After reading the first couple pages of "The Prevailing Opinion of a Sexual Character Discussed", I disagreed with Mary Wollstonecraft. I didn't understand what the big deal was. Then I finally read the top of the essay. To the right of the author's name read the dates 1759-1797. I found a greater understanding of the writing knowing that it was a period piece.
Wollstonecraft brought up some good points. She at one point described husbands as "overgrown children." When you think of women before suffrage or other rights, what were they expected of? To clean the house and make dinner. Yes, men went off to work, but once they entered the house again, everything had to be done for them. They were so helpless, just like children. "All the difference that I can discern, arises from the superior advantage of liberty, which enables the former to see more life." It is said in the Declaration of Independence that "all men are created equal." Is that strictly only for the male gender? Or does that refer to all of mankind? Women are expected to be beautiful and fertile, if they are not... they're good for nothing.
She used the word "virtue" a lot in her essay. Virtue is the conformity of one's life and conduct to moral and ethical principles. Virtue was a goal for women, the "more useless members of society." Look at how far we have come. Women are allowed to vote, run for president, and fight for our country. We have all of the same rights as men. I first misunderstood this article because I thought it was modern. I believed that this woman wrote 19 pages complaining how women have it so bad. Once I realized that this was before all that, I became grateful. If it wasn't for this woman writing down her amazing thoughts on paper, we might be still where they were back then. So I just wanted to say, YOU GO GIRL!
Thursday, November 10, 2011
Wednesday, November 9, 2011
Deviant: The Shocking Story of Ed Gein
Instead of reading a nice non-fiction book, I decided to read a gruesome one. I had heard of Ed Gein before, but I was unaware of how disturbing this man actually was.
The story opens with the story of George Gein, Eddie's father. He was described as an "unfortunate bum" who married a difficult. Augusta Gein loved her children, but didn't show it. She was severly OCD; she would put her house cleaning before her sons. Eddie had a brother, Henry, who "mysteriously died" when he and Eddie were playing out in the woods. (I speculate that Ed actually killed him). Once Ed hit his mid-30's, all of Ed's family was dead, leaving him a sad, lonely man.
People in the Plainfield, Wisconsin area mysteriously started going missing. Detectives and citizens of the town had small speculation, but never accused Ed of the crime. Finally, sheriffs decided to search Ed's house, and they found things they never would imagine.
This book was quite well written. It was organized into three different sections. The beginning was Ed's childhood and foreshadowing as to why he was so psycho. The middle actually shared with the reader why Ed was so psycho. It was quite gruesome. The end section was the aftermath and trials. It was crazy to read about how someone so disturbing lived in my homestate. I do wish I would have read a more pleasant book, but this book was still quite entertaining.
The story opens with the story of George Gein, Eddie's father. He was described as an "unfortunate bum" who married a difficult. Augusta Gein loved her children, but didn't show it. She was severly OCD; she would put her house cleaning before her sons. Eddie had a brother, Henry, who "mysteriously died" when he and Eddie were playing out in the woods. (I speculate that Ed actually killed him). Once Ed hit his mid-30's, all of Ed's family was dead, leaving him a sad, lonely man.
People in the Plainfield, Wisconsin area mysteriously started going missing. Detectives and citizens of the town had small speculation, but never accused Ed of the crime. Finally, sheriffs decided to search Ed's house, and they found things they never would imagine.
This book was quite well written. It was organized into three different sections. The beginning was Ed's childhood and foreshadowing as to why he was so psycho. The middle actually shared with the reader why Ed was so psycho. It was quite gruesome. The end section was the aftermath and trials. It was crazy to read about how someone so disturbing lived in my homestate. I do wish I would have read a more pleasant book, but this book was still quite entertaining.
Is Google Making Us Stupid?
The issue of Google and technology taking over human beings was brought in an interesting way in this article. Nicholas Carr's overall point of this essay was that humans are no longer capable of deep reading because the internet (especially google) has made us lazy.
Do I agree with his statement? Personally, yes I do. A lot of his points were valid and I shamefully say that a lot of them apply to me. "What the net seems to be doing is chipping away my capacity for concentration and contemplation." True story. I'm trying to write this blog, but all that's on my mind is how much I want to check my facebook and tumblr. I sometimes think that I have ADD, but really that's just my excuse. I just have no concentration because the burden of the internet is always distracting me.
"Once I was a scuba diver in the sea of words. Now I zip along the surface like a guy on a jet ski." Fabulous comparison. Google makes it a little too easy to find what you're looking for, which almost makes it inaccurate. When you google something, usually there's millions and sometimes billions of results. What percent of people actually look what's beyond the tenth page? Usually people will just decide on the first or second result rather than paging through and looking at the.. let's just say 584,236 result. Although Google is incredibly useful most of the time, I do not doubt that it's making us a little lazy.
At the same time, why is reading off of something electronic so bad? Is it different if I read The Great Gasby off of a Kindle instead of paper in a book? No... I'm still reading the same book, I'm just using my resources. What's so bad about that? Researchers are afraid that all this technology is forming "artificial brains." We have a vast network of information at the touch of a button. I call that progress... not a problem.
Do I agree with his statement? Personally, yes I do. A lot of his points were valid and I shamefully say that a lot of them apply to me. "What the net seems to be doing is chipping away my capacity for concentration and contemplation." True story. I'm trying to write this blog, but all that's on my mind is how much I want to check my facebook and tumblr. I sometimes think that I have ADD, but really that's just my excuse. I just have no concentration because the burden of the internet is always distracting me.
"Once I was a scuba diver in the sea of words. Now I zip along the surface like a guy on a jet ski." Fabulous comparison. Google makes it a little too easy to find what you're looking for, which almost makes it inaccurate. When you google something, usually there's millions and sometimes billions of results. What percent of people actually look what's beyond the tenth page? Usually people will just decide on the first or second result rather than paging through and looking at the.. let's just say 584,236 result. Although Google is incredibly useful most of the time, I do not doubt that it's making us a little lazy.
At the same time, why is reading off of something electronic so bad? Is it different if I read The Great Gasby off of a Kindle instead of paper in a book? No... I'm still reading the same book, I'm just using my resources. What's so bad about that? Researchers are afraid that all this technology is forming "artificial brains." We have a vast network of information at the touch of a button. I call that progress... not a problem.
Tuesday, November 8, 2011
Skunk Dreams
Louise Erdrich's "Skunk Dreams" brought up an unusual, but good point. What do dreams tell us? This is a concept that I spend a lot of my time thinking about. I don't often remember my dreams, but when I do... I always analyze and try to figure them out. I have dreammoods.com saved in my favorites (it's actually a pretty neat website, you should check it out.) I believe dreams are a supernatural way of telling you something, or perhaps telling you the future. Seriously, last year during the performance weekend of our musical "Curtains" I had a dream that involved our cast in the bottom of our hallowed out swimming pool. We were putting on our musical. I knew it wasn't Curtains though, because it involved a whale eating someone. I thought it was quite strange, but I didn't think much of it. Well guess what musical we're doing this year... MOBY DICK THE MUSICAL. Guess what it's about... a great white whale eating someone. Guess where it takes place... the bottom of a hallowed out swimming pool. WHAT?!? HOW DOES THAT HAPPEN? I thought that was pretty neat... and a little creepy.
Anyways, she uses skunks as another thing to go off of her animal motif with. Skunks are known as arrogant creatures. They are not worth hunting because you can't eat them, and if you try to hurt them they can just lift up their tail and you'll smell terrible for a week. The author describes that if she could be any animal, she would be a skunk. She could live fearlessly and fall into a state of dreaming whenever she wanted. Believe it or not...skunks have dreams too. What do they dream about exactly? Do they have premonitions like mine?
Anyways, she uses skunks as another thing to go off of her animal motif with. Skunks are known as arrogant creatures. They are not worth hunting because you can't eat them, and if you try to hurt them they can just lift up their tail and you'll smell terrible for a week. The author describes that if she could be any animal, she would be a skunk. She could live fearlessly and fall into a state of dreaming whenever she wanted. Believe it or not...skunks have dreams too. What do they dream about exactly? Do they have premonitions like mine?
Talk of the Town
John Updike and Susan Sontag shared contrasting views about the aftermath of 9/11 in their essays "Talk of the Town"
John Updike's view was more of the optimistic sort. He writes about how him and his wife actually witnessed the towers falling from afar. He describes what it looked like from his point of view and uses words like 'tinkling', 'glittering', and 'pristine'. I thought how could you ever describe the twin towers falling with such fluffy words? That's because the twin towers were one of New York's most beautiful attributes. In a flash, they dropped like elevators and beautiful New York went from 'tinkling' to a 'tinkling shiver'.
The next paragraph uses the phrases 'remarkably calm and loving', 'blase blitheness', and 'planeful of peaceful passengers'. The overall voice in the text is actually quite positive. Many people knew they were about to die, and you're going to tell me that they were 'remarkably calm and loving' right before they died? I would be completely freaking out if I knew I was about to die. There would be absolutely nothing calm about me. Of course, many people have different attitudes when they are put in near death situations. For example: there were musicians playing on the Titanic before it sank. When they found out that they were all going to sink and die, they didn't stop playing. I guess when you think about it, would you rather spend your last moments of life freaking out about how you were going to die, or playing beautiful music on the violin. I mean, it sucks that you have to die, but I would have to pick the latter. Anyways, these were Updike's perception of what the passengers of that plane felt. I guarantee you there were at least a couple of people who were freaking out.
This essay ends with 'New York looked glorious.' --quite an interesting way to describe a place that just got attacked leaving millions of victims bodies laying everywhere. I believe the writer was trying to get across how America is triumphant. These terrorists thought they could break us by doing something so terrible but they can't.
Susan Sontag's writing was refuting Updike's point. She believes that America needs to stop saying that they're strong, resilient, and not affected by these attacks. Terrorists should NOT be thought of as cowards because they were willing to die themselves in order to kill others. Hold up, I gotta be honest... I do think that's what makes them cowards. Let's just kill people for fun--YAY. What happened to the peace, yo? This essay had an overall negative vibe and I didn't care for it. I don't get much into politics, but my gut feeling tells me that I just don't agree with this woman's opinion. What's wrong with saying our country is strong? We may not be strong, but we can at least have the attitude that we are. It's like the little engine that could. "I think I can, I think I can." What happened to him--he made it over that hill (At least I think that's how the story went.) A positive attitude is one of the only things we individually have control of anymore. America--we can do it!
John Updike's view was more of the optimistic sort. He writes about how him and his wife actually witnessed the towers falling from afar. He describes what it looked like from his point of view and uses words like 'tinkling', 'glittering', and 'pristine'. I thought how could you ever describe the twin towers falling with such fluffy words? That's because the twin towers were one of New York's most beautiful attributes. In a flash, they dropped like elevators and beautiful New York went from 'tinkling' to a 'tinkling shiver'.
The next paragraph uses the phrases 'remarkably calm and loving', 'blase blitheness', and 'planeful of peaceful passengers'. The overall voice in the text is actually quite positive. Many people knew they were about to die, and you're going to tell me that they were 'remarkably calm and loving' right before they died? I would be completely freaking out if I knew I was about to die. There would be absolutely nothing calm about me. Of course, many people have different attitudes when they are put in near death situations. For example: there were musicians playing on the Titanic before it sank. When they found out that they were all going to sink and die, they didn't stop playing. I guess when you think about it, would you rather spend your last moments of life freaking out about how you were going to die, or playing beautiful music on the violin. I mean, it sucks that you have to die, but I would have to pick the latter. Anyways, these were Updike's perception of what the passengers of that plane felt. I guarantee you there were at least a couple of people who were freaking out.
This essay ends with 'New York looked glorious.' --quite an interesting way to describe a place that just got attacked leaving millions of victims bodies laying everywhere. I believe the writer was trying to get across how America is triumphant. These terrorists thought they could break us by doing something so terrible but they can't.
Susan Sontag's writing was refuting Updike's point. She believes that America needs to stop saying that they're strong, resilient, and not affected by these attacks. Terrorists should NOT be thought of as cowards because they were willing to die themselves in order to kill others. Hold up, I gotta be honest... I do think that's what makes them cowards. Let's just kill people for fun--YAY. What happened to the peace, yo? This essay had an overall negative vibe and I didn't care for it. I don't get much into politics, but my gut feeling tells me that I just don't agree with this woman's opinion. What's wrong with saying our country is strong? We may not be strong, but we can at least have the attitude that we are. It's like the little engine that could. "I think I can, I think I can." What happened to him--he made it over that hill (At least I think that's how the story went.) A positive attitude is one of the only things we individually have control of anymore. America--we can do it!
An Introduction
I'm Bridget and I'll just start out by saying that my favorite pastimes are painting the town red, capturing birds, and eating human flesh. No, I'm totally kidding. I just couldn't think of an interesting way to start and I figured that you people would be sick of reading the generic "I'm ______ and I was born in Madison, Wisconsin, blah blah blah blah."
Well now that I have you're attention, I'll just start out by saying I'm Bridget and I was born in Madison, Wisconsin. I have lived in Wisconsin all of my life. My childhood was nothing special, quite boring actually. I moved to McFarland from Sun Prairie in 7th grade and that's when I suffered through those awkward middle school years. It wasn't until high school where I finally started realizing my interests and the kind of person I wanted to be.
So here I am. I enjoy many things including: music, theater, art, movies, Hi-C from McDonald's, and fleece blankets. I am the happiest during the sixth, seventh, and eighth month of the year. It's not just because of the no school thing, I think it has more to do with the sun and the vitamin D. I have self diagnosed myself with OCD, ADD, and acid reflex disease. I consider myself a perfectionist, but at the same time a procrastinator. I like to be involved in a lot of activities, so as a result I have terrible time management skills.
The one thing that I'm most passionate about would probably have to be musical theater. The whole thought of pretending to be someone else and bursting into song and dance randomly is pure magic to me. It's like Halloween, but less scary and more fun (also less candy). I believe that music is such a powerful form of expression, and that is why I am much more attracted to musicals rather than just dramatic plays or movies.
I saw three Broadway shows this summer and I was completely amazed and in love the entire time.
I'm super excited to go to college next year! I plan on either attending Indiana University or Viterbo University. I hope to pursue my passion of musical theater whether it is onstage or backstage. Contrary to high schoolers popular belief, college is not all fun and games. I'm taking AP Comp to help me prepare for college courses. I'm not off to a very good start considering the date of this blog post, but I'm going to make it my goal to get all of my other work in on time and break my procrastination habit.
Well now that I have you're attention, I'll just start out by saying I'm Bridget and I was born in Madison, Wisconsin. I have lived in Wisconsin all of my life. My childhood was nothing special, quite boring actually. I moved to McFarland from Sun Prairie in 7th grade and that's when I suffered through those awkward middle school years. It wasn't until high school where I finally started realizing my interests and the kind of person I wanted to be.
So here I am. I enjoy many things including: music, theater, art, movies, Hi-C from McDonald's, and fleece blankets. I am the happiest during the sixth, seventh, and eighth month of the year. It's not just because of the no school thing, I think it has more to do with the sun and the vitamin D. I have self diagnosed myself with OCD, ADD, and acid reflex disease. I consider myself a perfectionist, but at the same time a procrastinator. I like to be involved in a lot of activities, so as a result I have terrible time management skills.
The one thing that I'm most passionate about would probably have to be musical theater. The whole thought of pretending to be someone else and bursting into song and dance randomly is pure magic to me. It's like Halloween, but less scary and more fun (also less candy). I believe that music is such a powerful form of expression, and that is why I am much more attracted to musicals rather than just dramatic plays or movies.
I saw three Broadway shows this summer and I was completely amazed and in love the entire time.
I'm super excited to go to college next year! I plan on either attending Indiana University or Viterbo University. I hope to pursue my passion of musical theater whether it is onstage or backstage. Contrary to high schoolers popular belief, college is not all fun and games. I'm taking AP Comp to help me prepare for college courses. I'm not off to a very good start considering the date of this blog post, but I'm going to make it my goal to get all of my other work in on time and break my procrastination habit.
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