Pg. 500 A Waitress at Duval's Restaurant, Pg. 504 Writing #1

My initial reaction of the waitress's expression to me was a working girl that isn't over-complacent about her job. I didn't see her as neither happy, relaxed, or stressed. I just viewed her as a worker who knows her duties, and is willing to make her superiors life's easy by doing them. After reading the poem my judgment of the waitress hasn't changed at all. Every word said about her in the poem was my exact interpretation of how I thought she'd be.

The American Dream's Structure

The structure of the essay reminded me of the expert from More I Remember More by Joe Brainard. Instead of starting the paragraphs with "I remember" most of The American Dream paragraphs started with the word "You" in bold text. The major resemblance between the two text was how both managed to tell a story without given the main characters these stories names. Both essays also tell a story of a person’s history. The differences are that one is in first person (More I Remember), while the other one is not (The American Dream).  

Seeing Pg.178, #1 & 2

1.  Sanders uses his own personal experiences to argue his opinion. He also quotes and excerpts from text to strengthen his argument. He believes that being rooted to one area makes you a stronger individual. He explains his idea of why people refuse to move is because their too invested. That their too invested by the community and all the hard work they've put into their homes.  I can't really comment too much on what he should do to help compliment his essay, because I completely disagree with his argument. I feel no matter what he tries to explain in his argument I'll still won't accept his views.

2. The overall tone of the essay is just strange to me. Why I say this is because Sanders makes it seem that if you never settle at one place and move constantly, you will never grow as a person. I think it's strange because hardly you ever find circumstances like this. I feel if as Sanders is completely inconsiderate and ignorant for the reasons of why people move from the essay. Another thing is what he's arguing I believe it to be contradicting. People can still develop a connection to our world even if they decide to move from time to time. "In belonging to a landscape, one feels a rightness, an at-homeness, a knitting of self and world." (para. 22) There is no clarity and no sense made in his beliefs. That is why i find the tone of the essay strange.  Richard Ford's essay however is more convincing and engaging because it's more straight up to me. Sanders idea lacks clarity while Ford's does. I don't agree with Ford's message as well, but I can understand where he is coming from. Both of these essay have the same theme in a way. The author's just have different beliefs of   the idea of "home".

Seeing pg. 145, #'s 1 & 2

1.    In House by the railroad, the first thing I recognized is the architecture of the house. The design of the window frames and the upper levels of the house caught my eye the most. From today's standpoint, you can tell this house was constructed many years ago. From the paintings view, the railroad's location by the house is awkward. This makes you think of the origin of the railroad's creation. The people who created the railroad showed apathy by building it next to someone's home.

2.    In the poem, Hopper focuses on how the house is victimized. He shows personification of the house by claiming it has an expression. The overall tone of the poem is gloomy. The reason why I say this is because when I read it my mood was changed. The poem leaves readers with despair of the house's condition. The way it was written made the poem's whole vibe feel like that.

Seeing pg. 127, #1

1.       Busch claims that some objects have their own narrative and history.  She explains how objects sometimes have a symbolic representation that can give it value as well. The design of the object is another reason for value, she claims. Her argument of how some objects tell a narrative had resonated with my own experiences.  I have a button someone gave to me on my birthday. It was the first day me and that person met.  This gives the button a more significant value to me because it tells a story. Busch didn't omit any type of relationship I had with objects in her writing.

Magazine Exercise

The three magazines that I observed were Cosmopolitan, Game Informer and XXL. While going through each of these magazines, the one thing that stood out was how mismated they were. Each of these magazines intendments to its audiences are completely different. Cosmopolitan’s purpose is to share lifestyle ideals to women around the world. Game Informers’ purpose is to share news feeds dealing with the video game industries every move.  XXL’s purpose is to promote upcoming rap artist to hip-hop fanatics.  

The five senses I used while going through each magazine were sight, hearing and touch. I was listening to each of my classmates explaining what their magazines were essentially about.  I was skimming through each magazine when they were being past around.  By doing all of that I noticed the structure of each magazine was basically the same in a sense. Again they just had very different concepts. 

Unfortunately I didn't bring a magazine or a narrative text into class. I don't have any subscriptions, nor do I ever consider purchasing a magazine. I could have brought a sample text of my favorite entertainment website, IGN, but it had completely slipped my mind. I take full responsibility for not doing so. I would like to apologize to each of my classmates in my group because of that. The text that I would've brought in could be considered very similar to the Game Informer magazine. Expect IGN branches off into more categories like movies, technology and TV. Game Informer only just deals with video games. It isn't even comparable with the two other magazines.

Seeing pg. 94, #'s 1 & 2

1.     The first thing I see is the poster of Bruce Lee located on page ninety-two. Some other objects that really grab hold of my attention are the1990s' basketball posters on the wall. What caught my eye is how I knew this room (also known as "Badge of Honor) told me a date without specifically giving me one. Meaning I knew the time setup in which this room was possibly made. In the late '90s I knew Enter the Dragon starring Bruce Lee was rereleased, so it regained popularity at that time. Hence maybe that's why he has some Bruce Lee posters in his room. You can tell that the teenage boy still having a bike could mean he doesn't have his driver's license. He is in to sports obviously by the room being surrounded with baseball cards, basketball posters and sports gear. In all you can assume he is your atypical extroverted teenage boy. You can tell that Osorio’s style is very simplistic, but with a unique radiance to it. 

2.     I would say that Osorio's work of optimizing a teenage boy’s bedroom was a tremendous success. Like I said before he hit the nail on the head by exemplifying of what an extroverted teenage boy's room is. One object that I didn't mention before is the poster of the "cool" car he was on his wall. It's pretty a stereotypical assumption that all guys have an infatuation with motor vehicles. Some fantasy aspects that Osorio pinched in are all the trophies the teenage boy has. A lot of boys have this competitive nature of being the alpha male. Many feel you need to finish first or don't finish at all. This boy was very fortunate to have in what many boys want so bad, but cannot attain. This meaning of fantasy in which exemplified has to deal with desire. 

Seeing pg. 91, #'s 1 & 2

1.   It seems as if K.C. Cole was infatuated with a random tangent at first in the begging of this piece. In the opening paragraph she formulates instances of how mind-bogglingly it would be to change sizes. K.C might have been speaking metaphorically when she mentioned how we apparently miss out on being on only one scale of measuring. I realized the meaning of this short was about how we don't pay attention to the details around us. This has made me want to start thinking about the smaller details that I've never recognized before. In a whole this essay has made a small impact on life in wanting me to make a change. 

21     2.   K.C. probably added the paragraph of another author for some sort of homage for her influences of writing this piece. If she would've paraphrased Schrodinger i believed it would've been a more professional action thing to do. It was a clever way of giving homage to another author, but in an essay you must paraphrase for legal purposes no matter what. 

Seeing pg. 42, #'s 1 & 2

     1.   To describe Peter Menzel’s photographic portraits of ordinary people’s food in different parts of the world in one word, it would be emblematic. Though the photos are so simplistic they hold such an informal message, without showing any over exaggerated expressions. Each photograph consists of a family displaying their week’s worth food supply. Every photo is extremely diversified, but they all maintain the same substance. They all seem to draw your eyes in with the various amounts of different foods that are being displayed.  Other little details can draw you in as well like the different food brands logos, vibrant colors, and families’ wardrobe.

The one thing that stands out the most to me in each photo is how you can tell so much about all the families represented, is their livelihoods.  For example, the Fernandez of Texas displayed on pages 32 and 33. You can tell so much about them by just viewing the photograph. You can tell the couple presented in the photo work very hard to sustain the lifestyle in which they’re living. The elderly woman in the photo holding her grandchildren represents a very powerful piece of imagery. She probably came to America at early part of her lifetime hoping she could obtain this kind of life shown. All the food that is displayed in the photo shows this family most likely is stable financially.

The work done by Peter Menzel and Faith D’Aluisio in all was phenomenal. They had messages they wanted to communicate with people in these photos, and they delivered. I really do appreciate when artist get their concepts expressed in a coherent fashion. They wanted to show how we can make assumptions of other people around the world by just observing a photo. 

2.  The Aboubakar family and the Mendoza family are the two photos I want to compare. Off the bat you can already tell both families aren't apart of a capitalistic society. They also obliviously have stuck with old traditions by the way they’re dressed. You can also tell this by the settings in which they’re surrounded by. Almost all their food is organic; expect the Mendoza’s have a small amount of conventional food.

      Now I will differentiate both families in the two photos. You can tell the Mendoza family most likely has some amount of financial stability by being surrounded with richer soil. Richer soil can mean most of their food is homegrown, and possibly they sell their vegetables for profit. Unlike the Mendoza family, the Aboubakars are surrounded by bad soil. It is also obvious that the Aboubakars aren’t that wealthy due to their lack of food and surroundings as well. The Mendoza family seems to have the "full plate" in comparison of the two.

                Faith D’Alusio’s work shines a light on everything dealing with these photos. She shows all the families expenses when buying the food. What other materials they have to make food and how it’s preserved. She goes into very specific detail of how much food each family acquires. She also includes other trivia about the families that can be somewhat insightful.