16. 62/50

I could not resist when I saw this picture on Flickr..It is 2 in 1. Misspelling and our presentation film!
Anyways, enjoy!

'BIG Beuys Don't Cry' by k.tommy under Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic

What have I been up to this week?
Sooooo…. Group Orange’s last mission was accomplished only two days ago. We did our best to show everyone our hard work, and hopefully, it will pay off =))) I just can’t believe that we were able to get through 62 slides in 50 minutes!! In the end, I was like “Wooaaahh!” Overall, I was satisfied with our presentation.

So honestly, Hazal, what did you think of Boys Don’t Cry?

Honestly, I do not enjoy watching harsh films like Boys Don’t Cry. There were a lot of scenes that make me hide my face because of the film’s intensity, brutality etc. I have always thought of female directors as having a more sensitive and soft perspective, so Kimberly Peirce’s raw take on the physcologically challenged and morally corrupt characters shocked me. It shocked me a lot, actually. It was very hard to go through each scene because there were so many things that I could not accept. However, this film is really suitable for ENG101 since one of the themes is gender. This film is based on gender issues, so I’d recommend people with assignments on sexual identity to watch this film. Be aware, though, this is not a fun time film. It is darn serious, so unless you want to spoil the mood, don’t watch it! ;)

Any last words..?

That is it from me.. for 2009, that is =PPP
I’ll see everyone next year, so HAPPY NEW YEAR’S!!!

15. Error Correction

‘You Gotta Be In It to Win It’ by LA Wad under Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial-Share Alike 2.0 Generic



My answers to the second part of the worksheet are below:

Part A)
*Jim Hawkins
*He lacks self-confidence.
*Poverty
* He could not be a man OR -if you really want to use the word ‘successful,’ the following would be okay yet it sounds a bit weird to be honest- he was not successful at being a man?
*Turn on the TV
* Her husband
*People raise/nurture/bring up their children (In my opinion, any of these three words should be acceptable) AND the second part of this question was confusing: “misgrowing of children”—now the correct grammar structure is misgrowth, but you cannot use ‘misgrowth’ for children!!! I guess it is ‘raising children’ OR ‘bringing up children’ in this case.
*Listening to them
*Winn was on a quiz show called ‘Dotto.’-I have a question here Sonja: How can I use ‘as’ here? The reason for me to ask this is because I sometimes use expressions like ‘named/called as’ and I was wondering if it was wrong to use ‘as’ with such verbs. I want to be sure.
* Our clothes
* Men with similar attire/outfits

Part B) Misspelled Words
- Depth or debt(depends on the meaning)
- Masculinity
- Standard
- Professor
- Clothes
- Backlash
- Nominee
- Violence
- Eccentric
- Forty five
- Rituals

14. My Rather Dramatic Celebration

This week proved to be worthwhile for me and my teammates. We won the pub quiz, so GO TEAM ORANGE!!!!! I would like to congratulate my group members and thank Sonja for giving us such a generous award : DDD That just sounded like my own Oscar-speech, didn’t it? :)

Okay okay..Back to the subject..The quiz was tougher than I expected. For example, we lost a question because we wrote ‘a’ instead of ‘the’ which was quite surprising. Also, by doing this quiz, I learned that we must always explain ourselves as if the person we are interacting with had never heard anything about the topic before.

Overall, it was a fun and rewarding experience. I’d recommend the pub quiz to other classes. It is less stressful and we learn a lot from each other.

Anyways, after the creative post of my fellow teammate Serra, I decided that I should join her in the creative department and make my blog a bit more personal. I did not want to copy her, so my picture is rather dramatic, but it is orange alright ;) I hope that my fellow teammates like this. It’s my treat for them :)

13. Other Presentations

This week, I got to be the spectator instead of the presenter which was beneficial in its own right. Though I wasn’t talking, I used just as much as effort as if I were talking while observing my peers. The experience proved to be worthwhile indeed.

Firstly, I realized how crucial it was to direct your focus towards your audience. Some presenters achieved this very naturally. I really liked that :)

Also, I learned that organization is the key to having a successful presentation, and an efficient way of reaching to an acceptable level of organization is… PRACTICE PRACTICE PRACTICE!

To get ahead, my group members and I will watch the presentation this week and start to prep for our presentation on the 28th. I’ll post more about our work-in-progress later. Please look forward to it :)

12. Evaluation

‘Stephen Colbert Motivational Poster’ by Louisville Joe under Creative Commons Attribution- Noncommercial 2.0 Generic

Sooooo... We, group orange, were the first one to present. Yikes! Boy, didn’t that add the pressure on us? It has been a while- a looooong while- since I presented something, so I was quite nervous in the beginning. Hopefully, I managed to overcome my nervousness as I carried on with my speech. Other than that, I enjoyed presenting. I just like to speak about literature and inform people, so this experience was really worth while for me. All of the group members tried their best. With our schedules clashing and the surprise holiday, it was difficult for us to prepare for this, but we worked really hard. I hope that everyone appreciated our effort and liked what we did.

On a further note, I think our presentation was really good; however, I would like to make the final one even better! I want to speak more and interact with the audience :) If anyone wants to give advice on how to improve our presentation skills, please do so. I’d personally benefit from it, so please don’t hesitate :)

11. My Presentation Notes

Hello everyone! I will blog about my presentation experience later tonight or tomorrow but until then, I thought it would be nice to post the parts that I’ve presented in class. If there was anything that wasn’t clear, you can refer to my notes below. If that is still not enough, please feel free to ask me by commenting.
I hope that you liked my group’s- shout out to GROUP ORANGE :) - presentation. We worked really hard. Last time I checked, our e-mail count was 37!!
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Summary Keywords

Harassment / Aspiration to be a ‘man’
Buys a gun
Shoots Jenny the mule
Lies
Is ridiculed
Runs away to be accepted as a man

After being constantly harassed by the people around him, Dave buys a gun to prove that he is a ‘man’. However, he ends up killing a mule by accident which ridicules him even more than before. Finally, he runs away from home to a place where he can be accepted as a ‘man’.

Dave Saunders;
*17
*African- American
*uneducated, motivated to get a gun
*mistreated
*not very bright (naive)
wants to be a ‘man,’ inexperienced

10. The Meaning of Beauty

As I watched "Killing Us Softly," I began to think about what it truly means to be beautiful, and that made me remember a Dove commercial that I've seen some time ago. In the commercial, which I've posted at the end of this post, you'll see what Ms. Kilbourne has touched up on in the documentary: our manipulated perception of beauty. The media relentlessly plays with the public physcology, and distorts our definition of beauty. Nowadays, the formula of beauty equals to this:

Razor-thin body+colorful eyes+straight hair+always make-up ready face+stylish and expensive wardrobe..

OR

to make it easier to visualize in our minds, it is either Angelina Jolie or Cameron Diaz.

I bet for the ladies who are reading this, my 'formula' is not a big surprise because after all, don't we hear that men find these women attractive and chase after girls with similar qualities or don't our friends say they wish they had a butt like celebrity A or lips like celebrity B??

But why must such feature of a person be beautiful? Who decides this?

Obviously, the media does, and women are the ones who are victimized by these impossible, unrealistic, and shallow standards of beauty. These days, it seems like having a unique appearance or an amazing personality is not appreciated at all.It actually scares me to say this, but if this is how we are in year 2009 when the rates of eating disorders have skyrocketed like never seen before, then what will we be like in year 2019?? That is the core issue that we must tackle as soon as possible.

Finally, please watch the video below:

9. Wake-up Call for Turkey

'Colombia, the only risk is wanting to stay' by Flowery *L*u*z*a* licensed under Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic License

After I read Sonja’s blog entry on gender equality in Turkey, I decided to look at the Global Gender Gap Report, so in this entry, I will share my thoughts about it. Firstly, though I didn’t guess Iceland for the #1 spot, I did think of European, especially the Nordic countries, to have been placed at the top places. Iceland’s triumph was not surprising; however, I did see something that not just got me by surprise, but it actually shocked me!
As you take a good look at the rankings, you will see that most African and other developing countries that are much poorer and troubled than Turkey, place really high on the chart- specifically higher than Turkey. I never thought that would be the case! In the chart, Lesotho is #10, Trinidad&Tobago #19, Mozambique #26, Namibia #32 and finally, we come to Turkey which places at number 129(out of 134 countries!!! )
When I saw these results, I was at a loss for words. One might ask, “How could this be?” Well, I guess it is time for the Turkish society to examine itself. “WHAT THE HELL IS WRONG WITH US?!?”---this is the question that the society needs to be asking and there is no need to be polite about it.

8. What I've Learned in ENG101

This week, we were asked to blog about what we’ve learned so far in ENG101, so here I go.

Firstly, I learned about Creative Commons. On that website, I found some amazing pictures that I can use. Nowadays, I just search for anything that pops into my head. It’s sooooo much fun (^-^)

Other than that, the APA format is also quite new to me. I’m trying my best at learning how to reference correctly so that I do not face any problems in the future.

I really enjoy ENG101. Other than the fact that I just love English so much, I also enjoy discussing the themes ‘media’ and ‘gender.’ I plan to be a Cultural Studies major, so these topics really interest me.
Till the next entry,
C’ya :)

7. Darth Vader Getting Schooled About Japan’s Keitai Culture

Yesterday, we learned about citing images, so I thought I would share what I did back then. Also, I just love the photo I found on Flickr :) :)

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In-text Citation:
Figure 1. Photograph of Darth Vader Getting Schooled About Japan’s Keitai Culture (n.d.) . Note: Copyright: Chriskk (made availible under Creative Commons License)

List of References:
Chriskk (n.d.)[Photograph of Darth Vader Getting Schooled About Japan’s Keitai Culture], [Online
Image] Retrieved November 9, 2009, from Chriskk’s Home Page.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/41894151073@N01/33674186/

6. “Boys Don’t Cry,” but I Probably Will

Yesterday, in class, we started to research our film “Boys Don’t Cry,” and what I found astounded me. Apparently, there really was a Brandon Teena! Brandon was born into a female body; however, he had a male identity, and his death was tragic. I’m not going to say how because it might ruin the movie for the other assigned groups, but I’m positive that I’m going to break into tears about mid-way of the movie now that I know the true story.

After class, I did some more research, and found some other interesting information. Hilary Swank who played Brandon in the movie lived as a guy for just over a month. She even wrapped her chest with bandages and put socks down her pants!! Was she convincing? Her neighbors thought that her male version was a cousin of hers! This is why I like Hilary Swank. She approaches every role professionally and does an exceptional job at portraying her characters. In my opinion, she really has talent unlike other Hollywood wannabes. Also, did you know that this movie ranked #24 on Premiere’s “The 25 Most Dangerous Movies Ever Made”??

Anyways, it looks like I’m going to be crying on the couch as I watch this one..

Credits: 1) If you want to find out more about why “Boys Don’t Cry” was voted #24 or learn what the other movies are, go to: http://www.premiere.com/List/The-25-Most-Dangerous-Movies-Ever-Made
2) For other basic information on the movie, go to: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0171804/

5. When the Media Lies About the Marines(!) *My Double Post

Since I'm feeling more creative than usual, tonight, I'm making two posts :)

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The picture above is from The Harper's. When you look at it there is nothing wrong with it, right? Marines that are absent without leave(AWOL) grace the cover. The only problem is that these people are not from the Marines! In fact, they are random people with no relation to the military at all.
Of course, this 'plot' gets discovered, people demand an explanation. Since Getty Images has the rights of the photo, their representative is made to provide an explanation. This is what she says, "We are decorating pages. We are not saying the soldiers are AWOL. Our covers are not necessarily representative."

All I can say is, "Wow! They must think that I have a brain at the same size of a peanut."

You see the media not only lies but thinks that I have no sense at all.

Are they looking for more ways to insult me??
I wonder..

For more information onthe incident go to: http://news.cnet.com/2300-1026_3-6033210-4.html

4. When the Media Lies..

As I listened to others’ opinion on news photography, I noticed that most people talked about when a journalist should interfere with a scene that shakes our most sensitive humanitarian values. When a picture of someone in a desperate situation makes the cover of a newspaper, we immediately feel sorry for that person, and wonder if someone, particularly that photographer since he/she was there, helped that person in need.
At first, I thought exactly like this. I wished for that person’s rescue to be quick as possible. However, as I read Patricia Holland’s’ detailed article on news photography, my thought started to change and so did my focus. In her article, Ms. Holland talks about a particular work by the Picture Post photographer Bert Hardy.

Bert Hardy received a lot of praise when he documented a soldier ‘sharing his last drop of water with a peasant,’ as stated in the article. Unfortunately, this photo turned out to be a set-up. Hardy had asked the American soldier to give some water so that he can have ‘the shot’.
As I read this, I realized how easily we, human beings, can be deceived. In order to sell maybe a 100 or 1000 more copies, the media is manipulating our feelings. Manipulation is almost inevitable since even the most strongest at heart, have a tendency to feel sympathy when something really tragic happens to someone- even when that someone is a total stranger.
It just disgusts me when I read stuff like this. Dishonesty is something I cannot stand. Not a long time ago, I considered becoming a journalist. However, I easily realized that it is a tough world to survive in, and events like this made me aware of this fact even more. I still don’t know which profession I’ll choose; however, if I do pursue journalism, I’ll make sure that both the stories and the images are real. At least, that is what a true journalist should do.

3. To Ignore or Not to Ignore? -> That is the real question!

As the title suggests, which I credit the structure of to Shakespeare, the real question is, “To ignore or not to ignore?”

In “The Enormous Radio” John Cheever portrays the seemingly ‘perfect’ American family. However, as time passes, we notice that this is not so true. Irene and Jim Wescott have problems just like everybody else, but they supress these problems by listening to classical music till their ears bleed, if I may say this in a rough manner. Basically, they ignore their problems by using the radio.

Unfortunately, as Irene learns the tenants’ dirty little secrets, she finds it hatd to ignore all the things that are wrong in the world, specifically in her own. Her restlessness eventually ticks Jim off, and they come to a point where they cannot ignore anymore.

In my opinion, one should never run away from his/her problems. Running away, which is ignorance, only causes more trouble, and it results in something much worse than the original problem itself. Ignorance is the equivalent of cowardice. Furthermore, just like a tiny snowball that builds up to be an avalanche, what you’ve been avoiding gets bigger and bigger to cause a huge disaster that might even ruin your life! If you need an example, just look at the Wescotts. We know that their marriage is never going to be the same. Moreover, if they lived in the 2000s instead of the late 1940s, their marriage might have ended with a divorce eventually!

Credit(for the picture): http://lailalalami.com/2008/the-enormous-radio-in-radio-form/

2. My Criticism of Reality TV

OK, here is tomorrow’s line up of E! Entertainment:
* 6:00 PM Running In Heels : Watch three interns ‘cat fight’ amongst themselves and get insulted by their boss who claims that she’s a ‘benevolent dictator .’ »»» How inspirational!
* 6:30 PM Kimora: Life In The Fab Lane: Tune in to see how the rich and you-better-know-that-she-is-rich Kimora Lee Simmons live her ‘glamorous’ life »»»A show that teaches about modesty and humbleness(!)
* 7:00 PM E! News:
* 7:30 PM Daily 10, The
* 8:00 PM E! Entertainment Special
* 9:00 PM Kourtney & Khloe Take Miami: I can just hear them say: “Aren’t we, like, so HOT!?!? We like to waltz around in teeny tiny outfits and party, party, party, wooooo!”
* 9:30 PM Keeping Up With The Kardashians. Can Kim actually get her butt in her jeans, THIS TIME??
* 10:00 PM Kendra: Let’s see Hef’s ex-bunny start a ‘normal’ life…
* 10:30 PM Chelsea Lately
* 11:00 PM Keeping Up With The Kardashians: As if one show per day, isn’t enough!
* 11:30 PM Playboy Mansion, Girls Of The: Nothing like a good ol’ late-night ‘reality’ show.. Boob-flashing, alcohol, an old man with three ditzy blondes that are old enough to be his grandchildren!


Now what is my point here exactly?
The point is that out of 11 time slots for TV shows, 7 of them are ‘reality’ shows, and if you have seen any one of these, then you would understand my comments that I made above.


First of all, no one and I repeat NO ONE in these shows lead normal lives. Can somebody tell me where you can see an eighty-something year old man live with so many young women under the same roof other than the Playboy Mansion??
Ironically, these shows are called ‘reality’ shows since they are supposedly real. It is portrayed by the media thatt the lifestyle or the point of view these reality stars represent are very common. If this were the case, then why don’t I see anything this disturbing when I look out my window every once in a while?


Following this argument, I would like to ask this question: What do we learn from these reality shows? I’m going to answer this question just like Salman Rushdie did in his article.
It’s ‘good’ to be disrespectful to your parents.
It’s ‘good’ to be promiscuous.
It’s ‘good’ to splurge your money for things you don’t need and share this with the rest of the world.
This list of immoral behaviour can go on and on.
I just don’t know when we’ll actually have the courage to stop wasting our time with these kind of shows and face OUR reality.

Credits: For the line up: http://uk.eonline.com/on/index.jsp

1. Aaaaargh!

I needed a new e-mail account for this blog!
Why is it so hard for me to remember a simple password?? I have no idea ;(

Anyways, please follow my blog when I post in the following days :) :) :)