feb 28th

This blog is about a movie review. This first article is telling about jesse james and for some reason I do not know this story. Im sure I have heard it before but I do not remember it. It talks about all the things he did and all the many people that he killed across america. The first half of this article talks mainly about the life of jesse james but then it goes on to talk about other movies that have been made about him and how his son played his father in one of the movies. I think the basic argument for this movie is that there is a bit of overkill about the movies about jesse james and that most of the movies about him are not very factual.
The next article titled outlaws. This article is about several movies. It is bassically just talking about different outlaws that have been in different movies or whos stories have been told over time. In the beginning it is talking about a movie called “the kingdom” which I suppose took place in saudi arabia. It talks about people being kidnapped and an fbi team doing investigations. The article begins to point out flaws in the film. It talks about how this particular director uses a lot of violence in his movies but not only is it violence it is revenge for the most part. It also insults the actors in the movie saying that jamie foxx is too unmillitary for his character to be convincing.
Later in the article it talks about the jesse james movie and how it was directed. It says that the title of the movie pretty much gives all the excitement of the movie away. It describes the movie as slow shaggy-dog meditation on the man himself. This author of the article obviously has a strong oppinion and thinks those movie could have been better played and directed. Maybe he should get into the movie buisness.

march 14th

i printed off this blog instead of posting it

march 20th

This blog is about reading and writing. I read and write when I am not told to. I keep a diary that I write in occasionally but not everyday and I really like reading…I don’t typically care for things that im forced to read but books that I choose on my own I really enjoy and I like long books cause for some reason I feel like I have really occomplished something if I read them. I know that sounds kind of dumb but reading a like 100 page book takes like an hour or so depending on subject for me but a 600 or 700 page book takes me like a week unless I can devote a whole day to it. After a 700 page book I really don’t even want it to end cause you get so envolved in the story. I really like to read fiction. I like the imaginative side of fiction I guess and those type of books really intrige me and keep me interested. I read really slow and don’t comprehend things sometimes when I read but with fiction because its like new or something i have never heard of before I don’t loose concentration. For some reason I cant read a few pages of a history book and remember a thing but give me a harry potter book and I can sit down and read like 10 chapters and remember everything. I really hated reading in elemetary school. We used to have to do those accelerated reader points and who ever got the most got prizes and what not. Well I was terrible at that because when I was younger I read slower than now and comprehended close to nothing. I would read like 50 page books and then take the test for the accerlerated reader so I could get point but by the time I got to the questions I forgot everything that I had read.
Im not an active reader I don’t think. I will mark pages sometimes if there is something there that I want to remember but if im just reading for fun then I just read. If im reading things for school I use sticky notes and then later write those notes out so I have sort of an outline of what I read so I can remember it. I really think that by taking notes on the material that I read helps me to own the text.. im much more likely to remember something if I write it down. Its like being in kindergarten when you had to write over and over again your letters. Looking over things twice helps. And when looking over notes after I read I usually think to myself wow im glad I wrote that down because I had already forgoten that. I typically if I don’t want to take exstensive note I atleast write the plot line and characters.
But anyway yes I really enjoy reading and to some extent am an active reader.

So the story of my life…
Well I was born in memphis tennessee. I was born premature and had many complications. I had two holes in my heart when I was born but did not have heart surgery until I was two years old. Even after surgery I still had minor problems and still to this day have not been released by my cardiologist. My parents got divorced when I was 5 years old for one reason or another and my dad moved away to Louisiana. I lived in memphis for the majority of my life. I started school at christ methodist day school but when I turned seven, after one of my moms many marriages failed, my mom decided that we would move to south carolina with her childhood best friend. We came back to memphis after a year and I started the 3rd grade at macon hall elemetary. At this time I was very involved in gymnastics and dance at wimbeldon and bartlett dance factory. When I was 10 years old my mom got married to roy, who is now my step dad, and we moved into a house in bartlett. I then started going to private school, which I hated every day of. The only thing that was even close to being fun at private school was that I was a majorette for my school. I eventually went to houston high school for junior and senior year which was fun, well as much fun as high school can be I suppose. I started going to the university of memphis in august of 2007 and joined a sorority. I met tons of friends at memphis and saw many people I already knew. And that’s where I am today. At memphis just having fun and enjoying my second semester.

movie blog

Ok so my movie was Titanic.. I have found a lot of sources. There is a lot of information on the historical event in nearly every encyclopedia and online if I google it I get information that is relatively accurate. Also I have found some very interesting books on my movie. I found one book in the library near campus that tells every thing that happened in real life and then there is another half to the book that tells everything about how the movie was made and just everything pertaining to the movie. Some of the interesting things I have found in the books about the movie were things like how long it took to shoot and why they used the actors they used and where it was filmed. Some facts I didn’t know that I read in those books would be like how big the ship was, some people that were on it, and how it was made. I’m having trouble finding things to argue about with this movie because the movie does not stray far from the facts. The movie is not completely factual but what facts that are in the movie are very close to true. One of the arguments I have considered is “was this movie only directed at women when it came out” I think this would be easy to argue because I don’t think the movie was just aimed at women I think the whole ship wreck and all the death and what not would appeal to men. In my paper I would like to talk about how they chose to use little known actors for the movie. They chose kate winslet and leonardo di caprio because the producers did not have the money to hire big well known stars because the movie was costing so much. This is very ironic that they chose to budget their money because this movie made millions in theatres and also in blockbuster. After all that was over they had enough money that they could have hired any one they wanted to play actors in the movie. I really think the actors they chose though were perfect for the movie cause it made you focus more on the historical event rather than thinking about the celebrities. I would like to find some way to argue that. About there not being celebrities in the movie that is. I find that very interesting. Also something else I could argue would be did the love story take away from the event and no I don’t think it did because like you said situations like that could have happened and many people lost people they loved. So if anything I think it added to the story line because it makes you think about what all those people went through and how everything happened. I guess the movie would be really boring if they hadnt focased on anyone and just told what happened in real life.

the yellow wallpaper

Ok so this story was kinda weird at first. I thought it was very strange that both her husband and her brother would say that she needed to isolate herself and do no work because they said she had temporary nervous depression. You would think if someone was feeling depressed you wouldn’t tell them that they should stay alone. You would tell them that they need to get out and do something. I think that this story conveys a very controlling message. No matter how the woman felt about her condition or how she told her husband she felt , her opinion didn’t matter. Whatever he or her brother said that she had , that’s what she had. This husband gets more controlling of his wife as the story goes on. Like the whole story he basically tells her how she feels. At first he tells he that she is just depressed and then later on in the story when she said that she thought there was something strange about the house that they were living in he just told her that she was feeling draught. The woman seems to believe for a while that he is right about everything too. It is very odd to me that she is basically just going along with everything he says and just kinda ignoring her own feelings and when she says that she has a schedule for pills and that he takes great care of her and that she feels ungrateful to not value him more than she does. I think that is just crazy that she doesn’t see that he is controlling her with pills. If she does anything that he doesn’t like all he has to do is just give her a pill and there you go problem solved… when she started talking about the paint on the walls and the women behind it that was kinda creepy. She was obviously very mental but who wouldn’t be if they were locked up in a room all the time because their husband was so controlling and then having to take pills because its what her husband thought was best. As I was writing this me and my mom got into a huge fight as ussual and I thought how she would probably love to be able to control me like this haha keep me locked up all the time so she knew exactly where I was and knew everything I did. I couldn’t believe in this story how she had bars on her windows too that’s just crazy. I wonder if this ever happened in real life. Like if some crazy husband ever thought it would be some awesome idea to lock up his wife so he wouldn’t have to worry about what she did. It takes a very insecure and untrusting person to be able to act like this I suppose. Wow the ending of the story was very weird. It sounds like something out of a horror movie. Someone really should make a movie out of that story. It would probably be pretty good…

Ok well I don’t think I liked the article for this week very much after the first page or two I started feeling very ADD because I found myself thinking about a thousand other things than this article. It was pretty boring. I’m really having a hard time reading this I cant decide whether its because I’m tired or I just cant concentrate because I’m not enjoying what I’m reading. I wish I could do a better job for this assignment. One thing I did notice I guess is that the article said that movies started out not being much entertainment for people and that no one was interested. That is definitely and extreme change from today! I’m sorry this is such an awful job with this assignment.. I’ll go to two plays at least to make up for this...

O so the first one I have already seen this before and I thought it was kinda funny because that girl isnt very pretty at first and then after they do all the hair and makeup and computer work she looks gorgeous. I think it is trying to show people that most of what we consider to be “pretty” isnt real . Like all the models in magazines and pictures that we see. I mean you could do all that hair and makeup and computer work to anyone and they would look pretty. Guess it shows that it really doesn’t take much to be in a magazine ad since youre not going to look like youreself anyway. Many younger girls look up to those girls and want to look like those pictures in the magazine but the funny thing is that those people don’t even look like their picture!
Ok so the next one , wow that was really funny. And yes I do think it is making value judgements about how you look and your inteligence. I suppose they were saying that more active people would play wii considering the weights of the two people and they were saying how much more fun and young the wii is. Honestly I do like the wii more than I like the playstation 3 but I play both of them. I like wii because you can play tennis and all the other sports and you are kinda more involved instead of sitting on your butt for a couple of hours . I guess it was also saying that you have to be more inteligent to play a playstation and I guess if you are playing some sort of war game that would be right. The controllers for playstation 3 are a lot more complicated than the wii controllers too. but the last thing ill say about the wii it mentioned that it was cheap it must be talking about quality because that thing is outrageously priced!!
The cinamon toast crunch commercial was cute . its nothing like the commercials for that cereal that they have now . but I guess the argument for this commercial would be that it taste better than all other cereals because it taste homade. I love cinamon toast crunch and I think its funny how in the commercial the parents are eating the cereal and saying it taste good and the mom is saying how there isnt as much sugar as she thought. I guess that’s trying to tell parents that this cereal is heathy for their kids.
Ok so the calvin klien commercial was kinda weird. I guess they were trying to say that if you buy this cologne you are gonna end up kissing some really pretty girl or something. I don’t think this commmercial is harmful but I do think it leaves out things you might want to know like how that cologne smells gross. My friend has it I don’t like it.

i liked these speeches i want to write about more things like this!

I think I will like these speeches! Ok I read the Gettysburg address first. That was a very uplifting speech and so dedicated. What I got out of this speech is that he is telling us that through the trials that our country will face that we need to stand by our country and only become strong as a nation through these trials. Also when he said that the dead shall not have died in vain I think he is saying don’t let the problems that our men went to war for happen again because if we do that means that those men died in vain or for no reason. That is what I understood from that speech. The second speech that I read was the “cast down your bucket where you are” I liked this one. I felt that it was basically saying that for the people of his time that were distressed and felt that they had no one that they should look around and not judge people by race and they would find many more people willing to help them or be their friend. Also I think that when he said the cast down your bucket where you are I think he was showing that help can come in unexpected ways. The ship asked over and over again for water from their neighboring ship yet all along the help that they needed the most was right there underneath them. The third speech was “the solitude of self” this speech was about women’s rights. One thing that caught my attention was when she said that women must rely on themselves and that no matter how much we prefer to lean or be supported by men that we must make the voyage of life alone. I think that is very true because if you spend your whole life relying on other people to do things for you what will you do when those people are gone? Where will you be when your mom isn’t there to cook your dinner. I experienced this when I moved into the house I am in now. Haha and so far I have made like 3 actual meals in the past 2 months of living here. But this speech wasn’t just about women doing things on their own it was about them being allowed to do things on their own and not having to have the approval of a man in order to make a decision. I didn’t understand a few things in this speech it was very deep but I did enjoy reading it and it felt very inspiring and I think it is amazing that she spent most of her life fighting for women’s rights. i cant imagine working my whole life towards something and then never seeing it resolved. it's hard for me to imagine a time when women didnt have rights though. i cant imagine not being able to do things just because i am a woman. im not married or anything but if someone told me o i'm sorry i cant let you do that but if your husband wants to do it for you thats fine i would laugh at them. or if i was told that i was not able to vote because i was a women. i think we are all lucky to be born in a time that is not so much having to deal with these issuese. Its unfortunate that many women who fought so long for the rights that we have today do not get to experience the liberties that we take for granted…

2nd blog post

well I’m not going to lie. I did not understand a single word. I felt really confused when I was reading this because I know absolutely nothing about elections or any of the presidents. Just when I thought I understood what was going on and thought they were talking about our current president bush I got confused again and thought they were talking about his father. They were weren't they? This article seemed to me like the author was trying to point out flaws that president bush has made or things that he has done that the author doesn’t agree with. I remember when it was talking about how he was in a tent yet he and all the men with him were wearing floor length fur lined robes and watching news on a plasma screen tv. I guess this was trying to say that he is very materialistic and not as concerned about the middle east as we would like to think.
Ok and on to the second article. James k Polk was not black , he owned quite a few as slaves but he was not black and neither was Thomas Jefferson. Hmm both of these articles have really confused me so far.. so after the beginning of this article I kinda assumed this guy didn’t know what he was talking but when he was talking about AL Sharpton accusing squirrels and end tables of racism I thought that was really funny! Also when he insulted being called french I thought that was funny too but I like France. And when he mentioned rock of love that was funny too. I like that show sometimes its kinda weird though. I didn’t really get when he said that the cartoonist would be working at Arbys if Obama was elected. I felt like both of these articles were really trying to bash the presidency and let other people know what they disagree with. I really cant think of anymore to say..

Ok so here goes my first blog post!
Well I was very surprised to find out that copying recipes was not plagiarism even if they came out of a cookbook. I guess I just always considered that copying anything out of a book would be plagiarism without giving reference to the author. But that does make sense because so many recipes have similarities and there are billions of recipes. Unless someone said they had invented a recipe and it was what their book was based or something like that I think it is ok to copy recipes.
I thought it was really funny when the author was talking about how the chef at the restaurant Interlude had committed culinary plagiarism. I think this shows how much of a fine line there is between plagiarizing and not plagiarizing. Because had he changed the plating of the dish to where it did not look the same but used all the same ingredients I’m sure his dish would have gone unnoticed. I think a lot of plagiarizing goes unnoticed mostly by the people who do it. Like if you use a website for facts about like an animal or something you have to cite the websites you used or that’s plagiarism. I think I remember someone last year in this class getting in a lot of trouble for doing that but she didn’t even realize that she had done anything wrong at all. It’s hard to say whether or not someone should be punished for unintentional plagiarism. It’s still plagiarism so I guess the best advice for that is to make sure that you are fully informed on what plagiarizing is and isn’t before you use a website for anything.
But anyway, about the cookbooks, I agree with the author when he says that the cookbooks were not much of an original idea. There are only so many ways that you can hide vegetables in kid’s foods and I’m sure that the cookbooks like these that came out before the two mentioned in the article had very similar recipes. I don’t think that Ms.Seinfeld plagiarized in the book that she wrote I just think that they both had similar recipes because of the type of cookbook that it was.
Ok so about the other article first off WOW I didn’t realize there were so many websites for free term papers. I don’t think I would ever trust those websites because I don’t think anyone ever gets their money’s worth. I mean you pay like $80.00 for a paper that you may still have to fix and rewrite and spell check a lot of things I just don’t think that’s worth it. I could write a really bad paper in like a couple of hours if I just absolutely had to and that’s a lot better than getting expelled for wasting your money.
The website had some questions that we could answer and one was Why do you think high schools allow (and even encourage) the act that society disapproves of? Is there a mixed message there? Is this talking about plagiarism because my high school was pretty strict on plagiarizing I remember my English teacher reporting quite a few people to the principal for plagiarizing papers… well that’s the end hope I did ok