Monday, April 20, 2009

Critcal Thinking Blog #4

So, we watched 'the merchants of cool.'

I was fascinated.

Guilt money is a concept i understand, but have never dealt with, i guess my parents just never felt guilty enough, or never had enough money. Although some of the items presented within the ideas of the dcumentary were outdated, the premise behind all of them, i believe, still holds strong today. Parents still feel badly for not being with the children often enough, so they work harder to make more money so they can give their children more money to ease their unease about the situation. instead of working less, easing the guilt (which is the main problem), and not having such a vicious circle. i was lucky enough to have my mom at home when i was growing up. she did phone sales. so, my sister and i, and eventually even my brother, were never put in daycare, and rarely felt neglected. plus i had sibling to keep me entertained, or perhaps i entertained her.

i always thought of my sister and i as trendsetters. my mother always dressed us well, and we were conscientous of what we were wearing. not so much brands and expensive, but we were wearing vans before they were a phenomenon, and later converse before they made their global comeback. i had purple ones, they were quite awesome. we were made fun of at school for having colorful, out of the box shoes or clothes, but we always got the last laugh. a few years later, everyone else would be wearing exactly that.

reality television is an epidemic. what isn't to like about everyday people creating and living through drama everyone secretly wishes to be apart of. and we get to watch! MTV is ridiculous, though. and other stations. i just don't know why everything is about sex. everything. you can't get away from it. it's bullshit when they say, we're promoting alternatives, we might as well bring it up. bringing up sex and discussing alternatives is different than focusing on all aspects of it and condoning it. even if the demographic is high school, or even college, you ahve the dumb kids who think they are better than their age, 'more mature' (bullshit), who think that to be cool, they must partake in the same things as their older siblings, or what have you. so, while inappropriate for their age, they watch it and expose themselves to sex drugs and rock and roll to be cool. but i suppose that is the problem with television.

"Flaunt your sexuality, even if you don't understand it." horrifying. my 87 year old grandma would tell my mom in the sixties, girls who dress like that (short shorts, low cut blouses, not nearly as bad as they are now, but scandalous at the time) are asking to be raped. i wonder if the statistics for rape have risen in the last 40 years, 20 years, a decade? i will look into that. in my humble opinion, the girls who have been raped should be able to sue the media industry for billions. without their planting the seeds of slutty attire and positive feedback from sex, perhaps women wouldn't be as driven to come across as scandalous, slut-tastic, ho-rific.....

apparently firms are getting 'smarter'. they don't want their marketing to show. but if what you are doing is marketing a product, unless you don't put it on their air or obnoxiously brand every spare space on the street, you are marketing a product. it isn't possible to walk around campus without being bombarded. it isn't possible to watch anything, anywhere, because advertisements are rampant. it is obscene.

Monday, March 16, 2009

Critical Thinking Blog #3

Consider the current youth popular culture compared to "Berkeley in the Sixties." What movements do you have in your youth culture? How are you a part of your youth culture?

Movements that were popular in the 1960's...

hmm... free speech? anti-war? rock music being taken too seriously?

current movements.

i'm stumped. what are we considering a movement?
music being taken too seriously?

even after reading chapter 7, i need definitions clarified. because we skipped several chapters, when Jacoby uses terms such as "counter culture" and "counter counter-culture" (or however she puts those three words together), i am left with a void which, due to my laziness, i can't fill. do i really want to go back and read 100 pages? no. let's be honest. but what in the world is she talking about?

youth pop culture today? i think it is difficult to say what it is today because we are in the thick of it. it is much easier to define movements, or anything else, in retrospect. hindsight is 20/20. i would say that i have given in to fashion and labeling as much as any other roseville or granite bay inhabitant, although i live in loomis. i enjoy music, but i don't really care about it. it is more a background noise than a passion. i like politics. i think it takes a well read person to really have a stance on anything. i am a fairly moderate, left tendancy thinker, and on the right topic i am able to become very passionate. is that a movement?

wikipedia. movement: Social movements are a type of group action. They are large informal groupings of individuals and/or organizations focused on specific political or social issues, in other words, on carrying out, resisting or undoing a social change.
collective challenges [to elites, authorities, other groups or cultural codes] by people with common purposes and solidarity in sustained interactions with elites, opponents and authorities

what collective challenges has my generation faced? crappy presidents, good presidents, morally unstable presidents. pants that ride to high, pants that ride to low. new classes, or new termed classes of cliques. the 'emo' the 'goth'. aren't those movements? they seem beatnik-ish to me. props to jack kerouac.

i think i need to sleep on what movements i am a part of. i have never burned a flag, or joined a rally. i am fairly soft spoken and i try to keep to myself, unless i am comfortable in my surroundings... then i am sassy and sarcastic to a fault.

Friday, March 13, 2009

Pre Reading Blog #3

How do you perceive your popular culture? What does popular culture consist of in your world? Music? TV? The Web? Fashion? What attracted you to this particular section of popular culture? Why do you like it? How do you understand its history? Please end your blog with at least one good critical question.

So, i get from this that i am supposed to personalize popular culture. i thought popular culture was the culture applied to the general public for a specific generation/time period.

i will do both, just in case i am really bad at comprehension...

today's pop culture is all about what makes 'me' happy in the moment. what gives that feeling of bliss. i would say that popular culture here in california is very different from what would be considered popular culture in new york, or even colorado. fashion as a term and piece of the pop culture puzzle, differs around the world. some things remain the same, such as blue jeans, but the cut, style, and ways to accesorize the simple blue jean differ drastically throughout the world, and even the united states.

personally, my pop culture, things that make 'me' happy, would be fashion and the internet. i have many friends around the world, and the internet allows me access to them. i can talk to my best friend in scotland and check in on my buddy in paris. i can know what is going on in their lives, thank you facebook, without having to have a full blown conversation.

I have not always been such a label whore. but thanks to nordstrom, that all changed. I was able to work for nordstrom for two years, and i was unlucky enough to do my time in walnut creek. as a place to window shop and people watch, walnut creek is great. to be an abused employee is not. whoops. that was a bit of a rant.

anywho. lucky me, i was naive enough to give in to the temptation that is 7's for all mankind. i would like to say, it took me 8 months. i didn't actually buy anything from nordstrom, even though i had a discount, for five months, hooray me. but fashion, like heroin, is ridiculously addicting, and it happens fast. so now, although i have been in rehab for a year, i still love me some rock and republics and citizens of humanity. curse you fashion.

i am, however, quite good with fashion, it was a genetic trait passed down from my mother. my sister and i were both given the gift, she more than me (go figure). to be able to dress someone else is HARD. to be able to dress yourself is near impossible. thankfully, i can stumble across one outfit that works and just wear it time after time. my sister reinvents herself all the time. so, according to me, not everyone is given the gift of taste.

is pop culture dependent on society having taste? i don't think so. there is so much crappy music out there, but there is alway someone who thinks it is the bee's knee's, how sad for them. the internet is a gift and a curse. it is so easy to keep in communication with people and email is so fast. but so many people abuse it. pornography has become a hugely prevelant and readily available drug.

i was just now asked to go shopping because of what i am wearing. it is a drug. not only is it fun to have new things, but people praise you and tell you how good you are. like a dog waiting for you to rub their tummy. tell me how good i am! tell me how good i am! acceptance is the most addicting drug there is. and everyone has that addiction in common. so, for me, fashion is my pop culture drug of choice. i am accepted and wanted and get to be helpful because of it. i get to help solve people's problems. my personality depends on helping people. what better pop culture trend to follow?

I quite enjoy being able to see where fashion has come from, and to see influences of those era's in current fashion. the 20's, 30's, 50's, 60's 70's and so many more decades are influencing what everyone wears today. everyone loves a screen tee. they look old and worn like they were from past decades. i myself wear some of my father's tee's from the 70's. jeans, which appeared for women and men as a huge staple somewhere in the late 1960's i believe, are still influenced by what they first were. bell bottoms have become bootcut denim, skinny jeans are derived from cigarette pants. how often must i hear my mother say, i wore that back in the day. had i known you were going to wear it, i would have kept it.

i digress.

critical question of my day?

pop culture has a positive connotation. this is what the decade was all about. but, those things that made up the decade, did they really have a positive effect?

Monday, February 9, 2009

Critical Thinking Blog #2

What a tricky subject to discuss. Creationism or Evolution?

Doesn't everything evolve? As a species, humans have evolved. We have developed technology, art has gone from 1 dimensional stoic figures to feeling, textured, brilliant paintings on piece of canvas appearing to have dimension and depth.

Depending on where you live, skin pigmentations evolve. there is no reason for extreme pigment in places where the sun doesnt reach you. There is a reason why African's have such rich, dark skin.

for someone to argue evolution doesn't happen is pure anti intellectualism.

I do not, however think that we, as a race, evolved from single celled organisms or apes, for that matter. we may have been neanderthals, but we were not monkeys. i dare you to find that 'missing link'. if you do, i will introduce you to big foot.

I feel sorry for Darwin, i think he would be appalled at the misinterpretation of one of his many arguments and hypotheses.

Clearly, i believe in creationism. there are so many universal coincidences it would be almost impossible to believe otherwise.
If the earth were any farther or closer to the sun, life could not exist. if our solar system was anywhere else on the milky way, on some other arm, or closer or farther from the center (we are pretty far out on one of those arms, i believe...?) we couldn't exist. So, by some random bang, and itty bitty cells, we just happened to pop up! right... if we were anywhere else in the galaxy, we wouldn't even be aware of the rest of the universe. it would be impossible for us to see anything else, and we wouldn't even be lucky enough to look out at the unfathomable depths that have been given to us to explore and admire.

There are too many things that HAD to happen for us to exist and thrive for everything to be absolute luck and coincidence. it just isn't possible. Someone HAD to have a hand in it, come on.

I think due to technology, and more pressing arguments, this issue is receiving less attention than it did 30 years ago. Way back in the day, Bryan and all that jazz, it was the root of controversy. When religion became less household and less everyday lives for people, and science advanced further than anyone had thought possible, debating creationism and evolution became more of a moot point. either way you go, you get taught evolution, and nothing about creationism can even be mentioned in a school, thank you seperation of church and state.

because it isn't discussed in high school, or even really in college, it is parent's who have to care what their kids are taught. most just want their kid to pass, screw what they learn, so why bother making a stink about one small subject?

Wednesday, January 21, 2009

Critical Thinking Blog #1

Shit. I was driving to one of my jobs after a morning of physics, and realized i hadn't done this critical thinking business... BLAST!!!!! i am such an idiot. so, due to my retardation, i went directly to staples after telling my lovely coworker i would be a bit late, and bought a daily planner type deal. so, maybe i need a little more organizational help than i previously though. so, even though i won't get credit for this, it doesn't hurt to have it anyway, right?

bitchin.

Part 1:

critical thinking: how do i describe it? ew. i guess in straight talk, thinking through situations, or posed problems with the intent of explanation, or future argumentation. according to wikipedia (love it) it would be: the 'mental processes of discernment, analysis and evaluation' la di da. and it says something about common sense. so, street smarts, right? empirical knowledge... someone paid attention in class. excellent.

now it gets tricky. when have i thought critically? me, common sense? cripes. i guess you have to critically think in my physics class, or mostly the lab. in science in general? physics, specifically. you are given equations, told what the variables represent, then you are sent into the lab to experiment, and collect raw data. With that raw data you have to find the other variables, put then in some sort of sensicle order, and then explain what all that means. wow, if i were to reread what i am typing, i don't know that it is coherent. teach me to answer phones and blog at the same time...

when have i not thougth something through critically? all the time, every day? when i was still in high school, i blew off figuring out my future a bit. i didn't think about where i could honestly go, even though i would preach about wanting to go to a four year. so, instead i moved two states away to go to a junior college. didn't really analyze my situation or think about the consequences of those lack of actions.

Part 2

that quote is mind boggling. my comprehension is almost shot.

until this class, i connotated the word 'intellecutal' in intelligence. some people who are intelligent are nice, others are goobers. so, positive or negative, not answerable for me, but the implication of book smarts. after our class discussion i realized that an intellectual is not necessarily book smart, so i will have to rethink my connotations...

logic and reason are empirical knowledge, things you learn from experience. i am wrong actually. logic is something you are born with and it grows through experience. reason is what you are taught when you are young. if you are not nurtured in these area's i don't believe you can ever force yourself to get them for yourself later in life. so, for me, they have positive connotations if you posses them. i think poorly of someone who lacks one or both logic and reason.

maybe next time i will get this posted on time....

Sunday, January 18, 2009

Pre-Reading Blog #1

Here I am, 20 years old, and still at community college. Granted, I had to take a year off, but if I were 16 again, I would have thought for sure (!!) that I would be at a four year institution of some sort, even a mental one....

Sierra is my second jc. I went to DVC in Concord, closer to the bay. While going there straight out of high school, I had to learn how to swim, or at least keep my head above water, in an environment where I knew absolutely nobody. I had moved from Colorado, and I am shy and quiet when I don't know anyone, but I can come out of my shell and have fun if I know even just one person. I ramble. Cripes.

uh, my impressions of education thus far? we are taught to the test. it is rather irritating. in my year sobbatical from school, i realized i LOVE to learn. i love to enrich my mind. i am not the smartest or brightest crayon in the box, but i am passionate about learning, and for that matter, my education.

I did enjoy high school, i was in Colorado, and had a close group of friends. i was by no means popular, but was the girl that most people knew. i was 'smart,' AP classes and all that jazz, but some of my friends were smarter. i was kind of a jock, dual sports, and i liked going to school.

in elementary, middle, and high school you take C-SAPS (like, i think, STAR testing??). i was always the 90th percentile or higher, clearly a smarty pants. but then i got to college. well at 18 and 19, i still was FOR SURE a smarty pants. in these international relations courses and business classes with a bunch of older students, i felt pretty awesome, until i realized all i had to do was read the book and take the test. pretty much everyone can do that. so, over the last year and a half, my confidence in my intelligence has plummeted.

i am so ecstatic to be back in school full time. i function as a human being differently, and i think more positively, when i have a full plate and am busy most of my time. i love to multitask. i am ready to stretch my intellect.

my problem with the education system? i don't know what to be when i grow up. and i think i am growing up too fast to figure it out. i am also afraid i'm not smart enough. that i won't add anything to society, or won't be unique.

Why aren't we, as students, more harshly critiqued? Why is a 'C' grade devoid of it's true meaning, mediocrity?

rationalism-reasoning based on truth and actuality
anti-rationalism-against truth based reasoning (?)
fundamentalism- support for literal explanation and adaptation