in response to ellen's post about "The Combat Zone"

I agree with Ellen's thoughts on "the combat zone." overall, this piece had a strong, well meaning message, but i dont think it's one that many women can directly apply to themselves. Yes, women need to face the facts that the idea of female helplessness is not just a traditional stereotype. Men, on a whole tend to be larger and stronger than the majority of women in our population. Vigilance and self defense, especially in secluded areas or late at night, is a must. But i can't agree that all women should carry a gun as a means of an equalizer. As ellen mentioned, a gun can and is likely to be used against you if you don't know what you're doing. I feel like by carrying a gun you might become more paranoid about people following you, and being jumpy could cause you to pull out the gun in unnecessary situations. A gun should be a very last resort, not a first. It might be a much better idea for women who are concerned about their safety to take a class on self defense, and get into good shape so they know how to defend themselves. Preventative measures are the best.

those (unnerving??) ads using real women

These two articles that we have for Wednesday are really interesting. One is about the dove campaign for "real beauty" and the other is about men's underwear advertising. I have seen ads for the dove campaign before on tv, and i've of course seen the bill boards that they mentioned. I thought it was a really cool idea, and brave of dove to incorporate real women in their ads, rather than skinny 100lb 6 foot super models. I found the article "those unnerving ads using real women" annoying. This women rants about dove using real women, and how they're in the underwear on huge bill boards. I disagree with her. I mean, dove is a company, and they have the right to do whatever they want. The women in the ads are there by choice. It's not vulgar, and i dont find it disturbing in the least. Yes, i believe that at least in part the company is doing this for money, and because its a good advertising scheme. Of course they aren't doing it just to change peoples' images of themselves. but i think this woman is just making herself look insecure by criticizing the fact that average sized middle aged women will put themselves out there in their underwear. If you were to compare this ad to the women in tiny bikinis holding alcohol on billboards, im not sure the dove ad looks so bad anymore. I think its good for society to finally realize that real women are not sticks, and so i think dove's idea is kinda cool. these women are just putting themselves out there and saying here, are you a real person? our product is for you. we don't promise to make you look impecable, and we admit that all the people who use our product do not become super models overnight. if its raisesing their sales, good for them. big companies and their advertising have a big impact on the way that other people think, and so this is a much better thing for people to be seeing than a lot else thats out there in the media.

something i don't think i'll ever understand...

The two readings that we have for Friday are both about color/race, and as I read them I found myself sort of surprised by the way people refer to themselves. I grew up in suburb, and it's generally made up of typical comfortable middle-class people. We have a very nice town, but we're sometimes referred to as the "bubble," because it's a calm, secluded sort of area, and very unchanging, which is very different from the nearby city. The people who originally settled the area were German farmers, and so that's pretty much who is still there. I guess it isn't a very diverse area and so maybe this is why I'm at a complete loss for understanding this sometimes, and I don't mean to be offensive in any way shape or form, but I just don't understand what the big deal is with the way people look. We all come from different ethnic backgrounds... everyone. So we're all different, right?

Each ethnic background has its own characteristics that typically accompany it. I think we should celebrate those differences because it's so cool that our country is made of up so many cultures. It's exciting that we're all different! It's like the difference between having a British accent, or Irish red hair. We may have German blue eyes, or we may have Egyptian eyes. We're still all people, these are just characteristics that go along with where we're from. These factors are celebrated, and not at all a subject of taboo. However, as soon as we move on to skin color, it can become an extremely touchy subject. Why is this? It's okay to comment on someones blond/black/red hair, but it's not so comfortable when you start talking about their black/white/yellow/brown skin??? And not only is it just an uncomfortable subject, sometimes people treat each other completely differently because of it. Does this make any sense to anyone? If it does please explain bc im lost.

I don't mean to be insensitive...I understand that there are some events in our past history that have caused a lot of racism (and this makes no sense to me either but it is in the past). We are in 2008, and it's time to get over it. People are people, and in the history of the world every race/ethnicity/culture has been prosecuted at some point. Let me repeat, everyone's background has been prosecuted at some point. So shouldn't we all be trying hard to keep things neutral now? Aren't we kind of done with discrimination? That was so the 1800's.

So why is it still such an issue now? These readings discuss people who have darker skin feeling uncomfortable in a neighborhood of mostly lighter skinned people. So let me get this strait... if you're blond are you going to be upset if everyone on your street has brown hair?? I don't think anyone has the right to make anyone else feel uncomfortable anymore than that second party has to make them feel uncomfortable regardless of hair color or skin tone or whatever people are going to come up with next. Whatever you look like, wherever you're from... flaunt it because it's beautiful, and don't ever let anyone make you question that.

"The Socks" -Marjane Satrapi

I really enjoyed reading this. It was a really different format, but I feel like Satrapi managed to get her point across much better in this manner than she would have accomplished any other way. The "graphic novel" illustrates her experiences in Tehram, and how the culture in the area was very difficult for her to adapt to. I can't imagine living in an area where you aren't allowed to wear what you want, have to keep everything covered and the rules are extremely strict. I think by illustrating her story, Satrapi makes it easy for the reader to relate to it. If i were reading about this situation it would be so absurd to me that it would almost seem unreal. The fact that I am looking at faces who are speaking actual words makes me realize that there really are cultures where women, just like us in the US, have practically no rights. It's almost incomprehensible that a government would have the power to be forcing women to always fully cover themselves, and not look at men, and not be able to run in public. I can't imagine showing wearing makeup or showing my wrist as a form of rebellion... those are things people in our culture do without even considering that it would be unacceptable. It never ceases to amazing me just exactly how much we take for granted in our lives.

In Response to Ali's Post on "Body Collage"

I read Ali's post about her experience writing her body collage, and I agree that it was a nice change-up from high school to be writing about ourselves rather than a random topic. I felt like it was sort of a self exploration piece to see what we could come up with. It took some creativity to come up with how exactly to present the story, but I feel like the steps we did in class really helped lead into our papers. I also feel a little insecure about my writing, and am a little anxious to see what my peer-editors had to say about what i wrote, especially since we were writing about such personal subjects. However, it will be nice to have feedback from both our peers and teacher. I agree with Ali that the input will definitely be a great way to improve upon my writing.

Essay 1

I have started the rough draft of my essay, and I'm really happy with my first vignette. I wrote about my 5th grade self, which is before I had any incidents with my ankles that meant large changes for me. I decided to do this because of what we talked about in class Monday. I think it's a really good way to start off the piece. For my second vignette I think I'm going to talk about the first ankle injury i sustained... and how although i was always getting cuts and scrapes i never actually had any real injury before this incident. It was in 6th grade while i was at gymnastics, and this also affected me because it made me really realize my love for gymnastics because of how much i missed it while i was out. It's surprising how much insight breaking and ankle can give to a 11 year old. I'm not sure how much space this will take up, but I'd like to maybe just briefly mention how many other ankle injuries I've had, and then talk about high school next, and how I hurt my ankle before varsity gymnastics sectionals in my senior year and wasn't able to compete, but that I managed to rehab it and get ready for club competitive season... and was able to qualify for state championships, then regional championships and missed national championships by .25 of a point. i think it's interesting how my several ankle injuries have definitely set me back in gymnastics, but at the same time i think they may actually be the reason i am so dedicated to gymnastics because of what I've had to work through, and all of those injuries are pretty much the reason for the major that i'm in right now.

In Response to Jodi's post On Stuttering

I completely agree with what Jodi says about stuttering. The way that Hoagland he wrote the piece really made me think about what he was going through because of the way he talked. I also agree that its interesting how he was able to speak without the stutter more successfully if he was fired up about something. As I read her post, it reminded my of a couple of people in my life who have a stutter when they speak. At time's it may be a little difficult to listen to them, but I really don't even notice it anymore. A history teacher I had in my junior year of high school had a stutter, and still managed to teach classes 5 times a day. We quickly grew accustomed to it, and I don't remember anyone making any comments to him or about him because of it, but I guess it never really occurred to me that he might be self-conscious about it. His job required him to expose his stutter to high school kids, who can be absolutely brutal. I realize now that to get up in front of his classes every day might have been a much tougher thing for him than I would have ever thought. Hoagland talks about how his stuttering influenced him to become a writer, so that he wouldn't be forced to speak as often. It made me almost feel proud of my history teacher because of what he overcomes every day in order to do what he loves.

"At War with My Skin" -John Updike

"At War with My Skin," by John Updike, was very interesting. There are a couple of things that he did in his story that I really like a lot. The first is that he manages to share the personal details of his story with the reader without making his story a complete pity party. He understands his skin condition, and definitely was self-conscious about it throughout his life, however writes that he had come to the realization that really another condition could have been a lot worse. He starts to call it a disease, but stops because "disease seems strong, for a condition that is not contagious, painful, or debilitating." It sort of makes the reader think about how much a more serious disorder would have such a greater impact on everything that most people would consider activities of daily living. But still, he lets his psoriasis stop him from doing a lot for a superficial disease. The other thing I really like about his writing is his use of "scab picking." This phrase really stood out to me as he used it to describe what he was doing. This is a comparison that all readers would be able to relate to, which makes it a much strong way to describe how he feels about this.

"Free Union" -Andre Breton

I read the assigned poem "Free Union" by Andre Breton, and found it interesting, and I must admit slightly disturbing. Throughout the entire poem, Breton is describing his wife using all different sorts of metaphors to compare physical aspects of her body to inanimate objects. He begins at the top of her body with her hair and teeth, and moves on down to her "rump," and then finally finishes by describing her eyes. By using metaphors instead of similes, he is saying that his wife is this perfect image, rather than that she is comparable all of these nice ideas. This makes his voice and description much more straightforward and sincere. My first time through reading the poem, I began to picture a very beautiful, delicate and graceful woman. He achieved this immediate effect because of those metaphors.
However, on a more personal level, the second time I read through the poem I began to find it a little creepy. Breton really focuses in on his wife's specific physical aspects, and not on the happy quirks in her personality, or the way she makes him feel. He sees every aspect of her body as impeccable, and wants his readers to be as drawn into that as he is.