Reflection

okay, so this week I finished up the first draft of my paper, which is a huge relief. For the most part, all of my ideas are on paper and now all that is left is to sort them out and add a little bit more detail. I had my conference already and in conjunction with my peer review I know how to take my paper to the next level. I also got my interview questions back from my art history teacher which makes the whole thing a lot easier. Sadly, the timing for this paper was inconvenient in that my art teacher was on spring break. This week I'm probably going to touch up my paper before it's due this week. I don't think it'll take too long, a few hours at most. Surprisingly, the outline actually helped. I'm not really one to use outlines, but it just made each step along the way a bit shorter.

This week

We spent some time on our piece of rhetoric that are due next week. I showed my idea and I think it came out pretty well. I also did some peer review and helped others out with their pieces of rhetoric.

I need to focus a lot more on my paper, I have an idea, but I haven't spent the time planning it out. I need to dive deeper into my sources and send out my interview questions to my NPO. The art teacher I've decided to contact is willing to help me anyway I need so that's convenient. I'll probably send the questions to him this week so that I wont be in panic if he takes a little longer than anticipated.

Last Week

I missed my blog post for last week, but we basically focused on creating our two pieces of rhetoric. I decided to create a couple of bumper stickers advocating the arts funding cause. We took a quiz and further drafted our research papers. Not too eventful of a week, but as an aside allergy season has begun and it's making me miserable.

In class collage

How does this collage represent my identity?
Going from left to right. The first image is the Dominican flag, which obviously illustrates that I'm half Dominican, this ties in with the second image of the 1966 Olympic games which is a iconic image from the civil rights era (the other half being black). The third image is a skyline of Manhattan because I'm a New Yorker who has been temporarily relocated in Charlotte (which is illustrated by the next picture). On the second line, there is an image of Jean-Paul Sartre, he is my favorite philosopher and writer of various works of existentialism (I identify as an Existentialist). The next picture is a coffee barista, this is a two-fold image, first and foremost it's there to represent that I'm a philosophy major and this will probably be what I'll end up doing because of it (ha ha) and it also shows that I'm a coffee enthusiast. To the right of this, is a picture of Bill Hicks, one of the most inspirational people to me and my favorite stand up comedian. I included him because I'm a huge fan of his work and because I love stand up comedy in general. The last image on the row is a demotivational poster entitled "Pretension" because I apparently come off as a pretentious ass. I recognize this, but it's not intentional. The next row is a surrealist image to illustrate my love for art and surrealism in general (take from that what you wish). The next image is a picture of the Democratic donkey with the Communist hammer and sickle superimposed over it. I put this up as a joke because I'm a bleeding heart liberal, and one of my favorite things to do is read anti-liberal hate mail (I guess that means I'm a masochist as well). The final row starts off with an image of a juggler because I am a juggler as well and painfully good at it. The next image is a picture of a girl covering her ears and screaming, this is to illustrate my anxiety issues, which I blame on my brain never shutting up (I picked a female because, again, I'm a bleeding-heart). To the right of this is an image of the reddit alien because I'm a redditor. With this comes most of the usual stereotypes associated with it (eg, spends too much time online, no girlfriend, liberal, argumentative, etc.). Last but not least, I posted a picture that is meant to illustrate my love for science and more specifically cognitive science. I hope to get into a cognitive science, neuroscience, or cognitive neuroscience (yes there's a difference) program for my graduate studies.

What are the links between images and identity in our society? (What types of images do I identify with?)

Pictures are worth a thousand words. This statement is cliched for a reason. You can get across so much with simply an image. Not only is there the surface level literal interpretation of the picture, but then there is the thoughts that are attempted to be conveyed, and lastly the subconscious reasons for why the person choose the images that they did. Because of the depth, it allows for a lot more information to be expressed with a lot less time and energy. Our society, even if not explicitly, recognizes this, and societies in general have recognized this since the invention of cave paintings. As such, people try to construct an identity through images, whether they're in person, online, or some other media. Take for example the stereotypes in our society. You have goths, hippies, hipsters, thugs, frat/sorority types, etc. Everyone has an "identity" that they're trying to illustrate, and images, whether concrete or a more metaphysical idea of your self, are inseparable.

I tend to find that there are two types of images that I identify with. Either they're gritty, and trying to illustrate a more "real" aspect of life, or they tend to be surrealist, sort of idealistic depictions, where the imagination or an ideal is first and foremost.

America 24/7

We were assigned to read an article entitled America 24/7 and we were supposed to guess what the images would be. So when I think of the real face of America, I think of the average, lower middle class person of small town middle America, I think suburbia, and I think of apartment buildings packed to the brim in cities. Maybe a bald eagle, all of our corporations, and other iconic American cultural images. I looked at the images and I'm not really shocked to see images of day to day, blue collar people, weird cultural images, and skanky girls. I'd say he definitely did a good job at capturing our country, he managed to do exactly what I envisioned.

As for an image that represents America to me. I can only think of one image, but it's comical and I'm not entirely too serious when I post it

It's comedic and incredibly biased, and a bit offensive, but I really can't think of any other image so I have no choice but to post it and still keep the integrity of the project. Now, with this being said, I recognize that my urban, northern, perspective is completely different from the perspective of the vast majority of the country, but there's always going to be differences of opinion, so I might as well keep the tradition going.

Ordinary picture

Recently in class we talked about how images represent reality and how you can construct whatever reality you want based on the images you create. Coincidentally, I was reading Simulacra and Simulation and he pretty much addresses the same concept. I suppose one of the perks of being a philosophy major is that every class manages to coincide with what you're doing or have done in some way or another. Anyway, I was tasked with uploading an image of how I act ordinarily and was supposed to talk about how this relates to the pictures I show the world. Conveniently, the way I act in private is identical to the way I act in public, so my ordinary picture is also my facebook picture. Fancy that. I've never been one to act a certain way just because there were people around, I'm strange, but we all are.

Capitalism: A Love Story reflection

We've been watching Capitalism: A Love Story in class this week and basically it's Michael Moore's documentary on the evils of capitalism and the detriment it is on American Society. As is typical to his work, it's stuffed with appeals to pathos in the hopes to flood you with empathy so that you accept his point, coupled with appeals to ethos by constantly showing how the every day person, just like you, was affected by whatever it is that he's making a documentary against. He shows the problems of deregulation and the damage that it has done to the american middle and working class.

I have seen this movie a couple of times prior to this, and though I agree with Michael Moore, I'm going to criticize him because it's boring to talk about all the ways in which you agree with someone. I personally find his constant appeal to emotion to be simultaneously his best and worst trait. I cannot watch his documentaries more than a couple of times before I find them annoying to be frank. He uses this recipe for his movies that is like 75% pathos, 15% ethos, and 10% logos. Though this works wonders the first time you watch one of his films, it draws you in and you cannot help but agree with him, after a couple times you begin to view it as sensationalist vacuity. I love what he does, he incites passion in people on issues that probably wouldn't have cared about otherwise, but I actually do care about these issues and I dont really like how light he is on the facts and his disregard to counterarguments. With all that being said, there could have been worse ways to spend the week. At least I wasn't watching a movie from the opposite camp all about the glories of capitalism and lasse-faire economics.