Class in Review: 10.10.11 & 10.12.11

The passing of Steve Jobs helped lead our conversation into one that I think caught the interest of majority of the class and it’s the idea of immortality. Personally, I would want to be immortalize, but I think that everybody wants to be immortalized in different ways. I want to be immortalized through the relationships/lasting impressions that I built during my lifetime. Some people may think, “Then you won’t be immortal because eventually those people will die off.” Which isn’t necessarily true because especially through family and friends the stories get passed down and around, and the stories will continue to be passed down. Others would want to be immortalized through important achievements by breaking or setting records. Some may even want an monument or something named after them.

Gilgamesh also wanted to be immortal and when he realized that he would never be able to live forever he built a wall so that he would be remembered, and it’s something that a lot of people in the past have done. They don’t necessarily build walls, but they help construct something of importance in the community in which they can get their name placed on it. Steve Jobs created something that will forever be remembered because it had such a big impact on the way we live our daily lives. What he did gives him immortality.

When it comes to singers and artists I think they also have immortality because their songs are constantly being re-made and if they become famous enough they’re faces can be printed on plates, shirts, notebooks, pens, etc. The point was brought up in class that it can only last up until that generation dies out because the younger generation won’t know who that person is. But if we look at Elvis even though he’s long gone, younger generations know who he is. They may not know exactly who he is and what happened to him, but they know what he looks like and what he says. I don’t think the memories of Elvis will ever go away, especially when people come to visit Las Vegas. There are probably two things that Las Vegas is synonymous with, Elvis and gambling. When little kids come with their families they see multiple versions of Elvis roaming the streets and of coarse being curious, they ask their parents who that strange man with the weird hair is. Their parents tell them and if they’re old enough they can just Google his name and figure out the rest of his story.

It’s difficult for people to become immortal the way Elvis or Steve Jobs did, it takes a lot of talent and a lot of persistence. I don’t know of anybody that could just sit back and do nothing, yet they become remembered forever. Maybe us working to becoming “immortal” is our way of accepting death because we know that eventually we’re gonna die and so we work hard to become remembered and hope that in the end we can pass knowing that we won’t forgotten (so redundant, but hopefully that made sense). The idea of immortality is something that I think we all want, well I know I do, but there’s a part of me that wouldn’t mind having my name on a building or in a book somewhere.

Word Count: 533

Class in Review: 10.03.11 & 10.05.11 + Presentation

On Monday we got into a pretty interesting conversation about superheroes and their costumes. I think the costumes are a very important part of a superhero it’s our way of distinguishing them and even becomes a part of their identity. Like what Mr. B said, even with color schemes or symbols we can identify the superhero and when there’s changes to their costumes some people aren’t too happy. In the first Spider-man movie they took the time to show him creating his costume, although it was for wrestling in, nonetheless I think it demonstrates how important it is for a superhero to have a costume.

When they’re not in their costumes, they’re the everyday Joe Schmo, going through the daily ups and downs of life. We relate to them on that level, especially when they form friendships/interests in other people. They can get in trouble with their boss, they can spill coffee on themselves, they can be having the worse day ever, and we know how it feels to have nothing go right. To see someone and feel like it’s love at first sight, but not have the courage to say anything or to realize that they’re with someone else. Then the city comes under attack and all of a sudden they change/transform into a superhero, goes out and saves the day. Transforming sets themselves a part from us and they become something extraordinary; they make us think of things we haven’t thought of before (I’m thinking from a kid’s first experience with a superhero) and they make us dream that maybe somewhere out there, they really do exist. I think that if we didn’t have this transformation it would’ve been a little difficult for people to really accept these superheroes because they wouldn’t have anything they could relate to.

Wonder woman is one of the superheroes that, I don’t believe, has that secret identity thing going on, but it works to her advantage. The reason why I think that is because women can embrace her and feel empowered because they see her out there kicking guys’ you know what and she looks good doing it. She stands up for herself and does what she believes is right. I think she stands for what women want to be, powerful yet feminine at the same time.

On Wednesday my group and I did our presentations and I must admit, it felt like I was in COM 101 again (mainly because it was the same room that class was in a couple of semesters ago) and I think my group and I did a good job. I really don’t have much complaints about our presentation, except I’m kind of mad at myself because I forgot to point out two important points, but other than that it went well. I loved Patrick’s rap! The final product was a complete surprise for me and the rest of the group because we hadn’t seen it until that day and he did an incredible job! It was extremely enjoyable, catchy, and informative. If I had to give the rest of the groups advice it’d be: It’s better to know more than what you think you need to know. There was so much research invested into the presentation that not all of it made it into the final product, but it did help when actually talking the class because you have the confidence that takes away any nervous feelings.

word count: 575

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ztlh7FXmvuI

Class in Review: 09.26.11 & 09.28.11

This week has been pretty stressful and busy, which didn’t help when it came to class on Monday and Wednesday, and reading The Illiad didn’t help make my week any better, in fact it gave me a headache while I was reading it I needed to sparknotes it afterwards to ease my pain. When we were discussing the story in class we brought up other issues while also trying to solve the main problem we’ve had for I believe the past two weeks, which is how do we categorize humans, super humans, heroes, super heroes, superheroes, etc? I posed the topics and questions that we had discussed in class and asked my parents what they thought, it was my dad who kept pointing out that everything depends on one’s perspective. I tried to see if he would say anything close to what others had brought up in class, but he kept giving me one answer, “It’s all about perspective.” I even gave him the example of the nuclear bomb in the stadium and if that person could be considered a hero or a nuisance (ends vs. means) and again he said, “It’s all about perspective.”

So afterwards I described Achilles to him and asked him if he would consider Achilles as a hero, superhero, or neither; I’m sure we all know what his answer is, “It’s all about perspective.” When I ask myself the same question I don’t even have an answer, Achilles just doesn’t appeal to me. I think it’s because he was all about making sure he got what he wanted his way, but he did go through one of those “defining moments” because it took the death of his closest friend to really give him a cause for fighting. It’s difficult to keep writing this while working on the group presentation because a part of me wants to relate Achilles to Gilgamesh. I’ll save what I want to say for later.

I started to really think about superheroes during the weekend, and I started to think about the Power Rangers, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Sailor Moon, Astroboy, and Kikaida. If you don’t know about Kikaida, he’s like the Japanese version of Iron Man, he’s a guitar playing motorcyclist that transforms into this half machine half man thing, but the focus is on protecting Japan from an evil organization. I’m pretty sure we’re all familiar with the other shows maybe not Sailor Moon, you can always google it, but how would you categorize them? Power Rangers are the ones that I’m not too sure about because with the power rangers they were specially chosen to become the rangers and they learn martial arts and stuff to beat the weird looking evil minions. Then when the main evil character grows like a 1,000 times bigger they use these remote control things to form a megazord thing and they’d win. They don’t really have any powers except for their megazords, so I guess I’d consider them super heroes, besides the fact that they destroy parts of the city and don’t do anything about it.

When I was in elementary school, I would spend the mornings watching Power Rangers and Sailor Moon and to me Sailor Moon seemed more of a superhero than the Power Rangers. Sailor Moon was my version of Wonder Woman, she became someone I wanted to be but knew that it could never happen because I’d never be able to have those “powers.” I got away from the main topic that I wanted this entry to be about (Achilles & The Illiad) but I couldn’t help if it got me thinking about Power Rangers or Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.

Word Count: 611

<--- Kikaida

Sailor Moon --------->