Final Project

B. Film: Rent ONE film from the list below (some are available for free online). Watch it. Then,

 

Capitalism: A Love Story.

The main topics of the film are;

Contemporary reality is produced by the significance changes of time in which society is currently living, and the effects that bring us to this moment from the last few decades. It is mostly based on facts, in which we identify ourselves with actual movements of lives. Realities can be found in many prospective life experience as the ones encounter on TV shows, or the type of documentary that aware us of social issues. For instance, in the movie, “Capitalism: A Love Story”. It shows us the cause and effect of our system being devastated by many adjustments to the law; as showed in the movie the cut break taxes from the government of Ronald Reagan to the American corporations and its outcomes after he left the presidency, a system that slowly declined to fall apart into the actual recession that our generation is facing. The producers of these realities are thoughtful encounters that persuade people of an idea being shown to the public with real facts, those facts are taken from life experiences in which it can be simple demonstrate that those issues are affecting our society. Therefore, these realities focus their storylines on issues that affect entire communities to give a sense of reaction among the victims, those who suffers from real life experience. The message sent by any reality could be a metaphor to begin a positive change in what is being shown as bad or wrong. If we think beyond the actual issues on the clip, we might get a solution in which all the parts involved can benefit from it. Even though some people do not want to sacrifice some personal assets to provide an equal society, we must demand an equal society that fights for the whole well being of our society. We need to stop the indiscrimination of social classes to enhance our future.

Select three (3) web images, web videos, or websites that you think speak to or represent the topic. Keep track of the websites where you got the images or videos.

This is the website for this picture; http://www.artdiamondblog.com/archives/houston/

This is the website for this picture; http://www.energybulletin.net/node/53705

This is the website for this picture; http://inthefray.org/content/view/129/39

Now write your final blog entry:

1. Begin by introducing the film by mentioning its director, its title, and describing what the film is about in one or two lines (in your own words, please--no quotes from Wikipedia).
2. Then write 400+ words explaining how the three web images, web videos, or websites you have chosen "speak to" or "speak about" the film.
3. Your images or videos should indicate where you got them from via a link to the appropriate website. You may place these links in the caption under the photo or at the very end of the blog entry.

In the film “Capitalism: A Love Story”, directed and produced by Michael Moore. There was a conception of whether Capitalism is evil or not. The movie was focused to address the current issue that the system is facing, and how it was originated by the government selling the power to corporations. Also the film shows us the humanity side of people who are suffering because of the economy turned down.

I had chosen three pictures which are very common to the end of capitalism. In my own point of view, the system is in its final moments of existing and ruling the world as we know it. The acceleration of technologies, and the new changes in society will demand a different role in the consumption of how people will behave in the world, and therefore, react against the system exploitation of labor, inequality, and instability. In the first picture, we can see how the capitalism is being compared as the new communism; this can be seen on the flag as the Wall Street banks are in bankrupt. Through the movie, Michael Moore tries to get responses from the bank executives on Wall Street; however, he never got an answer of where is the money? The same money that was given by the government to support the house market and alleviate the suffering of many fellow Americans, and instead of serving this honorable purpose, they used for their own good. In the same picture we can draw the end of private enterprise. As a contrary reaction from capitalism advance in technology, even though I am a big fan of technology breakthroughs, I have included a picture from Cuba labors because I believe that the super advance reach in technology is affecting us, the middle class people. For instances, the easy access of transferring information over the internet is outsourcing many jobs that used to feed our families. This business maneuvers to minimize profit is leaving the working class behind, hopeless, and frustrated. Therefore, I have posted this picture to go back in the future and eliminate this maneuver of capitalism taking our jobs away from us, and bring them back to the present. My last picture clearly indicates a statement from the movie, is capitalism evil? In the film, Michael Moore went to the priest to get a response of whether it is or not, he finally ends it by stating; I lost the part of the bible when Jesus became a capitalist. This reflection makes me believe in all the incorrect manners that the market magnates are processing, and in some point of our era, they are going to pay for their mistakes. In my conclusion, I do not believe in capitalism as evil but the indiscriminate practices of taking people properties, jobs away from them, misusing government money to personal satisfaction, yes the same money that came from our taxes, laws that benefit the richest and smash the poorest of our country, that has to be considered the evil force of our era, and it can not be tolerated by the hard working class.

Cat practice Sleep Dealer

In the passage written by Jason Silverman, he explains that the Sleep Dealer movie introduces us to the future were technology is taken over the system, and it is affecting overseas countries where the United States get all of its labor, and natural resources. In my opinion, this statement is already happening since the United State’s corporation is extracting the natural resources, exploiting people labor, and destroying their land.

Nowadays, it is so usual that the United State’s corporation extract natural resources from others countries to produce its own goods. Even though those natural resources were in another country, they did not belong to the population in that country. As it was shown in the film, Mexican villagers are forced to buy water for their crops from an armed robot. A similarity can be drawn from the crude extracted in Colombia. The major part of the crude, which is used to produce gasoline, is being sold to the United State Corporation at a low price, and the remaining is resold to Colombia at a high price.

Another topic that is discussed in the movie is that United States is exploiting people’s force of labor by paying very low salaries. In the movie, it was shown that the system uses an overseas labor to do general works in the country. In the present time, corporations send their workload overseas to reduce their expenses. Companies as; General Motors, Nike, Ford, and so on, have been sending their factories to several countries outside of their main offices to minimize the cost of labor. Someone who could be paid here in the country for the same type of work in Mexico is not working at the present time, and this cost our society to struggle.

The government is playing a high role in the corporation rush of making profit by destroying entire communities. In the movie, we saw an evil scene were the village of Memo was destroyed. In reality, those scenes are currently occurring in Iraq, and Afghanistan. The video that are being revealed by Wiki leaks in the past few months, it shows us a Jet from the Army, killing suspects that later on were only civilians. If they were not sure about of those people were terrorists, how could they killed them all, as if they were animals.

In my conclusion, movie as the Sleep Dealer are a great form of criticizing the system of corruption that our country is heading to. Therefore, we need to take action to change our reality and enhance our future.

Blog entry 21

A. Go back through your blog entries for the semester and choose three (3) that you consider your best work. Write a paragraph explaining why/ how these blog entries reflect your best work.

I consider the blog entries 15, 16 and 17 as the most interested section of the entire course. All of them were part of the food section. The blog entry 15 was an essay in which we responded to the Meatrix film, in this assignment I felt surprised by the circumstances in which employees and animals were treated in the meat industry. I was not aware of the holocaust that those corporations have perpetuated to make profit out of the workers and animals. I hope that someday there will be positive changes in the industry to avoid the cruelty of the meat factories. Blog entry 16 was about the cat practice, ‘Let them Eat Fat.’ I really enjoyed writing my essay about that passage, because all the facts behind the fast food corporations were revealed to me. I used to be very addicted to fast foods restaurants, especially Chinese restaurants and MacDonald. At this time I have changed those habits of eating there, and I have started to eat at home, which it was something I stopped doing since I moved to New York. Lastly in blog entry 17, I presented my comments about the food section in which I was really interested to complete due to my reactions against the negative exposure of the meat industry. Therefore, these three blogs are the ones I consider to be my best work, because it directly motivates me to overcome many issues relate to my food habits. I was emotionally involved in this section of the course.

B. Next, consider your online experience this semester and write a second paragraph that answers the following questions:
Was writing online different from other writing experiences you have had in the past? If yes, how so? If not, what was the same?
Did writing blog entries help improve your writing ability? Please explain why or why not.
Did you feel that the online work was a shared experience or an individual activity?
Did you read other students’ online work? (Never/ Only when Assigned/ Sometimes/ Often)
Did you get the impression that other members of the class or the network read your blog? (Never/ Only when Assigned/ Sometimes/ Often)

Writing Blogs was a different experience as I was not used to do it. Before I have attended the ESL classes at La Guardia but I have never been in a class where all the assignments were presented in blogs. I believe this method of keeping track of assignments online, it is really useful to save time and in my case, I feel more engaged to the class since all the assignment were posted prior to class. Also, writing blogs have been interesting for me. I have never done a blog in my life, and with this one I have noted that my English is improving much more than the previous classes. In addition to this, sharing thoughts and giving feed back to my classmates has improved my knowledge of English as well. We can take a look into everyone’s blog, and it really helps to in some way improve our knowledge by comparing our writing style to the students with different backgrounds. I constantly read other students’ blog a lot, to look for ideas of how to start my essay, and to look for examples of writing styles. Some of the students were looking through my writing, some of them let me know that they were, and make comments about it, that was really helpful for me and I told them that I really appreciated them for taking the time of doing so.

C. Finally, consider you overall experience in the class and write a third paragraph that answers the following:
What lessons will you be taking away from this class?
Is there something you would have liked to discuss that we did not get to? What is it and why did you want to discuss it? (Or, what did we not cover in depth that you would have liked to cover in depth and why?)
Do you feel that you are leaving this class with a basic understanding of writing strategies? Why or why not?
What was the most memorable moment, assignment, interaction, or experience you had in the class? Please explain why.
What recommendation(s) would you give to a student that plans to take this class next semester?

I have learned a wonderful lesson from the food section in which I have changed many aspects of my food consumption. But the most important lesson that I could have learned from this class, was to learn how to organize my ideas when I start to write my essays. I do not think that we had missed anything from the writing process that it was taught by the professor. This class has taught me several strategies to overcome the issue in my writing. In the present, I have accomplished all my expectations in order to face the Cat test. The most memorable moment of the class when we took the cat practices test, I almost felt as if I was in the real one, and I made some mistakes that I believe I have amended those mistakes. The recommendations that I would give to the students that are about to take this class; is that the need to complete all the blog entries, and check back with the tutors to correct any misspelling.

Blog 20: Expanding on one topic in Sleep Dealer

I was assigned to the group 4, I believe that selling memories, or sharing it with others for business purposes is unethical, and it should not be allowed. I completely agree with one of the students in Dr. X class, “back in those days a person could remember 10 numbers or more. However, today if a person accidentally misplaced their phone, she/he might not even remember one. The technology is taking our less complicated and also less difficult, this could be very inconvenience since we become laziest every time a new technology comes out and replace our vital functions. Looking back into my life, I could remember when I have to memorize all the friends’ numbers, it was not easy but I could remember most of their numbers. Also I agree to Jihyun Oh, about the memories of Luz being sold through the system. She explains that; “It is similar to some cases when people upload pictures/videos without permission of people involved in it.”I could not agree more to her explanation; it is not allowed to the show a personal image of someone without asking for permission. This is considered to be a violation of privacy. For instance, this could be shown in TV shows, but in other to do so, both parties reach an agreement to post memories, images, and so on.

Blog 19: Watching and Responding to The Story Of Stuff

I consider the treatment that the system has against the third world as a symbolism of dehumanization. For many years, humans have been though that we have to compete in every step of our life, in the early years of school, in college, and after we graduate from college. We must keep our competitions in the highest level possible against our rivals. This thought makes us believe that we are superior to the rest, and therefore we have these results. People dying from external diseases as a result of the chemicals that the factory’s uses in the production of goods. I believe that we; corporations, consumers, politicians, and people in general are responsible for this tragic. From people that work extracting the natural resources, to those who owns the corporations, or work for the corporations, to the finals consumers, we must stop this proliferation of business breaking apart our home, our planet, the only asset that human civilization has. 

Blog Entry 18

http://www.strayercommunications.com/images/uploads/Outsourcing.jpg

In the movie, “Sleep Dealer”, the outsourcing of labor was one of the issues showed in the movie.  The outsourcing issue has been debated in the nation, and it has been criticized during the last decade. In my opinion, the outsource of labor affects our society for the following reasons; works have been taking overseas, people displacement of jobs, and people are under pay for similar jobs.

People in America have been struggling to find open positions in many fields where they used to be a great source of jobs due to the outsourcing of labor. In the movie, the government did not want immigrants to stay in the United States, but they manipulated them for many different forms of hard labor, but only paid low salaries. This has been happening in the last few decades in many poor countries around the world, such as: India, Mexico, China, and Morocco. For instance, Dell computers outsource their customer service department to India, as well as many other companies.

Many Americans are being displaced of their jobs without a chance to get a new one, because of the outsourcing outcomes in business operations. Some companies sent their workload out of the country to reduce the expenses of its companies, as a result, this cause former workers to lose any hope of getting their job back. This can be told by the many IT specialist that are currently unemployed by the new boom of IT department specialist in India. Even though Indians are very respectful professionals, we have to prioritize our society members to be first in the list of potentials employees, because it is part of developing our society.

The outsourcing is not beneficial for the companies in the long run. Think about all our jobs being done in Mexico as it was done in the movie. What people living in the United States would do to get money? A capitalism economy needs its own people to spend money to survive; this means that the money needs to flow in order to increase value of the economy. Companies cannot just pretend to save tons of money without looking at the final outcome. They need people to have power of purchasing their products which is why they made it to be sold.

In my conclusion, outsourcing labor is not a good option for our society and companies as well. Americans have been traded by the company’s business of making profit out of the need of poor countries to save money. I will try to stop this by making those companies to pay higher taxes, because they are letting their people out of the job market.

Blog Entry 17

Today, I will respond to my experience in the food section of the class. In addition to this part of the class, I will discuss the last Cat practice that we had last week, and also my comments to the respond of the ESL class.

One of my major surprise about the fast food and the meat industry, were the facts behind the hidden reality of the food industry. In the Meatrix, I recall the video that shows many of the bad industry procedures that take over the life of the animals. I was not aware of the way those animals were treated, from the killing to the suffocating barracks were those animals are tortured to stay all their life. On the fast food part of the class, the cat practice consolidates my view of the fast foods restaurants about targeting the poorest people in the cities. The passage Let them Eat Fat, make me feel intimidated about my preferences in food intake.  Honestly, I don’t want to eat fast food anymore in my life, I rather cook now believe it or not. On the ESL class respond, I was surprised by one of the student fluent in writing. I actually wrote to her that she was doing great on her paper and she should keep it up. The other two students were more likely to be in their levels, both of them were struggling with claims on the introduction. Therefore, I could not understand their ideas clearly because they lost the point of their essay. I kind of reflect myself when I write without thinking on the claim. Another part that I want to mention is the tutoring class on Monday. I believe that we gain more knowledge of the writing process when we sit one on one with a tutor.

Blog Entry 16. Let them Eat Fat

As shown on the passage, “Let them Eat Fat,” the fast food industry has targeted their business by taking advantage of the poorest in the country. My concern will be to stop buying their meal, until they give more healthy options on the menu, cease the negative advertisement, and people start cooking their own food as our grandparents used to do it.

Most people love to buy fast food, but they do not demand healthier options. If we go to the most popular fast food restaurant, McDonalds, we are only going to find one smart option free of saturated fat, “the Veggie Burger.” This demonstrates that costumers do not demand healthy meals. It is a reality that the obesity resulting from the super size portions is consuming the best years of our kids lives, especially black kids. We need to educate our kids to make better choices in their diet.

We have to cease the negative advertisements that these restaurants have created over the past years, and then this might stop the assimilation that the fast food industry has implemented on the poor people. As I have noted, people are engaged with the propaganda. They recall the songs, TV commercials, the names of the products, and so on. They identify themselves with the products.

Nowadays, people do not like to cook anymore. We have become so lazy that some people do not even have a kitchen anymore. We might need to go back to the old tradition of preparing our meals at home, as my grandmother used to do. Cooking can be delightful, if we share our recipes with our friends and relatives. This will be the best solution for avoiding those high calories food at the fast food restaurant, and it may save us a lot of money in the long run.

In conclusion, the poorest people in the country are being affected by the exaggerated consumption of high calories in fast food restaurants. We should fight together to avoid the malicious intentions of the well known fast food corporations. I think learning how to prepare healthier food at home will also help you to avoid bad choices in food.

Blog Entry 15 Responding to The Meatrix.

This short film “The Meatrix” aware us of the unsafe procedures that the meat industry is taking to process their products. Therefore, I strongly believe that the consumer should not be supporting these gigantic corporations, and we should stop buying their products because of animal cruelty, unsafe working conditions, and the factory’s waste that is destroying the environment.

Animal conditions are strongly cruel. One of those conditions that impact me most is the debeaking of the chickens; this practice is by far intolerable and unacceptable. The lack of space on the animal barracks is another major concern about the cruelty conditions of meat industry. As an example of this issue, the pigs are packed together so close and tight that they cannot move to the sides, and neither they are not able to turn around, this issue cause animals to have a variety of diseases that could be prevented, if they would have more space to interact on the barracks.

The workers conditions are insane. It is really dangerous to be an operator at these factories, as it is well known by the fatal statistics all over the country; the meat industry is actually the most dangerous work in the nation. If you watch the Meatrix film the meat packer workers were losing their fingers and continue to work even though they were bleeding without time to take care of their injuries. There should be some standard regulations of sanitation to prevent those accidents to happen, such as decreasing the speed of the machines to avoid mayor and minor injuries.

 All the wastes of the industry factory are affecting our community.  As it is shown on the Meatrix; all the wastes that are coming from the meat industry is contaminating the environment. These wastes are being thrown into rivers, and therefore our water becomes contaminated. The excrement of the animals is not being incinerator and they are being used to feed the animals. Besides, the factory produces smoke in high rates; this is causing the air to become highly polluted around the factories affecting people whom live around them, and to deteriorate the ozone layer even more. As the go green propaganda is spreading the world, the meat factory should catch up on this goal.

My conclusion from this video is that; the meat factory is violating the rights of animals, workers, and the community. There are inadequate practices being exposed on the internet and we should put an end to them. We, the final consumer will have to stand together on this matter to raise our voice and demand these factories to cease the cruel exploitations of animals and the community as well.

Blog Entry 14

Why do you think the makers of The Meatrix films used The Matrix as the basis for their arguments? What possible connections could the food industry have to the ideas in The Matrix and, by association, the themes of this course? I believe because the famous of the Matrix film was all over the world at that time, and the film will make an impact if people compare it to the Matrix simulation of a real world. What the food industry makes us believe in contrast to what it is really happening in their facilities. How the abuse of animals have been hidden away from the society view to produce more supply and over stimulate the demand of their products. The use of hormones to accelerate the growing of animals is consider to be in a way unhealthy for the final product, besides it makes the live of the animal shorter than it should be. 

Blog Entry 13

In the Matrix film, Neo has to decide whether he wants to stay in his known world by taking the blue pill, or should he take the red pill to know the “Matrix”. If I were him, I would take the red pill as he did, because I would like to know the truth beyond my reality.

I would not like to live inside of a lie. In the movie, the whole world was part of a lie. People were dominated by sentient machines, they created the world where humans habitat as a program recreation, they made that world only to control humans and to use them as energy source. People were not aware of their real lives. In the created world, there were agents that controlled people mind in order to preserve the Matrix. For example, one of the agents took over a human body to try to trap Neo, so they could capture him and bring him to the dark side.

I would like to go the extra mile when it comes to adventure. Neo did fulfill his life with new experiences when he took the red pill. He was just anxious to discover what the Matrix was really about. In any given situation of my life, I always like to go down the road for the unpredictable, I cannot imagine the adrenaline of taking the red pill, and it would make me go nuts. I would manage to control the mystery behind the red pill. I remember one time when I was a child, I ate a spicy jalapeno because of the red color, and the outcome from eating that jalapeno was that my face turned red, I had to throw up, and I had an irritated throat.

I would not like to be stock in an office job for the rest of my life as Neo was; he was a programmer in one of the most prestigious companies. He was tortured to stay the whole day in his office and through the movie he did not seem to like it.

Living In a life full of lies is not what we call a perfect life. Even though we know that the truth could be painful for us and for the ones we love, we should not take the truth for granted, but stand up for it. I believe that is what Neo did.

Blog Entry 12: Reflection and Evaluation

As of now, In ENG 099, I have been trying to develop my writing as much as I can with the professor supports. Even though I believe that I need to work harder to develop my writing, I am enthusiastic of my performance as of now and I know that is just a matter of time until I finally get on track to pass the CAT-W. My personal work in this class can be evaluated into three specifics detail assignments;  from the CAT-W practices tests in class, the blog entries and the group discussions, and the incoming challenges of the next couples of weeks.

The CAT-W practices have been very useful to take, the same as the one we will be facing at the end of the course. I am looking forward to take the test and finally pass it over. In my own experience this class is leading us to face the test with the complementary tools we need to succeed in our writing path. Until now, those practices have become the most important assignment of the class because it gives a clear approach to the real test. As it was noted on one of the classes, the real method they use to grade the CAT-W, eventually, this will get a hand on the preparation of the test as now we know the specific rules of the evaluation process and the math behind the test, which it used to be a real mystery for students. The most recent CAT-W practice test gave me a score of 57, a slight point over the limit to pass the original test. The result shows me that I am struggling to keep the topic sentences of the paragraph and my examples are not organized by paragraph.

The blog entries and the group discussions reflect our thoughts and opinions to be shared with the rest of students. This tool of knowing what others believe and their values really provide a sense of acceptance from different perspectives. Also, it is very helpful the response outline of the claim, reason and evidence, it give us a sort of order to develop our thesis. The blog entries could be modified at any time before it is due; this is great since I can focus on working in different times and work out my opinions and possible responses to the topic. The blog entries have one little issue of technology, sometimes I lost all my written and I had to start all over again. That is what I really hate about technology.

I am excited for the incoming assignments and the next blog entries; I know that the challenges are going to be tougher as we move forward to the end of the semester. I would like to work more in my vocabulary and sentence structure as it was first pointed out by the professor review.  In addition to this issue, I have to develop my ideas and organize them in a very clear way through the whole written; sometimes I go from one point to the other without a connection to the paragraph. I am planning to stick with my professor concerns to enhance those issues and to read more my keys for writers book.

Up to now, this class has been a great experienced since I had overcome many of my difficulties on written essays. I hope to continue the hard work and keep improving those errors until I finally overcome them. For the rest of the semester, I will be trying to give my best and subsequently pass the target call “CAT-W”.

CAT-W Practice 3 Revisions posted as Blog Entry 11.

The Dangers of Reality TV from Timothy Sexton, it is an important reflection of the manipulation we are exposed by realities on TV. I strongly agree to the contest of this article, since I believe that television has a strong power of cauterized the attention of young audience, and send out wrong ideas to them. These are some of the ideas that are stated in the article; the importance of competition, the value of image and the lack of education.

                Reality TV enfaces that through competition people often acquire success. It has been said that; in order to be the best you have to be one step ahead of your potential competitors. The article gives us an example on the most seen reality on TV. “The Bachelor Who Wants to Marry a Multimillionaire awarding a husband”. This reality shows hundred of women behind a rich guy who wants to engage with the perfect aspirant in the program. These women beat each other to mostly disrespect themselves. This model of competition is being incorporated to our social life in order to pursuit our happiness, therefore is use as a slogan by the American corporation’s view of success.

                Reality TV prioritizes the image of people, they physical appearance rather than who they are as human beings. This views on TV send the wrong messages to thousands of people around the world, people is being judge for their outside looks and not for their inner values and skills. One of the examples showing through the article is; some people are better accepted in realities by the viewers because they are good looking. These realities send an idea of beauty rather than the intelligent of the person and do not consider the person’s judgment at all.

                Reality TV shows; is projecting a completely wrong message by lacking the necessary of education goals to become famous in live. This can be found in any reality show in which people don’t appear to be educated and they possess fame which is the primary goal of many young adults that watch this type of shows. These viewers expected to gain the same privileges of those in the show by imitating them, as an outcome, people hope to get a chance the next super model or the new crew member of the next team-squad show, rather than following a career in arts or actuation. Thanks to these shows one person could become national recognizes by humiliating itself on any stage and make tons of money out of it. This sends out an idea that ridiculizes the effort of many Americans that go to college to make a good living and a better future.

                In my conclusion, reality TV are changing the concept of how Americans persuade their life to success by sending wrong messages to the audience, these message are being receive mostly by young audience, this reflects the society to become less educated, more influence by the stereotype, and to be competitive rather than help each other to achieve their goals. 

Blog Entry 10

Claim: Is the matrix film a prediction of society being punish by its own creation.

Reason: In the movie, sentient machines rule the world and manipulate the reality of the human live.

Evidence: in the movie, people were living in an unreal world and they were considered to be a source of energy to preserve the Matrix. This can be similar to the distractions we suffer from governments and organizations around the world, they sell ideologies to control and subjugate their population, many examples around the world can be analyze: as the one from the Cuban regimen, the government subjugate their population via old ideology politics as communist. This ideology is portrait as the solutions to the inequality of the capitalism, but this system only brings poverty to the population and comfort to the government.  

Blog Entry 9: Telecommute Report-out.

My experience from the telecommute class was satisfactory since I interacted with other students, not only the students in my class but others from another class, and a lot of different interpretations and opinions were exposed. In my opinion, the telecommute class was more a debate class about an interesting movie that grabbed everyone attentions and thoughts. In some point of the class, people began to post a lot and it took me more time to read everyone’s opinion. The only problem that I found so far; was that I did not have earphones, I could not listen to the speaker because I was in B-333, and therefore I missed the video from the professor which it will save time to understand the class assignments. 

Blog Entry 8: Responding to a significant topic in The Truman Show

I definitely believe the Truman show is a very good piece of advice about the corporations manipulating our life. In my point of view, I represent one of those whom are attached to the system and therefore manipulated. These corporations can dominate our world in several ways, some of those are; the use of famous people, they post ads everywhere, and they stimulate us to create an unreal world out of their products.

Corporations are selling the idea of imitating superstars to become one of them. In the Truman show, we can see how the whole world was captivated; people all over the world were watching the show and Truman was recognized as a famous TV star. In reality, the corporations promote real superstars on TV commercials, as I remember the Pepsi commercial prior to the start of the world cup last year in Africa, Some of the most famous players played in the forest surrender by young people, these people were the edge of the soccer field and the younger defeated the famous player to become more famous in their community. These commercials can create sort of fanaticism among TV watchers, since they can create false expectations of younger people to follow imaginary actions that are not possible.

At the present time, Posting ads have become one of the most profitable marketing actions for corporations to sell their products. Everywhere we look around us; there is an ad to see. In the Truman show, I remember the image of the twins that were on Truman’s way every single day of his unpleasant and boring life, the ad was about Kaiser Chicken sort of Kentucky franchise. Countless of ads are found on the street, internet, TV, radio, and public places. These ads have taken part of our daily routine, as it is considered to be normal in nowadays. In some way, it creates a manipulation of our thought, sometimes we do not want to buy a product or we don’t need it, but we end it buying unnecessary products just for watching the ads.

Another way in which the corporations are manipulating us is by; projecting unreal illusions out of the products. In the Truman Show, we can see the whole show as a creation to promote advertisement which is the main propose of the show, they take control of a human being life and sell an idea of a perfect life being shown to the world. In reality, the AXE propaganda is a good example of this concept of product, spray the fragrance all over your body and you will become more attractive to women. Another example is the underwear commercial of Armani Exchange that seems to show an idea of being more masculine to the opposite gender if you wear it. As I understand, people come in different sizes and shapes, we are not equal to anyone of the models shown on TV, and we cannot be equal to them for wearing or using a product.

In general, the corporations control our minds by making us believe their products are the best choices for us. This is the marketing proposed of making profit for business. Truman experienced the marketing plan from the inside, being the product himself, which is a critical demonstration of the corporations unethical procedures.

Blog Entry 7: Reflection and Evaluation

What this class has meant to me up to now? It has been a challenging experience since I am not a native English writer, but in my inner side, I believe that I am improving my grammar structure and my vocabulary excel as well. Therefore, I feel confident in the class with Mr. Smith as a professor. We have done 2 essays, 2 objective summaries, and the CAT-W sample test this last Tuesday.

On Hype, the article is about how advertisement is affecting our mind as the primary mental pollutant on these days. This article was very difficult for me to work out, as it was the first essay of the class and I was not ready for it. I read it more than 10 times to get a clear view of the author’s statement, then I moved on to start writing the essay and as I read some other classmates paperwork, I felt more prepared to write. I connected to the passage by reflecting the author’s point of view to my personal experience, and I remembered when I was a child all my overweight issues with candies and how it is still affecting me, that is why I totally agree to the passage and the author point of view.

On the CAT-W practice, it was a little awkward because was the same format for the actual exam, that made me nervous and I might make some mistakes on the exam. I will try to be less anxious when I face the real exam.  My Topic was; how advertisement in elementary school is affecting our under 12 children health, the consequences of junk food advertised in schools is increasing the unhealthy condition of children, as they are becoming obesity and gaining other ills as diabetes.  I am not sure if I passed the exam but I believe I did my best.

On the Allegory of the Cave, It was complicated to first summarize the passage, and then the essay format was harder, because of the philosophy content of the passage, it made me thought a lot about my own reality, and the way my life has changed since I had memories of myself and my family, all the lies told to me and their outcomes. At the end of the essay, I felt relieve in some way, I could take a bad experience out of me and project it to the essay, a deep breath continued after I was done with the essay and followed by a strong exhale. A comment about the essay was made by a classmate, more than less she likes the essay, obviously no one wants to criticize mistakes, errors, misspellings or failure in structure sentences but in my opinion, that is why we are in this class, to learn from mistakes.

                In my conclusion up to now for the class, I believe that I have improved, but I still need to develop more ideas for my paragraph sentences, and connect them to the thesis. This is where I get lost on the essay. My conclusions are not strong yet; they sound weak and out of place, as if they were not part of the essays. Overall, I need to work harder to pass the CAT-W which is the target.