Final Post

I don't think i really improved on my writing that much this quarter. I still managed to make mistakes when i would write something. It would be an up and down week by week for me. I felt that i would make progress in my writing one week and the next week come back and make twice as many mistakes on the next paper, from spelling, sentences and punctuation errors and so on.  I have had you for 3 different classes and i could guess that i have made some improvements but not as much as i think you would have liked to see.

I didn't feel that there was much differences when writing an analytical piece compared to a research paper or creative writing essay. There were times where i needed to look up information on some thing like the art analysis essay we just got done doing and the cult classic film. I needed to make sure that all my information was correct and didn't put anything that was not true. There were some points where i was free and able to make things up because it was my story and i was the one in control of what happen it in, like the narrative essay i did about the dog. So it felt like a balance of free creativity and some research.

I feel that analytical writing i feel will be usefully to me in my career field. It will help me to pitch ideas and other people and help me tell them what is going to happen in the project on paper, without having me tell them in person. I will be able to paint them a picture with  my words of how it will look and function once everything is completed. 

From all the essays that i did in class i enjoyed the narrative story the most. Doing the story allowed me to get creative and make things up while i was writing it. If i didn't like the way the story was heading in the story. Then i would just think of a different out come for it and change it to something that i liked better and seems more realistic for the story. I was really trying not to make a sad story were bad things would happen or people were dying left and right. I was trying to make something different with a happy ending to it.

It was a pleasure having you as my teacher again and i have enjoyed taking your class. Thanks for the help with the essays and fixing my mistakes that i made in my papers. Thank you once again and have a good break.

Antonio Bahena.

Blog Post 10

I enjoyed my visit to the Frye Art Museum. I actually live a few blocks away from it and have never noticed it. I felt that the ambiance of the museum changed from room to room. it would also depend on the music or sound that was being played in the room. Like the room with the white little paper like statue/figures that had the sounds of water playing. That room gave off a calming/relaxing feel, but not all the rooms were like that. Some rooms didn't have sounds and you could here everything that was going on around you. I have never understood the arrangement of art in a museum other then seeing that time periods go with time periods, but this look to be artist sections or style of art sectioned off.

My favorite part of the trip was seeing all the painting in the back of the museum. I have always liked painting but have never been good at it. Seeing all the painting reminded me of Art History 2 were i got to see a lot of paintings by some of the greatest artist of all time. The only thing that i didn't like about the museum is that it was small. Because if it's size it didn't take long to see all the art, so i ended up looking at everything a few times. It reminds me of the Asian Art Museum in Volunteer Park in Capitol Hill. When i went there the left side of the building was closed off because of construction so that made it a lot smaller. I guess I'm just uses to museums like the SAM that take hours to see everything. 

Blog Post 9

Kindred is about a young African American women named Dana who lives in San Francisco with her husband Kevin Franklin. She ends up time travailing back in time to early 1800s in Maryland during slavery to save the life of Rufus her great grand father on multiple occasions. Dana sees Rufus grow from a small boy to a full grow adult all the while watching over him while trying to change the way he thinks about slaves. Dana being an African American women has to adjust to the past and get use to being a slave and not having a say in what she can do all the while fearing for her life of what the past will do to her.

Blog Post 8

My scenario that i think that would call me in to the past would be my bad decisions in my relationships and in my car as well. The car has had some of my worst decisions i have made and they have kept me up at night a few times. My scenarios are not life threatening but they have been something that has bugged me and has made me regret a few things that i have done or chosen to do. The reason i would get zapped back is when i was contemplating my big decision or just as i was about to make a spontaneous decision. The only preparation i would have for the past is just to make sure that i would help/advise myself in my decision without completely changing my life for the worse. The only way i get sent back home is when the bed decision i was about to make has passed. Maybe i might take my Gameboy so i can kill some time before i get sent back. A bad relationship made right could be that one thing that everybody is looking for in life.

Blog Post 7 - Kindred

I think that Butler used the prologue effect because it helps to build a better story and suspense in the book and in each chapter. When the end of the chapter has a cliff hanger ending it makes it difficult to stop reading one chapter without continuing the next one right away. You almost are egged on to keep reading the book instead of putting it down just so you can find out what happens next.

Each chapter is named after a certain event that draws her to the past to save Rufus from himself. Each section in the chapter relates to that certain point or event that happens in that part of the chapter that brings her there. Then after what happens she if left to deal with what happens after wards of that event and the consequence of staying a little bit too long.  

I haven’t really read any other books that have time travel as a forum of transportation in it. I have seen plenty of TV show and movie to make a good guess at it. From the other time travel transportation that I have seen is that a lot of time they have a machine that they use to get from the past to the present or the future to now. The machine has a dial that pin points the traveler to the time that they want to go. In kindred Dana has no control of when she is called to the past but does have control of when she able to go back. Even though time passes different from the past to the present I have seen passes at the same rate as the present or time doesn't advance at all. Then again there is no written rule for time travel so any idea or theory could be possible. 

In Kindred there is really no science in the forum in the time travel aspect. There is a way to explain why she travels to the past. She is called when she is needed and she is able to go back home when she is danger of dying. 

Blog post 6 – Convergences & Kindred

The gender that was discussed in the (Convergences) chapter 5 was how man and women differ in the same type of things. The illustration that was in this chapter was of a group of men and women hanging out playing on their phones. 

- The women's group were all playing on there phones and multiple conversations were going on while this was happening. which made it very difficult to know what they were say in the comic because all the word bubbles were over lapping each other. 

- In the men's group they were doing the exact same thing as the women's group. They were all just sitting around playing on their phones. The thing that was different was that the guys were barely saying anything while they were playing on their phones. The bubbles were not over lapping and this made it very easy to fallow what was going on. 

This image shows the same idea and differences between the two genders. 

So in (Kindred) the gender role is pretty much set in stone. Men do all the manual labor while the women do all the domestic work around the house. There are a few times when the women do go out to do manual labor with the men, but the men don't do any cooking or domestic work around the house. The roles are the same in marriage as well. The men go work while the women stay home and take care of the kids if they have any while cooking, cleaning, sewing and so on.  

Blog Post 5 - Kindred

            Octavia Butler writing style is usually about young people who are often African-American. They are usually in some kind of struggle and or danger to themselves that they must find a way out of. As for her sci-fi writing the only way I can think of it, is that she must have dreamed up these weird scenario that she writes about in her books. Each story she writes about has almost nothing in common with the any of the previous books that she has written while that it seem to me that she tries to come up with a wide verity of different sci-fi theory’s that she tries out. One book is based in space with a spaceship orbiting a dying earth while trying to fix the dying plant and humanity. While another on has to deal with a girl that doesn’t know that she is a vampire and having to deal with the knowledge of what she truly is. Then we have Kindred the book we are reading in class which has to do with time travel. As for the time period she was in, I would think that she was an innovator because she was trying thing that other writers didn’t think of or even want to write about. As well as pervading a different look at different sci-fi theories that may have been on seen as one way like time travel, vampires and so on.

Knowing more about Octavia style and how she writes in other book and thought process doesn’t really make me think any different or my perspective about the kindred book. I would have to read a few of her book to get a real good feel for Octavia Butler and he style. Reading a quiet summary of a book doesn’t really do justice to the whole book and the writer. I do enjoy reading the book once the action started to pick up and have jumped a few pages to see where all the good parts are in the next chapter. 

Blob post 4 - Convergences

             In chapter 2 of Convergences we read a variety of different in things in this chapter. In this chapter I will be talking about the fairy tale and urban legend part of the chapter and how is partakes in the narrative element.

         
          In the fairy tale and urban legend part of the chapter, it gives a few stories that we all have heard at one point in are life. Each fairy tale has been told in different ways with the beginning, middle and ending being changed to fit the time period and place that they are being told in. While an urban legend I feel has almost always has had the same story and situation. The time and place might change but what happens has almost always stayed the same. Urban legends are told to scare people that there are dangers out in the world that they should be aware of. While fairy tales are told to entertain the audiences of something that is made up and could never happen. Some fairy tales have been said to have a bit of sexual tension in them as well like in Little Red Riding hood when the wolf is in bed with the grandmother or the little girl.

            The first thing a fairy tale and urban legend are supposed to do is entertain the audiences. The next thing is to have a message or a lesson that the audiences should learn something. They have a step by step process of how things happen, first this happens, then this and last this. These are all the basic elements of stories telling and entertain an audience.

Blog Post 3 - Convergences

I this this week’s assignment we looked at what makes a movie a “cult classic” film. In the chapter it gave a verity if different reasons of why or what made a movie a classis. The first was the creativity of a movie, the second was the power of the movie or just a single scene in the film and the last one was the way the film changed its era at the time. I will picking a film that I feel is a “cult classic” and pervading a few reasons why I feel it is one. The film I have picked is Scarface.

Scarface is a movie that was made in 1983 that started Al Pacino as Tony Montana. The movie has many iconic moments in it that are still used or copied in films and TV shows. The first one is the movie poster, the poster has developed an iconic status with people being able to recognize the poster almost instantly just by the image alone without having the film title on it. The film has many memorial scenes but the most iconic is the last scene when he has the shootout with the gang members. Which also gives use the most memorial one line in the film. “Say hello to my little friend!” just before he shoots down his office door.

In the movie Tony is a Cubin with a short temper and big dreams. With his temper in the film Tony had the ability to turn a comedy scene in to a dramatic scene. It also made it easy to see the scenes coming when the movie would play the same sounds every time Tony would lose it. Any little thing would sent him off in the movie, like when he found out that his right hand man married his little sister and killed him in their own home.

I picked the Scarface movie as the movie I feel that should be considered as my cult classic film. I have seen this film plenty of times and never get tired of watching it. I also feel like this film is not put in to the category of being a cult classic film when has rightfully earned its place in cinematic history.

Blog Post 2 - Convergences

Cyberspace and the space of noplace has been labeled as this place that exist in a world that we can’t see with are eyes. A place that we visit almost on a daily basis while spend much of our life in without really leaving to a physical destination in person. Yet this place is real, because; all the information has to be placed somewhere so that it can be seen and retrieved when needed. So a place that has so much information cannot be considered as a noplace.

Just like our brain, are imagination can grow and expand as we take in more information. The information will give our minds new and creative ideas that will take us in a variety of different direction that are own minds alone could not take us without the stimulation of the data we receive on a day to day basis.  

With this information and data we receive, our minds are able to get side tracked and day dream to lose our selves and separate from reality. Sometimes our minds need a break from the day to day activates and sometimes overwhelming world that we live in. Cyberspace gives use that other option when we get online and surf the web and play game. Any online games gives use the chance to re-invent are selves into somebody completely different from there person that we are in real life. Someone can go from having no friends to be having more friends than anybody can dream of or being a social outcast to being the leader/ruler of a kingdom with millions of followers.

These two worlds can live and comfortably coexist together. Without cyberspace the minds mental space left to experiences things that only we could visit in person and information that was only available to use in books and in educational facilities. Cyberspace on the other hand is left to share are ideas with others and explore and expand the world of cyberspace. 

Blog Post 1 - Convergences

In the introduction chapter of the convergences the book goes over the different forums of media and what they are saying to the people.

The first one is “message”. This is what the media is trying to tell the consumer or what they are trying to convey. One of the examples that the book used is intercity highway sign that was on the side of a building. The sign to me tells that that the destination is home and that s were all roads lead back too. Or the Joe camel baby smoking a cigarette on the billboard sign that says that it’s ok to smoke at a young age. A sign or a picture can tell and say a lot without using words.

The “method” in the ad is how they are getting the message across in what tone they are doing it in. What they are showing to tell the message to the audiences. The method almost falls under the same category as the message. The way I understand the method is in the image and the way they are showing it while the message is saying something. So it all just depends on how the ad is being shown not what it is saying.

The “medium” is the method they are getting the ad out to the consumer. There is a verity of different way to do this like print, web, TV, radio and so on. With all of this different ways to get a simple message across like buy are coffee or are TV. The message will be very different is all forums of ad. They can tell you to “buy are coffee” or just show a person poring a cup of coffee.

The companies have a bunch of different ways to get a message to the consumer to try their product or to bring awareness to something. Don’t have to just focus on just one way to get the ad out.



This ad tells the consumer that if they want to be fast like a cheetah then they need to get a pair of Nike shoes to be fast and no other shoes will do. 

Art

I have never been that into art, but at the same time i can appreciate art and all its different forms and not be on sided about it.

like this street art by Banksy. He is famous for his street art and the creativeness that they show of the message that they are trying to get across. I feel that street art is one of the most under appreciated forms of art there is. 

This a pencil drawing, i'm drawing a blank on the person who drew this. But the skill to draw something so realistic is incredible to me.