http://http://blogs.setonhill.edu/DanielleMeyer/2006/02/levin_academic.html

Here I wrote about how the article explains that Ceasar uses Antony to marry Octavia to rule out the threat of Cleopatra.

http://blogs.setonhill.edu/DanielleMeyer/2006/03/to_the_very_hea.html

Here I talked about how I thought that Cleopatra was a "whore".

http://blogs.setonhill.edu/DanielleMeyer/2006/03/eats_shoots_and.html

Here I talked about punctuation.

http://blogs.setonhill.edu/DanielleMeyer/2006/03/eats_shoots_lea.html

Here I talked about the "Yes!" and the "Ah!" factor.

http://blogs.setonhill.edu/DanielleMeyer/2006/04/resurrection_bl_1.html

Here I talked about how I basically didn't get Resurrection Blues in the beginning.

http://blogs.setonhill.edu/DanielleMeyer/2006/04/eats_shoots_and_1.html#comments

Here I talked about how I thought these two chapters were a little dry... at least more than the other ones we had to read in class.

http://blogs.setonhill.edu/DanielleMeyer/2006/04/academic_articl.html#comments

Here I talk about how Hayles talks about a utopia and how the characters in Diamond Age are technologically dependant.

http://blogs.setonhill.edu/DanielleMeyer/2006/04/diamond_age_thr.html#comments

Here I talked about how I couldn't finish the book.

http://blogs.setonhill.edu/DanielleMeyer/2006/04/post.html#comments

Here I talk about Henri

http://blogs.setonhill.edu/DanielleMeyer/2006/04/post_1.html#comments

Here I talk about Jeanine.

TIMELINESS

http://blogs.setonhill.edu/DanielleMeyer/2006/04/post_2.html#comments

Here I talked about my reflection towards TV Turn-Off Week. Dr. Jerz pushed our class a step further and made it Media Fasting Week!

DISCUSSION

http://blogs.setonhill.edu/DanielleMeyer/2006/04/diamond_age.html#comments

Diamond Age is about the 21st Century. However, I noticed that some things in the book aren't in our generation so far.

DEPTH

http://blogs.setonhill.edu/DanielleMeyer/2006/04/diamond_age.html#comments

This blog is also in my discussion section.

http://blogs.setonhill.edu/DanielleMeyer/2006/05/wit.html#comments

Here I wrote about hoe the book kind of made me not like it, the character Susie and how getting a pelvic exam from a former student would be mortifying to me.

XENOBLOGGING

http://blogs.setonhill.edu/KevinHinton/2006/04/ascension.html#comments

Comment on Kevin's Blog

http://blogs.setonhill.edu/MikeRubino/015737.html

Comment on Mike's Blog

WILDCARD

http://blogs.setonhill.edu/DanielleMeyer/2006/05/wildcard_the_en.html#more

Here I wrote about my summer plans and how the year is coming to a close.

This story made me feel stuck. I thought it was a good story and there were parts that interested me. However, The big medical terms just turned me off as I kept reading them more and more... I tried to even pronounce some of them and I felt like a little girl back in 1st grade. I know that's the point of the play since Vivian is a smart professor but it wasn't my cup of tea.

On that note, I like the character Susuie a lot. I felt that yes, she might not have been the brightest character that' we've ever read as a class but she made sure that Vivian was ok. She made sure that she asked her if she wanted to b resuscitated or if she wanted to die when her heart stopped. In the end when the doctor's got a mix-up, she kept yelling that she was a DNR and everyone found out that she didn't want to be brought back to life. I thought that was really loyal of her and she went through with her word.

(very top of 32) Vivian: Yes, having a former student give me a pelvic exam was thoroughly degrading -- and I use the term deliberately -- but I could not have imagined the depths of humiliation that --

I would be mortified if my student was giving me a pelvic exam. I mean I can understand some random person.... but someone you know??? Sorry, but for me, that's just weird. I'd be beyond comfort for that to happen to me.

(top of pg 35) Vivian: You cannot imagine how time....can be....so still. I
t hangs. It weighs. And yet there is so little of it.
It goes slowly, and yet it is so scarce.
If i were writing this scene, it would last a full fifteen minutes. I would lie here and you would sit there.

I love how she said that time is still. Sometimes it feels like the days at school are going SUPER slow while others feel like it goes way too fast. For example, I can definitely remember many days when I felt them go slow but this whole entire school year has flew by astonishingly. Time is either with us or against us. I can only imagine that that feels more slower for Vivian seeing as she's the patient in a bed all day long. That would just really stink.

There is other things that I'll probably do that I won't know about until last second. I would like to take the chance to say to everyone (even the people that's not in my Intro to Lit class) to have a great summer. Be safe and have fun!!

Dr. Jerz

Intro to Lit.

3 May 2006

Are You Up for It?

It is almost the end of my first year here at Seton Hill. My room is getting sloppier as I start to pack up my movie posters and memories stuck on pieces of paper (also known as photos). Homework is literally piling up on my desk, leaving papers to flutter from the wind and eventually getting blown away. Today is the last day of "Tv Turn-Off Week and quite frankly this was not that hard for me.

I have read a couple of peoples blogs saying how the media and tv are like satan for my generation. I do not think tv here and there is wrong for us. I used to watch tv all the time before college. Since coming to SHU, I have not watched tv really at all. I do not have cable in my room. Last semester I was busy with homework, considering I had seven classes on my shoulders. Even when I went home for breaks I did not watch much tv. When I wanted to, the chance was never available, for my sister and my mother were watching some tv at night. I then went back and sat at my computer for the night talking to my friends.

We had to go a step higher and not do any tecnological thing possible (unless we needed it for homework like our laptops). I am not going to lie, I watched one tv show this week and that was American Idol. I am assigned to watch a tv show and analyze it for class so I think that is pretty much exempt from this assignment since it was for another one.

Music is one of my passions. It is my version of air. To not be able to listen to music was hard. I do not listen to music when I'm doing my homework normally because it distracts me and I cannot concentrate so that was an advantage I did not need to try hard on. Besides homework, I listen to music almost all the time. It was hard for me to not be able to listen to music.

I think I am ahead of some people though. I see a lot of people listening to Ipods to their classes, in the gym, sitting outside, and etc. I do not have an Ipod. I listen to my cd player at the gym but I have not been there this week so I have not had the need to listen to my cd player. Also since I do not have cable in my room, I do not watch tv at my desk aimlessly instead of doing homework. Unfortunately I am on my computer a lot. It cures my boredom.

My friends and I have kept ourselves busy over this week so we extract ourselves from the tv and we have had a lot of fun as well. Some of my friends are in Dr. Arnzen's class so they were promoting this week. My friends participated in games of Twister, casino night and many other things that were going on around campus. A few of my friends and I went to Ohiopyle and found a really nice place to eat called the Firefly Grill. We then headed for a bonfire that kept us warm throughout the night. I aso went bowling on Wednesday night with a few friends too. It was fun and we plan on doing it again this coming Wednesday.

I have realized even more after this week that tv is not all it is made out to be. Yeah I watch a tv show here and there but there are people I know who watch it all the time. It is kind of sad on how wrapped our generation is connected to tv, actors/actresses lives, and all the gossip that plays on as well. Being at college has prevented me from watching tv as much as I used to back in high school. My best friend, Dominick, from home knows that I always watched tv and he cannot believe that I do not watch tv anymore. He does not know how I live without tv. A few of my other friends from home tell me the same thing and I tell them that I find other things to do that do not involve drinking or smoking. I hang out with my friends, go bowling, go to the movies, go rent movies, play video games (that might apply to technology in general though lol), read my books, do homework (even though I am forced to do it I still do it on time so I get the grade), and many other things. Being here at college has changed me because now I do not watch much tv. Instead, I think about things going on in my life and in the world and that is that is the way I like it (me thinking).

Wow. What a powerful statement. I think what jeanine said was totally true. It seems that everyone has a problem, where they are not fully happy and full of love. Now we don't directly get told by Charley that he is full of love but from the perspection of everyone else, that is what we discover. It just seems that he is the only pure one and everyone else isn't.

Stanley: For the crucifixtion.

Henri, grips his head: Oh my god! -- Why!

Stanley: Well - like you know the honor of it and... well the ah... property values.

Why would people find honor in getting crucified?? I think if I was getting crucified I'd be pretty sad... and in pain.

(In the next paragraph after this)

Henri: Ancient people saw no difference between marvels and what we call reality -- for them the description itself was the reality.

Henri describes here that he thinks the man who thinks he is the son of God doesn't exist (that they made him up) I liked the quote he used a lot. I thought about how he said about there not really being any atomic bomb hitting Japan.... that makes me really think. It's like going back in time and changing the course of what happened in history. It seemed so weird for me to think about Japan and not relating that word with atomic bomb because that was such a big part in our history.

I liked the second quote because I know for a student taking a writing of fiction class this semester, when I think of a story plot I try to imagine myself in there. So in a way it's like a reality to me.

I also noticed how everything seems to be futuristic but whenever we learn about Nell, it seems to just be normal. I don't know if this really has anything to do with anything but I just noticed that. Another thing I noticed is that a lot of the people seem to be technology dependant. I really hope that this isn't a refelction on what some authors think will happen to our future because quite frankly thazt scares me. I will be the first to admit that I am dependant on my laptop, cell phone, cd player as wella s many other technological devices. But I don't (and hope) want our future world to be so dependant on technology that we don't even know how to turn back from that. I think it will be kind of like technology being a dictator and humans are it's victims.

On page 8 it says "They were strong enough to withstand typhoons but flexible enough to rustle in a breeze. " Now I don't know what "they" is but anything that is good enough to withstand a typhoon but can rustle in a breeze is pretty impressive.

On page 12 it says " Most gentleman's and ladies' gloves nowadays were constructed of infinitesimal fabricules that knew how to eject dirt; you could thrust your gloved hand into mud, and it would be white a few seconds later."

WOW! If I cold have something like that, the use of a washer and dryer would become less significant because that would happen.

On page 41, Bud is in trial for shooting a man in the arm. The man's wife says that the round used on her husband was fired from the gun embedded in the suspect's forehead. If this was actually happening in the wodern day world, it might be a lot harder to find people that shoot other people since it comes from our heads... but on the other hand Bud was caught so we never know.

On page 45, Nell, the daughter to Tequila and Bud and brother to Harv, got herself a new bed. When she first layed it out it was as thin as a mattress. Very soon after it was laid out it made a whoosing noise, The mattress inhaled by itself and looked like a real matress when it was done. This reminded me of an air mattress except with the part blowing it up.

ON page 52, Cotton and Hackworth were talking about make-up responding to the wearer's emotional starte. I don't wear make-up to begin with but I know that the people who do probably wish they could have something like this. It would make trying to have it look perfect easier to them.

I never knew that an elipis was the proper term for three dots until I came to college. I knew how to use it after a sentence but I never knew that was the proper term. Truss says that elipsis can also be used "to indicate words missing ... from a quoted passage." That was something that I didn't know.

"Whereas a dash is generally concerned to connect (or seperate) phrases and sentences, the tiny tricksy hyphen (used above in such phrases as "quasi-dashes", "double-taps" and "stream-of-conciousness") is used quite distinctly to connect (or seperate) individual words."

I was a little confused when Dr. Jerz was describing the difference between hyphens and dashes. I didn't really know the difference between the two so I most likely have used both of them very wrongly in the past. Reading this from Truss made it a whole lot clearer.

Secondly, the way that Miller wrote the play was not how I read plays when I was in drama. There seemed to be less telling of what the actors are doing... their movements, actions, flailing arms, faceial expressions. The plays that I read when I was in drama in high school seemed to have a lot more of that. It was a struggle for me to picture what I was reading as I was reading it because of that.

Felix: The reaons you're depressed is...

Henri, grips his head: I beg you, Felix, don't tell me why I'm depressed!

Felix: ... It's because you're a rich man in a poor country, that's all... but we're moving, by god!

This kind of stumped me for a little. I can understand being depressed because you're rich. A lot of rich people are depressed or sad because of many reasons. But being depressed in a poor country... would he be depressed because it is a poor country and everyone else is poor and here is this man who's rich?

This was something I never knew before so I thought it was interesting... nothing much more to that lol.

"In each of the following examples, incidentally, can't you hear a delighted, satisfied"Yes!" where the colon comes?

I love Opal Fruits as a child: no one else did.
(I loved Opal Fruits -- ah, but nobody else did.)"

I liked these two examples because I could really tell the difference between the "yes" sentences and the "ah sentences. It depends on how the sentence is written and what words signify either reaction.

"...Punctuation is 'a courtesy designed to help readers to understand a story without stumbling'."

"A woman, without her man, is nothing."
"A woman: without her, man is nothing."

I like how Truss said that punctuation is designed to help readers because by the two examples that she gave on the page after, I got two different understandings of the same words in one sentence. It all depends on where you put the commas, semi colons, colons, apostrophes, and more.

WOW! That's really all I can say about that. If there were any guesses of her being a whore before well after I read that I think that she probably was one.

I thought this was very interesting. In the artcle, Levin uses an example of when he traps Caesar into marrying Octavia to end the threat of Cleopatra. I can't believe I didn't see it before.