To Whom it May...Wildly Entertain :]

To those of you that understand this reference, well you're probably laughing as hard as I was when I saw this. To those that don't, explaining would take to long so I'm simply going to mention that you shoud broaden your entertainment choices. Anyway, I found this and I think its simply fantastic (not that the woman was injured of course) so I shared it with my friend (yep, citing you and everything KammyCakes (yep I did just use KammyCakes)) and we decided it was 100% blog worthy so vuala, here it is. :]

Two Million Minutes- Three Million Blogposts.

Response to Two Million Minutes:

"Asian" has become more than an adjective in our culture. It has become a common "fact" that those of an Asian or Indian decent are flat out smarter than those steriotypical Americans. Though this is probably not true, it has become a steriotype of its own. If you are Asian in our school you are assumed to be smart. You are assumed to be getting strait A's, doing well on the SAT's, and taking difficult classes with the aim of getting into prestigious colleges. The same goes for those who are Indian.

This isn't to say that Americans are thought by everyone else to be stupid. No one I have met thinks any less of us because of the comparison to other cultures. Nor do I feel that this steriotype reflects at all on our school system. There is nothing the school could do to encourage white Americans to live up to Asian or Indian expectations. Because that is the main difference between our cultures: expectations. Because we were not raised the same way, at least in most cases, we were taught different values. Those raised by "typical" Asian or Indian families were taught that studies and academic achivements were of the uptmost importance. That doing perfectly in school and getting into an acceptable university is all that really matters at this point in our lives. And really, I can see the truth in that. However, families like mine didn't bring me up thinking that way. I was taught that yes, of course I should do well in school and of course I should try my best in all areas of my academics. However, I was also taught to value the social aspect of my highschool and college years. I was taught to have fun, to enjoy the journey while I could. For this reason, I will willingly admit that I probably do not place as much stock in academics as some from Indian or Asian scholars. I probably do not study as hard, and for that reason I know I do not do quite as well.

I do not, as I said before, think there is anything a school could do to change this steriotype. I also do not believe that schools could change the distribution of our grades in relation to our cultural backgrounds. Schools already encourage us to do as well as we can, to try our best, and to study our hardest. For reasons prior mentioned, some of us tend to do better than others. Unless we were to go all the way back to our childhood, to rewire the way we think and to have our parents reteach us the values we have learned, the way we do things cannot be changed now. There is nothing to be done in the American school system.

So how do we solve the "problems" arising about Asians and Indiand beating out Americans for spots in ivy league American schools? On one hand, there is no problem. They clearly deserve the spots, more so than all the Americans they beat out. If they deserve the spots more, whose to say they shouldn't get them? On the other hand, people have argued that since it is "American" tax dollars going toward the American education, we deserve spots as well. Though I do not personally think I agree with this, it is a fair point. For this reason, I have no answer to the question I posed. America could certainly try as a whole to work harder, to have more of our scholars end up in the rigorous ivy league programs. However, I doubt that anything would happen even if we tried. The cycle, it seems, will keep the way it has been going until a better solution is proposed.

Key

1 Argument
2 Division of analysis
3 Classification
4 Example
5 Process Analysis
6 Definition
7 Narration
8 Cause and Effect
9 Compare Contrast
10 Description

Modes of Friendship

1) Everyone needs friends. To have a friend is to have someone to confide in, to pour your feelings out to. A friend can be an emotional outlet, and that is something everyone needs. If we do not have people with whom we can confide, our thoughts and feelings will be bottled up inside. Psychology shows that the sharing of emotions is good; it can relieve stress and help the individual better manage the various aspects of their lives. Also, when you have no one to talk to, you have no one to get advice from. Everyone needs someone to ask their important or personal questions. Having friends gives you this. For this reason, everyone needs to have friends in their lives.

2) There are many aspects to friendship. The two (or more) people in question, and both of their feelings. Their simply chemical compatibility, their willingness to be open and honest with each other. It involves their brains, and the chemicals that make them recognize each other as people they like. It also involves their minds, and what they think about each other. Their hearts, and their willingness to put up with each other’s bad traits in order to be there for the good ones. Friendship can be a complicated ordeal, but it is worth it for everyone to experience.

3) When we think of friendship, we usually classify it as a bond between people. Friends would be people who care for each other and enjoy spending time with each other; people who talk on the phone and text constantly, especially people who tell each other their secrets. Friendship as the dictionary defines it is a friendly feeling of relation or intimacy. However, people usually regard this type of friendship as between two individuals who are not related and are of the same gender. People don’t often consider females who have male friends, or vice versa. People often skip over family relationships, though friends can be found in your parents or siblings. People even more scarcely consider romantic relationships. They seem to have been taken to a whole new level outside of friendship, but really most lovers are in fact best friends as well. Friendship can exist in many ways, these I have named are only a few.

4) I know someone who thinks friendship is measured by the number of times you have been to that person’s house, or the number of sleepover parties you have had. The number of gifts you have given each other, or the number of secrets you share. She thinks friendship is quantifiable by these material measurements, and therefore doesn’t classify us as close. Maybe she is right. I certainly don’t tell her everything, but that isn’t because I don’t have enough secrets of hers, of haven’t been to her house enough times. Maybe it is. I guess I can’t judge. If that is how she chooses to measure friendship, I’ll leave her and her small number of friends to do just that.

5) Becoming friends can be cut down into a very precise process. Firstly, you meet. How, where, and why are irrelevant, all that matters is somewhere and somehow you make contact, you learn each other’s names, probably you will remember each other’s faces. The second step is harder to distinguish. You must see each other again, under some uncertain circumstances, and you must talk. You may laugh, you may smile at each other. In this stage, depending on how close your friendship will end up being, you may or may not make definite plans to see each other again. Step three: you start to enjoy each other’s company. You plan on spending time together, and you try your best to see each other again. You start to confide in each other, and to look to each other for comfort. Somewhere in this process you move on to the fourth and final step and can be classified as truly friends. You share everything with each other, you turn to each other with your questions and you value each other’s input. This is when you know you are truly friends.

6) Friendship is something to be achieved, something everyone has, and something everyone loves. To be friends with someone can be defined in many ways. How much you respect them, how often you spend time with them, how much you share with them. The possibilities are endless. The dictionary defines friendship as: being friends, sharing feelings of compassion and respect. It is hard to put a specific label on friendship, because it means different things to different people. Overall, friendship is a bond between people, usually with non romantic feelings of love and compassion, and an aspect of respect.

7) When I was in third grade, I met my first “best” friend. I was on the swings with some of the girls from my class, and someone I knew walked up to me, followed by someone I didn’t quite recognize. The girl pushed the shyer, lesser known child towards me and told me in frank words, especially coming from a third grader, that we were to be friends. I took this to heart, and it seemed she did as well. Since then I have shared everything with this girl. I have met more people, accumulated more “best” friends. My relationships have become more numerous and less labeled. I share details about my life to more than just her now. But through the ten years I have known her, she has been my friend through thick and thin, and will, I believe, remain so for quite some time.

8) Friendship is a result of chemicals in the brain reacting to form a pleasant feeling when around the “friend”. Friendship is also the result of two people meeting and deciding to spend time together. In a more abstract way, friendship happens when two people share similar qualities and find themselves enjoying the company of the others.

9) Friends, enemies. They’re so different, and yet there is such a fine line marking the difference. In fact, it’s so fine a line that a word has been invented to describe those who are both: “frienemies”. Friends are those who you confide in, those that you tell your secrets to; those that you like to talk to and who you enjoy spending time with. Enemies however, aren’t defined clearly. Could they be those who you have a quarrel with, or those who you simply dislike? In fact, enemies could easily have been your friends, people with whom you have argued and who now aren’t considered to be among your confidants. For these reasons, friends and enemies can in fact be one and the same. No one can clearly define an enemy, or a friend, for either could easily become the other. We hate to admit it but it is true. How many marriages end in messy divorce? Your husband or wife is supposed to be one of your closest friends, and so often you end up splitting ways hoping never to see one another again. Friends and enemies are terribly different, and yet they are the same.

10) The swings moved together, side by side, paired in their motion. The sweet, sticky perfume of sweat and popsicles lingered in the air as the two girls swung. Their laughter echoed through the empty park, the sound bouncing back to the ears. As the wind picked up, the first of the fallen leaves blew up into the girl’s faces as they swung, and this only increased the volume of their laughter. They looked at each other, still laughing and smiling, and in their teenage faces saw younger girls, swinging together as children as they were now, nearing adulthood. The best friends continued to swing, talking and laughing, as the light faded and darkness crept over the park. The temperature dropped and the girls jumped laughing into the air in beautiful arcs. Picking up their things off the sweet end-of-summer grass, their hands clasped. They walked, arms swinging between them, out of the park and into the warm summer night.

The oh-so-lovable rants

There are many, many, many, things that I could rant about but I had to narrow it down to things I could propose solutions for. Therefor the famous I-hate-children rant has been left out, but I still have these:

1. People who think they are so incredibly fantastic when really, they are perfectly average. Even possibly lower than average. People who for some reason feel the need to spend every waking hour of every day talking to every single person they meet about how fantastic they are. Talking about the amazing skill they possess in every area of their life. About how good they are at their respective instrument in band. It takes every ounce of restraint that I have not to stand up and yell "You think you're so fantastic? I would like to tell you, you SUCK." Honestly I would. Or about how well they did on a test they took or how good their grade in a class is or how just eveyone in the entire world loves them. Cocky, would be the word to summarize these people. Hate would be an admittedly slightly strong but fairly accurate word to describe how I feel about them.

Now that I've calmed myself slightly after that, I continue with the second (and last that I will write about) thing that drives me absolutely nuts.
 
   2.   People, people, please, please, please realize that replace "good" and "well". I never took grammar, I don't know if that is technically a grammatical mistake you could be penalized for, or what exactly is wrong with doing that, but I know it sounds terribly, terribly wrong to say "I did good." and not "I did well." Another thing, on that note, "is" and "are" are not interchangable words. "Is" refers to a singular object, "are" refers to plurals. Please, people, do not say "we is going" to do this or that, it drives me absolutley nuts! Its not even that deifficult to realize what the difference is, you can tell when to use one and when to use the other. I understand the good and well thing is a little different, but those aren't interchangable either and you can tell the difference! Its not hard, really. So if everyone would please learn to speak correctly for my benefit (selfish I know, so sue me) that would be fantastic.

Noam Chomsky and his antics. Though personally I liked Nim Chimpsky better.

Is antics really the appropriate word to use there? I don't know, I wanted a creative title. Not that that even really counts. Well, I was gone on friday and therefor saw very little of this film compared to how much I could have had I been present. What I did see was admittedly incredibly boring and hard to follow. Maybe thats just because I was tired. I did get an argument out of the droning of this video, though. The media is in total control of the amount of information, and type of information, presented to the general public. They decide what to print, they decide with what bias to write it. And they can, as the ones who give us all the information they have the power to do what they want, to take out certain facts, to set the tone of the article, to present highly unimportant details as huge news and to hide the things that really matter. The question, or one of as there are many, is should they  be allowed to do this? Do they even realize what they're doing, and the results of their writings?
I found this article (below) about tactics the media uses to make a story more interesting than it actually is. So, maybe the media knows exactly what they're doing when they choose what they think the American public needs to know. Here are the points I found:

• False Novelty: Making something look like news when, in fact, it has been known for a long time.  
• False Urgency- creating a sense that things are happening quickly or developing, to add drama. 
• Exaggerated Risk- reporting on a very unlikely danger without giving the chances that it will actually happen (which, I would assume, are usually fairly low. the odds of someone getting struck by lightning are actually higher than a lot of things people consider to be terrifying and altogether possible events.)
• Skipping over details: leaving things out that (no matter their relevence) may make the story less exciting to read.
• Naming news: giving titles or nicknames to make the news read more like an action story or movie.

And thats not even mentioning the bias that all media reporters write with. Its unavoidable, I know. But it's there.

This was all gotten from: http://www.media-awareness.ca/english/resources/educational/handouts/global_development/beyond_media_h3.cfm

If anyone felt the need to look at examples or check my paraphrasing for accuracy :)

Anyway, all of this relates back to what Noam Chomsky (though I really like the monkey, Nim Chimsky, much better. He's a lot cuter :) ) was saying in the documentary. He made the point that the media controls our knowledge, and they do. The examples given in the film of Cambodia and East Timore (if I spelled that correctly at all) were completely valid and frankly terrifying. That the media could have such knowledge and willingly keep it from the American public was astounding. The New York Times, I think it was, paraphrased an article from the London Times. They took it down to probably a third of the information given in the London print, and as an affect we Americans were once again ill-informed. We don't know what could have been done if we'd had all the facts; we don't even know if anything would have been done at all; but isn't it within our rights to figure that out for ourselves? Not to have the media determine it for us? Imagine if the coverage of 9.11 had been less. Already there are things that are sure to have been left out of the media that are known about those attacks. If we had been given even less information, who knows what would have happened. Would we have accepted our ignorance and moved on? I don't think so. Personally the idea of not knowing who was behind it, or what the plans were, or any other information that would have been left out is terrifying. Noam Chomsky and his very attractive glasses were right in saying the media controls what we know. And I think that is wrong. On so very many levels.

                                                        

Exerpts.

So for my open blog assignment I couldn't decide what to write about! So I decided to take an exerpt out of the peice I've been writing in my spare time. I was just working on it today, and it seemed like a pretty decent idea. So, heres just a small segment from what I've been writing for Novel Club with Mrs. Decker:

Now, half an hour later, Zahira was in the same position on her bed she had flopped down in when she had come in. She had so many questions rolling around in her head, but none of them mattered to her at that moment. He had accepted her, the way she was. And she suddenly had more than just a friend in Robbie. She didn’t know what he was to her, but she knew she was happy about it. She finally drifted off to sleep feeling blissful, as if everything would be perfect, with a smile on her face.
The next day she woke up even happier than ever. She sighed and curled her toes up in her blankets, just reveling in the moment. Zahira never wanted to move, she was blissfully aware that if she did she’d have to go about doing things like showering, studying, and finish up her homework. However, she was pulled out of this mood by a musical-sounding knock on her door. She jumped up in bed and glanced at the clock. It read eleven thirty, she had slept late. Zahira got out of bed and looked down at her appearance. Silk camisole and green short shorts. She shrugged, not caring, and opened the door to Robbie’s face looking in on her.


So, yeah, I cut if off there to avoid tons of dialogue on my blog. Its still a work in progress and thats just a tiny exerpt from chapter seven. Hope its not terrible :)