Have you ever noticed - perhaps on social networking sites, on television, in films, or perhaps you may have had personal experience - that people, especially young girls, call each other "slut" or "hoe" or "whore" or something extremely degrading and disrespectful, even in a joking manner to their friends, and then shrug the whole thing off like it was nothing?
I get extremely annoyed whenever I see it happening.
The whole virgin/whore dichotomy perpetuates the misconception that females are the ones to blame for rape or any other kind of sexual harassment/abuse, instead of assigning the blame on the one who actually carried out the harassment/abuse. It works the other way around, too, like when you call a guy a "pussy" or a "fag" or overtly reference genital parts for the sake of stupid jokes. It's not funny. It's offensive, disrespectful, and immature.
So if you've done something like this in the past, please get over your giggle-fits over mindless sex jokes and have some self-respect for yourself and your friends. Grow up and think before you blurt things out, lest people get the impression (even on Facebook) that you're an insufferable airhead who spews sexist slurs against others.
/endrant
Sunday, November 28, 2010
Tuesday, November 23, 2010
Poetry: the Worthwhile Struggle of Tangled Words and Images
It's been 5 hours since I've agonized over the introductory paragraph to my paper for my Asian American Women Writers class. I know what I want to write, but the words keep getting tangled up in my mind. Caffeine at 1AM probably wasn't such a good idea, especially if you're writing an essay on strictly defining what's personal and what's political within a particular poem. In the end, the poem is always the function of the personal intersecting with the political. If I made your head ache with this ramble, you can probably get a gist of why it's been bothering me (in which case, I should say I'm sorry?). On the other hand, difficult poems are worth every circle of confusion and wonder.
There's more to poetry than just the appeal of seducing your readers' senses with images of how your “love is an anger is a fire.” You pen these images, but what does that line truly mean? It all comes down to context; a verse constructed with the sole purpose of posing as “deep” and “sophisticated” to others often has the tendency to alarm other people’s bullshit meters.
If, however, you truly have something more to say beneath the layer of the written text on the page, and if you have sought nuances with syntax and dared to shatter the patterns of cliché with your wit as the scalpel, then perhaps you have penned something worthwhile. A poem should not be the purveyor of pleasure and comfort, but rather the riddle with the persistent aftertaste that confounds and astounds your audience after they’ve eaten your words. An analysis of the poem should not be the regurgitation of its surface content, but rather the hiccup or the burp that subsides after hours of digestion. Poetry is not sexy, nor is it the culmination of praises that leave a lover’s lips, nor the contrived messages of greeting cards expressing exaltations of friendships or the sorry of condolences. Poetry could take one of these forms, but these are not always the case, nor do these forms always convey any real substance or meaning in their messages. If you have always presumed that poetry is a few lines of rhymes with a pretty message inside, then you are sadly mistaken. Poetry is the struggle that may or may not offer the resolution, for it is up to you, the reader, to either question it or find it.
Sometimes, the worthwhile poem is the one that sucks you into that cold whirlpool of confusion, dousing you with more questions than answers. To truly obtain meaning, you have to get lost in order to find yourself. Try reading “Tradition” by Quan Barry or “The State Will Be Served Even By My Hand On These Letters” by Sun Young Shin if you don't believe me.
Sunday, November 21, 2010
Procrastination, Psi Chi, and Penning Criticisms
So I'm back. Sort of. I just thought that I should update since I haven't written anything on here for a long time. School, stress, and tiredness are the three culprits that deter me from blogging. I wish I was more prolific with writing more blog posts, and I wish that these posts were more inspiring or more thought-provoking.
I've written some pretty good essays for my classes this semester, though. I'm actually surprised that I was able to score some really good marks on them. Procrastination has always been a friend of mine, and he always pushes me to write my essay assignments at the last possible hour. It's obviously not a very good way to go. Up to now, I still haven't learned how to successfully manage my time. I usually just shut my eyes and cross my fingers when I hand in something and hope for the best, even when the effort I put into each paper wasn't always my best. What you give is what you get, usually.
On one paper I had to write for personality psychology, for instance, I had received a check-minus. That paper was supposed to explain (from Rentfrow et al., 2006) a model of the geographical distribution of personality traits across U.S. states. It was probably one of my worst-written papers, since I wrote it about three hours before it was due. All I did was summarize the article instead of adding analysis or critique, which was probably the worst thing that anyone could have done on an article review. I'm not trying to excuse my crappy effort in writing that particular paper, but the article was too long and too dry to read, and it was loaded with statistics. I don't know about you, but I only have a basic understanding of statistics. I doubt the average Joe or average Jane would understand the jargon, either.
In any case, some of the other papers I've written for my Islam & Buddhism class, as well as for my Asian-American Women Writers class, turned out pretty well. I'll try to post them here at a later date to share (and if you decide you use them in your own writing, please cite them).
I've also recently conducted an online survey on academic procrastination and Facebook usage for my research project in my experimental social psychology class. I had some trouble yesterday when I was entering the data on SPSS because I wasn't sure how to score the Procrastination Assessment Scale-Students (PASS). (Interesting acronym for the scale, right?) Thank goodness I was able to figure it out. I'm still scratching my head, though. When I tried to run correlations between the degree to which students procrastinated and their desire to decrease these procrastination behaviors, something weird happened with the scatter plots.They ended up looking like a stem-and-leaf plot. I don't know if I ran the analysis wrong in using the wrong measure, but that's what I ended up with. Here's to hoping that my professor won't be too harsh when I present the results to the rest of the class.
Worries aside, at least something good has happened to me recently: I've been accepted into Psi Chi, the International Honor Society for Psychology. It's great to know that all those semesters of studying and hard work have paid off in some way. On December 1st, I'll be an official member of Psi Chi.
Anyway, in other recent events:
I've also been active on Twilightsucks.com. They've moved to a new site, so if you're interested in checking it out, here's the web address. I love reading the topics that they have there regarding issues such as Meyer's erroneous exaltation of her Twilight Saga (it's NOT a saga, people!), Meyer's less-than-savory writing skills, Edward's creepiness, Bella's idiocy and dry narration, the abhorrence of Meyerwolf imprinting, and the nature of what vampires actually are. There's also a bunch of sub-forums for discussing other literary works according to their respective genres (such as Stephen King's works, J.K. Rowling's HP series, Charlotte Bronte, Sarah Dessen, etc.), as well as a series of sub-forums dedicated to sharing and discussing writing tips. If you want to make a club, you can petition to create your own club. If you want to talk about movies (not just the Twilight movies) or television shows, then you can also discuss them in their respective sub-forums. TS is a pretty cool site overall, and its members are also just as enthusiastic and thought-provoking when it comes to discussing and critiquing literature, film, television, music, just about anything, really. You just have to know where to look, read up on the past comments, and join in the conversation. The writing forums, especially, have helped me with my own writing.
I've often found that discussing books that bother you can teach you a whole lot more about writing than books that you've absolutely loved reading. Why? Let's just say that you can often spot the mistakes and the bullshit more quickly with a book that's bothered you than with a book you deem as the quintessential story. Another website that's similar to TS is Reasoning With Vampires. Not only does it provide you with a good laugh about how stupid or disturbing some parts of Twilight are, but the site also points out the ineffectiveness of Meyer's grammar and diction. Good things to know when you're crafting your own stories.
I enjoyed these particular posts from Reasoning With Vampires the most:
Finally, there's this:
I hope you learned a few things and enjoyed these tidbits, which were brought to you by Reasoning With Vampires.
I've written some pretty good essays for my classes this semester, though. I'm actually surprised that I was able to score some really good marks on them. Procrastination has always been a friend of mine, and he always pushes me to write my essay assignments at the last possible hour. It's obviously not a very good way to go. Up to now, I still haven't learned how to successfully manage my time. I usually just shut my eyes and cross my fingers when I hand in something and hope for the best, even when the effort I put into each paper wasn't always my best. What you give is what you get, usually.
On one paper I had to write for personality psychology, for instance, I had received a check-minus. That paper was supposed to explain (from Rentfrow et al., 2006) a model of the geographical distribution of personality traits across U.S. states. It was probably one of my worst-written papers, since I wrote it about three hours before it was due. All I did was summarize the article instead of adding analysis or critique, which was probably the worst thing that anyone could have done on an article review. I'm not trying to excuse my crappy effort in writing that particular paper, but the article was too long and too dry to read, and it was loaded with statistics. I don't know about you, but I only have a basic understanding of statistics. I doubt the average Joe or average Jane would understand the jargon, either.
In any case, some of the other papers I've written for my Islam & Buddhism class, as well as for my Asian-American Women Writers class, turned out pretty well. I'll try to post them here at a later date to share (and if you decide you use them in your own writing, please cite them).
I've also recently conducted an online survey on academic procrastination and Facebook usage for my research project in my experimental social psychology class. I had some trouble yesterday when I was entering the data on SPSS because I wasn't sure how to score the Procrastination Assessment Scale-Students (PASS). (Interesting acronym for the scale, right?) Thank goodness I was able to figure it out. I'm still scratching my head, though. When I tried to run correlations between the degree to which students procrastinated and their desire to decrease these procrastination behaviors, something weird happened with the scatter plots.They ended up looking like a stem-and-leaf plot. I don't know if I ran the analysis wrong in using the wrong measure, but that's what I ended up with. Here's to hoping that my professor won't be too harsh when I present the results to the rest of the class.
Worries aside, at least something good has happened to me recently: I've been accepted into Psi Chi, the International Honor Society for Psychology. It's great to know that all those semesters of studying and hard work have paid off in some way. On December 1st, I'll be an official member of Psi Chi.
Anyway, in other recent events:
I've also been active on Twilightsucks.com. They've moved to a new site, so if you're interested in checking it out, here's the web address. I love reading the topics that they have there regarding issues such as Meyer's erroneous exaltation of her Twilight Saga (it's NOT a saga, people!), Meyer's less-than-savory writing skills, Edward's creepiness, Bella's idiocy and dry narration, the abhorrence of Meyerwolf imprinting, and the nature of what vampires actually are. There's also a bunch of sub-forums for discussing other literary works according to their respective genres (such as Stephen King's works, J.K. Rowling's HP series, Charlotte Bronte, Sarah Dessen, etc.), as well as a series of sub-forums dedicated to sharing and discussing writing tips. If you want to make a club, you can petition to create your own club. If you want to talk about movies (not just the Twilight movies) or television shows, then you can also discuss them in their respective sub-forums. TS is a pretty cool site overall, and its members are also just as enthusiastic and thought-provoking when it comes to discussing and critiquing literature, film, television, music, just about anything, really. You just have to know where to look, read up on the past comments, and join in the conversation. The writing forums, especially, have helped me with my own writing.
I've often found that discussing books that bother you can teach you a whole lot more about writing than books that you've absolutely loved reading. Why? Let's just say that you can often spot the mistakes and the bullshit more quickly with a book that's bothered you than with a book you deem as the quintessential story. Another website that's similar to TS is Reasoning With Vampires. Not only does it provide you with a good laugh about how stupid or disturbing some parts of Twilight are, but the site also points out the ineffectiveness of Meyer's grammar and diction. Good things to know when you're crafting your own stories.
I enjoyed these particular posts from Reasoning With Vampires the most:
Finally, there's this:
I hope you learned a few things and enjoyed these tidbits, which were brought to you by Reasoning With Vampires.
Abandon
Meg Cabot's retelling of the myth of Persephone, in her new series "Abandon," seems pretty interesting. I just hope it's not as formulaic and has twists that could surprise me, possibly something as enjoyable as "The Mediator" series and the "1-800-Where-R-U" series.
For instance, in "Avalon High" (the novel, not the mangas)... the entire time I was wondering why the story surrounded Ellie, the protagonist, when she didn't seem to have a solid connection to the original characters in Sir Malory's version of the Arthurian legend. Boy, was I wrong. In a good way, that is. On the other hand, I'm not so crazy about that Disney adaptation of the book.
Anyway, getting back to "Abandon": I also hope that the female lead in "Abandon," Pierce (Persephone), won't be a weak heroine, as in the Greek myth. She better put up a fight when John Hayden (who is obviously Hades) tries to kidnap her and force her into a romantic relationship with him. I really don't like it when the heroine just blindly accepts the events happening around her without at least questioning why it's happening, and I absolutely hate it when she gives up everything in the name of TWU WUV, even if the supposed hero is a walking douche bag. As you can already tell, I'm not a big fan of those kinds of Harlequin-ish happy endings. So, having said that, here's to hoping that the story might actually be good. If the first book turns out to be all right, consider me persuaded to tag along for the rest of the ride.
If you want to check it out for yourself, here is the page for "Abandon" on Meg's website.
http://www.megcabot.com/abandon/index.php
For instance, in "Avalon High" (the novel, not the mangas)... the entire time I was wondering why the story surrounded Ellie, the protagonist, when she didn't seem to have a solid connection to the original characters in Sir Malory's version of the Arthurian legend. Boy, was I wrong. In a good way, that is. On the other hand, I'm not so crazy about that Disney adaptation of the book.
Anyway, getting back to "Abandon": I also hope that the female lead in "Abandon," Pierce (Persephone), won't be a weak heroine, as in the Greek myth. She better put up a fight when John Hayden (who is obviously Hades) tries to kidnap her and force her into a romantic relationship with him. I really don't like it when the heroine just blindly accepts the events happening around her without at least questioning why it's happening, and I absolutely hate it when she gives up everything in the name of TWU WUV, even if the supposed hero is a walking douche bag. As you can already tell, I'm not a big fan of those kinds of Harlequin-ish happy endings. So, having said that, here's to hoping that the story might actually be good. If the first book turns out to be all right, consider me persuaded to tag along for the rest of the ride.
If you want to check it out for yourself, here is the page for "Abandon" on Meg's website.
http://www.megcabot.com/abandon/index.php
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