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.

Favorite Movie

In this year of 2009, I have seen more movies in theatres then I think I ever had in previous years, especially this summer. Out of all these movies I had watched and reviewed to my peers, my favorite had to be the movie Star Trek. I enjoyed this movie so much that I willingly paid to see it 3 times in theatres: once with my family, and twice with some of my best friends. Every time I watched it, it kept getting better and was really the inspiration as to why I chose Star Trek as my primary source for my analytical research paper. Sadly enough, the movie is way better than the series and here’s why.

First off, the actors did a superb job in this film. Even though I love William Shatner, actor Chris Pine did an amazing job of playing a young, fearless Captain Kirk, who was entertaining to watch at all times. Zack Quinto also did just as good of a job playing Spock who made everyone else look like a total idiot every time he spoke. These two men made the entire movie with their acting ability and it made the movie entertaining for every scene they were in (which was just about all of them). What also made the movie so good were the actors who played the minor roles. The actors who played Dr. Bones, Chekov, Sulu, and Scotty all deserved awards for best sporting cast. They kept the movie humorous while keeping the seriousness of the story line. Another thing I loved about the movie was how the story never had a dull spot and the movie never dragged. The plot had enough twists to keep it interesting while still being able to comprehend what was going on. Nobody likes to sit through a movie where you are completely lost for 75% of it. Finally, I would have to say the special effects were amazing. If you watch the series back in the 1960’s, I’m pretty sure I could make better effects in my basement than that, but this movie had it all and truly was the best film of the year so far.

problemi con la mia carta

This time I decided to take an Italian approach to my problems haha. Okay but seriously there actually is a few problems that I am facing with writing this Common Place paper. The main one I feel is expressing my arguments in a way that is acceptable for Common Place. I feel like I have really good arguments, but I'm not using enough appeal to pathos, logos, and ethos to deliver these statements. I feel like I'm just delivering common sense facts. Here's an example of what I'm talking about...

"The reality of the situation is that the talent level of the majority of the world has been closing in on the elites and the best are more subject to falling no more than ever it seems."

I feel like this sentence needs to be here to establish my point that there isn't that much separation between the best and the middle of the pack. I also feel like it's boring is more of just an opinion by the author. Let me know what you think!

Commplace Proposal

For my commonplace paper, I am proposing to go in the direction of talking about how even the greatest and the most unlikely of people are still vulnerable to downfalls. From my analytical research paper, I will use my example with Spock and crimes of passion. Spock is based purely on logic and is in total control of his emotions. Actually it is said that he doesn't have any. In this episode, he loses complete control, due to pon farr, and tries to kill his best friend. Other examples of how the best or most unlikely fall could be the University of Georgia professor who killed his wife and two others, a very unlikely upset in sports such as the Boston Red Sox ralling from down three games to zero against the New York Yankees in the ALCS (can't believe I just brought that up), or even how supposedly the best built cruize ship ever, the Titanic, was said to be impossible to sink, but unfortunatly did anyway. These are just some ideas that came to mind but I'm sure if I researched a bit, I could find more examples and then possibly be able to explain why the best can fall.

More problems...

This weekend, I have been doing a lot of work on my paper and have basically covered just about every argument and point that I would like to talk about in my paper. The main problem I'm having is length. My paper is currently 6 full pages, which is one page short of the minimum requirement. I feel like I could bring up maybe another argument that branches from a different one, but I'm afraid of it becoming irrelevant. I am going to the writing center tomorrow so I hope that they can help me out on that one. As for you at home, here's a sentence from my paper that possibly could be confusing:

The fact that such a logical person like Spock, who prides himself on his ability to think logically and use reasoning to conclude the best decision, can still fight his blood fever and try to do the right thing, is something that should be considered when dealing with humans.

This sentence sounds alright to me, but then again I wrote it in the midst of my paper and to someone else it could sound confusing. Let me know what you think of it and how (if needed) I could re-word it.

Quote from my paper

Crimes of passion are supposed to be not premeditated and can happen whenever a person feels that sense of uncontrollable rage towards someone else. This, by legal definition isn’t the same as first-degree murder because “in order for an individual to be convicted of first or second-degree murder, he or she must have had intent” (Thompson). This usually triggered by when a loved-one is cheating on his or her relationship with another person.

problemas con mi papel

I would say the main part of my paper is the lack of progress in how much is getting done. This is most likely because after my 3-5 page paper, I decided to go in a new direction with the paper, which includes new sources, and basically deleting everything except the episode summery, which I re-wrote anyway.

When I started over, I feel like I have some really good information, but am not exactly sure which order I want to present it in, in order to obtain the best argument. One example of what I thought was best was to start talking about some facts of crimes of passion and the unlikely type of people who commit them and start to talk about an example of it. “A story about a University of Georgia marketing professor committing a crime of passion, a triple homicide to be exact, is one that puzzles many people.” That was a sentence from my paper that was supposed to introduce this true story of a crime.

Since my theme is now focused on “pon farr” and crimes of passion, I have found it hard to find good articles about the facts of crimes of passion and have found more or specific horror stories about people and the crimes of passion they had committed. I also feel like I have a lot of sources that I only pull one or two things from, though this could be not necessarily bad. Let me know that you think about all of this please!

Writing Blog Post 3: Steriods In Basbeball

In today’s game of baseball, it is sad that no player can accomplish something great on the field without the question of: “are they on the juice?” This is a slang term for had the player been taking steroids or more scientifically classified as performance enhancing drugs (PED’s). A lot of arguments come up about how players who are caught using these drugs should be punished, and how their place in history should stand. I looked at two online articles that both offered their own opinions and solutions to the problem of steroids. The articles were very different in the way they presented their cases and ideas and here is what I noticed about them.

The first article was a very in-depth article about the topic and was published by the Owlcroft Company. This article talks about everything from the claims of how steroids make you perform better, the claims of how the records are tainted, health risks and effects of using steroids, in-depth analysis of hitting charts and trends over-time, and proposed solutions to testing for, and being caught with steroids. The article does a great job of not being just tons of text with arguments written in there. This article uses many different colors of text to emphasize certain points and headings within the article. The article also uses very many visuals such as hitting charts and graphs of power hitting throughout time. Many calculations are used to help prove the point and tons of statistics are thrown in the article. Whenever the article talks about something commercial such as Wheaties or Skoal chewing tobacco, there is always a picture of the product off to the side as well. This article definitely appeals to a more visual crowd and is loaded with statistics and studies done over time to help progress the article along.

The second article I looked at was a very traditional article. It was written by Robert Schlesinger and offers his opinion to the issues of steroids. The author commonly takes controversial questions about the subject and quotes them in his article. He then gives his opinion on what they debate is over and then moves on to the next quote. The author tries to build up support for his opinions but only really offers one side of the issue. The article is written very traditionally with just black text from top to bottom.

After reviewing the two articles, the clear-cut article that I would prefer would be the first one. It’s use of charts and statistics really helped the reader see what they author was referring to in the text and the change of color in the text kept it more exciting. The first article covered every single issue and point one could think of and even brought in issues that didn’t have to do with steroids but could still be used in the argument.

The first article can be found at http://steroids-and-baseball.com/

The second article can be found at http://www.usnews.com/blogs/robert-schlesinger/2009/07/26/steroids-baseball-and-the-hall-of-fame.html

Prom Queen

I chose to blog about a song that I feel has some powerful lyrics and really shows the artists true emotion, especially from a very unexpected artist. The song “Prom Queen” is the first single released off of Lil Wayne’s up and coming album “Rebirth.” Lil Wayne has always been known as a rapper who likes to “make it rain” and seems to fit the profile of a thug, but in this album, he has decided to go in a new direction with a rock / R&B approach. The song, “Prom Queen” is distinctively different than the rest of his songs and is quite sad when you listen to the lyrics.

The song starts out with gentle guitar playing and then the drums come in and it starts to pick up. It slows back down and the first verse comes in. Lil Wayne talks about the most popular girl in his school during his high school days, the prom queen, and how he always had a crush on her. He talks about how he would sit patiently and “wait for the chance to get, to tell her I’m the one she should be with.” Lil Wayne fantasizes about how they could be in a relationship together and how everything would go over well. Since she was the prom queen, she was popular with all the guys, but Lil Wayne knew that they just wanted her for her looks and not for what’s on the inside. The hook and the chorus then come in and Wayne says how she turned him down and “left me with a broken heart.” Wayne says that his reason for failure was the he “couldn’t play the part,” which I think means that he wasn’t popular enough, and that this girl only went for guys because of their name and not their personality. The end of the chorus is a flash-forward when she returns to Lil Wayne crying because she has realized that all those guys were just using her and that he was right. The second verse then starts up with talking about all the quick relationships that she had with guys that only wanted her for her sex appeal. I really like the line “she tried to keep ‘em entertained, when they could hardly remember her name.” This shows how some guys just use girls for sex and the girl is so caught up in the bonding that they don’t even realize that they are being taken advantage of. The rest of the song follows as: the hook and chorus come back, then a simple guitar solo, and then the chorus again until the song fades out.

I really like this song because it shows that Lil Wayne has a soft side and it sounds like a personal experience for him back in his days as Dwayne instead of Wayne. I also think the song sends a message to girls out there who are being taken advantage of. Not that I have any personal experience with this situation, but I have witnessed it happen back in my days of high school and think it is awful that some people are able to use people like that. I think Lil Wayne does a great job singing in this song and I can’t wait to check out the rest of his album whenever it is decided to be released.

The Princess Screamed Once blog

This Buffy The Vampire Slayer article was more specific on it’s topic than the other two articles because it only focused on one episode. I liked how the author kept finding interesting points to bring up that kept the article moving along. Some interesting topics of discussion were the whole fact of communication between the characters during this episode and the short dream of Buffy kissing Riley in ht beginning of the episode. It was interesting how the author was able to compare the fact that The Gentleman are above us when they literally hover six inches above the ground. The comparison of Aeneas, Achilles, and Odysseus to characters in BTVS was also very creative as well. The scene with Tara and Willow is one that shows how strong communication is even without words. Both are being chased by The Gentleman and Willow tries to block the door with a bending machine while using magic. “Because she can shake it a little, Tara understands immediately what Willow is attempting. Tara watches her, and it is Tara who offers to join with Will, reaching her hand out in a silent gesture which Willow accepts” (Wilcox, 158). The joining forces of the two girls produce enough strength to block the door to be saved from The Gentleman. This is in contrast to the inefficiency of communication between Buffy and Riley. They fail to communicate in the beginning when Riley asks about Buffy’s dream and when Buffy wants Riley to destroy the voice box and he destroys the wrong thing before he gets it right. The author did a great job of getting across the theme of the episode and I really liked how the author used commentary from the creator in the paper as well.

Is It Art? blog

I thought that Gary Moeller did a nice job on this article with pointing out some things that definitely would have gone unnoticed the first time somebody saw this episode. The spotting of Saint Francis was one that I had personally missed the first time and was glad that he had pointed it out. Saint Francis is an important part to this episode since he is the “protector of those who cannot speak.” I thought the author went too in depth with the history of Saint Francis and added seemingly unnecessary parts about how he was portrayed in the Italian Renaissance and other things along those lines. I found it intriguing about how the author compared the Blue Meanies of the Yellow Submarine to The Gentleman of Buffy The Vampire Slayer. Just as how The Gentleman stole the towns voices so they could kill people without anyone hearing them scream, the Blue Meanies stole their towns color, music, and joy as well. Since I wasn’t living when Yellow Submarine was created, I didn’t think to reference it to as how Whedon got the idea for The Gentleman. I also liked the author’s comparison of the straight jackets to The Wizard of Oz’s flying monkeys. “These monkey’s were so incredibly creepy; some aspects of their creepiness relate directly to The Gentleman’s minions” (Moeller, 100). This was another comparison that went over my head, and I’m glad that the author made the connection.

Grimm Realities Blog

I thought that this article, written by Elizabeth Bridges, was a very well thought out article that pointed out many interesting things in some memorable episodes of Buffy. The section that dealt with the episode about Der Kindestod was very interesting especially about the connection with real monsters from fairy tails and the monster that was created in the buffyverse. I would have never thought that Der Kindestod was modeled off of fiction creatures such as incubuses and The Sandman. I thought the author did a good job of pointing out the theme of the episode referring to Buffy by saying, “She is thereby reduced to a child-like state, which is highlighted in several ways throughout the episode” (Bridges, 93). In the part of the article that pertained to “Gingerbread,” I was really impressed on how the author found all those similarities to modern life. The M.A.D.D, Hansel and Gretel, Nancy Reagan’s just say no, and gothic references were relevant topics in today’s world that were mentioned but hidden in this episode. I would have never made those connections and applaud the author for pulling them out. I wish that there were more written about the “Hush” episode in this article because I thought there was a lot of good things in that episode as well. However, I did find interesting the reference about children’s nursery rhymes and how they sound cute and playful but, at the same time, mention notions about death. Overall, I enjoyed reading about the author’s views of these three episodes that dealt with fairy tales.

Hush

Watching my first episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer made me realize how much the show focuses on monsters and vampires in an everyday surrounding rather than outer space like Firefly and Star Trek. In this episode, not a lot of words are spoken because the entire town has lost their voices to "The Gentleman". This caused actions to be the main focus of communication and activity. What I found to be intriguing was the fact that "The Gentleman" were so quickly identified by Giles. This allowed for them to educate the people who mattered about them and create a plan of action on how to stop them from killing everyone in the town. Finding out how to stop the gentleman so early probably saved a lot of lives since they only showed one other person being killed. I thought "The Gentleman’s" idea of taking away everyone’s voices, which disabled them from screaming while being murdered, was very cynical, but also very smart. The writers did a nice job on this one with taking something metaphorical and turning it literal. This is evident in the beginning of the episode when Buffy says that there is no way that she can tell Riley that she is a vampire slayer. She ends up never having to tell him since her voice is lost, but she ends up showing him as they are fighting side by side to save the town. I thought this was a very clever move by the writers and helped make this a good episode even though very few words were spoken.

Free Writing 2

“We learn in this episode that Spock’s family is likely important; though his human mother doesn’t attend his wedding, the formidable T’Pol officiates. And we learn that Spock has become a legend among Vulcans, so much that T’Pring resists the fame that will accompany her position as his wife.”

Using this quote, we may be able to see where Spock is coming from when he returns back to his home planet Vulcan. We know that it is do fulfill his marriage commitment to his wife that he hadn’t seen in many years. Since Spock is such a well-known and respected Vulcan on his planet, a very highly known Vulcan, T’Pol has come to officiate the ceremony. This, along with the large crowd, shows that this everyday ceremony is popularized based on the people involved. This is similar to being a celebrity in the sense that every normal thing you do has hundreds of people watching. With this is mind, Spock could not back out of his death match because it would not only bring shame to his name in front of everyone, but would also bring shame to his family. Taking the easy way out and fighting to keep his wife was the honorable thing to do and showed that Spock really cares about his heritage more than his wife. This is supported when expert Star Trek writer Michelle Green says “Spock, whose entire self-definition hinges upon being Vulcan rather than human…”(Green). After the fight, Spock realizes that his wife (T’Pring) still wants Stonn to be her husband. Spock willingly gives Stonn his wife and then proceeds to leave Vulcan. This says to me that Spock might have not necessarily had loved his wife since he gave her away so easily, but felt it was his duty to fight for her in order to retain his high honor that he and his family had earned around planet Vulcan.

Citations:

http://www.treknation.com/reviews/tos/amok_time.shtml

Free Writing 1

Spock finds himself forced into proving his love for his wife that he had married at age 7through his parents. This got me wondering if having a chosen wife differs that much from true love. The obvious answer is that a chosen wife is someone chosen by your family who think they know you and what your preferences are. Usually the wife chosen is picked, not because of the girl herself, but because of the family that she comes from. When chosen at a young age, the parents are basically marrying families not people. People say that following in love with someone is when you just know in your heart that, that person is right for you. But, how do we discover these people? Coincidence meeting somewhere? Perhaps sitting by each other in the same class or meeting someone new at a party. People usually meet the love of their life randomly and don’t really choose who it is, it just happens. So since most people meet the love of their life in a random situation and further progress the relationship afterwards. Is this any different than your parents randomly selecting someone for you to marry? In my opinion, there is still a difference but not as big of one as I once thought.

New York Yankees and why they're the best!

With the start of the MLB playoffs, what better than for me to discuss my favorite team in the league, The New York Yankees, and why I feel they will be unstoppable this postseason. People think it might be easy going being a Yankees fan, but its not. The Yankees haven’t been in the World Series since 2003, haven’t won a World Series since 2000, and missed the playoffs for the first time in forever last year! Worst of all, the Boston Red Sox have won two, count em, two World Series since the last time the Yankees have. Back to this year, the Yankees come into the post season with the best record in the bigs and are playing for an MLB leading 27^th World Series. I personally believe they will win and here’s why.

To start, you have to look at their lineup. Every hitter from the leadoff man to the 9^th guy are just incredible hitters. Derek Jeter leads off and proved himself as one of the all-time greats by surpassing Lou Gehrig has the most hits all-time by a Yankee. He is arguably the best leadoff hitter not named Ichiro in all of baseball. Next up is Johnny Damon who is turning into a veteran of the league fast. He would leadoff on most teams in the league but bats second in this stacked line up. Batting 3^rd in the order is Mark Teixeira who was tied for the A.L. leader in home runs and was the leading producer in RBI’s in the A.L. Don’t try and pitch around him because batting clean up is Alex Rodriguez. A-Rod has been the league MVP is years past and was still at the top of the hitting charts even on an off year. Batting 5^th in the order is Hideki Matsui who is the most accomplished Japanese baseball player of all time. He is at the top of the leader boards for just about every hitting category is a great DH. Following Matsui in the order is the veteran catcher, Jorge Posada. He is a classic hitter who always comes through in the stretch. Batting 7^th is Robinson Cano who has had back-to-back amazing seasons that make him a prime candidate for the best second basemen in the league. And he’s batting 7^th! The depth of the lineup is really shown when Nick Swisher is batting 8^th. When he played for Oakland he hit 3^rd in the order and with the Yankees he is producing big numbers at the 8 spot. Finishing up the order is Melky Cabrera who is a great, young, center fielder. Melky is has the best stats out of any 9^th hitter in the league and that is why the Yankees have the best line-up.

Now, as many experts will say, pitching carries teams throughout October. The Yankees have a great starting rotation and an even better bullpen. Filling the role of the ace is C.C. Sabathia who put up Cy Young numbers with a league leading 19 wins. Other pitchers in the rotation include veteran Andy Pettitte, who is a great left handed pitcher, and A.J. Burnett, who is a great young pitcher that finally had a full season to put up good numbers. Joba Chamberlin is a pitching prodigy and even though he is on a limited pitch count, he is still able to give 3-4 shut out innings of pitching until Alfredo Aceves comes in to relieve him. Aceves actually has 11 wins out of the bullpen, which is more than most 3^rd or 4^th pitchers in the rotation. The bullpen of the Yankees is strong throughout, and if the opposing team is losing going into the 7^th inning, they can write an L next to that game. This is because Phil Hughes and Mariano Rivera will be in to close the game, which is the closest thing to an automatic save. So basically the Yankees are favored to win the World Series with their amazing hitting and pitching. Oh, and who needs fielding right?

Writing Blog Post 2: Halloran House

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Halloran House is not your typical dorm at all. A lot of people will judge any dorms on north campus and say that they’re boring and nothing ever goes on there. That might be true of some dorms, but not Halloran. I’ve been around to a good amount of different dorms, both north and south campus, and I haven’t had one that quiet represents the togetherness that Halloran has. Halloran is small dorm complex located on 23 Curl Drive. It was named after Ruth Mount who was an outstanding student at Ohio State and, more importantly, was a lovely and caring person who loved to help others. Halloran has 4 floors, a ground floor and then three more after that. It also has a basement where the laundry room is located. The ground floor and second floor are both all girls floors and the first floor is co-ed. The top floor is an all guys floor that is nicknamed the “penthouse.” This floor is never dull for a second and always has music blasting with everyone’s doors wide open. The entire floor knows each other and is always in each other’s rooms hanging out. The third floor of Halloran is not just for the people who live there but is open to everyone. It is not uncommon at all to find girls from the lower floors up on the third floor having fun with everyone and experiencing the Halloran family love. I have found no problem trying to study either even with so much going on. If you need it completely quiet, the basement of Halloran is a nice escape from all the craziness. In most other dorms, you will find that only a few rooms know each other and will hang out but not the whole floor or the entire house for that matter. Why is this you might ask? I would say because the Mount Leadership Society spends so much time together during service hours that you just learn to get along with everyone. Another logical reason could be because all of Halloran was moved in a week before classes started so we had no choice except to socialize with each other since no one else had moved in yet. By the time classes had started, people were striving to make new friends and I already felt like I knew 100 + people for years instead of a week. That’s the magic of Halloran that you can’t find anywhere else on campus!

Primary Source 2

For my second primary source, I switched over to the fascinating TV series of Star Trek for some ideas. I recently watched the first episode of season two. This episode started out very slow with Spock acting particularly strange and no one could figure out why. It turns out that he was losing control of his emotions and needed to get back to his home planet. If he failed to return in eight days, he would die so this urged Captain Kirk to not wait for Star Fleet’s approval to reroute the Enterprise to planet Vulcan. Spock must return to his home planet to fulfill his marriage commitment with his wife whom he has been married to since age 7. When Spock arrives on Vulcan along with Dr. Bones and Captain Kirk, he is welcomed by what seems to be the ambassador of Vulcan and a crowd of people for his wedding. Spock’s wife wants Spock to prove his true love for her and have a fight to the death with whomever she chooses. She ends up choosing Kirk, which puts the whole situation into a lose-lose. Spock goes into an uncontrollable state of madness and tries to kill Kirk. A long story short, Spock appears to have killed Kirk, which releases him from his state of madness and he ends up divorcing his wife. Kirk only seemed dead because Dr. Bones injected him with a substance that makes him seem dead for a short period of time during the break in the fight.

So now that I gave you a little synopsis, here’s what I found interesting. The important scene had to be the whole marriage and fight to the death thing. There was a lot of good stuff in this epic scene and it gave you a different perspective on different cultures (or planets) marriage laws. For one, I found it very dated that on planet Vulcan, your wife is chosen for you at a young age by your parents. I also found it interesting that sometime in Spock’s life that he would have to return to his home planet to renew his marriage commitments to someone he hasn’t seen in years. I was confused how in fact he would die if he didn’t get back to his hoe planet. I also wondered why this ceremony seemed like such a big deal. It could have been the entertainment value of a fight to the death or maybe because Spock’s family was high up in the rankings it called for a lot of attention. Spock was also became in a state of madness where he was prepared to kill is captain and best friend Kirk, in order to save his wife. After he realized that she didn’t want him back anyway, Spock seemed to have snapped out of his state of madness. My guess is that this represents the fact that men will do just about anything to get a girl including killing their best friend. Once Spock realized that his wife didn’t want him anymore, he was released from under his wife’s love spell and could think, as the Vulcan’s say, logically. I think there is a lot of important stuff here about marriage and love and how other cultures do things differently. Let me know what you think please!

Primary Source 1

When I began to think about possible primary sources for my up and coming project, I figured I’d start with Firefly since it was a show that we had all seen. Referring back to the pilot episode, I short scene that caught my attention was the strawberry scene with Kaylee. Kaylee was alone in a room when she opened the Sheppard’s box and found an ordinary strawberry. She looked around and then proceeded to eat the strawberry. During her taste, she showed facial expressions that seemed unusual for an ordinary strawberry. She acted like the strawberry was the golden fruit from the tree of life. One could only guess that she hadn’t had eaten something like that in a long while. This suggests to me that the quality of food in space is not very good. This could be perhaps why the Sheppard had a small piece of fruit preserved in a box. I was thinking of taking this in the direction of hunger in third world countries and how a small donation can make a huge difference. Just as Kaylee found so much pleasure in a simple strawberry, people in other countries would be just as grateful for a small donation of food. Comment please and let me know what you think!

But She Was Naked!

My reaction to this article was that this author really knows a lot about seducing people and it sounds like she’s had a lot of experience! As I read through this article I just couldn’t get over the fact of how much information the author pulled out of one episode and a few scenes from some other related episodes as well. Every single sentence that a person had said, the author broke it down and analyzed the meaning behind every intention. It was pretty amazing to say the least and I never realized that much manipulation was put into everyday speak. I was surprised to learn about how smart Inara really is. She is able to see beyond the intended meaning of people’s words and can see the true meaning. Saffron is obviously very skilled at manipulating people through seduction, but Inara is still able to see and understand her every move. She also through that pun in there “I guess we’ve lied enough.” I completely missed it the first time watching the episode and probably never would have got it unless it had been pointed out to me. This is surprising because the stereotypical ship “companion” is one who just has good looks and isn’t too bright. Inara is obviously attractive and is more intelligent than every other person on the ship in the aspect of reading people. I thought the article ended weird with a shifted focus on Kaylee and Simon’s relationship. Another thing I disliked about the article was the use of the word rhetoric. It was in just about every other sentence. Other than that this was a great article that gave you a new perspective on things.

Our Mrs. Reynolds

So we watched another exciting episode of Firefly today in class. I didn’t find myself laughing as much as I did on the previous episode, but I will say that I found this one way more interesting. Even though I couldn’t stay through the whole thing (thanks math class), I was able to view enough of it to notice some things. First off I learned not to pre-judge anyone. The captain’s new wife seemed to be an innocent, harmless woman who had one intention in life, which was to please her husband. She cooked for him and basically did everything she could to make him happy. Later in the episode she turned into this evil space pirate that seduces and fights people until they’re knocked out and then re-wires ships so that they are basically doomed. Totally unexpected. I thought an important scene was when the big guy tried to exchange his most prized possession (his gun) for the captains wife. Normally the captain doesn’t care about much and would have taken the trade, but instead, he reasoned that she was a human and wasn’t for sale. Could the captain actually be coming around instead of being cold hearted? Or did he really like his new wife? My guess was that he really did like her because, well, he tried to get with her and we all know how that turned out. Another thing I found interesting was that the big guy was prepared to give up his favorite gun for a girl. This suggests to me that the crew is becoming lonely on the ship and is prepared to give up their most prized possessions in order to experience love from outside the ship.

Star Trek Season 1 Episode 3 Important Scene

I decided to go with Star Trek this time based on the blockbuster movie about the series that came out this year. That movie was my favorite of 2009, and I figured the TV show had to be at least half as good. Well, to be honest it wasn’t as good as I thought but then again it was only season 1. The good thing was I knew most of the characters and I could figure out what was going on. I think. Anyway, an important scene to me was the whole fight scene between Captain Kirk and Gary Mitchell. Gary had somehow acquired “God-like” powers from the ship being lured into a force field by a distress signal that threatened to destroy its own ship. When the Enterprise went to help, it got caught in a force field that gave side effects to Gary. He began to control things with his mind and kept getting more and more powerful. What I found interesting was the fact that when Gary was possessed with these powers, his eyes turned very bright and it was almost as if his powers were taking over his consciousness. Back to the important scene, this was at the end when Captain Kirk was fighting Gary. Gary had fought with the girl, who also processed these powers that were given to her by Gary. She had weakened him to a state where he could be affected by Captain Kirk’s gun. Even though Captain Kirk was a good friend of Gary’s, he knew that he had to shoot the cliff that buried Gary in the ground. Kirk realized that the old Gary was completely gone inside and he had to kill the new Gary or else he would kill Kirk along with the rest of Enterprise. I found it interesting that the girl was not completely overtaken by her powers and I found it very ironic that Gary died in the grave that he dug for Kirk.

High School Is Hell

Coming into reading this article, I had never seen Buffy the Vampire Slayer nor had I known quite what is was about. My guess was it was about some girl who just went around slaying cute little vampires. I had no idea that she was a high school girl and faced all the challenges that many teenagers face today. I found the article to be particularly interesting with all the metaphors and comparisons it had from a teenager’s life to Buffy’s world of horror creatures. I most likely would not have caught all those comparisons and I especially liked how the author went season by season discussing important comparisons. I noticed that in season 2 there was a lot of lost identity between the characters. Just about everyone was pretending to be something they were not and eventually were exposed to their true selves. I feel like this is a large problem in today’s society that people don’t always act themselves in order to impress others. Buffy takes it a step further by having people’s real identities being mummies or demon-snakes or robots with tendencies to kill their wives. In Buffy’s world, being those types of people isn’t uncommon and I feel like the writers were trying to get across a message as to be yourself, which I find to be very true. I also liked how they represented graduation in the last season. The whole senior class came together to fight the evil major and in the end the school was blown up to symbolize people going their separate ways. I connected with this because I really came close with my graduating class towards the end of senior year but ended up going away to college at different places then most. All in all, I enjoyed this article and who knows? I may end up watching a few episodes of Buffy the Vampire Slayer!

Writing Blog Post 1

On the subject of what I like to read, I enjoy reading news articles, particularly sports ones. I am always on websites such as univeralsports.com, or espn.com reading about the latest sports news. I think that I enjoy these so much not because of the interest, but because of the facts that are presented in the articles. I am a statistics kind of guy and like to read articles that have charts or graphs in them. As for blogging, I visit websites such as floswimming.org and jjhuddle.com, which are sports blogging websites. These sites enable readers to comment on posts, and, usually, a large discussion erupts about the article because of the differing opinions between the bloggers. As for reading books, I am proud to say that I always read every book that was assigned to me in high school. I might not have liked all of them, but always read them so I knew what was going on. Some books that I did find interesting were: To Kill a Mocking Bird, Lord of the Flies, and Night. I was never a fan of any of the Shakespeare novels and found them to be a whole lot of waste. This was probably because understanding the dialect was a project in itself. To shift gears into writing, I also feel like I have great ideas and points in arguments. I wish I was better at wording how I feel to in order to create a more persuasive response rather than to just state how I feel. An opinion can easily be overlooked if it isn't sold the right way and sometimes I feel like people who read my work will miss the point.

Serenity Review

After watching the pilot episode of firefly and having a good nights sleep to gather my thoughts, I actually enjoyed watching it. Yes, it did seem a bit long and I was very lost in the beginning, but the plot came around and it seemed like a new twist happened every five minutes. I think I liked it so much because I found it humorous for the wrong reasons. I thought it was a little odd that the doctors sister was chinese when he was white, and when Lawrence revealed his name and showed that he was so ashamed of it, I basically lost it. I think the most important scene was when Lawrence was being interrogated and he convinced the bigger guy (sorry I didn't retain the name) to betray the captain and turn the chinese girl back into the alliance. He is obviously considering it when he almost sniped the captain when he had the chance. All in all, I really didn't hate it but was confused with them flying in spaceships one minute and then riding horses the next. I felt like it was a combination between Star Wars and Wild Wild West. Also, the short scene where the girl eats the strawberry seductively was totally random.

All About Sam

Hi everyone I'm Sam Garea. I am from Canfield, Ohio which is a small suburb of Youngstown. I attended Canfield High School and graduated with a class of 263. While in high school I was involved with sports such as swimming and soccer. I was a state finalist in swimming, lettered all 4 years, was all-conference for 3 years, and had tons of fun the all 4 years. I also played soccer for 3 years as well. In high school I was a member of National Honor Society which was centered around not just academics but also service. Now I am apart of Mount Leadership Society here at OSU and am loving it! I am a fairly calm person but can get a temper due to my strong Italian heritage. I like to listen to rock music and I follow professional sports. I am New York Yankees and Jets fan but I still pay my respects to my Cleveland teams as well. I enjoy watching tv shows such as The Office, and late night comedy shows such as The Jay Leno Show, and the The Late Show with David Letterman. I am a business major, focusing on accounting and finance, and am excited to meet new people here at OSU!