Course Reflection

The essay is not, in any conventional sense, fun. I recall endless instances where people extolled their choler over the rigid nuances of writing an essay. For one, many people just don't give a flying duck about the subject matter. Why? The reasons vary. Two, essays are sometime counter intuitive if you want to make people think deeply on a subject. Why? Because the subjects are nearly always convoluted and making claims will be revealed as erroneous. Three, essays are fraught with grammatical errors. Some people are grammar nerds (Grammar Police) and others are not. The vast majority of college students are not. And a lot of the grammatical structures people adhere by are, by and large, arbitrary. Four, essays are awfully, awfully egotistical. Think about it. It's all one protracted rant that makes a personality broad and vague. You are constantly utilizing your brain to sound like a prick. Your word choice habitually displays who you are as a person. Is meekness and recalcitrant behavior encouraged? Digressions are organic in human reasoning but it is suppressed in essays. Five, you have to make an essay clear, creative, interesting, factual, subjective, objective...essentially you have to pump qualities that are contradictory. plus, you have to make an effort to write. And that's a drag. Plus, you have to address the questions directly, which are seldom compltely concise. I cared for none of the assignments, really. Blogger was okay. This class was congenial.

Group Research paper final draft

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1HC8MZ61mUL5FO2Ki6RfeL-JfGdaZhNLw6gaYdtple28/edit?hl=en_US&authkey=COXCtbAM

Blog Post 11

Juan: so...you didn't get belligerent right off the bat huh?
Angie: Nah, I'm a very composed and competent pixie when it comes to these things.
Juan: Ah
Angie: Met a guy
Juan: A common enough occurence
Angie: Really tall but not that tall
Juan: (whispers) dark, tall, and handsome.
Angie: He was wearing these really tight clothes
Juan: How tight was he?
Angie: Huh?
Juan: Never mind
Angie: You trying to be clever eh? Trying to be unassuming. Well, that's admirable but this guy took a different approach. I liked it. I mean, i saw through his strategy because he was, like, trying to, like, fucking oblieterate the way I was cloistered around my friends.
Juan: Is he a second order vain person?
Angie: (ignoring) He had really green eyes and, I don't know, he looked really, like, sizzling fucking fresh.
Juan: did I ask how he looked like?
Angie: He was like, I don't know, Jackie Chan Drunken Master at first...I mean they all were but after a while he was talking about, like, all the nuances of his major and shit. It was really interesting. Everyone else was like Goofy except without the charm.
Juan: Your favorite movie is Grease.
Angie: Plus he was really hot. He had this, like, crystal cross and shit. A rolex...
Juan: Really?
Angie: I don't know...it's kind of blurry.
Juan: You've been kind of negative so far.
Angie: No, dude, he was, like, fucking cute and smart, like, in more ways than one. I mean, he really sold me. I mean, it's organic for me to be apprehensive afterward but, like, if I see him again I'll probaly, y'know, pursue.
Juan: He won't be the same person if you see him again
Angie: what do you mean by that?
Juan: Don't be niave...it all relies on the context.
Angie: Fuck the context...Chemistry is chemistry.
Juan: Didn't you fail that class?
Angie: Fuck you.
Juan: Ok, I'll just leave you to your opium fantasies now, peace.

The flaws of a group debate.

Large group debates are a cumbersome debacle. The one we held in class recently met the requirements of a cumbersome debacle. The problems with group debates (especially large ones) is that an oligarchy quickly forms. Those in the oligarchy are the ones usually scoring up the word count not neccasarily because they are right or even cerebral but because they are most personably assertive. Proffessor Bogacka gave incentive to the groups by openly declaring extra credit to the one who wins the debate. However, debates are tricky affairs that are often used by educators to clarify arguments and not distinguish which position trumps the other. In both of the groups in our class, they were many that remaiend quiet, cowed almost. There were others who loudly (Myself included) argued their views (murky views). The reason why the views were murky was because we were assigned to believe in positions that we did not have the freedom to choose. How can one believe in a position through arbitrary circumstance (a flip of the coin or the whimsical decision?). It's like telling rabid aboritionists to argue for stem cell research or else they'll lose their households. I suspect that people did not take the debate seriously. Or else they saw at as a redudant excercise to be tolerated but not all celebrated or even considered as applicable to their daily lives. Who won the argument? It's hard to say. There was ample amounts of duplicitious on both sides. Determining the winner is as arbitrary as picking a side. The debate left me unsettled and unsatisified. Why should I care? It's just a limitied excercise, right? These debates are fraught with fallacies and outspoken viewpoints that insist upon themselves to the point where things are right because they sound right. Right? And why does one engage in debates? To gratify ones one ego? And why should an individual be so invested in a frivilious debate? That kind of conduct is loser-ish. The oligarchy usurps the group and points are almost always fallible. Unsatisfactory conclusions and people flinging extrinsic arguments back and forth. Is that a debate? And why type a blog post about it? What function does it serve? Well, this is, ultimatley, a request to the proffessor to either dole out extra credit to both groups or none at all. I proport none at all.

Revised Mid-term

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1bTN5T7VzX1W1BCl2cDbJRjJwUM_4F6OS5Q5Qj85hZVc/edit?hl=en#

Blog Post 9: Fathers paradoxes and contradictions.

Single matriarch households are on the rise. The chances of the average married couple divorcing is officially likely (over 50 percent). The brain can function with only one hemisphere; it can compensate. So can women raising their children all by themselves. Development in the most base sense can be fostered by shelter, nutriments (food and water), and a sensible amount of education. People can compensate. But single parent households should not be glamorized or even set the example. It should be the last resort. When done right, two parent households (mother and father) improve the development of their offspring. "when done right" is helping the next generation with love and benevolent family values. Family is strong. It is stronger with a father and a mother.

Revised annotated biblography

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1jx3b-nBK-mGsA0mx2zUoAKPQ_3Bg-KhfHwPgdSCw2jo/edit?hl=en#

Detachment in male-female jargon. (Thesis statement). Blog post 8

The language utilized in the essays discussing masculinity (male-female relationships) are fraught with esoteric and often ambiguous word choice. Reading such sentences involving highly academic terms (theoretical segregation, stratification, social assimilation) sometimes leads to obtuse conclusions. The language is increasingly cerebral and increasingly self-conscious about how to convey an argument that never becomes clear because of the tangents the writers drop (whether inadvertently or deliberately). Since the language is highly critical, it kind of alienates people, making them view the whole intellectual reasoning as forced. It diminishes the message of the essay.

First draft Research paper

https://docs.google.com/document/d/18uiuadXNbCHHM7ASkNrowCPV9x0tP6dH41iXgPfUIJY/edit?hl=en

Annoted Biblography

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1jx3b-nBK-mGsA0mx2zUoAKPQ_3Bg-KhfHwPgdSCw2jo/edit?hl=en#

Blog post 7: Zinn. Economic factor in power distribution

Zinn states, "The evidence presented in this research suggests that in the realm of marital decision making, egalitarianism is far more prevalent than macho dominance" . Zinn argues that the working spouse is inclined to have more say in family decisions. However, she continues "although male dominance does not typify marital decision making in Chicano families, it should not be assumed that it is non-existent in families or in other realms of interaction and organization." Her essay's primary function was to eliminate the encrusting myth of the macho Chicano in favor of this more balanced image, however even she admits that conventional masculinity plays a role in the construction of gender roles. But what is more important is that it is not commonly revealed that there is equal partenrship in family roles. She implies that the Chicano man would rather live with the image of the super macho man than with the impartial one Zinn presents. It is the case that masculinity cannot be dismissed because it continues to be perpetuated inside the family unit and outside. Employment among spouses have altered the ways of Chicano's, Zinn continues, so that the distribution is doled out more evenly but that does not eradicate the gender roles of Chicano men. Zinn lays out the outwork of a theory that suggests that the myth continues to exist, burying any real steps people can take to better understand the condition of Chicano men and their famalies.

Blog Post 6 Venn diagram

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1rg2k5h31XjdxBg9ZlSyU1pGx8pM4f9RPxsxImcx9SZw/edit?hl=en#

Link for Revised Analysis Paper

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1jDjzEmprnaUfUrEpUKnc5FBZGmaMThND6L8a_gCTPbY/edit?hl=en#

Blog post 5 Espiritu

Espiritu raises salient points in his discussion of masculinity. I especially was enthralled on how he doesn't make the argument too black and white (his story about a man, impoverished by his incacereration in a concentration camp, cursing women for his lot is especially keen). By focusing, in distended length,on the emasculation of men he reinforces his point of view that the power of man is powerful enough to rebuke their belittlement. Bear with me. My point is that he (Espiritu) only verifies the fact that guys do not like to leave injustices at that. Why write an article? What's the point? To inform but also to provide a new perspective. I'm a very down to earth observer, so it seem's pretty reasonable to infer that his own masculinity compelled him to defend man. Leave it to a man to defend past wrongs.

Proposal link for Research Paper.

https://docs.google.com/document/d/13lWSFPXBtqpLE8JdFCCo192o_DWEUVbPjdvxGrGdzPw/edit?hl=en#

Link for Final Draft.

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1jDjzEmprnaUfUrEpUKnc5FBZGmaMThND6L8a_gCTPbY/edit?hl=en

Who's the man?

I would say the black male in Marable's piece is more masculine in the orthodox sense. And by that i mean that the black male is less philosophical and more compliant to the harsher realities of a life that is against their favor (politically, economically, and media wise). That is not to say that they thrive in life. Theroux is more brash about his perception on the male myth, concentrating less on statistical evidence to back his claims. It almost feels like he uses his essay to exercise his witticism, a searing scorching observation that's tainted by his personal experiences. Marable (both the men he's trying to describe and himself) is more objective, daring in his claims of African accomplishments in the settling of America. He raises interesting viewpoints that have a solid basing. He's more serious, i suppose. He discusses suicides and jail rates and broken families and misconceptions and what forces fostered the atmosphere of contempt. The black males faces more disadvantages then one who want's to demonstrate his creativity. 

Blog Post 4. Brains and Brawn

Intilligence is a factor in being a man. The logic for the racist sexist (all the suffixes) white master during the time of slavery  is something not dissimilar to this:
Real men have control over their sexual impulses
Black men do not have control over their sexual impulses
Therefore they are not real men. {END LOGIC}
Of course, the logic doesn't really end there because if they're not real men it follows that it is not unethical to treat them as animals (as they've conditioned them to believe). The masters superimpose sytnethic concoctions but one negative consequence of that is that everyone starts to takes that as truth (The philosophers can hash the meaning of that all day). That is how stereotypes are made. They don't prop up overnight like a starbucks, they have a long and dubious origin. Marable epmhasises that the perception of black males were that they were physically gifted (their volume and strenght) but were incapable of higher virtues. Part of this is because the slaves had been robbed of their history, taken from a continent they knew next to nothing about as the years progressed. What i am trying to say is the intilligence plays a role in mascalunity. I am saying that brawn doesn't verify one's manliness because if it did then the slaves of the past would have been considered men. Marable raises other topics that are interesting to say the least but i will stick to the point that i have made. Which is that brains is active in mascaluninity.

Link for revised Second draft

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1jDjzEmprnaUfUrEpUKnc5FBZGmaMThND6L8a_gCTPbY/edit?hl=en#