Final Meta-Post

It's hard to believe that the school year is coming to a close. This year, I have produced many a blog post, and it is really cool to see my progress as a writer and a blogger. More importantly, I believe that my ability to connect what goes on in the classroom to American culture is much stronger than it was at the beginning of the year.

Particularly, I feel that my post organization has bettered throughout the year. I usually have so many thoughts running through my head that I just type everything I am thinking without showing empathy for my reader. My latest blog posts have been considerably more organized and broken up from point to point so that readers of my blog have a chance to take in everything I write and make a meaningful response. One thing that I would like to have done more was to reply to the comments made on my posts. I think that blogs are meaningless without enough communication from both the reader and the writer.

I personally think that my post titled, Class Markers in the US, was my strongest post this quarter because I was able to connect a classroom discussion to a personal experience better than any other post I made.

As for my future as a blogger, my American Studies experience has lead me in a good direction and I hope that I will continue to grow as a blogger!

Spend like it's 1929

The other day in class we looked at some advertisements from the 1920's. We noticed that they were remarkably similar to advertisements today because they are economy oriented. One particular quote from Henry Ford showed how focused many companies in the 20's were on boosting the economy. The Ford automobile slogan was "Buy a Ford, Spend the Difference," which was not only convincing consumers to purchase Ford cars, but convincing them to spend money in general.

Today, our economy is obviously not doing too well, and experts predict that the most effective way to boost our economy is for the American people to spend more money. This mentality is very similar to what we saw in the 1920s.

http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2010/06/13/obamas-push-for-spending-to-boost-economy-gets-mixed-reaction/

This article discusses Obama's push for spending and the mixed reaction it has received by the public.
Do you agree with Obama? Should we spend more money to help fix our economy?

Watching Movies

The other day in class we talked about how our class watched Citizen Kane. Our teachers noticed that, for the most part, there was constant chatter among classmates while the movie was playing. I noticed this too, and I certainly participated in the chatter. We decided that the reason we conversed during the movie was because of the way films are "viewed" today. Today, movies are accessible on TV, the internet, iPods, and in theaters. Because we are surrounded by movies in the media, they have become less sacred to our generation. Some people in the class mentioned that when they watch movies at home, they prefer to work on something else because it would waste too much time to devote their entire attention on just the movie. Watching movies, in a sense, has become a lot like watching television; you don't have to watch it all in one sitting or with complete silence. Because movies are so accessible, they can be watched anywhere while doing anything. When you go to the theater, there is an entirely different atmosphere. The crowd watching SHOULD be quiet, and devoting their attention to the movie. For me, I like to watch movies with this atmosphere, and I would never watch a movie like TV. I like to enjoy films with silence and a blanket. Does the way you watch a movie matter?

On a side note, we also talked about how we listen to music. Some people said that they only listen to music with their full attention, and never in the background or as ambiance. Funny thing is, I've been listening to this the entire time that I wrote this blog post...

Class markers in the US

What defines social class in America? In class, a lot of us thought that income, way of life, and happiness are all markers of class. We see in the Great Gatsby that money is a huge marker of class. Those who live in the Eggs of New York, like Gatsby, live in huge houses and attend fancy parties. There is no doubt in my mind that money is the biggest marker of class in the US. The graph to the right shows that while the upper class is very small, about 5% of the US, they make up a large sum of the entire United States GDP.

A playful resident of the Jonquil Residence

I disagree, however, with the point that states happiness is a class marker in the US. While there are no graphs which measure happiness, I believe happiness is unrelated to class. Last October, I volunteered at a low income residence in Rogers Park called the Jonquil Residence. There, I cleaned and weatherized windows for the winter, and repaired a small roof outside in the courtyard of the residence. I knew that the people living at the residence were low income because of their living conditions, which for some was a 12' by 12' room, and their income, which was considerably low. However, when I worked there, laughter filled the hallways, and each resident greeted me with a smile when we passed each other. At the end of the day, I received many thanks from the residents. I believe one can live happily without much money, but living a certain way, or in a certain class, is only possible with the right amount of money.

If you are interested, here is another take on the correlation of social class and happiness. The author analyzes a Charles Dickens book called Great Expectations:

http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/5777692/social_class_and_happiness_any_correlation.html

Thursday=Doomsday

Or so it seems for the academically declined. So far, my paper is looking good. I have plenty of info, a plethora of sources, a fully conducted interview, a peer interview, and part of an annotated bibliography. It sure feels good to have most of the work for "the Theme" out of the way. Yet, I still feel like this week is racing by because of the pressure to have a FULL DRAFT completed by Thursday. I hope I am not the only one who feels this way when I say, "I need more time!" However, no matter what the deadline of the finished draft is, I would probably think the same way. I fully realize that we have been provided with ample time to finish our papers, but it always helps to have a schedule to help us prioritize our work. Either way, I wish everyone good luck to finish their themes!

The Theme Cont.

As I sit in the library, I find it difficult to narrow down my research. I have a plethora of resources, ranging from books in the library to scholarly journals online. That being said, I still feel my research is incomplete as of today. I realize that one can never have too many sources, but that surely does not make me feel any better.

One thing that might help others who feel their research has become repetitive is to leave out their main topic. For example, all of my early research has contained : "global warming". Now, since my "why" question relates to the media's influence on global warming, I have decided to only search: "media influence". I think if you are having trouble finding new evidence, try varying your search terms.

Junior Theme...ugh

This week we started the dreaded junior theme. Our mission is to ask a specific "why question" about a controversial topic in the United States. While I did have a variety of topics in mind, one kind of stood out to me.     I don't want to state my "why question," because odds are it isn't 100% true to what my final question will be, and I will likely blog about my topic in future blogs. However, I do want to address some ideas that I had that I am not planning on writing a 5 to 7 page paper on.

My current question largely involves the US media and how it influences people's views on global warming, and when I thought deeper about how much the media influences us, a few more topics came to my mind. For one, a question I asked myself was: "Why are electronic/hip-hop/rap songs SO popular right now? Why are they played all over the radio?" These questions led me to even more inquiries: "Is it because people actually prefer this kind of music, or are these artists given more opportunities than artists of other genres? If so, why? What else does the media have such an influence on?" Now, I really would like to find the answers to these questions, but it would be ridiculous to try to fit all of these questions into a short-ish paper.

But that's what I like about the Junior Theme; we are forced to ask questions we would normally never ask.With the Junior Theme project, you really have to be thorough in your research and the topic-narrowing process. There are so many questions to answer, but with only a few pages to answer them, you have to focus on just a few questions.