junebug6389’s blog

This piece reminded me of two books that I read when I was in elementary school. The first book was about this girl that got the bubonic plague in modern day times because she was transported back to the times of the bubonic plague. It was a very weird book, but it expressed the paranoia of the time that Foucault described of the people at the beginning of “Panopiticism” When the girl was transported back she saw a boy that was crying because he had to kill the family pet. The paranoia was that if people killed the littler animals that carried the disease it would prevent them from having it. But the family pet had not yet contracted the disease. The second book that this passage reminded me of was this book that the girl thought that she lived in older day times like 1800s, but she found out when her brother became sick that she actually lived in present day time. The reason why they lived in this colony was because people would come in and watch them through this tree, where they could actually experience people that thought that they were living back then. She escapes to get her brother medicine, and she discovers that this place that she was living in was like a prison because no one lived there by choice, it was like the government made them live there. It was sort of a prison for them because they could not use the latest technology even to save someone’s live.

When I first started this piece I thought that it was amazing that a person could go and see all of these amazing places all over the world without having to move an inch away from your chair. Then I began to think about it, I didn’t want to just sit at my chair in front of the computer looking at all these places that I have dreamed about going all my life. I didn’t just want to see the places to look at them, I wanted to experience them. Traveling to any type of place is more than just seeing the place; it is the experience that you go through going to that place. Seeing a place in person is much more gratifying and much more amazing. The second part of the piece struck me in an odd way too. It freaked me out that people could watch my every move by putting up a web camera. I don’t want someone there to watch my every move; there should be things in everyone’s life that should stay at least a little bit private. Whether it is telling everyone your deepest darkest secrets or attaching a web camera to my computer one day. I would want some things to be private. What also scare me was that they are so easy to attach to your computer. People need to learn that some things need to stay private and dirty laundry does not need to be aired out into the public. I feel that if everyone attaches one of these then we will live in a world that people would feel suffocated by the world.

The essay by Susan Bordo, "Beauty (Re)discovers the Male Body" got me thinking about how men sometimes take longer than women to get ready especially the example that Bordo used with John Travolta in the movie that made him famous. Then I started to think about other examples of men acting this way.My mind drifted away to a Full House episode the other day. Jesse's hair was getting messed up as usual and quote that he always said "Watch the hair" came up. He seems to take more time with his looks than any other guy that I know. I also started to think about other TV shows that have guys more concerned with their appearance, and my mind came to Will & Grace. Jack is always complaining about how fat Will has gotten. Then I thought about the gym episodes where they are all obessed with making their body image better, so they can get dates. A question came to my mind, when did people get so shallow? When did we get to the point to where all we care about is looks and not personality? Have we gotten to the point that we will only be interested in someone if they are "hot"? What I want to know is when personality matter again? Shouldn't we like someone for their personality not their looks? Would that make us a little less vain?

People see everything before they touch, hear, speak, or even smell something. People see something in different views even though it may be the same thing that they are seeing. Images such as pictures, paintings, or films are all manmade. Each image either a photograph or a painting has been recreated from the original viewing. Images have been able to withstand the test of time. Art such as paintings have become mysteries because they aren’t an exact representation of what truly happened unlike photographs because the artist’s influence is shown through the painting. The text uses Fans Hals as an example of this situation because of his two paintings Regents of the Old Men’s Alms House and Regentesses of the Old Men’s Alms House. He uses their personality traits to show how they really are seen to him instead of showing them of how they really look. The source in the text goes as far to say that Hals painted the men differently to make them look drunk. The camera was seen as “the mechanical eye” changed the way people see the past and the present today. Instead of seeing influenced items people get to see the actual event and are able to interpret it themselves. In the same time it took away the uniqueness of a painting, with a blink of an eye a person could reproduce a painting that at one time could only be seen at one place. Reproduced images can also affect the way people judge a painting or photograph because of their captions about the piece. With no influence the picture could mean something to someone before it is completely changed by the opinions of others or facts about the picture.

I am a student at the University of South Carolina and for my English class I have to write a blog. My name is Lauren and I am a political science major. It's my first year here at USC and I love it!

I will hopefully be a Young Life leader next year, my fingers are crossed!!!  I also hope to become a RA, which my fingers are crossed for too!!!