Writing Blog Post 5

Dear English 110 Student,

First off, you all need to take a step back and take time to appreciate the fact that you have THE Leslie Chambers as a professor. Honestly, she is a great teacher who truly cares about what she does and will not give up on making you a better writer as long as you are willingly to cooperate. She is not by any means an easy teacher, but she appreciates hard work and, even if you’re not a strong writer, you can still have a successful English class. In order to be successful in this class, they’re three key points you, as a student, need to be aware of…

1. Come into English class willing to accept the fact that your course theme is sci-fi and there’s nothing you can do about it. Honestly, I hated the fact of this day one and it took me a while to start to like it. At the end of the class, I wouldn’t say I was a fan of sci-fi, but I can say I appreciate it, understand, and don’t hate it. The more you watch of sci-fi, the more you understand it and the more you can follow what is going on.

2. The second thing I would recommend for this class is to never think that your paper is perfect. Another set of eyes really helps in your revision process. I can say that at the beginning of this course, my drafts for my ARP were always good in my eyes, but then again they were the only eyes that read that paper. Long story short, it wasn’t that great and I had to start over my topic for my ARP. During my revisions process the second time, I really took Leslie’s comments seriously, and used the writing center as another reference source. Needless to say, my grade improved and I continued this on to my next paper. You will never really appreciate the comments that Leslie makes on everybody’s paper until you edit one yourself for Commonplace and it takes forever for just one paper.

3. The last piece of advice I have for this class is to BLOG, BLOG, BLOG!! Seriously, do not get behind on blogs and always comment on others. At first, I was skeptical about blogging, but as anyone in my class will tell you, I developed an addiction for blogger, so much that I still want to blog next quarter. Blogging doesn’t take up that much time, but that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t spend a small amount of time on them. It will only take about 15 min or so to develop a good blog with an extra 5 to 10 min in there for comments on other’s blogs because nobody wants a lame comment.

In conclusion, this class with Leslie might seem like a lot of work and unfair (especially if the people down the hall only have like 5 blogs the entire quarter, and don’t have to watch hour long sci-fi thrillers frequently), but in the end, it was quite enjoyable and I think will help me in the long run way more than I expected.

Warm Regards,

Sam Garea

Farscape Blog

Well I can definitely see why Leslie saved this show for last. Despite it’s very bizarre list of characters, I actually found this show very compelling and it kept my interest. I really liked the storyline of how they started out on Earth with a simple rocket launch test, and somehow John ends up in a wormhole and is transported to another end of the universe where apparently there’s life. I kept watching for an explanation about where is he or the better question when is he. Since the technology seemed so advanced, and there were some characters that resembled humans, my guess is he launched himself hundreds of years in the future. Overall, I liked the show, but I thought the alien characters acted and looked really weird. That short little green ruler guy was just plain ridiculous.

As for a comparison to the other sci-fi series, this one is obviously different. Based on the fact that it was one of the last series created, it seems like the writers had to be really different with this one or else it would be just like all the rest. They creators decided to use one human mixed in an alien war rather than a crew of humans like BSG, Firefly, and Star Trek (yes I know the crew on Star Trek isn’t all human but the point is they’re all on one team). John is just thrown into a situation where he doesn’t know what side to take. Also, the bizarre looking aliens were new as well. Every character looked either had 20 arms, or blue skin, or looked like a tauren warrior, or was a short green thing with a splitting head. The scariest character was definitely that monster thing with like a thousand teeth. Overall, I like the creativity of this series, I just wish they had better writers and a better set because everything looked so fake.

STNG blog

Contrary to popular belief, I know little about STNG in comparison to the original series. Though I only viewed this one episode from STNG, I still feel like I can compare it to the first series. First off, the crew is very similar. Data is the replacement for Spock is the aspect that he brings the thought of pure logic. This is evident is his poker playing ability when he logically concludes that he would lose based on the opponents betting, and is puzzled with the opponent ends up bluffing. While Data is entertaining and innocent, he is no Spock. In this series, they changed up the role of captain a bit. Captain Picard is a much more wise and conservative captain than Kirk was. Kirk seemed to be more risking and ballsy than Picard, which makes him to be more entertaining. Also, the emergence of a woman with high power makes STNG more progressive than the original series. I definitely like the crew from the original series better because it is tough to beat Spock, Kirk, and Dr. Bones, but this crew is interesting in a different sense. My favorite crewmember is definitely the Worf, who I wished had a bigger cameo in this episode.

As for how the episode itself differs from the earlier ones we’ve watched, I would say that this episode was a lot more focused on issues within the ship, rather than the surrounding world. In the original series, the concept was find some unknown planet or ship, explore it, get caught in a problem, and work through it so nobody gets hurt. This episode centered around the argument whether Data had rights as a person should, since he was an Android, or if he was just another piece of machinery. I could see where the writers were going with this one, exploring the possibility in the future, when technology has advanced enough to create artificial life, whether or not they are classified as humans in the sense of their rights. I thought it was an interesting concept and I enjoyed the trial they had, but I prefer Kirk and Spock fighting their way out of unknown planets any day.

Writing Blog Post 4: Star Trek

I decided to watch another episode from the second season of Star Trek titled “Bread and Circuses.” As you could guess from the name, this episode referenced the Roman Empire and actually was a very entertaining and interesting episode. The writers toyed with the idea of the crew finding a planet that was identical to Earth if basically everyway imaginable except the shape of the landmasses. The catch was, on this planet, the Roman Empire (or pseudo version of it) never fell from power into the 20^th century. The background of this story is that a former spaceship captain from Star Fleet, Captain Merrick, who arrived on this planet and took complete control. This is against the oath that captains have to take when they prepare to explore the universe. When Kirk, Spock, and Dr. Bones arrived, slaves who wanted to kill them immediately captured them. Kirk convinced them to bring them to Merrick. Merrick had an assistant who kept trying to convince Kirk to surrender his ship to their planet and used the claim that if he interfered and harmed this planet, even if it dealt with escaping, it would go against his oath as a captain. Kirk cleverly declines to surrender and gives a secret code to Scotty saying that the crew was okay when, in fact, it was a call for help. The ship found a loophole and decided to scare the planet instead of directly interfering through killings. In the meantime, Spock and Dr. Bones fight gladiators to save their lives and Kirk keeps getting tested by this assistant guy. I was personally happy that I got see the “Vulcan death grip” in action twice in this episode. The final battle happens when Kirk revolts against the gladiators and Scotty cuts the power to the planet for a few seconds so Kirk can escape, find a gun, and rescue Spock and Dr. Bones. Before they are beamed back up aboard, Merrick is killed by his assistant. An interesting sup-plot is the whole sun worshipers thing. At the end, the one girl on the ship makes a claim that the sun is really their “Christ” and is just coming in the 20^th century as opposed to the 1^st century like on Earth. Another thing that caught my attention was how this Earth had no war in 40 years. We learn during this time from Spock that Earth had 3 world wars, the third one doubling the amount of deaths of the second one. This was sneaking of the writers to sneak in a warning of a third world war.

Right, now actually to the prompt part. I would say Star Trek is way more into the whole aliens and other life forms then the other series that we watched. The point of the Enterprise is to “go where no man has gone before,” and in this show, they do just that. The whole concept is flying this ship around to foreign planets and exploring the life forms there while being put into life threatening situations. The writers did a great job of exercising many cool futuristic concepts. It seemed to be that the other series that we watched, such as BSG, Firefly, and BTVS all used sex as a primary pull-in method. Not so much Buffy, but the other two series added sex scenes and things of that nature to try and keep the viewers entertained. Star Trek rarely used sex in its episodes, but Kirk was caught kissing a female slave in this episode. The other series most likely have to use sex appeal because Star Trek covered just about every possibility of futuristic encounter in their many series and seasons on the air. If these series did the same thing as Star Trek, then it wouldn’t be anything new. The sex appeal adds to those series because it honestly has no other alternative. Some people may like that, as for me, I’ll stick to Captain Kirk and Spock exploring the galaxy and conquering every challenge thrown at them.

BSG minseries

All right, I figured I’d get this blog out while this episode was still sort of fresh in my mind. This mini-series/tv movie thing of Battlestar Galactica was very long and, in my opinion, slow moving. It took 45 minutes for the commander to declare war on the cylons when all the things leading up to the commander’s speech could of happened in about 15 minutes. Needless to say, the multiple random sex scenes I could have done without. I understand that they were trying to show how “6” is a manipulative robot to human men, but scenes where two ship workers rip of their suits and get it on are unnecessary. Also, the scene where “6” kills the innocent baby is just disturbing. I think they could have shown how the cylons are heartless killers in a different way.

When I heard we were watching an episode of BSG, I was expecting it to be similar to Leslie’s paper. I was expecting space ships and crazy science things to happen like crystal imaging and things of that nature. I couldn’t believe that some of the plot took place on a home planet and other’s in a spaceship. What I thought was interesting was how BSG portrayed some of the same concepts or ideas that other sci-fi movies had. It seemed like they almost copied Star Wars idea of the death star formation when they had their ships lined up ready to attack the cylon's ship. All together I felt BSG was an okay series. I felt lost watching this miniseries thing, but if you look at the time it was created, it was made after the first few seasons so I think this miniseries was supposed to explain to the true fans the beginning of BSG, with the fact in mind, that the viewer should know what’s going on and doesn’t need as much of an explanation.

poem blog

All My Greatest Excuses

By: Kenn Nesbitt

I started on my homework,

but my pen ran out of ink…

My hamster ate my homework…

My computer’s on the blink….

I tripped and dropped my homework 
in the soup my mom was cooking…


My brother flushed it down the toilet
 when I wasn’t looking…

My mother ran my homework 
through the washer and the dryer…


An airplane crashed into our house…


My homework caught on fire…

Tornadoes blew my notes away…


Volcanoes rocked our town…


My books were taken hostage 
by an evil killer clown…

Some aliens abducted me…


I had a shark attack…


A pirate swiped my homework
 and refused to give it back…

I worked on these excuses
 so darned long my teacher said,


“I think you’ll find it’s easier
 to do the work instead.”

I have never been a big fan of poetry especially the poetry that is supposed to have this hidden meaning somewhere in it that I can never find. When I was searching for a poem to blog about I decided to pick a funny one that used rhymes to entertain the reader. This poem is more geared toward upper elementary to middle school kids in the sense that it deals with excuses for not doing a homework assignment. When I read this poem, it brought me back to my days when I was that age and was always thinking of ways to get around not doing my homework. Not that I didn’t do it then, because it was always on my kitchen counter, but I would always just forget it right ;). Anyway I liked this poem because of how the excuses start out normal and keep going until they become completely unbelievable. I guess this could show how maybe the first few times you forgot your homework, you could use a normal excuse and get away with it, but the more it would occur, the more creative you would have to get with your excuses. Overall I enjoyed this poem because it made me laugh and brought me back to some memories of my childhood where making excuses for not doing homework was fun. In today’s light, there should be NO excuses for not blogging!!!

Normal Again

This episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer was very interesting, yet I felt like it was a very slow moving episode. The idea of Buffy being split between realities was a cool concept, but it was also scary at the same time because the audience was not given a clear clue on which reality was real. The doctor did a very good job of explaining how Buffy could just be schizophrenic and how she created her alternate reality of being a hero and having a sister. I often found myself torn between which realities to sympathize with. Part of me wanted for Buffy to be healthy and reunite with her parents and to stop hurting her friends, and the other part of me wanted her to snap out of her state of mind and go back to the way things were during the entire series. Some people might think that since those 3 nerds in the beginning seemed to have caused Buffy to go crazy, then her vision of her being in a mental home was a fake. This could be disproven by the fact that her schizophrenic mind could have made up that part about the nerds unleashing a monster to explain why she acted like that. This debate definitely made the episode interesting, but I thought the episode dragged for the most part. It seemed like nothing really got accomplished and they could of done the whole thing in 20 minutes, instead of 50.