Class today was badly controlled chaos at best. None of these things were classroom management issues--it should be OBVIOUS to one instructor that walking into another instructor's class during lecture to let another student use a computer isn't cool. It should be OBVIOUS to a student that if you get your wisdom tooth removed you probably shouldn't come to class right afterward. Duh.
And yet, neither is apparently obvious enough.
That said, one of my posts from weeks ago is getting attention from a masculinist site. What began as a post essentially directed at a friend who was espousing the crud that was in the quotes I pulled turned into a "shut up the evil radical feminist!" game.
Here's the thing: I'm a BAD feminist. Bad feminist, no cookie--and no, I'm not kidding. By the most common definition of feminism held by the commonest of people who haven't, you know, studied it or anything, I'm NOT a feminist. My freaking fiance doesn't seem to think I am even.
But if I call myself a feminist online, *naturally* I must hate men, blame them for all my problems (to which I ask, what problems? No... really... stuff's pretty good...), have a short haircut, be fat and ugly, AND be a lesbian. No make-up, no girly shoes (did you not see my name on here? It's not sarcasm...), no nice clothes.
I'm engaged, I like shoes (particularly nice designer ones that don't make my feet hurt), I shop on Bluefly.com....
But, at the same time, I think that many things about the way women are treated, in general, are pretty fucked up, and I'd like to change them--thus, I'm a feminist.
There are many different kinds of feminists. Some of these dudes who were alternately telling me how ugly and fat I must be and how much they hated me even say slightly feminist things in other posts on their own site. But to them feminist is a dirty word--so no, that couldn't be possible, could it? (Of course, there's just as many guys saying things like "Women don't really have much choice [except to have sex with] an experienced player" as well...
There are radical feminists, who think women need to stop wearing girly clothes, girly shoes, and make up. There are feminists that think women should be able to choose whatever sort of life they want, and call that feminism. There are feminists who just think that equality in relationships is important. There are feminists who just want to keep it okay for women to work and not have kids in spite of increasing pressure to stop work and have babies.
They don't all think the same things, and they don't all react in the same ways.
Furthermore, men and women can *both* be the enemy. The first time anybody threatened to rape me it was a girl my own age. I could either cut my hair and join her stupid clique at school (who swore they weren't a gang) or she and her group would threaten rape. That's some pretty fucked up stuff right there--and it wasn't a guy. I don't see this girl, or the woman she grew into, being any sort of friend to woman-kind at all in general.
But men, too, can be either friend or foe. It's harder to determine who is who though, with men. Plenty of guys lie about who they really are in order to get laid, or in order to have some sort of power over women. They HATE it when women do it back (women are evil "hors!") and yet, in my experience, lie just as often to gain power over somebody. (Example: the fellow who targeted me for "dating" purely because somebody with a similiar degree had once really pissed him off, that didn't have anything to do with anything but power.)
But apart from relationships, there are still many other screwed up things going on in America today surrounding gender. I'd like to think it'd entirely change when the "old boys" club finally becomes the "ancient boys" and kicks off--but their ideals are unlikely to die. Maybe, even if their ideals don't die some of their absolute gall will (telling somebody they shouldn't take a class because it's too hard for young girl, asking a girl to describe her bedroom during a phone interview, researching a women you are about to hire online to make sure she's not fat...).
In the meantime, the boys will no doubt continue to scream at this "bad feminist," but I don't see why *I* should have to shut up if they've no intention of doing so. My only concern, of course, is that saying anything at all just hurts the cause in the end.
Thursday, February 22, 2007
Wednesday, February 07, 2007
Dear Head, Meet Keyboard
I'm working on my plan of work. I really just need to know that the event hinted at above and my QE's aren't going to happen at the same time. I added everything up and I'm 2.5 credits short.
WTF? WTF PEOPLE? I'm using your brand spanking new system to figure out QE date and I'm 2.5 credits short. I took the maximum number of diss. credits and the max number of transfer credits and it's 2.5 short. SHORT! Argh! Okay, so if this is right, then I've got one more term of coursework or pre-diss research. Or, there's just something hinky in the system that they never added up (we need 90 credits to graduate) and that's not working.
GRAR!
Or you know I hit plus one less time than I was supposed to. It's possible. But probably not.
Tuesday, January 30, 2007
instructional technology anyone?
It's been hitting me hard this term just how much instruction technology (and support thereof) has changed in the four point five years I've been teaching.
This is probably because to some extent I'm using old examples, giving older lectures, and I'm suddenly struck by how I had to do this the last time I did it. The last time I brought in examples for rhetorical analysis I did so on an overhead. I had a magazine cover I dragged into class. I had to burn files to a CD and then throw them into my own laptop hooked up to a cart with a projector on it (because the laptop on the cart usually didn't like me very much, for whatever reason).
My students used to write reading responses and journal entries both in class at home. Now we do that on the course blog.
Instead of burning stuff to a CD I put it on a USB key around my neck. I'd just shove the stuff in Content Collection on Blackboard, or in a hidden file on my website, but to be honest, I don't really trust that the internet in my classroom will work--it's been hinky on Monday mornings. I really need to kick the ass of whomever is futzing with it on Saturdays or Fridays and TURNING OFF THE ROUTER. *growl*
But that too is a big change. My students all have laptops available at one school (in the classroom or their own) that are locked up in the back. In the other, I have a multimedia workstation that I present from, and all my students have a computer in front of them all the time. This is a big advance from always having to check out a computer lab and sharing the space with other users...
Yet, I find myself relying on the technology less and less. Sure I study "Computers and Writing" officially, but I'm the sap who thinks that a printed off spreadsheet would be better used to schedule people in the Writing Center than a hand built database in Access (alright, so it's mostly because Access doesn't have a built in calender feature, but still). I'm mostly right too--it's not always necessary. Nice, but not necessary.
Yet, if this is how many little things have changed in four years, I find myself wondering about the next twenty. What little things will have made teaching different in a few months? years?
This is probably because to some extent I'm using old examples, giving older lectures, and I'm suddenly struck by how I had to do this the last time I did it. The last time I brought in examples for rhetorical analysis I did so on an overhead. I had a magazine cover I dragged into class. I had to burn files to a CD and then throw them into my own laptop hooked up to a cart with a projector on it (because the laptop on the cart usually didn't like me very much, for whatever reason).
My students used to write reading responses and journal entries both in class at home. Now we do that on the course blog.
Instead of burning stuff to a CD I put it on a USB key around my neck. I'd just shove the stuff in Content Collection on Blackboard, or in a hidden file on my website, but to be honest, I don't really trust that the internet in my classroom will work--it's been hinky on Monday mornings. I really need to kick the ass of whomever is futzing with it on Saturdays or Fridays and TURNING OFF THE ROUTER. *growl*
But that too is a big change. My students all have laptops available at one school (in the classroom or their own) that are locked up in the back. In the other, I have a multimedia workstation that I present from, and all my students have a computer in front of them all the time. This is a big advance from always having to check out a computer lab and sharing the space with other users...
Yet, I find myself relying on the technology less and less. Sure I study "Computers and Writing" officially, but I'm the sap who thinks that a printed off spreadsheet would be better used to schedule people in the Writing Center than a hand built database in Access (alright, so it's mostly because Access doesn't have a built in calender feature, but still). I'm mostly right too--it's not always necessary. Nice, but not necessary.
Yet, if this is how many little things have changed in four years, I find myself wondering about the next twenty. What little things will have made teaching different in a few months? years?
Monday, January 22, 2007
basic writers vs. Freshmen writers?
It's become apparent to me since the beginning of the term that teaching freshmen is remarkably more different than teaching higher level college students that I would have originally assumed. (And, if any of my current students are reading this, hi!, by the way.) This isn't to say that they are bad, just a very different sort of student than I'm generally used to.
The first "basic comp" course I taught was really and truly a basic comp/rhet course aimed at sophomores. I also primarily teach non-traditional students in my other position, who aren't the same age as your average freshman. Now, what the heck difference could there possibly be between freshmen and sophomores, and why does it matter anyway?
When I was one I don't know that I saw a difference. As hard as I try, I don't really remember much about my attitude towards class that year. I went to it, I studied a lot, and I participated in the smaller sections I was in when I had anything to say. In my English class that happened to be a lot, as I was endlessly arguing with this one guy that I called "Bassoon guy" till I learned that's not even how you pronounce his last name...
...but no matter. I guess I recall, to one extent or another, not having any close personal connections to my teachers at that time. But I don't know why other than blatant fear--you know? Plus, I figured as long as I was doing well I had no reason to show up to office hours or speak to them and to some extent I'm STILL like that, unless I just want to shoot the shit, and thus far I've had very little reason to do that EITHER this year.
So right, what's different about freshmen?
Well, there's been plenty written about "basic writers." MANY of my students at my second job would count as basic writers. Some even have had no instruction in writing--ever. But they DO write, and they do proofread their work to the best of their ability, and they do work pretty hard. But they're not stereotypical freshmen. The ones that are, straight out of high school, tend to do that a little less.
I wonder sometimes if the problems of teaching "first year writing" have little to do with student intrinsic ability and more to do with just who they are and where they are in personal development. It's been a bit of culture shock for me to suddenly realize that I'm the enemy sometimes--after all, that's what high school writing teachers just might have been. It's been a long time since I considered the direct emotional/attitudinal effect of high school on college classes because MOST of my students over the years have had a year to twenty between high school and walking into my class room for the first time.
It doesn't hurt that I'm occassionally of the opinion that it wouldn't hurt some people (not all, maybe not even most) to work a few years before entering college. I remember being about 20ish when all of a sudden everything clicked--concentration, memorization, etc. and I felt like I could learn just about anything. Before that time a lot of what i was doing was a struggle, but not so much anymore. Hrm.
Non-traditional students pose their own problems I suppose. They need to be convinced that things are "doable" mostly. It seems silly in retrospect though, when they're all worried that their younger counterparts are going to be running circles around them when in reality their dedication to their work means the opposite is often the case.
The first "basic comp" course I taught was really and truly a basic comp/rhet course aimed at sophomores. I also primarily teach non-traditional students in my other position, who aren't the same age as your average freshman. Now, what the heck difference could there possibly be between freshmen and sophomores, and why does it matter anyway?
When I was one I don't know that I saw a difference. As hard as I try, I don't really remember much about my attitude towards class that year. I went to it, I studied a lot, and I participated in the smaller sections I was in when I had anything to say. In my English class that happened to be a lot, as I was endlessly arguing with this one guy that I called "Bassoon guy" till I learned that's not even how you pronounce his last name...
...but no matter. I guess I recall, to one extent or another, not having any close personal connections to my teachers at that time. But I don't know why other than blatant fear--you know? Plus, I figured as long as I was doing well I had no reason to show up to office hours or speak to them and to some extent I'm STILL like that, unless I just want to shoot the shit, and thus far I've had very little reason to do that EITHER this year.
So right, what's different about freshmen?
Well, there's been plenty written about "basic writers." MANY of my students at my second job would count as basic writers. Some even have had no instruction in writing--ever. But they DO write, and they do proofread their work to the best of their ability, and they do work pretty hard. But they're not stereotypical freshmen. The ones that are, straight out of high school, tend to do that a little less.
I wonder sometimes if the problems of teaching "first year writing" have little to do with student intrinsic ability and more to do with just who they are and where they are in personal development. It's been a bit of culture shock for me to suddenly realize that I'm the enemy sometimes--after all, that's what high school writing teachers just might have been. It's been a long time since I considered the direct emotional/attitudinal effect of high school on college classes because MOST of my students over the years have had a year to twenty between high school and walking into my class room for the first time.
It doesn't hurt that I'm occassionally of the opinion that it wouldn't hurt some people (not all, maybe not even most) to work a few years before entering college. I remember being about 20ish when all of a sudden everything clicked--concentration, memorization, etc. and I felt like I could learn just about anything. Before that time a lot of what i was doing was a struggle, but not so much anymore. Hrm.
Non-traditional students pose their own problems I suppose. They need to be convinced that things are "doable" mostly. It seems silly in retrospect though, when they're all worried that their younger counterparts are going to be running circles around them when in reality their dedication to their work means the opposite is often the case.
Wednesday, January 17, 2007
Stuff I've been reading
You know... outside of school.
First of all, here is Auryn. That link actually posts to her "memories" (favorite entries) on Livejournal, because that would be the easiest place to start reading her stuff. She was a nurse working at Methodist hospital during Hurricane Katrina, and although I know everybody's just sick to death of hearing about Katrina, her personal stories are interesting in a way that news reports just flat out aren't going to be.
In Junkfood Science, a medical professional (nurse) regularly debunks news articles and myths such as the obesity epidemic that the media constantly harps upon. If I wasn't already pretty sure of my topic for my Media Reception project this term, I might start looking at some of those ads and nhttp://www2.blogger.com/img/gl.link.gifews reports and how people respond to them... which is directly tied to .....
Hungry for Hunger, a really unique blog about increasingly common eating disorders (which was linked to Junkfood Science awhile back). This one is written by the husband of an anorexic woman who has gone inpatient. He says that he couldn't find any support sites for people like him, so he decided to make one for all the other husbands and boyfriends and girlfriends out there so they'll know what to expect and be better informed than he was.
Oh and I've been playing this.
First of all, here is Auryn. That link actually posts to her "memories" (favorite entries) on Livejournal, because that would be the easiest place to start reading her stuff. She was a nurse working at Methodist hospital during Hurricane Katrina, and although I know everybody's just sick to death of hearing about Katrina, her personal stories are interesting in a way that news reports just flat out aren't going to be.
In Junkfood Science, a medical professional (nurse) regularly debunks news articles and myths such as the obesity epidemic that the media constantly harps upon. If I wasn't already pretty sure of my topic for my Media Reception project this term, I might start looking at some of those ads and nhttp://www2.blogger.com/img/gl.link.gifews reports and how people respond to them... which is directly tied to .....
Hungry for Hunger, a really unique blog about increasingly common eating disorders (which was linked to Junkfood Science awhile back). This one is written by the husband of an anorexic woman who has gone inpatient. He says that he couldn't find any support sites for people like him, so he decided to make one for all the other husbands and boyfriends and girlfriends out there so they'll know what to expect and be better informed than he was.
Oh and I've been playing this.
Friday, January 12, 2007
personal feminism vs. academic feminism vs. sosuave.com vs. "straight gaydar"
In my Feminism and Composition course last night we were asked why we want to be there. For me, that question is hard to answer because my personal reasons for wanting that class and my professional ones are vastly different. On one hand, I feel as though I missed oppurtunities to learn from other women at my last school because I blew off the idea that this stuff was important, and now that I know that it is I don't want to be doing that again (personal). My dissertation might have something to do with empowering moderate voices, and I'd like to tie that into postmodern feminism as well (professional). And lastly, I just want to think of new ways of dealing with hinky situations that reveal far more about the misogyny of those I am in contact with in hopes of persuading them otherwise (personal, but yeah--fat chance).
This last is something I'd like to expand upon further here, despite this being an academic journal and despite this being a "personal problem."
One of my friends from my last school that had a couple classes with and worked on projects with has recently become a devotee of the stuff taught at sosuave.com. This site gives advice to men on how to pick up women, get their phone numbers, and also not ever be very attached to one women (oneitis) even in marriage. Oh yeah, and you need to touch people a lot (kino).
Now my first reaction was to call bullshit on all that. If some guy touches me in a bar he might very well end up with his own hand shoved straight up his patoot. Strangers don't get good touch/bad touch privleges, even if they are trying to get my bloody phone number. Actually, I don't go to bars or clubs to meet people, I go with existing friends, so any time I've ever been approached by anybody (and yes, some of them have used these techniques) has been somewhat disastrous for them and they walked away thinking I was a huge bitch because I don't and didn't give in.
But as he continues to write about this on his blog, and as I started to read that site (which I found by googling some language he uses, it may not ACTUALLY be where he goes, I don't know) I've found that's not my primary reaction. It's clear that these techniques do work, even if not particularly on me, and that the things said about women on these sites is destructive and sort of terrifying.
Now he claims that this is all about being more confident and being able to get what he wants by being more confident. But what does he want, and how does confidence effect that?
So... let's begin with a few quotes.
"The thought of whether she likes you should never cross your mind. It is not important BEFORE you ask for the number. The important thing is you WANTING her. Always ask yourself "Do I want this one?". And the answer should be 'Wow. Boy do I!' That is all you need to know. Real men TAKE what they want." From here. This statement, and others just like it, repeated over and over again, are something akin to the biggest promotion of rape culture I've ever read in my entire life.
And, from the same page:
""Feminism came without warning... and conquered men. It has created a generation of neurotic males. A male of this time may be one of them.
-Do you believe it is wrong to judge a woman by how she looks?
-Do you believe it is wrong to advance on a woman, sexually, with no verbal consent?
-Do you believe women have been 'discriminated' because of their gender, that males intentionally put women down?
-Do you believe that in sex, it is wrong to even consider to 'have your way with her' and become and be the sensuous animal you've always dreamed?
-Do you believe women desire, as priority, respect?
"If you believe in any of these things, even just a little, you have been affected by Modern Feminism. It is the virus that creates the effects known as Nice Guyius Patheticus!"
And this is what one of my "friends" is believing in.
This site repeats, over and over again, that women have TOO MUCH POWER and it must be taken from them at all costs.
Women should be MORE OBJECTIFIED, not less.
Furthermore, all women on the site are referred to by numbers representing their overall hotness. Hotness is based upon nothing but personal appearance, of course, because what a man WANTS on this site and what a man believes he deserves, what he is entitled to, is a woman that is far more attractive than he might be (which was something I noticed a whole heck of a lot at my last school. If you don't ever leave the front of your computer, eat nothing but ramen, and never shower, don't expect a super model boys, and just following the tips on this website to change those behaviors does NOT make you MORE DESERVING of a super model, sheesh.)
""The truth: Feminism is not declaring war on masculinity but on femininity! Feminism is a political Tower of Babylon to escape the truth of Human Nature.
"I'm in America. And I LOVE foreign chicks. They are just so feminine. Here, the chicks act masculine and get fat. They find it shameful to place their time and talents into their family and children (whereas, it should be their greatest joy).
"I think it is great honor, joy, privledge, and pleasure to be a Man. Women can trump us as they can be a Mother of Men. There is much glory in masculinity and femininity. But feminists are AGAINST both."
Yes of course, all american women are fat. But what IS fat?
Well first of all, any jiggling (even normal BMI) is fat:
"So because fat girls get by because of their "booty" (if you can find it under all the cellulite), more girls can get fat, develop a "booty" and not have to exercise.
after a short time of this, the average standard for women that men have, as well as the amount of work that women have to do to attract a man decreases even more"
You know, because girls should naturally have to work out just for men.
I've also read on this site that belly fat is okay, not NOTHING on the legs or butt is, because legs and butt are what attracts men. Nevermind that belly fat is more dangerous to women's health (even a little).
If a man admits to finding something other than the "feminine ideal" super skinny attractive, he'll be called gay: "man are you homosexual? That woman in the tan pants has a nice booty? If you like men, I have nothing against that though." In fact, ANY femininity in men is seen as gay on this site.
See more quotes:
"A woman’s sexual past is a key element on how she will be subservient in her role as a wife and your chances of a marriage without overbearing strife – hors are much more haughty and stubborn than virgins!! They lie about their past sexual relationships because they know that a slut/hor (non-virgin) is an unnatural condition for a woman (future wife) and they wish to deceive you (especially if they are seeking ltr/husband material) because intelligent men know that her sexual past is directly tied to her mindset, and her devotion in her role as a wife and to her duties as a mother!" From here.
"I have only one thing to say about women's sexual past: Get in early as you can. "
"I for one will not take any woman serious who has had slept around or had flings. Its OK, if the girl has had sex when she was in love, but if she is a hor, it tells me she has no control over her sexual urges, which also means she has no control over her morals, dignity and picks Orgasms over self-respect..."
These guys want to know why feminism is still necessary since the movement "won" what it wanted.
They're the freaking reason that feminism is still important.
Lastly, I guess I just want to study more about women's studies in hopes of being able to respond and get more than a "you're stupid" answer from my friend. A mutual friend who commented to him got a brush off answer.
Ever since I found out he thinks this way now, I wonder how many times in class he was also thinking "oh her? She's just a 5" or you know, whatever. I don't like to think that whatever interactions I've had with this person involved me being a NUMBER and utterly worthless because I was a happily taken classmate and not a sexual object.
Really lastly, the blatant homophobia on that site (though they claim they aren't homophobic) ties into this conversation a bit. A lot of people that I knew at school that also knew this guy knew that he dated girls, but a lot of them thought he might be gay. I'm not sure what the difference is between "slightly feminine most likely straight guy" is in "straight gaydar" or "slightly feminine most likely gay gay" is, but there is one to most people.
Now, this fellow claims to have had lots of women problems, although he's dated (and many of my friends hadn't even gotten that far). Nobody ever wanted to tell them "Well, girls might think you're gay." It's rude, it's disrespectful of real uncloseted gay people, and it's not right to just assume something about somebody else's sexuality. Is there a place for straight gaydar at all? (that's one question... sometimes I think there is, for example one of my acquaintences who was "out" turned around and married for the sake of his religion, the girl still doens't know as far as I know, and well... in that situation and ANY like it why should either party be unhappy? As long as people aren't comfortable being out, or are told that they are intrinsically "wrong," hrm...)
But for these guys with mistaken sexual identity, a place like sosuave might seem to be the place to learn to conquer those women that they HATE because women won't date them. It's no answer, it just makes all the problems we have worse. Living in a woman's body doesn't make me want to work less, doesn't make me want to raise a family more (my SO is far more interested in that than I am at this point in time), and doesn't make me stupider dammit. Oh yeah, it also doesn't make me automatically a "hor."
This last is something I'd like to expand upon further here, despite this being an academic journal and despite this being a "personal problem."
One of my friends from my last school that had a couple classes with and worked on projects with has recently become a devotee of the stuff taught at sosuave.com. This site gives advice to men on how to pick up women, get their phone numbers, and also not ever be very attached to one women (oneitis) even in marriage. Oh yeah, and you need to touch people a lot (kino).
Now my first reaction was to call bullshit on all that. If some guy touches me in a bar he might very well end up with his own hand shoved straight up his patoot. Strangers don't get good touch/bad touch privleges, even if they are trying to get my bloody phone number. Actually, I don't go to bars or clubs to meet people, I go with existing friends, so any time I've ever been approached by anybody (and yes, some of them have used these techniques) has been somewhat disastrous for them and they walked away thinking I was a huge bitch because I don't and didn't give in.
But as he continues to write about this on his blog, and as I started to read that site (which I found by googling some language he uses, it may not ACTUALLY be where he goes, I don't know) I've found that's not my primary reaction. It's clear that these techniques do work, even if not particularly on me, and that the things said about women on these sites is destructive and sort of terrifying.
Now he claims that this is all about being more confident and being able to get what he wants by being more confident. But what does he want, and how does confidence effect that?
So... let's begin with a few quotes.
"The thought of whether she likes you should never cross your mind. It is not important BEFORE you ask for the number. The important thing is you WANTING her. Always ask yourself "Do I want this one?". And the answer should be 'Wow. Boy do I!' That is all you need to know. Real men TAKE what they want." From here. This statement, and others just like it, repeated over and over again, are something akin to the biggest promotion of rape culture I've ever read in my entire life.
And, from the same page:
""Feminism came without warning... and conquered men. It has created a generation of neurotic males. A male of this time may be one of them.
-Do you believe it is wrong to judge a woman by how she looks?
-Do you believe it is wrong to advance on a woman, sexually, with no verbal consent?
-Do you believe women have been 'discriminated' because of their gender, that males intentionally put women down?
-Do you believe that in sex, it is wrong to even consider to 'have your way with her' and become and be the sensuous animal you've always dreamed?
-Do you believe women desire, as priority, respect?
"If you believe in any of these things, even just a little, you have been affected by Modern Feminism. It is the virus that creates the effects known as Nice Guyius Patheticus!"
And this is what one of my "friends" is believing in.
This site repeats, over and over again, that women have TOO MUCH POWER and it must be taken from them at all costs.
Women should be MORE OBJECTIFIED, not less.
Furthermore, all women on the site are referred to by numbers representing their overall hotness. Hotness is based upon nothing but personal appearance, of course, because what a man WANTS on this site and what a man believes he deserves, what he is entitled to, is a woman that is far more attractive than he might be (which was something I noticed a whole heck of a lot at my last school. If you don't ever leave the front of your computer, eat nothing but ramen, and never shower, don't expect a super model boys, and just following the tips on this website to change those behaviors does NOT make you MORE DESERVING of a super model, sheesh.)
""The truth: Feminism is not declaring war on masculinity but on femininity! Feminism is a political Tower of Babylon to escape the truth of Human Nature.
"I'm in America. And I LOVE foreign chicks. They are just so feminine. Here, the chicks act masculine and get fat. They find it shameful to place their time and talents into their family and children (whereas, it should be their greatest joy).
"I think it is great honor, joy, privledge, and pleasure to be a Man. Women can trump us as they can be a Mother of Men. There is much glory in masculinity and femininity. But feminists are AGAINST both."
Yes of course, all american women are fat. But what IS fat?
Well first of all, any jiggling (even normal BMI) is fat:
"So because fat girls get by because of their "booty" (if you can find it under all the cellulite), more girls can get fat, develop a "booty" and not have to exercise.
after a short time of this, the average standard for women that men have, as well as the amount of work that women have to do to attract a man decreases even more"
You know, because girls should naturally have to work out just for men.
I've also read on this site that belly fat is okay, not NOTHING on the legs or butt is, because legs and butt are what attracts men. Nevermind that belly fat is more dangerous to women's health (even a little).
If a man admits to finding something other than the "feminine ideal" super skinny attractive, he'll be called gay: "man are you homosexual? That woman in the tan pants has a nice booty? If you like men, I have nothing against that though." In fact, ANY femininity in men is seen as gay on this site.
See more quotes:
"A woman’s sexual past is a key element on how she will be subservient in her role as a wife and your chances of a marriage without overbearing strife – hors are much more haughty and stubborn than virgins!! They lie about their past sexual relationships because they know that a slut/hor (non-virgin) is an unnatural condition for a woman (future wife) and they wish to deceive you (especially if they are seeking ltr/husband material) because intelligent men know that her sexual past is directly tied to her mindset, and her devotion in her role as a wife and to her duties as a mother!" From here.
"I have only one thing to say about women's sexual past: Get in early as you can. "
"I for one will not take any woman serious who has had slept around or had flings. Its OK, if the girl has had sex when she was in love, but if she is a hor, it tells me she has no control over her sexual urges, which also means she has no control over her morals, dignity and picks Orgasms over self-respect..."
These guys want to know why feminism is still necessary since the movement "won" what it wanted.
They're the freaking reason that feminism is still important.
Lastly, I guess I just want to study more about women's studies in hopes of being able to respond and get more than a "you're stupid" answer from my friend. A mutual friend who commented to him got a brush off answer.
Ever since I found out he thinks this way now, I wonder how many times in class he was also thinking "oh her? She's just a 5" or you know, whatever. I don't like to think that whatever interactions I've had with this person involved me being a NUMBER and utterly worthless because I was a happily taken classmate and not a sexual object.
Really lastly, the blatant homophobia on that site (though they claim they aren't homophobic) ties into this conversation a bit. A lot of people that I knew at school that also knew this guy knew that he dated girls, but a lot of them thought he might be gay. I'm not sure what the difference is between "slightly feminine most likely straight guy" is in "straight gaydar" or "slightly feminine most likely gay gay" is, but there is one to most people.
Now, this fellow claims to have had lots of women problems, although he's dated (and many of my friends hadn't even gotten that far). Nobody ever wanted to tell them "Well, girls might think you're gay." It's rude, it's disrespectful of real uncloseted gay people, and it's not right to just assume something about somebody else's sexuality. Is there a place for straight gaydar at all? (that's one question... sometimes I think there is, for example one of my acquaintences who was "out" turned around and married for the sake of his religion, the girl still doens't know as far as I know, and well... in that situation and ANY like it why should either party be unhappy? As long as people aren't comfortable being out, or are told that they are intrinsically "wrong," hrm...)
But for these guys with mistaken sexual identity, a place like sosuave might seem to be the place to learn to conquer those women that they HATE because women won't date them. It's no answer, it just makes all the problems we have worse. Living in a woman's body doesn't make me want to work less, doesn't make me want to raise a family more (my SO is far more interested in that than I am at this point in time), and doesn't make me stupider dammit. Oh yeah, it also doesn't make me automatically a "hor."
what is it...
what is it about teaching that always makes me really freaking hungry in the morning? My afternoon classes don't do this to me...
Must... have ... bagel... too... lazy.... to walk to.... Einstein.
Yeah, that about sums it up.
Must... have ... bagel... too... lazy.... to walk to.... Einstein.
Yeah, that about sums it up.
Tuesday, January 09, 2007
so now my grammar class has a notemesh....
I'm teaching a hybrid class this term on grammar (specifically a style guide common to a lot of offices). It meets half online, half in person, and it's really just a lot of rules.
All last term I kept on thinking that a wiki would be a nice addition to the course, but I know that using one school's resources at another is not only unethical but is probably a nice way to find one's funding revoked (or be asked to quit the second teaching gig, within guidelines set by the department or no). All these rules could be converted to an online style guide as a wiki though... and I think it would make a good project to work on during our in class weeks (where I can directly support it) to tie to offline weeks....
So I asked my system goddess Sherri, and she pointed me to Notemesh, which is a free online wiki type system for anybody with a .edu e-mail address.
Us Wayne students are lucky enough to have wiki access on our server, but if you happen to reading this out there in the big non-wiki'd world, Notemesh isn't a bad substitute. It's not as powerful, but it is a little easier for brand spanking new internet users to get the hang of (and a lot of my students in that class are pretty new to creating files).
So I'm busy getting my class set up even though I don't need it till a week from Saturday. This technology is really a good match for my course material, so I'm glad I asked about what was recommended.
All last term I kept on thinking that a wiki would be a nice addition to the course, but I know that using one school's resources at another is not only unethical but is probably a nice way to find one's funding revoked (or be asked to quit the second teaching gig, within guidelines set by the department or no). All these rules could be converted to an online style guide as a wiki though... and I think it would make a good project to work on during our in class weeks (where I can directly support it) to tie to offline weeks....
So I asked my system goddess Sherri, and she pointed me to Notemesh, which is a free online wiki type system for anybody with a .edu e-mail address.
Us Wayne students are lucky enough to have wiki access on our server, but if you happen to reading this out there in the big non-wiki'd world, Notemesh isn't a bad substitute. It's not as powerful, but it is a little easier for brand spanking new internet users to get the hang of (and a lot of my students in that class are pretty new to creating files).
So I'm busy getting my class set up even though I don't need it till a week from Saturday. This technology is really a good match for my course material, so I'm glad I asked about what was recommended.
Thursday, January 04, 2007
strappy scandals
I've this intense urge to change my name on here to "this academic loves strappy scandals" but I've absolutely no idea what a "strappy scandal" would be.
I'd say best explanation gets a cookie... but well, my cookie making abilities leave a lot to be desired.
My website is up, and is boring (but functional and expandable) here.
I'd say best explanation gets a cookie... but well, my cookie making abilities leave a lot to be desired.
My website is up, and is boring (but functional and expandable) here.
Monday, December 11, 2006
Heh
I just got an email inviting me to apply to be the Dean of the department I work in. I'd be pretty darn tempted if I were just a little older and not in school. It would guarantee me a job after next term, after all, and in that way it's a little like me peeing a circle around my continuing employment (especially for the summer).
On the other hand, I'm pretty sure nobody wants to hire somebody with a brand spanking new PhD that's been a dean. Hrm. Damn.
On the other hand, I'm pretty sure nobody wants to hire somebody with a brand spanking new PhD that's been a dean. Hrm. Damn.
Sunday, December 10, 2006
No Autorun for you!
So this is me, beating my poor old mac with a stick. I like macs, I really do. But when they put out their requirements for running software, they should be honest. The old 800Mhz processor might run the software, but it won't DO anything. It sits there, it spins. So although I could try and create an autoran pretty little introduction to my assignments CD, you're not getting that. Because if I have to watch the pretty little spinning disk thing for one more minute I'm going to lose my mind. Also, because autorun.inf files for windows can't be directed to an html file, they have to be directed to an exe, and I'm not writing something in C OR downloading an application to do that for me.
So neener. You get to open the index.html file yourself, which isn't all that pretty. I'm saving the pretty for the course website I'll be building over break.
Somehow this struggle has got me to thinking about how I can talk to my students about "good" writing. We all know it's impossible to define. We all know it might not really exist. But because students will want to know what I think good writing is, I know I have to come up with some course appropriate answer to that. Given that I'm already having them write proposals and design plans for written work, I think I can use those proposals and design plans to get at this idea that "good" writing or communication are those things that adequately convey the point the author wished (if not several others unintended but maybe better) to the given audience. I'm having them define their audience and goal first, so these proposals and design plans work as a sort of starting point on talking about rhetor intent and finished product and how the two relate, but also how sometimes rhetor intent doesn't have anything to do with how we receive something as well (particularly, the creative non fiction unit will allow me to do this, since it's easier to control how a person responds to an essay than to a story, which is ONE of the reasons I want to keep that contrast in my syllabus, and it's also why I think we've been hung up on five paragraph essays for so long: the audience's experience is very controlled, they get what they expect, but that's not how real communication works... even if you want it to... so by mid class that definition of "good" communication should be all nicely complicated, but I'll still have students trying for it with the design plans, and thinking more critically about using a variety of ways of reaching their audience.....
And damn that's a big paragraph.
But I got to thinking about that because of me trying to find a "pretty" way to present my course materials. I can't say why it matters, it's some odd compulsion that I picked up from being a tech comm major. I just don't have time to really show off right now, so you get a very simple html file instead. My intent was to use director to make an autorun.exe file that would play when you put the cd in. That didn't happen. Did this project fail? Well... no. I just had to reconfigure things. As much as that frustrates me, that reconfiguration/revision thing is part of this course too....
So neener. You get to open the index.html file yourself, which isn't all that pretty. I'm saving the pretty for the course website I'll be building over break.
Somehow this struggle has got me to thinking about how I can talk to my students about "good" writing. We all know it's impossible to define. We all know it might not really exist. But because students will want to know what I think good writing is, I know I have to come up with some course appropriate answer to that. Given that I'm already having them write proposals and design plans for written work, I think I can use those proposals and design plans to get at this idea that "good" writing or communication are those things that adequately convey the point the author wished (if not several others unintended but maybe better) to the given audience. I'm having them define their audience and goal first, so these proposals and design plans work as a sort of starting point on talking about rhetor intent and finished product and how the two relate, but also how sometimes rhetor intent doesn't have anything to do with how we receive something as well (particularly, the creative non fiction unit will allow me to do this, since it's easier to control how a person responds to an essay than to a story, which is ONE of the reasons I want to keep that contrast in my syllabus, and it's also why I think we've been hung up on five paragraph essays for so long: the audience's experience is very controlled, they get what they expect, but that's not how real communication works... even if you want it to... so by mid class that definition of "good" communication should be all nicely complicated, but I'll still have students trying for it with the design plans, and thinking more critically about using a variety of ways of reaching their audience.....
And damn that's a big paragraph.
But I got to thinking about that because of me trying to find a "pretty" way to present my course materials. I can't say why it matters, it's some odd compulsion that I picked up from being a tech comm major. I just don't have time to really show off right now, so you get a very simple html file instead. My intent was to use director to make an autorun.exe file that would play when you put the cd in. That didn't happen. Did this project fail? Well... no. I just had to reconfigure things. As much as that frustrates me, that reconfiguration/revision thing is part of this course too....
Wednesday, December 06, 2006
*grin*
Ha! Richard Marback posts about something I think about often: http://detroitrhetoric.net/welcomemachine.htm
Huh, too bad I turned it into a "crazy person or blue tooth headset" game.
Huh, too bad I turned it into a "crazy person or blue tooth headset" game.
Monday, December 04, 2006
huh
I have *3* students for next term enrolled. Is that normal? If not, damn do I need to get rid of the scary looking foreign last name.
Tuesday, November 28, 2006
interesting spam
I've been getting really interesting spam. I know, silly, right? But I can't help but think that some of these lines read like something created from the cut-up method we've studied so much this term (enough that I'll probably be sharing these from time to time, don't mind me):
When people ask me what really changed my life eight years ago, I tell them that absolutely the most important thing was changing what I demanded of myself.
Twenty years ago, the Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife instituted an any
If you put water into a cup, it becomes the cup.
The watch is surrounded by ninety bezel set diamonds that weigh.
What do you think about this sleek and contemporary Zoppini.
Blue topaz is created by irradiating very pale topaz, and. Just about everyone who knows anything about the industry adds his two bits about how dangerous it is and how.
And I mean this with all due respect.
Let's talk necklaces to see which types of necklaces work best. Even in the knocks of life, we can find great gifts. Make sure you understand what is the right time and what is the wrong time!
a believer that he set up a worm composting bin in his garage at home
But Paisleys not your average citizen. bicycle in the back that had been stolen from a residential garage on Municipal .
If it's later in the evening and I'm alone, I'll take a cab before I'll leave my car in a cavernous parking garage.
One of the issues I hit while setting. The concept involves storing next-of-kin contact information in your cell phone under the acronym ICE so that EMT, police and other first reponders can quickly locate the information. said David Gilbert, co-owner of the Old Yellowstone Garage restaurant in .
Winter also accelerates the tendency of plastic to degrade over time.
He fused monoclonal antibody and synthetic peptide technologies and accepted a staff position at Scripps.
The results, no matter the cause, are horrific and devastating. Greasemonkey enables the execution.
In the meantime, they recommend you keep your recreational equipment inside a garage or at an off-site storage facility.
Thankfully for them fashion is no longer out of their reach
The reason is simple; the companies that store the cord blood tout the advantages to saving this once in a lifetime supply of stem cells.
In some cases hair loss is a medical problem but in many it is hard to find the exact cause for it. For some, that fascination with big trucks never wanes, these are the truck drivers of America.
These are now considered to be distant cousins of the everyday wheelchairs.
This is a very common procedure and can yield some very important information for the doctor as to your health and wellbeing. That could be metal pieces, wood chips, plastic shards or anything else that you work with on a regular basis. The DWI laws are changing faster than most people can keep up with them.
This is a process that requires additions of or removal of skin, cartilage, all in order to make the person more stunning in their own eyes.
If you have thought about learning to drive a tractor trailer, you might have questions about where to start and what to look for in a school.
No, buying a vehicle of any sort has become relatively difficult.
AFROMET supporter and British Member of Parliament Derek Wyatt has put down a motion calling on the British Museum to return a number. Maybe you have tried sleeping aids and found that they left you feeling groggy and sluggish the next day. These are used in the computer world and have been taken by storm in the gaming communities.
....
See what I mean? I'm thinking there's got to be a way to construct some kind of writing around these. Heck, I can just see me trying to make an assignment out of this (then again, most of my students probably get porn spam instead of my eloquent spam, oh well). I get a couple paragraphs worth of this a day.
I believe that this spam is trying to get itself past spam blockers by pulling off random words and groups of words from other sites or e-mails, no matter what, I think the weird combinations are kinda fascinating.
When people ask me what really changed my life eight years ago, I tell them that absolutely the most important thing was changing what I demanded of myself.
Twenty years ago, the Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife instituted an any
If you put water into a cup, it becomes the cup.
The watch is surrounded by ninety bezel set diamonds that weigh.
What do you think about this sleek and contemporary Zoppini.
Blue topaz is created by irradiating very pale topaz, and. Just about everyone who knows anything about the industry adds his two bits about how dangerous it is and how.
And I mean this with all due respect.
Let's talk necklaces to see which types of necklaces work best. Even in the knocks of life, we can find great gifts. Make sure you understand what is the right time and what is the wrong time!
a believer that he set up a worm composting bin in his garage at home
But Paisleys not your average citizen. bicycle in the back that had been stolen from a residential garage on Municipal .
If it's later in the evening and I'm alone, I'll take a cab before I'll leave my car in a cavernous parking garage.
One of the issues I hit while setting. The concept involves storing next-of-kin contact information in your cell phone under the acronym ICE so that EMT, police and other first reponders can quickly locate the information. said David Gilbert, co-owner of the Old Yellowstone Garage restaurant in .
Winter also accelerates the tendency of plastic to degrade over time.
He fused monoclonal antibody and synthetic peptide technologies and accepted a staff position at Scripps.
The results, no matter the cause, are horrific and devastating. Greasemonkey enables the execution.
In the meantime, they recommend you keep your recreational equipment inside a garage or at an off-site storage facility.
Thankfully for them fashion is no longer out of their reach
The reason is simple; the companies that store the cord blood tout the advantages to saving this once in a lifetime supply of stem cells.
In some cases hair loss is a medical problem but in many it is hard to find the exact cause for it. For some, that fascination with big trucks never wanes, these are the truck drivers of America.
These are now considered to be distant cousins of the everyday wheelchairs.
This is a very common procedure and can yield some very important information for the doctor as to your health and wellbeing. That could be metal pieces, wood chips, plastic shards or anything else that you work with on a regular basis. The DWI laws are changing faster than most people can keep up with them.
This is a process that requires additions of or removal of skin, cartilage, all in order to make the person more stunning in their own eyes.
If you have thought about learning to drive a tractor trailer, you might have questions about where to start and what to look for in a school.
No, buying a vehicle of any sort has become relatively difficult.
AFROMET supporter and British Member of Parliament Derek Wyatt has put down a motion calling on the British Museum to return a number. Maybe you have tried sleeping aids and found that they left you feeling groggy and sluggish the next day. These are used in the computer world and have been taken by storm in the gaming communities.
....
See what I mean? I'm thinking there's got to be a way to construct some kind of writing around these. Heck, I can just see me trying to make an assignment out of this (then again, most of my students probably get porn spam instead of my eloquent spam, oh well). I get a couple paragraphs worth of this a day.
I believe that this spam is trying to get itself past spam blockers by pulling off random words and groups of words from other sites or e-mails, no matter what, I think the weird combinations are kinda fascinating.
Sunday, November 26, 2006
random unconnected crap
Doesn't that title make you feel like reading?
I've begun to wonder why people can't seem to discuss teaching methods and philosophies around these parts without fighting or getting upset, or at the very least not being very fruitful. I've heard a bit of this going on, and it's very very foreign to me, having worked two other places where since we had nothing else in common, really, talking about students and teaching was a nice neutral ground where we were, more or less, guaranteed to have a nice conducive discussion. Weird.
Of course, this is probably why Jeff doesn't let us discuss these things very often in class. I thought he was being persnickety, now I'm thinking he was being smart. Hrm.
I have discovered that there is a limit to the number of external drives my computer (mac) will find at boot up. I am amused. Next time I get one of these damn things I should get a bigger hard drive.
My mom's car died last Wednesday night, which is bad because I may need it Thursday (I have to sub and then will get 15 minutes to drive to campus, and it's supposed to be freezing rain/snowing then). Yes, it's warm now.
Now, I'm pretty sure I know what's wrong with it, so I wrote it down and had her take it to the dealer to have the part replaced. Apparently, since it is not setting a code in the computer AND they couldn't get it to "not start" then there's nothing wrong and she's out of $80. She wouldn't let them yell at me. They quiver in their manly boots when they see me coming.
And of course as of yesterday it was once again not starting. Technology had fucked us over, right?
But no no, I *like* computers remember? Even the one in her car that can't bother to record the 10-15 times her car is idling incorrectly and dying.
So I took my video camera, out for the project I'm doing for Jeff's class, and recorded the damn thing "doing its thing" and told her to take it back, camera with tape in hand, tomorrow. They can't possibly claim that nothing is wrong with proof right there.
All hail the glorious cyborg, for she screws with misogynistic mechanics. Whoot.
I've begun to wonder why people can't seem to discuss teaching methods and philosophies around these parts without fighting or getting upset, or at the very least not being very fruitful. I've heard a bit of this going on, and it's very very foreign to me, having worked two other places where since we had nothing else in common, really, talking about students and teaching was a nice neutral ground where we were, more or less, guaranteed to have a nice conducive discussion. Weird.
Of course, this is probably why Jeff doesn't let us discuss these things very often in class. I thought he was being persnickety, now I'm thinking he was being smart. Hrm.
I have discovered that there is a limit to the number of external drives my computer (mac) will find at boot up. I am amused. Next time I get one of these damn things I should get a bigger hard drive.
My mom's car died last Wednesday night, which is bad because I may need it Thursday (I have to sub and then will get 15 minutes to drive to campus, and it's supposed to be freezing rain/snowing then). Yes, it's warm now.
Now, I'm pretty sure I know what's wrong with it, so I wrote it down and had her take it to the dealer to have the part replaced. Apparently, since it is not setting a code in the computer AND they couldn't get it to "not start" then there's nothing wrong and she's out of $80. She wouldn't let them yell at me. They quiver in their manly boots when they see me coming.
And of course as of yesterday it was once again not starting. Technology had fucked us over, right?
But no no, I *like* computers remember? Even the one in her car that can't bother to record the 10-15 times her car is idling incorrectly and dying.
So I took my video camera, out for the project I'm doing for Jeff's class, and recorded the damn thing "doing its thing" and told her to take it back, camera with tape in hand, tomorrow. They can't possibly claim that nothing is wrong with proof right there.
All hail the glorious cyborg, for she screws with misogynistic mechanics. Whoot.
Thursday, November 23, 2006
*pokes at her mac with a stick*
So I've discovered a great big rule: never throw anything away or copy over it if you MIGHT use it for school again.
The summer before I defended my thesis I was in a Vaudeville show. I wanted to tape it, but forgot to buy new mini dv's for that explicit purpose. So I taped over some raw footage that I had used in a project earlier that year (which I am now hacking apart for my "final project" for class) which was fine at the time. Not so cool when I figure out that was the tape that I had all my interviews on.
Yeah, I'm stupid. Don't mind me.
Fortunately I found a really nice cheap tool that FINALLY worked to pull off the video + audio and squish them back together properly from the DVD I have of the first project (it's 30 minutes long). What's bad is that I know there was some original video that would work better than what was left (and I did have about four hours anyway, just not what I wanted) but I guess I have to make do.
But what this leaves me with is pre-edited video, disembodied voices in parts over explanatory video, and a lot of talk about literacy that I flat out don't need for this project.
It also leaves me with a couple audio level drops that I can't fix without doing a lot of extra work (yes, I know about the clip volume adjustment thingy in iMovie, and I've been using it, and I know I could export the clip in question and increase its volume and then re-import it, but when I do that it gets static-y, and I KNOW I could use some expensive software I have to clean the damn audio by hand, but...)
Yeah, but. But if I were one of my students I'd tell them to leave it, that the message of the video isn't lost because of these 2 random audio drops. That they shouldn't spend HOURS cleaning up one section (though they would for a more professional, being paid for project).
I think if the computer were running more smoothly it'd be easy for me to say that I'm definitely going to clean it up. But as it stands I feel like I'm poking it with a stick and rebooting a lot just to get what I've got. Plus I couldn't even get iMovie to load the waveforms for my mp3s to line stuff up as well as I'd like, I don't think I have a chance in hell of getting any of my audio software to run that's more advanced than Audiacity (which I hate, with a bloody passion, but have been using anyway because it doesn't eat up all my processing power).
I dunno, I'm *not* my own student in this case, even though I'm doing my own assignment. Bah, maybe I'll finish some other stuff and see how much time I have left first...
The summer before I defended my thesis I was in a Vaudeville show. I wanted to tape it, but forgot to buy new mini dv's for that explicit purpose. So I taped over some raw footage that I had used in a project earlier that year (which I am now hacking apart for my "final project" for class) which was fine at the time. Not so cool when I figure out that was the tape that I had all my interviews on.
Yeah, I'm stupid. Don't mind me.
Fortunately I found a really nice cheap tool that FINALLY worked to pull off the video + audio and squish them back together properly from the DVD I have of the first project (it's 30 minutes long). What's bad is that I know there was some original video that would work better than what was left (and I did have about four hours anyway, just not what I wanted) but I guess I have to make do.
But what this leaves me with is pre-edited video, disembodied voices in parts over explanatory video, and a lot of talk about literacy that I flat out don't need for this project.
It also leaves me with a couple audio level drops that I can't fix without doing a lot of extra work (yes, I know about the clip volume adjustment thingy in iMovie, and I've been using it, and I know I could export the clip in question and increase its volume and then re-import it, but when I do that it gets static-y, and I KNOW I could use some expensive software I have to clean the damn audio by hand, but...)
Yeah, but. But if I were one of my students I'd tell them to leave it, that the message of the video isn't lost because of these 2 random audio drops. That they shouldn't spend HOURS cleaning up one section (though they would for a more professional, being paid for project).
I think if the computer were running more smoothly it'd be easy for me to say that I'm definitely going to clean it up. But as it stands I feel like I'm poking it with a stick and rebooting a lot just to get what I've got. Plus I couldn't even get iMovie to load the waveforms for my mp3s to line stuff up as well as I'd like, I don't think I have a chance in hell of getting any of my audio software to run that's more advanced than Audiacity (which I hate, with a bloody passion, but have been using anyway because it doesn't eat up all my processing power).
I dunno, I'm *not* my own student in this case, even though I'm doing my own assignment. Bah, maybe I'll finish some other stuff and see how much time I have left first...
Sunday, November 19, 2006
flightless birds and missed kairos
I really had no idea what I was getting into when I went to see Happy Feet yesterday. I've seen the previews, I thought it'd be a cute kids' movie about an outcast who tap dances instead of sings, and I both sing AND tap dance, so how could it miss?
Well, the movie wasn't about that, it was a 2 hour rhetorical strike against the fishing industry, which doesn't count as a "miss" automatically in my book. But it DID miss, no matter what the critics tell you, and I'm pretty sure that if I had taken a kid to this movie that I'd be downright angry at the heavy handed rhetoric being forced onto my kid that I had NO idea about based upon the previews and all the toys.
So first, I'll warn that there are spoilers here. But if you have kids, some of these spoilers might be useful to you--I dunno. But if you wanna be surprised, stop here.
Still with me? Good. So here's where the movie's rhetoric shined, and shined so much I actually thought they were going to pull it off:
1. Near the end of the movie, Mumble uses his dance moves to communicate with man, bring man to his fellow penguins, and get man to help them out. The previews certainly did the same trick to me--the dancing penguins in the previews WORKED to get my ass into the movie theater.
2. Somewhere in the middle Mumble is playing with some new friends and they start an avalanche of sorts. You see this big piece of construction equipment fall off the cliff with them, seemingly randomly. In any order animated film this would be something to laugh at, some random visual element thrown in for laughs. But it wasn't, they used it, and did so well.
3. The movie adequately calls upon both the concept of the "Other" in Mumble and also sets him up to be the one true savior of penguin society--and if they'd left it there, it might have worked. The movie is obviously SET UP to be a myth, with a narrator and all, so using the same sort of character as The Matrix and Star Wars and other similar hero-quest myth stories makes absolute sense.
4. All the people in the movie are REAL people, not computer animated. That's when the movie stops being a myth abruptly, and it works. It's cool.
So what's not to like?
Well, after all that, the movie jumps the shark spectacularly. My ticket was ALMOST worth it just to discover that I could, indeed, call a missed kairotic moment "jumping the shark" and that it may very well be useful to do so to students "Well, your paper jumps the shark here..." because that terminology describes what's wrong with a lot of arguments so much better than other language (you know, once I explain what that means).
I had a lot of hopes halfway through the movie. They were obviously on an ecological bent--save the fish. Hrm okay. I'd recently read an article that says all the fish supplies will be gone by the year 2048 or something like that, so the timing on the article + movie was right.
Mumble ends up in a zoo, and goes kinda crazy and starts seeing things. I've not been a fan of zoos since I was at the Toledo one and this poor high school girl was stuck standing in front of the tiger exhibit, with the skin of their star tiger's HEAD, letting people pet it. Ew. That's cruel and gross, so I don't do zoos very well (though I still wanted the detroit one to stay open last year, go figure, if only to compete against the nasty tiger head down in Toledo).
Uh anyway, I can buy that. But then, it's like the studio execs said "we're running out of time! hurry up and shove it down their throats!" and they started dying on every single last move in the film. It's freaking PAINFUL.
First, a little girl taps on the glass at Mumble, and he remembers how to dance. The very next scene he's back on the ice at home and he's got a radio transmitter BUILT INTO HIS BACK. I mean, ow. It's clear people were excited about him and his dancing, but I figured he was just hallucinating again. You could see everyone in the entire audience (and it was packed with families because we're cheap and do matinees) looking around going "wtf?" to each other.
Because at least the grown ups know that no zoo would let a tap dancing bird into the wild again, even with a transmitter. Duh. And how'd he let them know he wanted to come back? How'd ANY of this happen? If you're going to have REAL humans in a computer animated flick, then they need to act like real humans, or else the fact you used REAL humans is utterly meaningless.
So he's back home, and the humans are coming, and he convinces everybody to dance for them, overthrowing the crazy christian like cult that this group of penguins lives in. And they dance, and it changes the world.
No really. The next few minutes is a series of shots of how people saw the penguins dance and immediately changed the world. There's this super fast animation of them pulling fishing boats away from the penguins' habitat and getting rid of them all, of people stopping eating fish COMPLETELY, and being moved by the dancing penguins. Oh, and the penguins don't become a vacation destination, like they undoubtedly would in real life.
This is all over in a matter of minutes, then we see that the fish are back, Mumble has a kid with his long time girlfriend, and pow, the movie is over.
And people applauded, but kids were looking around going "what the heck?" I was right with them.
The movie jumped it by first of all not spending enough time on the transformation. It was the most heavy handed move I've ever seen in any movie EVER: people did this and all the penguins were happy! YOU HAVE TO DO IT TOO!
Will this work on kids? I dunno. By that point, the movie is so damn slow they were probably bored out of their minds. The first half was fun, the second, more important, half was boring as all hell. So my guess would have to be no.
The sequence is so damn painful that I can't even begin to describe why. It wasn't painful in a "make you uncomfortable" sort of way either, it was just out of step with the rest of the movie. They seemed to be building up to something big and good, and I thought that maybe there would be a true moment of kairos here, but no--it just doesn't work. The penguins are flightless, so's the rhetoric.
But it did get us talking. The boy was talking about how there's just too many people in the world. I was puzzling over why they made that last really shitty rhetorical move. It could have been brilliant.
Except I can't think of a single OTHER thing they could have done. Had the people cut back fishing a little? Had the people start feeding the penguins? Have a fund set up that movie goers could donate to to help the birds? (actually, that last one is a little closer to what they might have done with a scaled back ending.)
You can't talk about overpopulation in this movie, though that might have been done in a different sort of one. You can't tell people that if EVERYONE in the entire world stopped eating fish that then they'd be eating something else, encroaching on some other poor animal's habitat (but that other poor animal isn't a cute and smart little penguin, so clearly that's okay). You can't do that, so at best, this movie might have made people THINK.
And that's what it fails to do, it spoon feeds a solution instead of making people think of a solution (or at least a bigger one, had they not gone for the rock 'em sock 'em ending that they did). Kids might never eat fish again, but they're parents are likely to tell them it's just a movie and to eat the damn fish sticks anyway.
Maybe somebody will be inspired by this movie to become an activist and someday take those fishing companies on. Maybe that was the point. Maybe they just wanted to create that one person that will change the world. But where does that leave the rest of us? If we wanted to help, we were given no way to do so. And even if we do care, that ending was so gosh darned wince inducing that I practically ran from the theater, embarassed that I had EVER wanted to see it.
Because it misses, that much, in those last few minutes. The critics are cheering that a kids movie took on a big issue--great. But if the big issues are taken on and the movie fails at it--what's to crow about?
x-posted over at my other journal.
Well, the movie wasn't about that, it was a 2 hour rhetorical strike against the fishing industry, which doesn't count as a "miss" automatically in my book. But it DID miss, no matter what the critics tell you, and I'm pretty sure that if I had taken a kid to this movie that I'd be downright angry at the heavy handed rhetoric being forced onto my kid that I had NO idea about based upon the previews and all the toys.
So first, I'll warn that there are spoilers here. But if you have kids, some of these spoilers might be useful to you--I dunno. But if you wanna be surprised, stop here.
Still with me? Good. So here's where the movie's rhetoric shined, and shined so much I actually thought they were going to pull it off:
1. Near the end of the movie, Mumble uses his dance moves to communicate with man, bring man to his fellow penguins, and get man to help them out. The previews certainly did the same trick to me--the dancing penguins in the previews WORKED to get my ass into the movie theater.
2. Somewhere in the middle Mumble is playing with some new friends and they start an avalanche of sorts. You see this big piece of construction equipment fall off the cliff with them, seemingly randomly. In any order animated film this would be something to laugh at, some random visual element thrown in for laughs. But it wasn't, they used it, and did so well.
3. The movie adequately calls upon both the concept of the "Other" in Mumble and also sets him up to be the one true savior of penguin society--and if they'd left it there, it might have worked. The movie is obviously SET UP to be a myth, with a narrator and all, so using the same sort of character as The Matrix and Star Wars and other similar hero-quest myth stories makes absolute sense.
4. All the people in the movie are REAL people, not computer animated. That's when the movie stops being a myth abruptly, and it works. It's cool.
So what's not to like?
Well, after all that, the movie jumps the shark spectacularly. My ticket was ALMOST worth it just to discover that I could, indeed, call a missed kairotic moment "jumping the shark" and that it may very well be useful to do so to students "Well, your paper jumps the shark here..." because that terminology describes what's wrong with a lot of arguments so much better than other language (you know, once I explain what that means).
I had a lot of hopes halfway through the movie. They were obviously on an ecological bent--save the fish. Hrm okay. I'd recently read an article that says all the fish supplies will be gone by the year 2048 or something like that, so the timing on the article + movie was right.
Mumble ends up in a zoo, and goes kinda crazy and starts seeing things. I've not been a fan of zoos since I was at the Toledo one and this poor high school girl was stuck standing in front of the tiger exhibit, with the skin of their star tiger's HEAD, letting people pet it. Ew. That's cruel and gross, so I don't do zoos very well (though I still wanted the detroit one to stay open last year, go figure, if only to compete against the nasty tiger head down in Toledo).
Uh anyway, I can buy that. But then, it's like the studio execs said "we're running out of time! hurry up and shove it down their throats!" and they started dying on every single last move in the film. It's freaking PAINFUL.
First, a little girl taps on the glass at Mumble, and he remembers how to dance. The very next scene he's back on the ice at home and he's got a radio transmitter BUILT INTO HIS BACK. I mean, ow. It's clear people were excited about him and his dancing, but I figured he was just hallucinating again. You could see everyone in the entire audience (and it was packed with families because we're cheap and do matinees) looking around going "wtf?" to each other.
Because at least the grown ups know that no zoo would let a tap dancing bird into the wild again, even with a transmitter. Duh. And how'd he let them know he wanted to come back? How'd ANY of this happen? If you're going to have REAL humans in a computer animated flick, then they need to act like real humans, or else the fact you used REAL humans is utterly meaningless.
So he's back home, and the humans are coming, and he convinces everybody to dance for them, overthrowing the crazy christian like cult that this group of penguins lives in. And they dance, and it changes the world.
No really. The next few minutes is a series of shots of how people saw the penguins dance and immediately changed the world. There's this super fast animation of them pulling fishing boats away from the penguins' habitat and getting rid of them all, of people stopping eating fish COMPLETELY, and being moved by the dancing penguins. Oh, and the penguins don't become a vacation destination, like they undoubtedly would in real life.
This is all over in a matter of minutes, then we see that the fish are back, Mumble has a kid with his long time girlfriend, and pow, the movie is over.
And people applauded, but kids were looking around going "what the heck?" I was right with them.
The movie jumped it by first of all not spending enough time on the transformation. It was the most heavy handed move I've ever seen in any movie EVER: people did this and all the penguins were happy! YOU HAVE TO DO IT TOO!
Will this work on kids? I dunno. By that point, the movie is so damn slow they were probably bored out of their minds. The first half was fun, the second, more important, half was boring as all hell. So my guess would have to be no.
The sequence is so damn painful that I can't even begin to describe why. It wasn't painful in a "make you uncomfortable" sort of way either, it was just out of step with the rest of the movie. They seemed to be building up to something big and good, and I thought that maybe there would be a true moment of kairos here, but no--it just doesn't work. The penguins are flightless, so's the rhetoric.
But it did get us talking. The boy was talking about how there's just too many people in the world. I was puzzling over why they made that last really shitty rhetorical move. It could have been brilliant.
Except I can't think of a single OTHER thing they could have done. Had the people cut back fishing a little? Had the people start feeding the penguins? Have a fund set up that movie goers could donate to to help the birds? (actually, that last one is a little closer to what they might have done with a scaled back ending.)
You can't talk about overpopulation in this movie, though that might have been done in a different sort of one. You can't tell people that if EVERYONE in the entire world stopped eating fish that then they'd be eating something else, encroaching on some other poor animal's habitat (but that other poor animal isn't a cute and smart little penguin, so clearly that's okay). You can't do that, so at best, this movie might have made people THINK.
And that's what it fails to do, it spoon feeds a solution instead of making people think of a solution (or at least a bigger one, had they not gone for the rock 'em sock 'em ending that they did). Kids might never eat fish again, but they're parents are likely to tell them it's just a movie and to eat the damn fish sticks anyway.
Maybe somebody will be inspired by this movie to become an activist and someday take those fishing companies on. Maybe that was the point. Maybe they just wanted to create that one person that will change the world. But where does that leave the rest of us? If we wanted to help, we were given no way to do so. And even if we do care, that ending was so gosh darned wince inducing that I practically ran from the theater, embarassed that I had EVER wanted to see it.
Because it misses, that much, in those last few minutes. The critics are cheering that a kids movie took on a big issue--great. But if the big issues are taken on and the movie fails at it--what's to crow about?
x-posted over at my other journal.
Thursday, November 16, 2006
Palimpsest
So listening to Jenna on Monday talk about palimpsests reminded me of an exhibit I saw this weekend, and reading her blog just now reminded me that duh, I had wanted to post about that.
Anyway, so I was in the middle of reading Haynes and stopped to go out for the afternoon. We decided to go to the Henry Ford Museum because we've got memberships and hadn't seen the new christmas exhibit yet (better yet, the usual upcharge exhibit is free this year--nifty).
It's a display on Tasha Tudor, who was famous for drawing christmas cards and writing children's books about Welsh Corgis. She apparently also was really obsessed with doll houses and dolls and played with them and told stories about them all her life. Yeah, so that last part is a little weird, but... whatever.
Her exhibit included a lot of early versions of cards with the final ones--which was really cool. It was interesting, not unlike the palimpsest that Jenna showed us, to see where changes were made and think of why that may be. Actually, I always find art palimpsests to be fascinating.
Then we walked around to the back wall and there displayed for the world to see was drafts of her writing with mark up included. My first reaction was to turn to the boy and go "Yeah, so if I ever manage to get famous--as unlikely is that is--and somebody hangs up my drafts in a museum after my death with my corrections all over them I will be back from the dead to haunt their ass faster than you can say 'mycoplasm'" which I had completely forgotten was from another reading and WASN'T the same thing as ectoplasm, but he's really deathly afraid of mushrooms so I guess in the end it got the same result.
Of course, I've been reading too much to not have to sit back and consider why that is. Why does the art palimpsest appeal but the written one, not so much? Why do I fear so greatly anybody seeing my early draft stuff?
Well, for one, I think my drafts suck--if they exist anymore at all. Second of all, if anybody dug up what I cared about as a child as museum quality work I'd want their head examined. To be honest, I did a lot of the things as a kid that were in this exhibit--I made tiny newspapers and books complete with tiny writing and illustrations for my My Little Ponies, I wrote elaborate stories based upon the characters that I thought they were (not the ones from the animated series), and so on. My mom proofread those stories for me... and then I'd correct them....
And really, the "palimpsests" that were given to us for this Tasha Tudor exhibit in the writing section really were just that--they were proofread. I don't think it's interesting that somebody at some point forgot to type a word before Microsoft could point that out to us. It would have been interesting to see that she had deleted a rather racially uh... "racy" ... section about "being the Nigerian" at Christmas, or maybe hadn't had it in at first, but nothing about these texts changed except spelling and missed words, so whatever thought process might have been in a more revised palimpsest just wasn't there.
So then, what makes proofread marked up text museum quality work anyway? If we can't learn anything about somebody's thought process that could paint really well but just might have been a little crazy, why hang it up at all? I kept thinking that "Tasha Tudor" must be some kind of author-function that I just hadn't been aware of before. After all, I'd be drooling to see original Shakespeare manuscripts (or even Derrida or Heidegger). So why not Tasha Tudor? Is it just because she isn't that popular or important of an author function for me? Or is it because palimpsests of minor superficial changes aren't really palimpsests at all unless there are major revisions to be seen?
Anyway, so I was in the middle of reading Haynes and stopped to go out for the afternoon. We decided to go to the Henry Ford Museum because we've got memberships and hadn't seen the new christmas exhibit yet (better yet, the usual upcharge exhibit is free this year--nifty).
It's a display on Tasha Tudor, who was famous for drawing christmas cards and writing children's books about Welsh Corgis. She apparently also was really obsessed with doll houses and dolls and played with them and told stories about them all her life. Yeah, so that last part is a little weird, but... whatever.
Her exhibit included a lot of early versions of cards with the final ones--which was really cool. It was interesting, not unlike the palimpsest that Jenna showed us, to see where changes were made and think of why that may be. Actually, I always find art palimpsests to be fascinating.
Then we walked around to the back wall and there displayed for the world to see was drafts of her writing with mark up included. My first reaction was to turn to the boy and go "Yeah, so if I ever manage to get famous--as unlikely is that is--and somebody hangs up my drafts in a museum after my death with my corrections all over them I will be back from the dead to haunt their ass faster than you can say 'mycoplasm'" which I had completely forgotten was from another reading and WASN'T the same thing as ectoplasm, but he's really deathly afraid of mushrooms so I guess in the end it got the same result.
Of course, I've been reading too much to not have to sit back and consider why that is. Why does the art palimpsest appeal but the written one, not so much? Why do I fear so greatly anybody seeing my early draft stuff?
Well, for one, I think my drafts suck--if they exist anymore at all. Second of all, if anybody dug up what I cared about as a child as museum quality work I'd want their head examined. To be honest, I did a lot of the things as a kid that were in this exhibit--I made tiny newspapers and books complete with tiny writing and illustrations for my My Little Ponies, I wrote elaborate stories based upon the characters that I thought they were (not the ones from the animated series), and so on. My mom proofread those stories for me... and then I'd correct them....
And really, the "palimpsests" that were given to us for this Tasha Tudor exhibit in the writing section really were just that--they were proofread. I don't think it's interesting that somebody at some point forgot to type a word before Microsoft could point that out to us. It would have been interesting to see that she had deleted a rather racially uh... "racy" ... section about "being the Nigerian" at Christmas, or maybe hadn't had it in at first, but nothing about these texts changed except spelling and missed words, so whatever thought process might have been in a more revised palimpsest just wasn't there.
So then, what makes proofread marked up text museum quality work anyway? If we can't learn anything about somebody's thought process that could paint really well but just might have been a little crazy, why hang it up at all? I kept thinking that "Tasha Tudor" must be some kind of author-function that I just hadn't been aware of before. After all, I'd be drooling to see original Shakespeare manuscripts (or even Derrida or Heidegger). So why not Tasha Tudor? Is it just because she isn't that popular or important of an author function for me? Or is it because palimpsests of minor superficial changes aren't really palimpsests at all unless there are major revisions to be seen?
Wednesday, November 15, 2006
hrm.
I find it interesting that in the writing center notes that I've been putting into the database when a tutor is going to say something negative about a student they nearly always reiterate the student's name. Why is naming the person you're going to say something bad about more important than naming a person you're going to say something good about?
And why tell us twice *or more* that a student is ESL?
Just hrm...
And why tell us twice *or more* that a student is ESL?
Just hrm...
Monday, November 13, 2006
more feminist theory biting me in the butt
Today my boyfriend's mom is having a masectomy. We're pretty sure that once healed she'll be okay, although that will be a long process, so no, that's not what this entry is about.
Instead, I'd like to approach the language surrounding this whole "cancer" thing. Her doctors have gone on and on about how she never had kids, and THAT'S why she has breast cancer now (he's adopted, she's infertile, and so this is definitely not a "fault" issue). Except it really does SEEM to be a fault issue. "Well, if you had just done what you're supposed to do, and had kids the naturnal normal way, then you wouldn't have cancer now" ... or at least, that's how I'm reading a lot of the research.
I've actually seen a lot of news articles recently about how having kids prevents all sorts of cancers, and it's not surprising to see since birth rates are falling.
So it seems to be a "breed or die" message, and I don't particularly like it. In her case, it's utterly ludricrous anyway. Her mom had the same type of cancer, had the same procedure, and lived for years after, AND had four kids. Clearly, breeding was not the answer to cancer prevention here. So what the heck is up with the guilt trip?
Lastly, I will finish up with yet another complaint: on one hand, they're telling us to have sex, have kids, or die. On the other, a vaccine was recently released that would make having sex a lot safer, since we'd be less likely to get HPV and cervical cancer were we to get it. I asked my doctor becuase i've known it's been coming for a long time, not because of the silly commercials. This shot has been around for a long time but was blocked partially by groups that thought it would make women into whores, but uh, that's another post entirely. You want to know how much this thing costs?
Nobody's insurance covers it, it's a series of 3 shots, and it's $170 per shot. The women that could benefit the most from this will probably never be able to afford it. Hell, I'm still debating whether I'm willing to drop the cash or not. I'm not sure what the price is tied to--don't people want this? Don't LOTS of people want this and want their daughters to get it? Or do they just think we'll be whores if we get it? Or do drug companies just know that they can charge whatever they want since this is "teh big bad cancer" ("teh" used intentionally here).
Instead, I'd like to approach the language surrounding this whole "cancer" thing. Her doctors have gone on and on about how she never had kids, and THAT'S why she has breast cancer now (he's adopted, she's infertile, and so this is definitely not a "fault" issue). Except it really does SEEM to be a fault issue. "Well, if you had just done what you're supposed to do, and had kids the naturnal normal way, then you wouldn't have cancer now" ... or at least, that's how I'm reading a lot of the research.
I've actually seen a lot of news articles recently about how having kids prevents all sorts of cancers, and it's not surprising to see since birth rates are falling.
So it seems to be a "breed or die" message, and I don't particularly like it. In her case, it's utterly ludricrous anyway. Her mom had the same type of cancer, had the same procedure, and lived for years after, AND had four kids. Clearly, breeding was not the answer to cancer prevention here. So what the heck is up with the guilt trip?
Lastly, I will finish up with yet another complaint: on one hand, they're telling us to have sex, have kids, or die. On the other, a vaccine was recently released that would make having sex a lot safer, since we'd be less likely to get HPV and cervical cancer were we to get it. I asked my doctor becuase i've known it's been coming for a long time, not because of the silly commercials. This shot has been around for a long time but was blocked partially by groups that thought it would make women into whores, but uh, that's another post entirely. You want to know how much this thing costs?
Nobody's insurance covers it, it's a series of 3 shots, and it's $170 per shot. The women that could benefit the most from this will probably never be able to afford it. Hell, I'm still debating whether I'm willing to drop the cash or not. I'm not sure what the price is tied to--don't people want this? Don't LOTS of people want this and want their daughters to get it? Or do they just think we'll be whores if we get it? Or do drug companies just know that they can charge whatever they want since this is "teh big bad cancer" ("teh" used intentionally here).
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