Argumentative

Reality Television...what the heck do you really say about it?

I first decided what I was going to talk about when we discussed Reality Television in class. It was the most lively class discussion we've ever had. When everyone was discussing the shows they watched, it was most interesting to see their faces light up with knowledge and joy when the person next to them felt the same way about a particular character. Even Ms. Sisneros was more lit up than usual when discussing who she liked and who she hated on particular shows, or about the shows themselves. She became less "Ms. Sisneros" and more "Gloria"...there's an equalizing quality to television, including reality. That's why politicians always like to answer questions about what shows they watch (John McCain joked he wanted Dwight Schrute to be his running mate for the 2009 campaign), but when you ask them about domestic policy, suddenly they become a little more professional and suddenly less human.

Listening to that conversation formed the entire basis for what I wanted to discuss in my paper. I noticed the people in class talked about these people they'd never met like they were best friends, picking apart their likes and dislikes about a certain person, gossiping about them like the RTV star was included in their circle. Also, people who had never talked to eachother in class, who might have had nothing in common, were talking and laughing about the RTV they watched. This one class discussion showed me how RTV brought people together falsely and brough people together for realsies. (This isn't my paper; "for realsies" is totally appropriate!) Then, I had to contend that into my prompt, which is "What does reality TV show us about our culture?" And I made the observation that people are more relational than ever!

I didn't get to put it into my paper, but further evidence of this hyper-relationism existed in my own life through one source: Facebook. When writing the paper, I checked Facebook 7 times before I had typed to the bottom of the page. WHY? Because I needed to know the up-to-date knowledge on everything happening in my friend's lives. That part about the Bachelor bringing mothers and daughters together? I know this for a fact because talking about the Bachelor via Facebook helped my sister and my mother heal their broken relationship, even just a little bit. In fact, over The Bachelor, a conversation enveloped over Facebook that spanned several days and me, my mom, my sister, my grandmother, my second cousin, her mother, and several other male members of my family. That's the most my family and I have ever actually spoken on days that weren't holidays. And we have The Bachelor to thank for it. Likewise, my grandmother joined Facebook last year to "keep in contact with the young ones" and for the first time in my life, acutally bought me a Christmas present that targeted my specific interests, which she didn't know until she spoke to me often over Facebook. They (a set of beautifully carved measuring spoons) were my favorite Christmas present that year.

So much I couldn't put into my paper. :( Anyway, back to the real task:

I most enjoyed Hasinoff's article because I thought it was "less academic sounding" than the others. I watched ANTM and I'd seen cycle 6, the one in which Southern Danielle is told to change her accent. She sounded like a fan, and I was a fan, so she seemed less like a stuffy academic. She used names like "Tyra" "Miss Jay" "Mr. Jay" when speaking about the show's judges. Dixon wrote his paper like the stuffy academic. Ty Pennington was "Pennington" instead of "Ty." While I intially agreed more with his argument than Hasinoff's, the connection she made with me overpowered my own opinion, if that makes since. I was more swayed by her article.

So then I set down to write my paper, and it was actually a pretty difficult one to write. The thesis was messy; I ended up chopping point 2 out all together and re-organizing it with points 1 and 3. Once I did that, I think I made it a little easier to write because I was writing more of my own personal conviction rather than writing for the overly-academic reason.

And it turned out pretty well.

Rhetorical Analysis

Telling other people they're wrong.

Um, yeah, I can do that.

I'm a freelance editor. What that means is: I liked good writing, so I became a writer. I was a writer, but I realized I hit my stride at the age of 21, and therefore have given up writing mostly altogether. Also, none of the things I wrote fit into that ellusive "good writing" category. So then I became an editor so that I could vicariously live through my writers like some love-to-hate pagent mom. I tell them how much they suck, how terrible their sentence structure is, how they have to cut out an entire backstory because they didn't set it up enough. I encourage them, too; I'm not the Simon Cowell of editing. And plus, I'm freelance, and you catch more paying flies with honey than vinegar.

The freelance editor thing is cool, but few people can actually make that their career. Few people want to. Most use it as a resume booster. That's why what I really want to do is teach at the college level. I simply pictured the Rhetorical Analysis as pretending the essay was just turned in to you for a grade, and now you must play a rousing game of Find the Flaws.

I read the work, and I read it over agian. I read it so much I could quote it. My reasoning? You know how the more you get to know a person, the more you love them and the more you hate them at the same time, because you've discovered more things that bug you? That's my reasoning. The more I became aquanted with his text, his logic, the more I would find that was just "wrong, wrong, WRONG!" And then I simply wrote my feelings in an objective standpoint. Many of my favorite academic papers are people saying "This person who wrote this paper earlier is a total idiot, and here's why!" I just wrote one of those papers.

In the end, this paper exercized my skills at looking at an argument's logic. When I'm tutoring kids, I tend to notice gramatical stuff over logical stuff, so this essay definitely helped me tone that muscle that studies a paper's logic. Not only will this help in a tutoring sense (the logic is some of those kids' papers is JACKED!) But it will help when I eventually become a professor and have to read 130 of them at once.

Plagiarism paper

So plagiarism. How does one write a paper about plagiarism? More specifically, how does one write about plagiarism, not in the academic sense, but in the popular authorship sense?

Well, um, that's what I had to do. I started by doing quite a lot of research, mostly from snippets of articles I'd read about JK Rowling being accused of plagiarism all the time. They have an entire Wikipedia article deticated to it. (Not that I USED the Wikipedia article, but they are a good way to gain more info on a subject and find begining sources.) So I read all about that. Then I did a lot of googling and looked various buzzwords up on the UHCL databases. The more one is informed on the subject, the easier it is to write a paper, and that's a fact.

Once I had a decent idea of several instances of plagiarism and how they happened (AKA, I got a good idea of the problem) I sat down and thought about why that problem was bad. One of the authors said she didn't consider plagiarism cheating, but honoring the original author. Why didn't I agree with her? This is something I needed to consider. Once you get your own opinion worked out well enough, that's also a good indication of your paper going in the right direction.

Our plagiarism paper simply highlighted a problem; there was no need to think up a solution. I decided not to waste the brain cells. I then chose an audience who would care about popular author plagiarism: the people who stand to make money off of them: publishers.

Incidently, I'm afraid publishing is going to be a thing of the past in 100 years. Like the era of the big movie studios owning actors. With online self-publishing, no one's going to need publishing and only a few people now bother with it because it's so damn difficult. Which sucks, because I kinda wanted to go into publishing. RANT OVER.

So then, based on my research and my audience, I sat down to write the paper. Wasn't that difficult, really, in fact one of the easier papers this semester to write when I thought it was going to be one of the harder papers. YAY.

Alrighty, I think that's about it.

p.s. I hate memo format.

Literacy Narrative

There are different kinds of literacy?

I'm pretty sure we all kinda thought that when Ms. Sisneros said we had to write a "Literary Narrative" with different kinds of literacy. Then she passed out that sheet that detailed the different kinds--lots more than I could have ever listed.

This was a really tough assignment to pick a topic for. First I have to really understand several types of literacy, then think of a time where they all collided into one great story?!

One by one, I started to think of times that could fit one or two of the types of literacy. Then, I started to probe those memories to see if they fit any more of the types. Finally, I decided on the time last semester when I wrote my very first short story.

Short stories were totally foreign to me, but I had to write one for two major grades, and I couldn't just write one, because, if you haven't noticed, I'm sorta a perfectionist. So I thought about that time, wrote out all the types of literacy, and wrote parts of the story that could fit into those types of literacy. Like, after "Computer Literacy" I wrote "The Damned Cursor" which is the subject which opens my story.

After that, I got comfy on my couch in my warm knit socks with a cup of hot tea. I just wrote in pencil and paper, jotting down my memories, like brain dumping. I wrote everything I remembered about anything connected with that time. Whoa. 8 pages.

I read what I wrote, and edited out some stuff that was just extra information. The first edit. Then I had to ask myself some of the questions from the Writer's Notebook handout, specific questions that focused my writing to something that wouldn't drive off the road like a badly-aligned car. As a tutor, I find that when a person has a clear focus on what their paper is about, they write better and have less of the crap that just fills up pages. They fill up the required space and actually say something, which is, ya know, always nice and such.

I began thinking about my audience. I pictured them as anyone who, whether through their own resolve or through that of a professor, needs to write. Yes, people can "need" to write. But then some weird form of stage fright takes them over and paralyzes them. That also gave me the purpose: to form a common bond with them over the toughness to write and encourage them to keep at it. I had been reading Anne Lamont's book Bird by Bird at the time, and it was sort of the same thing. A lot of the best, best writers suffer from writer's block that's really just unhealthy and stifling perfectionism. People who don't write as much get all nervous because they think those writers write that crap so easily, practically in their sleep. Like TS Eliot wrote The Wasteland early one Tuesday. HAHAHAHAHA. Nothing could be further from the truth, and it was my duty to uncover this fact.

From the narrative Ms. Sisneros put up on the projector, I had a pretty good idea what Voice I was supposed to use, though I rarely actually write in that voice. I still like to keep things pretty formal, however, cuz it IS schoolwork, after all. I needed the voice that would connect most to my audience and have any author understanding what I was saying. I didn't use many references to works of literature lest someone not understand. I explained things clearly and tried to deal with the writer's block that everyone experiences. The writing, I think, was appropriate for the piece.

When the essay was done, I really liked how easy it read. I didn't like how much I used the word "I," I would have liked to add more outward description. I'll definitely re-edit this so that is possible. Ms. Sisneros is really encouraging in her comments; I think I'll try to add more of the stuff she liked. (Hey, let's get real here, we all do that.) When I re-edit, I think I might try to do all of that stuff I just talked about, plus fix minor punctuation issues and perhaps polish the voice. Sometimes when I write parts of an essay at a couple of different times, the voice sounds like it.

EDITING! YAY!

Damn you, greasy chips.

I guess we've been eating at home a lot lately. I like it that way, mind you, because I am cheap...when it comes to food. (As Hubby points out, I am not cheap when it comes to shopping. But I think he was just venting b/c I won't let him get a 3D TV.) Anyhoo, we went out to a restaurant after Good Friday service. Chili's. MMMmmm. Now, the only thing I really ever get at Chili's is the chips and salsa because A.) It's my favorite food and B.) I can be filled up on just that.

Since Chili's, however, I've had the most massively annoying stomach ache in the WORLD. I'm used to stomach aches. My stomach, in fact, despises me and all I stand for unless I'm pretty much eating grass. It has already taken my ability to eat Indian or Chinese food. I guess I haven't introduced it to greasy foods in a while, because since before I left the restaurant, my tummy has been screaming WHAT THE HELL!? Hence why I'm up and coherent at 8 am on a Saturday...grrr....

I woke up at about 6. Took 3 extra-strength TUMS (they sit on my bedside...did I mention I get stomach aches a lot?) Stayed awake for an hour and a half. Got out of bed. I planned on going shopping today, but unless the stomach is appeased, it doesn't really look like it's going to happen. I've been eye-ing those floor-length maxi dresses at Target for like 2 months now! And I need shorts for work! And Old Navy has five dollar, yes FIVE FREAKIN' DOLLAR polos for TODAY ONLY!! ARG!!!

Oh, the *joys* of research.

Today, I've spent quite a lot of my free time dedicated to writing my Abstract Bibliography for my Master's class term paper. By this, I mean I take all of the sources, write 75 words deeming what they're basically trying to say, write their citation as it will be on the bibliography, and turn it in. Sooo easy, right?

Well, now it's not. I've been having this question of whether to include two certain sources in my bib. While the paper is basically a giant Rhetorical Analysis, these papers were quoted in at least 3 of my critical sources. My term paper is on Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, and specifically, dualism in the two. What I'm looking at is different sources that say what that dualism is. I have one that talks about the Double Brain Theory and one that talks about the nature/civilization duality, one that brings Neitzche's antithesis/synthesis into dualism...you get where I'm going.

Well, in at least 3/8 critical sources, they make quite a big deal about this psychologist dude named Frederic Myers and these two people with multiple personalities he reported on called Felida X and Louis V. Felida X was this one chick who had a dominant personality (1st p.) that would occasionally go into this other personality (2nd p.) Myers specifically states that 2nd p was "better" than 1st p because 1st p was melancholy and sickly, and 2nd p was "gay and lively, almost noisy" which I think is hilarious. Eventually, 2nd p became the dominant of Felida's personalities, only occasionally interrupted by 1st p. Her case can be found in Myers' book "Human Personality and Its Survival of Bodily Death." The Louis V case was a little harder to find. It was published in 1886 in a book called "The Nineteenth Century, Vol 20" Do you know how many DIFFERENT, USELESS things you get when you type that into Google?! But alas, eventually, I found it. It was on Google Books. But I think citing Google Books in your MASTERS RESEARCH TERM PAPER WORTH 65% OF YOUR GRADE is a wee bit tacky, so I had to find this rare study from another place...30 minutes later, I found it (PDF) off of some random university's website.

SO ANYWAY.

I'm having trouble deciding whether they should go in my annotated bibliography since they're not critical studies of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, but many critics reference them as the starting place for the duality of the story. I could possibly use them to prove the critics crazy or legit...but that's not REALLY my job: my job is to point out the critics weaknesses and strengths of their arguments.

Ermmm, maybe I should just include them anyway and ask my teacher if I can put them in there. I really won't even know until I write the paper, anyway.

Erm, yeah, and my basil still hasn't grown. Not that I'm obsessively checking. :P

Plants and Knits and Rants, OH MY!

Ah, the Blog family!

Okay...Blog neighbors-who-don't-say-hi-regularly. This is Blog-writer-who-doesn't-write-regularly. Which is why I'm not a super-famous blogger by now like Kristin from Going Country.

I wish I was really obsessive about writing a blog every day. Maybe then I could have that awesome false sense of accomplishment that sucks so many teenagers into contests of how many friends they have on Facebook. But, alas, I really don't have that much to say.

Erm, wrote my Reality Television paper this week. It was...fun. I mean, as fun as a paper can be when I don't get to bash researcher's ideas. That's always a little bit gratifying...to tell people they're wrong and such. Who cares if they have a PhD and an impressive CV? Well, I'm on year 6 of a Bachelor's degree, PUNKS! lol.

And on the work note, I still crazy love tutoring kids. They are the best (best kids, not best writers...obviously). Monday was kinda tough...I had and watched some really depressing appointments...only to be saved by a nervous girl who thought she was a horrible writer...I would have turned in her paper to my senior-level profs and got an A. So I'm going to start a count: Kids Who Come In Complaining They Suck At Writing But Are Acutally Freakin' Awesome: I think it's up to 7 now. Well, if it's not, we'll start at 7.

On the plant note (as if this blog wasn't already full of incredibly useless information) my first basil plant (and when I mean plant, I mean one seedling that grew maybe a couple of centimeters) died, only to then be replaced by another little seedling that grew to the same hieght and then promptly STOPPED GROWING no matter what I've done to it. I learned about 2 weeks ago that basil isn't supposed to be watered everyday, like I was doing, so I've watered it only every 2 days and it's still crazy short. Like, hasn't grown in over 3 weeks. It's not brown or discolored in any way...just a midget. :( On the other hand, my cilantro has still grown the best, they're almost to the point of being able to see them above the rim of the pot, and my parsley has also stopped growing somewhere in the middle of the two. Apparently, once the temperature stops dipping below 50 at night, I won't be able to wrangle in any of my plants, but for now, I feel like a Plant Nurse in the ICU...with no experience. *cringe* Sorry you have to listen to my ranting...Hubby has no patience with plant talk and won't listen.

In other news, one of my BFFs is moving 2,000 miles away! To Washington! Why would anyone want to live THERE?! Okay, okay, so her husband got a really well-paying job...but...WASHINGTON IS NOT TEXAS! NO FAIR. I won't be able to bring her my knitting and ask her to figure out what's wrong with it!

And on that note, I finally learned how to make the heel of a sock! And then I promptly screwed up the first actual sock I've tried to knit--the calf part is 2 inches too long. Now, I could make some crack about how Literature majors shouldn't be trusted with numbers, but I'll let you make your own joke. Actually, I read the directions wrong and didn't realize until it was too freakin' late. "Alicia," you say, "Why not just match the mistake on the other sock?" Well, my yarn ball says explicitly that it makes TWO SOCKS and I'm using their pattern to make darn sure I get TWO SOCKS out of that one ball of yarn. And therefore, I'm really hoping they allowed me an extra 4 inches of sock yarn. Pwease pwease pwease. There's literally no way to tell until I knit the whole things out. Epic reading fail on my part.

Mkay, I'm done, I swear.

Much e-love.

Alicia