32)#102-14. Group Blue Proudly Presents... and Thanks!

This Monday was very special for me because it was my birthday =) Coincidentally, I had my seminar presentation on the very same day. Sevda, Nazlı and I, the ‘fierce’ members of group blue, were all dressed in blue from head to toe. Unfortunately, nobody noticed :/

Anyways, we went to our classroom FASS1081 to prepare everything beforehand. After Nazlı who introduced our presentation, Sevda started it off by explaining the features of black language. Following her, I explained the family identity of the Breedloves. I tried to analyze the family as a whole and its members as individuals. I also used a chart to explain the latter. I must thank Nazlı and Sevda for improving my computer skills. It took some time for me to accomplish that;)

Finally, it was Nazlı’s turn to talk about the Civil Rights Movement. On a closing note, we played “Black Magic Woman” by Fleetwood Mac. While we were preparing the group work of our presentation on Saturday, the coffee at Cafe Crown must have inspired us because that is when we got this idea to use a blues song at the end of our presentation.

Overall, how did Group Blue’s presentation go? I think it went pretty well. I enjoyed explaining the material to my fellow classmates. The only thing that bothered me was no matter how much I tried to interact with the audience, I was not able to succeed. That was a bummer :( My group members suffered from the same problem. We tried to explain more and give hints about the questions we posed, but we had no luck.. I do not know what we could have done more really.

The highlight of the presentation was actually what happened afterwards. When Sonja asked the class to sing “Happy Birthday” for me, I was really touched. I went bright red. I was sooooooo happy. Yes, even though I’m supposedly an adult, I still feel like a kid on days like this. I want to thank everyone, first and foremost Sonja and then my classmates, for doing such a nice thing. I’ll always cherish that moment :)

Ahh, I’ve written a lot today. You’re free to harass me about the length of this post if you like ;)
Peace.

31)#102-13. Presentations- All Racing in My Head...

This is one hectic weekend, but I still need to do my weekly update :D

The final presentations started this week. I was sitting in the middle of the classroom with my pen and paper ready, looking very journalist-like (Can you see my potential? ^^ lol jk). For those who were intimidated, I'm saying this to comfort you.. I'm a severe note-taker. Basically, I can't and won't stop taking notes! I don't want to forget anything.. I need to write a review after all and these notes really help. I recommend it to everyone. Try it.. you'll thank me later^^

Other than that Nazli, Sevda and I met in the city yesterday to prepare our presentation. In my opinion, we came up with some pretty creative ideas to include our audience during the presentation, so please look forward to it. We are still working on final details, but on monday, we'll show what we've got ;)

On another note, tomorrow is also my birthday :) I'm sorry I cannot hold it in. I'm like a kid; I still get excited for each birthday^^ Hopefully, tomorrow will rock or something awesome will happen hahaha!

Image taken from: http://actingwhite.blogspot.com/2009/08/acting-white-blue-eyes-vs-balck-skin.html

xoxo

26)#102-8. Last Week Was A Nerdy One..

Now that the presentations, term papers, and midterms are over for now, I can officially get back to updating my beloved blog :) This entry will be for the previous week.

On the 5th of April, we, group blue, had to face the truth. The truth ended up being equal to about 70 e-mails(as unbelievable that sounds, I am being serious. I actually counted!), 2 meetings and a couple phone calls...We made our presentation to an audience of 3 people which was quite an irony within itself. Nevertheless, I still felt comfortable(less people to please-YES!). My AMAZING group members and I were very nervous and excited at the same time. We were pleased with the outcome. However, hopefully, we'll do even better for our final presentation which will be on my birthday, so basically, I want to make it rock again XD

Other than the presentations, of course, we had our research papers due that weekend. With the recent midterms and projects in my mind, I just thought, "Hmmm.. this just keeps getting better and better." Anyhow, I did what I had to do. I based my paper on the Asian American 'model minority' stereotype with a special focus on Asian American students. It was a fun assignment for me as I was already wondering about the topic beforehand.

All that is left for me to say about my paper is.. make mama proud!!

Image: 'peter pan syndrom' by RaymondPhotography under CC Attribution Non-Commercial No Derivative Works 2.0 Generic

25)#102-7. The ‘Honor’ Mark

This past week we had two other presentations. First of all, I’d like to congratulate the group members for trying to give best presentation they can in one of the most hectic weeks of the semester, so give yourselves a clap :)

Secondly, here comes my review of the texts...

I think Emily is one of the obsessive female characters I’ve read about in my entire life. She seems to be infatuated by death, and call me ‘harsh’, but she is really selfish. Letting go of others is probably the most difficult thing one has to learn; however, Emily stubbornly refuses. She holds on to both her father and so-called lover. I don’t think she’s being fair to these men. Let them rest in peace, Emily!

Let’s move on to Hanife…

There’s so much to say about her story. Hanife’s story is real just as many other young woman’s who were victimized by honor killings. Since I am a young woman as well, hearing about things like this makes my heart ache. Knowing that you could be one of those women… you just weren’t because you were lucky enough to be born into your family...It is just too much to bear. I hope someday all women can be free because of the simplest reason; everybody has the right to be so!

Another point I cannot resist to make is this: As I was discussing Hanife with a friend of mine, I realized something else. The word ‘honor’ actually translates to ‘onur’ in Turkish; however, when we translate ‘namus’ (after all, honor killings are all in the name of ‘namus’ ),we translate it as ‘honor’ to English. Does anyone else see what I see? Isn’t something really wrong here? Don’t you realize that this word is ‘marked’? Think of Deborah Tannen’s article Marked Women. Unfortunately, this ‘mark’ is specific to the Turkish language as far as I know. It sickens me to realize this, but I think this is one of those issues where the society needs to evaluate itself: How can you speak of honor when you kill too many innocent young women to count?

Explain that.

Image: 'Vanessa in Sepia' by NMCIL ortiz domney under Creative Commons Noncommercial-Share Alike 2.0 Generic License

17. My Final Presentation Notes

Here is my part:

Plot Summary
Brandon Teena: transsexual, troublemaker and liar from Lincoln, Nebraska
Meets John, Candace & Tom at a bar
Moves to Falls City, Nebraska
Meets Lana
Starts hanging out with John’s crew, wasting time at “middle-of-nowhere”
Starts dating Lana, John’s ex-girlfriend
Detained for his old crimes back home, imprisoned at the women’s side of the jail
Lana bails him out
The truth gets out
Rape
Murder

The Plot versus the Reality
· Double vs. triple murder
· Philip DeVine and Candace=Lisa Lambert
· Execution style:
*The bed X The living room and the hallway
* Bullet wound to the right eye( shot twice)
· Confiding in others, alienation vs. only her family(cousin)
· Sexual abuse
· Bail: Lana vs. Tom
· Brandon vs. Lana leaving the party
· Brandon in contact with his sister Tammy and Tammy calls Laux
· Weaponry: Rope, hatchet and a gun
· John and Tom go to Lincoln
· The presence of Brandon’s mother
· Lana’s reaction

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!!!

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