Sarah

2/7/2014 ==Current Event- [|"Brother Ali: The Intersection of Homophobia and Hip Hop: Where Tyler Met Frank".]==

====I think we should be careful with what we say because people could easily be offended. People in certain types of religion think it's wrong to use curse words and even people without religion could be offended. Some things people say in media might be misunderstood and then everyone will start talking about it and people will start hating that one person even though it was just a misunderstanding. We live in a world where people get offended over the simplest things and it suddenly becomes a big deal. Some people use offensive words in ignorance because they think saying them makes them part of the "cool crowd". Also, if you use offensive words to intentionally offend somebody, that is not okay and you're just being a jerk if you do it. Tyler the Creator says, "I'm not homophobic. I just think 'ft' hits and hurts people. It hits. And 'gay' just means you're stupid. I don't know, we don't think about it, we're just kids. We don't think about that s--t. But I don't hate gay people. I don't want anyone to think I'm homophobic." The word "gay" doesn't mean the same thing to him as it does to everyone else and unless he explains this to them, it sends the wrong message. It's obvious that he isn't really thinking about what he's saying and how it could offend someone. I believe many people do this and never even think about the effects of what they say or how other people feel about it. ====

2/21/2014

Current Event- Clothing
There are many different standards and sexist things in this world for girl and guys. Sexist apparel and toys are everywhere. There are two Avengers shirts, one for a boy and the other for a girl, and the boy's shirt says "Be a hero" while the girls say "I need a hero". It seems like they're implying that girls are weaker and need a man to save them instead of being the hero themselves. The clothing that girls wear now a days are more suggestive than they were a couple decades ago. Teen girls make up excuses to why they should be able to wear whatever kind of clothes they want. Parents are worried that if their children continue to wear more revealing clothing, they won't be taken seriously, which is true. When people look at girls in suggestive clothes, they take them less seriously. Also, girls who are dressed in sexualized clothing can be distracting for guys. This is why in commercial you might see women dressed in revealing clothing, which attracts the guys attention.

What we can learn about our society by their clothes is that the way girls dress can be distracting to guys if it's revealing. However, revealing clothes seem to be all that is in stores. People don't take women as seriously if they are dressed in clothing like that! How are we supposed to gain the respect of other people if all the clothes we get are just showing off our body? In our society, wearing clothes that show off a girls body is pretty much a completely normal thing.

2/28/2014

Current Event- Role Models
I agree with Sinead O'Connor that women should have more respect for their body. I think that she has a good point when she says "The music business doesn't give a s**t about you, or any of us. They will prostitute you for all you are worth, and cleverly make you think it's what YOU wanted...". It's true that people in the music business just want money and that's why they make you do crazy things. All they want is their money. I don't think that if a women wants to look good, she has to wear clothes that show a lot of skin to do so. Also, Sinead is right when she says "...you have enough talent that you don't need to let the music business make a prostitute of you". If a singer has a good voice, he/she doesn't need to do something crazy like twerking on stage or riding a wrecking ball naked. People will buy the singers songs because they want to listen to their voice, not look at them. I don't listen to someone's album because I like their face. I think that men should also value these things. They should show respect for their body and know when people are using their body for money.

3/14/2014

Freewrite
In 8th grade, I went to a gun shooting competition on the weekend that Hurricane Sandy swept past North Carolina. It was my first (and currently only) shooting competition. Me and my dad went to Acedemi (formerly Black Water) in Moyock, North Carolina. We got there and drove up to this really nice looking hotel type place that was there. I remember thinking "Is this the place we're staying at for tonight? SWEET!". Unfortunately we were only going in there to find out where we were actually staying. The place we were staying at was plain and simple. In the room there were two beds that you had to put the sheets on yourself, a dresser and mirror, and bathroom with a drain in the floor for the shower water to drain in to. The place wasn't bad. Until I found a spider on the wall behind the head of one of the beds. I unashamedly say that that was NOT the bed I chose to sleep in. In the morning we had to wake up bright (well it wasn't really bright) and early. That was quite a challenge considering I love to sleep. Me and my dad finally got out of our room and down to check in to the competition and put our names in for a drawing. There weren't many people there and there was no other people my age, let alone any girl competitors. By this time I was awake enough to feel nervous. We were assigned to a group to shoot with, and off we go! There were several stages we were allowed to shoot at. Some of them you could only use a pistol or rifle, but each time you could shoot the stage twice and your lower time would be knocked out. I always preferred the rifle, but most of the stages were pistol only. I was the slowest of all the people in my group. That was expected though because they had all been to competitions before (except for my dad). Shooting at the different stages was really fun, but it was really cold. It was also very windy because of Hurricane Sandy. Each time I was done shooting, I would scurry back to the truck and wear my dad's gigantic camo coat to keep warm. When we were on the last stage one of the guys who heads up the competition came over to me and my dad and said that we had won something. I couldn't believe it considering I've never won anything from a drawing before. Unfortunately, I didn't win any of the guns they had, but I got a comfortable T-shirt that is too big and my dad got a hat. Once the competition was over and we were informed that we would find out what place we scored in a week or so, it was time for lunch. They had a cafeteria there so we didn't have to drive 30 minutes to find a place to eat. There wasn't much of a selection of food to eat so I just got chicken and fries. I didn't expect the food to be good, but it was actually very tasty. The fries were some of the best fries I had had in a long time. We didn't take long to eat and soon enough, we were on our way home. We were both tired and ready to get home and sleep in our own rooms that were (I hope) spider free. Later that week our results from the competition came in. I thought for sure I would be last place, but surprisingly I was 23rd out of 26! I still have the sheets that have my times from each stage and what place I was in (they're somewhere in my room). Going to that shooting competition is a memory I won't forget and it was a great experience. Since then, my dad has gone to several competition, but I haven't gone with him. Maybe one weekend I'll go with him again and do even better than the last time.

5/12/2014

Project Reflection

In this group project, we pretended to be a propaganda company for a made up candidate running for mayor in a community. We were given a rough location of where the town was, the demographics of the community, major issues that we had to address, and what kind of people wanted what for their community. We had to write a speech and make things such as an issue piece, a mailer piece, and a storyboard. We had to finish this by Friday which was when each group selected a representative to give the speech, and after each representative gave their speech, the people of the community (our class) were able to ask questions of any of the representative about their campaign and their candidate. At the end of class, everyone voted for whatever candidate they thought would be best for mayor. In my group we used the propaganda technique plain folk, and transfer. We also used repetition as a rhetorical device. For me, I thought the most challenging part of this project was either preparing for questions that the people of the community or getting my group to focus. It's hard to predict what questions will be and how to answer them in a way that will make people like you. I think I should have written the speech different and make it include all the issues instead of just focusing on one. I think a way to improve this project would be to just forget about how many campaign pieces (the mailer piece, profiler piece, storyboard, etc...) we can afford because that just confused me and I don't think many people actually worried about it or took it into concern. Also, I would have liked it better if it wasn't like someone was sent to us to talk about our plan for the propaganda. Instead, I would have liked it if it was just our teacher wanting to know how we were doing and what we were thinking about and what her opinions were. Well, I'll use these techniques if I ever have another project that has to do with propaganda or an election. I could use the rhetorical techniques in future history classes whenever I write an essay. I might use these techniques if I'm actually involved with a propaganda company and make propaganda for people (but I know I won't be doing that). I guess you could also use it if you write in the newspaper.