Time Traveler's Wife." Probably one of my top five favorite movies. The movie is about how a guy travels back in time for every event that has been the most important in his life. It isn't really by choice, it's some kind of gene disorder and he just disappears in his present day life to travel back to past events. This later creates problems with his wife, who met the time traveler when she was 6 years old. She met the grown up version of him, on accident, and he would visit her every week until she was a teenager and had to leave for school.
The time traveler, Henry, is the guy that is hidden behind the scenes re-living his life over again. Moments he wants to change and moments he doesn't wanna change. He has to swim through the river, only to be swimming back to where he started. Thinking of time travel in a way like Henry went through is more realistic. It is the realistic moments or realizations that I have is what helps me understand a concept even more. Being able to somehow apply what I'm learning to thoughts I have thought of before, or movies I have seen is cool. I feel some sort of accomplishment for being able to do so. What I am enjoying the most, so far, are the constant connections I am making while reading. It is not just this chapter I have connected with. I find some connection in all the chapters.
This idea further elaborates how much tiny things can affect our future. For example, if I wouldn't have sneezed a week ago, I wouldn't have wasted time I could have used for other things. It can be one second situations that have the ability to alter everything. Life literally happens by the millisecond. It all happens so fast that none of us have even thought of how a sneeze or an itch has affected our lives.
One of the first things I thought of after reading was the movie "The Time Traveler's Wife." Probably one of my top five favorite movies. The movie is about how a guy travels back in time for every event that has been the most important in his life. It isn't really by choice, it's some kind of gene disorder and he just disappears in his present day life to travel back to past events. This later creates problems with his wife, who met the time traveler when she was 6 years old. She met the grown up version of him, on accident, and he would visit her every week until she was a teenager and had to leave for school.
The time traveler, Henry, is the guy that is hidden behind the scenes re-living his life over again. Moments he wants to change and moments he doesn't wanna change. He has to swim through the river, only to be swimming back to where he started. Thinking of time travel in a way like Henry went through is more realistic. It is the realistic moments or realizations that I have is what helps me understand a concept even more. Being able to somehow apply what I'm learning to thoughts I have thought of before, or movies I have seen is cool. I feel some sort of accomplishment for being able to do so. What I am enjoying the most, so far, are the constant connections I am making while reading. It is not just this chapter I have connected with. I find some connection in all the chapters.
Sunday, December 9, 2012
Blogging Around
Nicole (Best of Week: Diogenes)
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She talks about Diogenes, a guy who inspires her. She goes on further to talk about how he believes everyone should be able to be happy without money or material things.
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I have never heard of this guy before. After reading your blog, I went and looked him up. I found I enjoyed him as well, he's definitely someone I'll have to further look into. I totally agree with you. Materialism does seem to be something common among people that is stereotyped as something required to be happy. I will openly admit that I am, sadly, one of those people. I believe that it's the environment you grow up in is what makes you how you act. Living in the Northshore for a majority of my life, its hard not to want nice things when everyone else has them and you see how happy they are. I just want the same happiness that they have. I think the man living in the barrel should be an example of how everyone should view life. Wouldn't that be nice.
Dede (Captured Thought: Driving Without Direction)
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She explains how she wishes she was able to be alone and get away some place. Just driving and not having to worry about anything.
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I can 100% relate to what you are describing in your blog. I think a lot of teenagers feel that way. Life just gets too stressful and you want to get away. Numerous times have I found myself driving everywhere, even if it's 4 hours away. Nobody else wants to drive. Sometimes I hate it and sometimes I don't mind. When I got my first car I was the same way. Always wanted to drive, but gas prices have also slowed me down. I hate spending money. Especially when my car doesn't get any gas. I'm sure one day in the next 5 years you'll drive off somewhere. Maybe not even with a destination in mind. It's the best when your mind leads you to some place you would have never thought of on your own.
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She talks about Diogenes, a guy who inspires her. She goes on further to talk about how he believes everyone should be able to be happy without money or material things.
--------------------------------------------------------
I have never heard of this guy before. After reading your blog, I went and looked him up. I found I enjoyed him as well, he's definitely someone I'll have to further look into. I totally agree with you. Materialism does seem to be something common among people that is stereotyped as something required to be happy. I will openly admit that I am, sadly, one of those people. I believe that it's the environment you grow up in is what makes you how you act. Living in the Northshore for a majority of my life, its hard not to want nice things when everyone else has them and you see how happy they are. I just want the same happiness that they have. I think the man living in the barrel should be an example of how everyone should view life. Wouldn't that be nice.
Dede (Captured Thought: Driving Without Direction)
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She explains how she wishes she was able to be alone and get away some place. Just driving and not having to worry about anything.
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I can 100% relate to what you are describing in your blog. I think a lot of teenagers feel that way. Life just gets too stressful and you want to get away. Numerous times have I found myself driving everywhere, even if it's 4 hours away. Nobody else wants to drive. Sometimes I hate it and sometimes I don't mind. When I got my first car I was the same way. Always wanted to drive, but gas prices have also slowed me down. I hate spending money. Especially when my car doesn't get any gas. I'm sure one day in the next 5 years you'll drive off somewhere. Maybe not even with a destination in mind. It's the best when your mind leads you to some place you would have never thought of on your own.
Monday, November 19, 2012
A Tribute to Aristotle: Get Organized
I woke up for school one morning and noticed how I was out of clothes to wear. I was digging through my dirty laundry piles to find the cleanest shirt. I did the smell check on three shirts that I picked out. I found a winner that I was about to put on, but I noticed a huge coffee stain on the side. When I looked at a couple more shirts they were either too wrinkly or stained.
It dawned on me that I should probably wash my clothes. I didn't have time before school, so I grabbed a sweatshirt and decided it had to wait until after school. Later that day when I got back home from school, it was laundry time!
I picked up all my clothes from the floor and threw them all into a basket. I brought the basket down to my laundry room and separated my white clothes and my dark clothes. After I put the first load in the washing machine I waited 50 minutes, switched the first load into the dryer, then put the second load into the washing machine. When both loads were done I brought the basket of clothes up to my room and started folding my laundry.
Instead of throwing all my clothes randomly into my drawers I decided to organize how my clothes are put away. Normally I would have clothes hanging off my chair and thrown in my closet, but I had the determination to organize each drawer. I took out a piece of paper and wrote down what each drawer should be and tapped it to my dresser. If I didn't do this I would easily forget where everything would be.
After everything had a drawer, I organized my clothes into piles. I put each pile into their corresponding drawer and felt accomplished because my room was clean and now everything had a place.
Friday, November 9, 2012
Best of Week: True Knowledge
In class this week we have gone into in-depth analysis about the book Sophie's World. One of the ideas we discussed was the idea of true knowledge. The philosopher Plato believed "we can never have true knowledge of anything that is in a constant state of change" (Gaarder 86-87). We can only have opinions about things, or what are senses perceive. Plato also states "we can only have true knowledge of things that can be understood with our reason" (87). Reasoning would be something not defined by your senses.
At first I thought that the idea of true knowledge that Plato had was contradictory. I feel like every idea or object starts out as something that is in a constant state of change, and then becomes something understood with reasoning. In the book they use the examples of Math and a rainbow as comparison for reason. The simple math of 2+2=4 is considered reasoning, but there had to been several different states of change that the idea of math even went through to get where it is today. I am unsure if I agree with Plato, though he is a great philosopher, I believe that our senses and being in a constant state of change is what brings about creativity in the mind to have the ability to make an idea reasonable.
On the flip side, I can see where this philosophy of Plato's comes from. He has given me a different perspective for knowledge. I always viewed knowledge is a measure of how much you know in general. In my definition of knowledge senses were included. I think back to all the times I have argued with my brother about an item. Every time we fight, he always thinks he is right because he's the more knowledgeable person. For example,we were fighting about cars. He was telling me that our mom's black Acura was classier than our neighbors white Acura. My brother started spewing facts about how white becomes dirty easily and owners are less likely to take care of the car. I disagreed strongly, but fighting with him was useless. At the time I thought that since he did know about cars more than I did, maybe he was more knowledgeable about the whole situation overall. Looking back on it now, his opinions and his senses are what drove his argument for what was better on a car. He wasn't exemplifying knowledge, although he tried to make it seem like that by giving me "facts."
Overall, I enjoyed the reading on true knowledge as well as learning about it more in class. Ever since learning about it, I have been more aware of Plato's philosophy and trying to see if other people are also confused by the definition of knowledge. In general just the short reading in the book has opened by mind up a little bit and has me questioning things or conversations I have had, trying to find connections in my everyday life. Plato has guided me (sort of) to a new way of divergent thinking and really asking questions and analyzing what is really important.
At first I thought that the idea of true knowledge that Plato had was contradictory. I feel like every idea or object starts out as something that is in a constant state of change, and then becomes something understood with reasoning. In the book they use the examples of Math and a rainbow as comparison for reason. The simple math of 2+2=4 is considered reasoning, but there had to been several different states of change that the idea of math even went through to get where it is today. I am unsure if I agree with Plato, though he is a great philosopher, I believe that our senses and being in a constant state of change is what brings about creativity in the mind to have the ability to make an idea reasonable.
On the flip side, I can see where this philosophy of Plato's comes from. He has given me a different perspective for knowledge. I always viewed knowledge is a measure of how much you know in general. In my definition of knowledge senses were included. I think back to all the times I have argued with my brother about an item. Every time we fight, he always thinks he is right because he's the more knowledgeable person. For example,we were fighting about cars. He was telling me that our mom's black Acura was classier than our neighbors white Acura. My brother started spewing facts about how white becomes dirty easily and owners are less likely to take care of the car. I disagreed strongly, but fighting with him was useless. At the time I thought that since he did know about cars more than I did, maybe he was more knowledgeable about the whole situation overall. Looking back on it now, his opinions and his senses are what drove his argument for what was better on a car. He wasn't exemplifying knowledge, although he tried to make it seem like that by giving me "facts."
Overall, I enjoyed the reading on true knowledge as well as learning about it more in class. Ever since learning about it, I have been more aware of Plato's philosophy and trying to see if other people are also confused by the definition of knowledge. In general just the short reading in the book has opened by mind up a little bit and has me questioning things or conversations I have had, trying to find connections in my everyday life. Plato has guided me (sort of) to a new way of divergent thinking and really asking questions and analyzing what is really important.
Monday, October 29, 2012
Metacognition: "Creativity, Please" Essay
In class we had to write an essay about a class we felt needed more creativity. When I first heard the assignment, I thought it would be hard and I wasn't 100% sure what I wanted to write about. The more I thought about it, I realized my Math class was the class that lacked the most creativity. The main thing that stuck out to me about Pre-Calculus was that we didn't do anything outside of checking homework and taking notes about the lesson. I think the class lacks originality.
Writing my essay, I did not have a particular plan in mind. I wasn't sure how I would even go about beginning writing this. I'm not used to classes giving me a good amount of freedom when it comes to writing. Up until this point, all my English paper assignments have been so structured. Planning has always been something I've wanted to work on in my writing. I kind of feel like its almost a fault and I manage to go on all kinds of tangents and rants that don't necessarily have anything to do with what I am trying to say.
Though my planning is something I don't like, I enjoy being able to freely type without a specific plan in mind. What I should do after freely writing is creating a plan from that and revising to make my paper better. Writing freely is relaxing to me and does not make me feel as stressed about writing an essay or a report. I like writing for the most part and I hate how stressful school makes writing.
The one thing that surprises me about my thought process for essays is how quickly time flies when I am working on something. Sitting and thinking about writing makes time go by so slow, but when I actually start typing words onto a word document, it is like I'm typing at a page a second. Once something clicks in my head, I love how I can just go off with thoughts and figure out what I want to say. It is even better when I'm in a mood to write, then time goes even faster.
Writing my essay, I did not have a particular plan in mind. I wasn't sure how I would even go about beginning writing this. I'm not used to classes giving me a good amount of freedom when it comes to writing. Up until this point, all my English paper assignments have been so structured. Planning has always been something I've wanted to work on in my writing. I kind of feel like its almost a fault and I manage to go on all kinds of tangents and rants that don't necessarily have anything to do with what I am trying to say.
Though my planning is something I don't like, I enjoy being able to freely type without a specific plan in mind. What I should do after freely writing is creating a plan from that and revising to make my paper better. Writing freely is relaxing to me and does not make me feel as stressed about writing an essay or a report. I like writing for the most part and I hate how stressful school makes writing.
The one thing that surprises me about my thought process for essays is how quickly time flies when I am working on something. Sitting and thinking about writing makes time go by so slow, but when I actually start typing words onto a word document, it is like I'm typing at a page a second. Once something clicks in my head, I love how I can just go off with thoughts and figure out what I want to say. It is even better when I'm in a mood to write, then time goes even faster.
Thursday, October 11, 2012
Blogging Around
Bianca's Blog: It Matters/Born Into Brothels
She talked about the sex trade as well as the spread of HIV throughout India. She also mentioned a group that was working to give protection to prostitutes to prevent an HIV epidemic.
I agree with everything you are saying. The movie was very sad to watch and it makes you start to wonder what you could do, or makes you want to find out more information about it. Although it's an issue that should be eliminated from the world, it probably won't. It's a sad but realistic truth. There are too many screwed up people on our planet and actually enjoy harming girls and prostitutes. No matter what a person has done in their life no one should have to be treated badly. HIV is serious and the group you talked about has good intentions but what makes the group believe protection will actually be used? I also agree that is messed up that they don't tell them they are HIV positive. I think anybody and everybody has a right to know about their health.
Ashley's Blog: It Matters/Divergent Thinking for the Upcoming Election of 2012
In this blog she talks about the upcoming presidential election and the lack of knowledge the candidates have for linear thinking and divergent thinking. She also goes into wanting schools to be more convergent in teaching kids.
I believe both Obama and Romney know linear thinking and divergent thinking. They are too great of men to not realize these ideas and are far too intelligent to not think that far ahead. You brought up good points. Neither president has mentioned changing the way schools are taught in America and I, along with you, agree that education needs to be less convergent. At this point in the election the candidates only care about who they can convince that they will make the schools better. I don't think either candidate has a very specific plan for changing how children are taught in America. It's not on the forefront of their minds, which is ok, because there are worse things to worry about in our economy.
She talked about the sex trade as well as the spread of HIV throughout India. She also mentioned a group that was working to give protection to prostitutes to prevent an HIV epidemic.
I agree with everything you are saying. The movie was very sad to watch and it makes you start to wonder what you could do, or makes you want to find out more information about it. Although it's an issue that should be eliminated from the world, it probably won't. It's a sad but realistic truth. There are too many screwed up people on our planet and actually enjoy harming girls and prostitutes. No matter what a person has done in their life no one should have to be treated badly. HIV is serious and the group you talked about has good intentions but what makes the group believe protection will actually be used? I also agree that is messed up that they don't tell them they are HIV positive. I think anybody and everybody has a right to know about their health.
Ashley's Blog: It Matters/Divergent Thinking for the Upcoming Election of 2012
In this blog she talks about the upcoming presidential election and the lack of knowledge the candidates have for linear thinking and divergent thinking. She also goes into wanting schools to be more convergent in teaching kids.
I believe both Obama and Romney know linear thinking and divergent thinking. They are too great of men to not realize these ideas and are far too intelligent to not think that far ahead. You brought up good points. Neither president has mentioned changing the way schools are taught in America and I, along with you, agree that education needs to be less convergent. At this point in the election the candidates only care about who they can convince that they will make the schools better. I don't think either candidate has a very specific plan for changing how children are taught in America. It's not on the forefront of their minds, which is ok, because there are worse things to worry about in our economy.
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