My comments this week.....

Miriam, Kathryn, Kelsey and Dylan! I am kind of confused. Are we switching to the new commenting thing yet or are we still just suppost to do two? I am really confused and I'm not sure that I even commented on the right week's stuff. I'm sorry if I messed up.

Wanting more stuff to read.

I love the more comments idea and I think that really should be the basis of the class. I realize that could be really hard to grade and everything but I think it would be more like a classroom setting and discussion. As of right now there aren't many people reading my blog (probably because it is boring and too long) and I think that having people comment on a post every time that they put up a post would solve that problem. I also think that responding to people would be a good idea, not all of the time but mostly when the person disagrees with what your post said. I like the weekly deadlines but I am having a hard time coming up with enough stuff to fill the two posts about the book. I don't know if that is because I write to much in one post or something but I really feel like I could do a better job with just writing one post instead of splitting myself up between the two. Maybe if we could find another source of literature to comment on for the second post? Perhaps things that are online like fan fiction or things that are longer than just articles. Maybe we could each pick a book or short story to read and then review? I really like the thought of making this class based on discussion but I don't think that there is very much to talk about with this book but if we had a different book to read that I might like to discuss things more. With the "assigning things" comment I like that we are given things to write about but also that that may be too restricting. Maybe we could get options like multiple articles or the go ahead to write about what we wanted or the sake of variety. For example, this week if I didn't want to write about the school shootings I could just write about Fidel instead. I think that having suggestions is good to keep people from complaining but making that topic manditory is a little to restricting. I think that the class is going well and that it is pretty sweet. Keep up the good work Jen!

How Blue's Clues is killing our kids: a rant

So I am, once again, stalling because I have nothing of substance to write about. Maybe saying sorry for the lateness of my assignments and also for the fact that most of my posts have ended in my being paranoid about how we are all eventually doomed. Quite a downer I know. So I have decided to reform my ways and become less paranoid and more optimistic. Ok. So much for that because I found what I don't like about the chapter that we read. I was rereading the part about how Sesame Street and Blue's Clues are different and the sentence "Concider, for example, the show's insistance on being clever." (112) I understand why they thought that being clever was very bad for the show. It was because the young children didn't understand and when they didn't understand they stopped watching. While this may be true, I still am a strong believer in Sesame Street. I love the fact that they were trying to make the show watchable for adults and thats why I think that it is superior to any other kids show around. If adults watch and participate with their kids in anything that thing is a success. Today we have a lack of family bonding and shows like Blue's Clues aren't helping that at all. When a mother has the ability to set her children in front of a TV for a half hour and go off and do what she wants while they watch TV there is so much less time spent together and that can be detrimental. I have never been in favor of kids watching TV at all but when someone lets their kid watch the same show five days in a row I think that is just stupid and an excuse to not spend time with their kids. "Why should I take them to the park? they are learning." I am sure that kids would much rather learn to read from their parents, sitting in a warm lap, with an actual book than from a fictional character on TV. Its just a personal opinion but I don't think that letting your kids learn from a programmed box is too good of an idea, but thats just me. Oh and just letting them sit there is making them fat too. Lets kill two birds with one stone. Teach your kids to read yourself and then take them to the park for God's sake.

Ahh! They are after me!

It may have been the Niquil but this chapter sure blurred together. In any case (I will refrain from bashing on the book to hard today) this chapter made me finally realize why my sister is so different from the way I am. I was a Sesame Street kid and she was a part of the Blue's Clues generation. I never really understood how much these things could affect children. My sister is very organized and I am not. She is very punctual and I am not. I could go on and on but in the end she is just a very different learner than I am. She is a product of watching the long clean cut and well formated Blue's Clues. Every episode has the same outline and story line. She watched, learned, and processed for long periods of time she has a very precise way of doing things. I on the other hand watched the wacky and segmented Sesame Street. I therefore, am wacky and segmented. There was adult humor in Sesame Street and I think that I may have caught on to that but probably just in my subconscience. I can really see a difference in the way my sister and I learn. I prefer open and free enviornments while she likes schedules. I'm not really sure if these things are directly related but it seems possible to me. I don't think that you should really trust me on this because I also think that these shows were made as brainwashing tactics by the government to infect our children with propaganda. My thoughts are meaningless when it comes to facts so please help yourself and forget everything that you just read. Actually by the time you read this I will probably have alrady been arrested by the Patriot Act people and they will eventually have it erased it from your memory. So all in all I guess it doesn't really matter what you remember because they will just use the MIB zappy thing on you in the end anyway.

Reedie at heart

My computer and internet are pissing me off. Yesterday after my first two posts I decided to take a nap (by decided to nap I meant that I passed out on my computer). When I woke up I found my computer doing its own very special version of a grand mal seizure. After hours of trying to get it to calm down I relented and let it sleep for the rest of the night. This morning I found him lively but my internet seems to have been taking lessons from Charles. Yes I named my computer (If you are the first person to correctly guess which literary character he is named after I will give you five bucks). Anyway I am still fighting Blogger.com to let me save and post and it is not very fun in my fragile state. Cough cough. On to the post.

The first school that I found was the Telluride Mountain School. There isn't much to say here, not that is entertaining anyway. It looks like the school has lots of outdoor trips that sound pretty cool. It started as a home school for about 6 kids and in less than ten years has expaneded to over 100. It is located in Colorado so many of the outings are for skiing and snowboarding which I find totally cool. The school is for kids of all ages preschool to high school. There seems to be am emphasis on service, project and experimental learning in lots of the same ways that Linworth is but I don't think that the older kids get as much freedom as we do. The older kids get more of a college-prep program than the younger children do. They also have a thing called an Immersion Project that happens once a year that seems to be quite like Interim but that lasts for much longer, about 8 weeks instead of just one. It seems to be a pretty nice school but its not a place I would like to go because it doesn't look like it would give me the freedom that Linworth does. Linworth is a place that I can fluorish, find my own way and keep my options open all at the same time. That is why I feel so lucky to be here.

The second school that I found I actually found my freshman year while searching for colleges. It is called Reed College and if you are around me enough you know that it is where I want to go to college. It is located in beautiful Portland, Oregon and is the "Linworth" of colleges if you will. There are no grades and all of the professors are called by their first names. The community is tight knit but very diverse. It is a college that is based on discovering yourself and your own ideas. Learning how to learn. It is an intellectual place and that is what I want most in a college. I want to be surrounded by people who love to learn and do it because it makes them happy, not because they think that they have to. It also has its own nuclear reactor (scary to think that I might be running it in a few years right?) It encourages students to get involved in political and social activism which I have recently gotten stuck in the middle of. It has its own cabin on Mt. Hood for students to stay at on the weekends to go skiing. There are too many fun traditions to name but one of the best is called paideia where people take non-credit courses for fun. Some examples are: juggling, tree sitting, teen angst movies, making balloon animals, catapult construction and swing dance. There are theme dorms like the French form, never never land and the mad science dorms. One thing that is quite like Linworth is Senior Thesis where seniors take most of their year to study what they want and write a thesis about what they learned. It is almost identical to Walkabout except they have to write a huge paper in addition to everything else. It is pretty much my school. I have visited and I love it so much. I am truly a Reedie at heart.

I am victorious! I beat you, you evil website!

What the world needs now is love, sweet love

Did you know that 15% of all U.S. women send themselves flowers every year for valentine's day? I think that this holiday is crazy and useless. Why can't we just show our love everyday instead of spending $100 to show it in one night? Why do we need to be told when to say "I love you" ? Being genuine means that it comes from the heart. When Hallmark tells you to give your loved one a card I don't think that you are being that sincere if you do it. Originality is one of the best things that you can bring to a relationship and when you give someone a cookie-cutter card with some cheezy line in it to represent your love you are pretty far from original. The pressure put on people to be in a relationship or to impress your significant other on valentines is immense. This is why women send themselves flowers. They find a need to impress others and I think that isn't right or fair. I am not saying this because I have always been single on valentines day or because I just dislike everything but instead aq because I find it quite unfair. Why do we dress up for valentines day dances and send cards with words that aren't ours? Shouldn't we find meaning in a spontaneous picnic rather than a colorful piece of paper that is produced for the masses?

Wake up call! Caught you in the morning with another one in my bed

Because I am sick beyond all belief. I think that my posts will be quite short (and maybe a little sweet) this week. My first post will be influenced by one of my top five movies of all time: High Fidelity. Not only is it a great romantic comedy with the best soundtrack in the history of the world but there is also so much witty banter that it even boggles my mind. Yesterday I watched this movie again for the millionth time and I going in to it I was really stumped about what to write about (I am not very good with choices, as I have said before). The second I heard the first line I knew right then and there that this movie was going to be one of my topics this week. The line was: "What came first, the music or the misery? People worry about kids playing with guns, or watching violent videos, that some sort of culture of violence will take them over. Nobody worries about kids listening to thousands, literally thousands of songs about heartbreak, rejection, pain, misery and loss. Did I listen to pop music because I was miserable? Or was I miserable because I listened to pop music?" I find this question perplexing. I have never met a teen that listened to music that didn't describe their general emotional state. I know people rant about swearing, homophobic undertones, or sexist statements in music but what about everything else? What about all of the subliminal messages? I'll use a Maroon 5 song as an exapmle. It is being played on the radio and if you look at its lyrics you will see that it is pretty graphic. When I was younger I used to think that it was just rap that was guilty of this but now I see that even up-beat and seemingly innocent music can be just as dastardly. The lyrics may seem bad enough to you but the music video is even worse. In the matter of three minutes and fifty-six seconds the lead singer, his girlfriend, and the rest of the band manage to kill someone, gamble, speed, kidnap women, deal drugs, hire prostitutes, resist arrest and blow up a car. My problem with this is not the cussing or the violence (boy do I love explosions!). My problem is the heartbreak. When songs focus around sadness it may be the worst thing for us to hear. It may teach that being lonely is inevitable or unavoidable. The fact that Adam Levine (the lead singer) ended up in jail at the end is really symbolic to me. It says that no matter what you for her she won't love you and you will probably end up some place you don't want to be. I hope that this isn't true in real life because if it is, we are all doomed to lives of empty sadness. So much for not having a long post. Sorry.