Blog Entry 7: Reflection and Evaluation

During the first three weeks in this class of ENG099, I feel happy with my performance, as with the whole class. I have achieved the number of words  required for the writings, and so far the readings have been understandable to me.

I think I still need to improve my responses to an argument essay, which is the main idea of this class, and my spelling errors never leave me alone (they are so loyal to me). I also have to make a bigger effort on getting to class on time.  It is a battle between my job and the school every afternoon. My job requires me to go all over the places around NY City and at 5:00 PM is when this action starts. In addition, I need to pay more attention to word form.

 I have to put in practice the use of the writer’s guide book to move ahead. Hearing the professor's explanations, I believe that it will make me a better writer, together with the habit of reading.

The CAT-W was very interesting. First of all, I know we were advised about the text, but I did not imagine it would be so formal. It made me kind of tense. But I think I did an acceptable job; that’s what I think. My passage was the (text form #41) Social-Media Blackout at Harrisburg U. I summarized the passage and I mentioned the main Idea, which I was against. I also had the opportunity to express two reasons, giving my examples. I hope we will get more of these because I want to feel comfortable and familiar with accurate texts.

Blog Entry 6: Review Socrates' and Plato's Allegory

                For centuries, human have always been interested in studying their own behavior, some of their hypothesis have already been proved and some are still waiting for an answer.  One that is known for more than two thousand years is when people are espoused to a new philosophy different than what they used to believe for life. I believe that as soon as the individual is identified with the new ideology, he could and will not be the same person any more.

      In “The Allegory of the Cave” we found the first step bout this theory. Plato in his book “The Republic” gives us a parable told by Socrates, his professor, to Glaucon, his brother; in which people have been living in a cave limited to see the real world, and then one of them is released to see the creation for the first time. Later he tries to go back to his original place, but the people that he left behind can not get along with his new perceptive.

   when I was a child I used to think that people could never change their economic status. I remember when my best friend from elementary school and from my neighborhood, Miguel,  moved to another place. His family had to leave not just because the west cost of the city was more cleaned, or more quiet and perhaps because is from where  the people seen to have a peaceful life. It was because his father, who worked at a financial institution, had been promoted has a branch manager. So the income that the Polancos had at the time it was unreachable for the rest of the families in the town.  I did not like the idea that my friend was living. I could not imagine him been friend with those kids who had the best cloth and always the best bicycles and all the baseball equipments. I could not pictured Miguel there. The reason was that they were crossing the line.

            Another experience that I have lived about the ignorance is when I passed my first Easter season in NY and noted that not Everyone is  catholic in the world. I was only twelve when that happened. in my country, The Dominican Republic, There is only one religion which is the Roman Cattle.  I used to think that every big Friday no one  work, and that during the forty days of the season everybody could eat anything instead of meat. So I was chocked when I found out the realty. I could not blame my grand mother when I told her that my wife, who was raise in a protestant religion, became catholic in order to married me at the church. My mother asked me that where was her that she had not had her first communion at the age of twenty five.

          So learning from my owe experience and adopting that idea that Plato wants to give us, I am always willing to accept a new ideology in my up-coming period of life. 

Blog entry 5: Summary “The Allegory of the Cave”

“The Allegory of the Cave” is a recording from the book “The Republic”  by Plato, philosopher Greek, which give us a lesson about how the human knowledge behaves after been exposed to a new philosophy. The parable is original from a conversation between Socrates and Glaucon, professor and brother of Plato. Socrates presents to his student an imaginary world were people have being living in a cave. There they have their hands and head chained, and all the have is a blank wall in front of them which occasionally give them a reflection of other people and objects, which they have never seen. The sounds and the shadow of these, is all the know in their entire live.

  Then one of them is released and can see the world out of the cave for the very first time. later he trays to go back and to share his experience of the world with the people who have stayed in the darkness, but they can’t understand him.  To them, he just look like one of the other shadow reflected on the wall.  

"Blog Entry 4: Hype Workshop".

Kalle Lasn explains in his passage "Hype" how he can't get away from this new era of advertisements. It is almost impossible to protect your eyes from the invasion of ads at all the time and all over the places. Since we wakeup to turning dawn the light before to sleep, we are exposed to the ideas of others on their won preferences. Some entities have found the ways to present their products in places that it may had been absurd to think so. The author wishes that the liberty of his free thinking would be helped by the knowledge of his own experience, no by the memories of the music of a commercial which he can't get away from. Base on this, I strongly believe that my generation decisions are influenced by advertisement.

Nowadays, the benefit of getting ahead from your competition could not be how good is your product from the one in the next block, it is how many times the buyer have seen your product before he/she had made the decision to get it. Advertisements have always played an important place in products, but the central idea has lost his path. The original purpose of so was to persuade an individual or group that the item have been created to satisfy their need, to make in somehow their live easer, or why not, as a result through that item have a good way of living. Now what only matter is the last one.

Not long ago, it was the international famous super-ball. For most of the people, the event is not just to watch who is going to walk out with the cup of the National Football League. It is to watch those innovated, attractive, and most of the time comic commercials created by those powerful corporation. Days early is announced how much millions would cost the prestigious 30 minutes on the TV. This information itself is makes ads So getting back to my point, with empathy to kalle lans's frustration, the fallowing day to the game if I wanted to by a soda I may pick a Coca-Cola instead of Pepsi. Not because it is the one with less sugar and better taste, it could be because that is the one with the kool commercial about the two enemies solder at the border of their county.

As long as this strategy of business, I would like to call it, keep having positive effects in us, we will keep be invaded and treated as stupid. The time when kalle used to let his imagination fly together with the melody of Beethoven, would only exist in the pass. Those scary estimated number of advertisement in North America will keep growing, and we only would find peace and privacy from ads when we close our eyes and cover our ears

Blog Entry 3: Summarizing "Hype".

In her article Hype”, Kalle Lasn argues that advertisements are the worse mental pollution that humans are facing today.  From day to night, a lot of people are expose to millions of ads every day.  Advertisements are found all over the places  at any time.  Even during their relaxing moments, people can’t get away from them.

Reflecting on Annotation

1.     What did you get from thinking about annotations with the class?

I got a new way of thinking about my future writing that I did not now it before. what is more, this new technique I can use it no just for my writing class, it could be very effective for any kind of reading I’d interest on it.

2.     what did you get from writing annotations from “Is Google Making Us Stupid?” with your partners?

My group and I, found the argument of the author in the last sentence in the first paragraph which is that the better we concentrate on the information that we are given, the best result we will get from it.  We also leaned the meaning of some new words such as scatterbrained, superficially and shallow.

3.     Want did you learned about the writing by annotating it?

I  got the main idea (as I already explained in question number 3), and I also learned some other though that were in the reading connected with the main point. He said, the author, that Google is a weapon the works against our brains, and that is for two main reasons. One it makes us careless offering an easy and fast way out to what  we want, indeed, in a very fast way.  And second  it does not aloud us to concentrate on the information because all the interruptions while we are reading, especially the ads. This is how Google gets its revenue.

4.     How may annotating make you a better writer?

I believe that through the annotation I could absorbed the context piece by piece. therefore, I could  get all the minimum information that the writer wants me to have and that engage me to give a better respond. 

Blog 1

Kalle Lasn explains in his passage "Hype" how he can't get away from this new era of advertisements. It is almost impossible to protect your eyes from the invasion of ads at all the time and all over the places. Since we wakeup to turning dawn the light before to sleep, we are exposed to the ideas of others on their won preferences. Some entities have found the ways to present their products in places that it may had been absurd to think so. The author wishes that the liberty of his free thinking would be helped by the knowledge of his own experience, no by the memories of the music of a commercial which he can't get away from.

Today, the benefit of getting ahead from your competition could not be how good is your product from the one in the next block, it is how many times the buyer have seen your product before he/she had made the decision to get it. Advertisements have always played an important place in products, but the central idea has lost his path. The original purpose of so was to persuade an individual or group that the item have been created to satisfy their need, to make in somehow their live easer, or why not, as a result through that item have a good way of living. Now what only matter is the last one.

Not long ago, it was the international famous super-ball. For most of the people, the event is not just to watch who is going to walk out with the cup of the National Football League. It is to watch those innovated, attractive, and most of the time comic commercials created by those powerful corporation. Days early is announced how much millions would cost the prestigious 30 minutes on the TV. This information itself is makes ad. So getting back to my point, with empathy to kalle lans's frustration, the fallowing day to the game if I wanted to by a soda I may pick a Coca-Cola instead of Pepsi. Not because it is the one with less sugar and better taste, it could be because that is the one with the kool commercial about the two enemies solder at the border of their county.

As long as this strategy of business, I would like to call it, keep having positive effects in us, we will keep be invaded and treated as stupid. The time when kalle used to let his imagination fly together with the melody of Beethoven, would only exist in the pass. Those scary estimated number of advertisement in North America will keep growing, and we only would find peace and privacy from ads when we close our eyes and cover our ears.