Mateo's birthday shot!
Saturday, February 18, 2006
Thursday, February 16, 2006
Fire in the Grassland
Recently a lot has been swirling around in my usually barren mind, and in a sense that is refreshing. At least something is going on upstairs. One of my classes the other day might trigger the tangent I might go off on, writing about everything that comes to mind, and life in general might be the other trigger for my sudden urge to spit it all out onto my little blog.
So...here goes.
We'll start off slow, with a little overview of my week. Considering I thought for most of yesterday that it was Monday, when in fact, it was Wednesday might explain a little bit about the first two days of my week.
I have yet to do barely any homework this week, which has become my usual pattern. I'm not too upset about it because I sorta gave myself this week to be a shit, because next week I'm going to get dumped on.
Monday night started off with a nice jaunt to the park with Kristin, followed by some good friend time with Jen and Matt, and later, to my surprise the Stover crew came over looking for some free food. So I treated Lauren, Ash, Ben, Nick and Moises to some free dinner at Fazoli's where I have some gift cards. Katie and I just got some drinks and rocked out on the way there and the way home. After our lovely dinner the next few hours were spend dancing as Ash taught us a few line dances she had learned at Sundance.
Tuesday was Matt's birthday dinner, we sipped on a few brews before and headed into dinner and had a most excellent time. I haven't seen those guys in a while. Afterwards we headed to Sundance and I did the line dances Ash had taught me the night before (and some salsa dancing since it was Matt's 21 and all he wanted to do was salsa). The night was ended with some tripple axels in the parking lot, and some goofy phone calls and singing from Matt and Earl. I got some nice Valentine's Day gifts from my friends and family, which was a plus. So after two good nights, I have gotten a little run down, and as a result I have been feeling a little ill. No worries I'll be back at em tomorrow!
This morning was my final appointment with the doctor, he took my stitches out a few days ago and said that it looked good, so he just put some sticky strips (I forget what they are called) and told me to take it easy still on my heal. It's become my excuse for not working out, which it was a good one at first but now I am getting frustered. Who knew that swimming could be so dangerous. It's contributing to my fat build up (since I can't swim or were shoes, therefore can't run) and could one day lead to my early demise. Thanks a lot swimming.
Anyway, enough with the small write...
I am starting to get tired already, so this might be shorter than I would have liked, I might have to continue it later. My apologies.
I just realized how much I miss my mom. Brings a tear to the old eye, but I get to see her in 3 weeks, so that will be nice. Maybe even sooner if I can get a ride down.
Anyway, in my literary theory class we have been talking about a lot of really interesting things, some of which go right over my head. Which is rather unfortunate, because it would be cool to understand all of the things my teacher says. But usually he tells us that it is hard to grasp and if we know the general concept, then we should be ok. I missed the second day we were talking about Russian Formalism, but I have been intently listening (until I accidently fall asleep) as we have been talking about Marxism and Capitalism. It's a totally different experience than I have ever heard of before, and it's something that has challenged my thinking.
Basically in short, the idea of Capitalism is that people, in theory, are exchanging their time or life for the production of goods, which in turn makes them slaves to the Capitalists. I know it entails a lot more, and I wish I could just sit down with my teacher, or anyone who knew a lot about this stuff and just talk about it. It's an interesting concept because according to Marx, we have been brainwashed into thinking we are individuals and we are working for the benefit of ourselves. When is all acutality, we are working for the higher class, and that essentially makes us slaves of society, and we really aren't individuals at all. I think it was Marx who said that "Capitalist is the pimp", sort of relating it with prostitution and how it can be confused with freedom. He thinks that the openness of life is funneled into the allusions and so many people are much too busy surviving life to acutally LIVE it. The basic idea of people having these false abstractions and confusing them with reality is called ideology, and this idea, as you can imagine can still be threatening.
A question that would be an example of this would be: Is God making the world? Or do human just think there is a "God" who created the world? That got me thinking too, I mean what if people just thought there was a God, and eveyone would embelish stories about this holy thing they encountered and all of the Biblical stories were either made up or exaggerated? And everyone is going to church warshipping this fictional character that never even existed except in the confines of someone's mind a long time ago.
Society forces these values upon us that we assume to be natural. We assume that we need to work and we need to do these things to live, but like Marx said, are we just slaves to our own thoughts? Are we all just the same and there is no individualism? Has there been an illusion that we are all subjects that make up a whole? I mean think of all the values that have been instilled on us...
Ideological Interpellation is what it is called. In order for me to fully explain it I'm going to have to do the reading assignment(oops), but it is just something to think about. Herbert Marcuse believes it's absurd to think you are an individual because there were people before you who instilled values on you and there are people around you who instill values and character, and just add to yours. And eventually we are all copies of each other, just different versions.
I'm not saying I necessairly believe all this, and that I am going to ban the country together and shout from the roof tops that we have been brainwashed and we are oppressed and we must march to the Washington and burn down the white house...I'm just saying I think it's an interesting concept and something that I have thought about. Something that was bound to come up to someone at one time or another, and Marx just wrote a million books about stuff like that. The other week in that class we analyzed a poem by John Donne (sp?) and that was equally as interesting if not completely surprising. He was diiiirty. But clever, and who doesn't love a whitty pervert?
So anyway there's my two cents for now. I am getting drowsy and my nose is getting stuffy so I think I am going to try to take a nap. I will be back soon enough with pictures and some other ridiclous things to say.
This weekend I have no clue what's going on besides I am going to watch girls state at Epic with my brother and whoever else comes and then he's going to hang out here. If he comes that is since we got DUMPED on all day yesterday. I was a little annoyed, but it is Feb, and it should be snowing... I guess. It's just inconvienent, since I don't have a car.
Ok even though I'm not a fan, nap time.
Oh, let me just say 2 more things:
A good feeling: Feeling like you've known someone for years when you've barely hung out with them twice
A bad feeling: Missing someone you barely know, and not doing homework.
Just something to throw out there.
Oh! And I love working at the elementary school, the kids are so cute! I am always in a good mood coming out of there. I don't remember if I already talked about that, but ya.
Ok I am really going to dreamland now.
iBon Voyage!
So...here goes.
We'll start off slow, with a little overview of my week. Considering I thought for most of yesterday that it was Monday, when in fact, it was Wednesday might explain a little bit about the first two days of my week.
I have yet to do barely any homework this week, which has become my usual pattern. I'm not too upset about it because I sorta gave myself this week to be a shit, because next week I'm going to get dumped on.
Monday night started off with a nice jaunt to the park with Kristin, followed by some good friend time with Jen and Matt, and later, to my surprise the Stover crew came over looking for some free food. So I treated Lauren, Ash, Ben, Nick and Moises to some free dinner at Fazoli's where I have some gift cards. Katie and I just got some drinks and rocked out on the way there and the way home. After our lovely dinner the next few hours were spend dancing as Ash taught us a few line dances she had learned at Sundance.
Tuesday was Matt's birthday dinner, we sipped on a few brews before and headed into dinner and had a most excellent time. I haven't seen those guys in a while. Afterwards we headed to Sundance and I did the line dances Ash had taught me the night before (and some salsa dancing since it was Matt's 21 and all he wanted to do was salsa). The night was ended with some tripple axels in the parking lot, and some goofy phone calls and singing from Matt and Earl. I got some nice Valentine's Day gifts from my friends and family, which was a plus. So after two good nights, I have gotten a little run down, and as a result I have been feeling a little ill. No worries I'll be back at em tomorrow!
This morning was my final appointment with the doctor, he took my stitches out a few days ago and said that it looked good, so he just put some sticky strips (I forget what they are called) and told me to take it easy still on my heal. It's become my excuse for not working out, which it was a good one at first but now I am getting frustered. Who knew that swimming could be so dangerous. It's contributing to my fat build up (since I can't swim or were shoes, therefore can't run) and could one day lead to my early demise. Thanks a lot swimming.
Anyway, enough with the small write...
I am starting to get tired already, so this might be shorter than I would have liked, I might have to continue it later. My apologies.
I just realized how much I miss my mom. Brings a tear to the old eye, but I get to see her in 3 weeks, so that will be nice. Maybe even sooner if I can get a ride down.
Anyway, in my literary theory class we have been talking about a lot of really interesting things, some of which go right over my head. Which is rather unfortunate, because it would be cool to understand all of the things my teacher says. But usually he tells us that it is hard to grasp and if we know the general concept, then we should be ok. I missed the second day we were talking about Russian Formalism, but I have been intently listening (until I accidently fall asleep) as we have been talking about Marxism and Capitalism. It's a totally different experience than I have ever heard of before, and it's something that has challenged my thinking.
Basically in short, the idea of Capitalism is that people, in theory, are exchanging their time or life for the production of goods, which in turn makes them slaves to the Capitalists. I know it entails a lot more, and I wish I could just sit down with my teacher, or anyone who knew a lot about this stuff and just talk about it. It's an interesting concept because according to Marx, we have been brainwashed into thinking we are individuals and we are working for the benefit of ourselves. When is all acutality, we are working for the higher class, and that essentially makes us slaves of society, and we really aren't individuals at all. I think it was Marx who said that "Capitalist is the pimp", sort of relating it with prostitution and how it can be confused with freedom. He thinks that the openness of life is funneled into the allusions and so many people are much too busy surviving life to acutally LIVE it. The basic idea of people having these false abstractions and confusing them with reality is called ideology, and this idea, as you can imagine can still be threatening.
A question that would be an example of this would be: Is God making the world? Or do human just think there is a "God" who created the world? That got me thinking too, I mean what if people just thought there was a God, and eveyone would embelish stories about this holy thing they encountered and all of the Biblical stories were either made up or exaggerated? And everyone is going to church warshipping this fictional character that never even existed except in the confines of someone's mind a long time ago.
Society forces these values upon us that we assume to be natural. We assume that we need to work and we need to do these things to live, but like Marx said, are we just slaves to our own thoughts? Are we all just the same and there is no individualism? Has there been an illusion that we are all subjects that make up a whole? I mean think of all the values that have been instilled on us...
Ideological Interpellation is what it is called. In order for me to fully explain it I'm going to have to do the reading assignment(oops), but it is just something to think about. Herbert Marcuse believes it's absurd to think you are an individual because there were people before you who instilled values on you and there are people around you who instill values and character, and just add to yours. And eventually we are all copies of each other, just different versions.
I'm not saying I necessairly believe all this, and that I am going to ban the country together and shout from the roof tops that we have been brainwashed and we are oppressed and we must march to the Washington and burn down the white house...I'm just saying I think it's an interesting concept and something that I have thought about. Something that was bound to come up to someone at one time or another, and Marx just wrote a million books about stuff like that. The other week in that class we analyzed a poem by John Donne (sp?) and that was equally as interesting if not completely surprising. He was diiiirty. But clever, and who doesn't love a whitty pervert?
So anyway there's my two cents for now. I am getting drowsy and my nose is getting stuffy so I think I am going to try to take a nap. I will be back soon enough with pictures and some other ridiclous things to say.
This weekend I have no clue what's going on besides I am going to watch girls state at Epic with my brother and whoever else comes and then he's going to hang out here. If he comes that is since we got DUMPED on all day yesterday. I was a little annoyed, but it is Feb, and it should be snowing... I guess. It's just inconvienent, since I don't have a car.
Ok even though I'm not a fan, nap time.
Oh, let me just say 2 more things:
A good feeling: Feeling like you've known someone for years when you've barely hung out with them twice
A bad feeling: Missing someone you barely know, and not doing homework.
Just something to throw out there.
Oh! And I love working at the elementary school, the kids are so cute! I am always in a good mood coming out of there. I don't remember if I already talked about that, but ya.
Ok I am really going to dreamland now.
iBon Voyage!
Sunday, February 12, 2006
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