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.