sure

So, last class Professor Lawton mentioned that we should try to find out what a split infinitive is so I went on dictionary.com and here it is:

noun Grammar.

[Origin: 1895–1900]

—Usage note The “rule” against placing a word, especially an adverb, between to and the verb in an English infinitive (To really learn a language, you have to stay in a place where it is spoken) is based on an analogy with Latin, in which infinitives are only one word and hence cannot be “split.” The modeling of English style on Latin has in the past often been considered the epitome of good writing; the injunction against splitting the English infinitive is an example of the misguided application of this notion. Criticism of the split infinitive was especially strong in 19th-century usage guides. Nothing in the history of the infinitive in English, however, supports the so-called rule, and in many sentences, as in the example above, the only natural place for the modifying adverb is between to and the verb (To really learn …). Many modern speakers and writers depend on their ear for a natural sentence rather than on an arbitrary rule. Writers who ordinarily prefer not to split an infinitive will occasionally do so, to avoid awkward or stilted language.

Also I would like to comment about the guest speaker.  She did a really great job of talking about “Booborexia”  All her stories about people she had interviewed were so apauling.  I couldn’t believe how women really think. Well, I mean I am a women as well but I don’t feel those ways about my breasts.  But never the less, the pressure for women to look the way that TV images do is appauling.  They have great amount of pressure to look this way and that leads to the problems such as Booberexia. 

I am a sucker for music.  I love music, I love everything about music, but lately I have found myself in quite the rut.  Remember when there use to be a time when even popuar music had a message that the artisit really wanted to tell.  It was deep and insightful and not boy meets girl and they hook up the end.  I have been unable to find new music with that same passion and depth that it once had.  And the thing that worries me even more is that bands like OLP and Incubus, U2  and Oasis are creating greatist hits CDS.  What are we going to do after these bands have perished from the music world.  Will music become just something in the back ground which no longer holds any real meaning for people. I sure hope not!

Well, to be quite honest seeing the topic that we are to discuss in these blogs for this week, made me wonder if I should even bother reading the readings for this week because it was very easy to see where this is going. 

Women for as long as Tv has been made have constantly been portrayed as either working at home mothers while the father was the bread winner or now as sexual objects while the men are the dominant speciman who gets to choose his mate.  If you really think about it the importance ads place on hypersexuality kind of makes me think of animals.  I mean think about it, when an animal mates for the most part it is the men who choose their women.  They run up to them without the females having a choice and ya the rest is history.  Therefore, proving that the male is the dominant speciman and the females are to just be the objects almost like a buisness transaction. 

For some reason ads are displayed in exactly the same sort of maner. Especially the ads in which the product being sold is a predominantly male product.  An example of this is of course beer commercials.  How many ads have you seen where a bunch of females are drinking at a table at a party with all males dancing around with their shirts off staring into their eyes oh so pasionatly. 

These ads teach young teenage girls that it is only but appropriate to act that way.  Also, they try to dress like these girls and be just as skinny as them which creates a Tsunami of problems.  No female after seeing a beautiful girl on the cover of Teen Vogue really sits down as says oh well this is air brushed and they added this and etc.. to make her look as beautiful as she does.  Instead they see a beautiful girl with no flaws, and decide that this is what they should become

The media definatly needs to be alot more conscious of the sort of messages they are sending out!

So this weeks reading is all about video games.  Well, let me tell you, as a female I pretty much wanted to run as far away from this topic as I could possibly get as soon as I found out that this is what we were to talk about.  Then, I started doing my readings for this class, and lets just say I am definatlly out of the loop with the whole technology and video gaming “society” that goes on. 

First of all I’d just like to say that video games has never been of any remote interest for me, therefore, it was extremely dificult to even motivate myself to do these readings.  However, I have finally gotten around to them and lets just say I wish I hadn’t.  The first thing I noticed was that in the reading by Lars Konzack he divides everything up into layers.  And I must say that the first 4 layers are most definatly way over my head.  I didn’t understand the fancy “lingo” he was using or the terms, even when difined made no sense.  Infact, there is even a part of his article where he says something along the lines of “but of course you knew that” and as I read this I thought actually No i am so so sooo lost!  It was not until we got to the actual game play aspects that I could some what relate to the meanings and feelings that game players experience when gaming.  However, the first 4 layers were dealing with the technology and the inner system while the last layers dealt with the external aspects of gaming. 

One thing I really liked was how the author talked about how games run in two ways either as action packed or arcade setting where everything is the same except for the fact that you can change the scenery, or narrative where a story is being told and you must go through the motions in which the story tells you too.  I found this very interesting because I never thought about how simplistic that idea actually was.  Most games are made as the action packed or arcade setting type games. 

Reading this article made me realize that video gamers almost have their own society in which no one understands but them.  They have these terms that everyone within the gaming community understands fully and can react accordingly however, for an outsider hearing these words or even the way in which the program works with in the gaming device sounds like a foreign language.

So, this weks topic is dvertising.  I read the articles last night and I must say that while I agree with some points of the articles, especially where they talk about how they hugely stereotype the roles of a female and a male, and how advertisment companies try to highly sexualize women.  I agree with all of this, but one thing I don’t agree with is the amount of influence they say the media has on young females.  While yes it is a factor I find it doesn’t have quite as huge of an effect as they claim it does.  I mean there are a lot of different factors other than just the media that lead a female to be depressed about their bodies like their friends being skinnier then them, parents telling the children they are fat, getting bullied in school! Therefore, it is not just all media.  However, I have found lately with rap being a huge musical industry that we as a society have placed an even greater pressure on females to look good.  The rap music videos highly sexsualize females, and often have them sprawled on top of something like a nice car, or riding shot gun in a car.  These kind of images show that women appear to be just another object, and are like tokens.  They are not people they are just another way for men to measure their worth.  To me, this is what many rap videos portray.  I find it quite sad to see just how complete strangers effect our every day lives.  They influence especailly females so much that females are constantly unsatisfied with their perfectly beautiful bodies.  However, we have to give credit to advertisements like the dove campaign which promoted a wide array of womens bodies, and showed them off in a bra and panties, proving their is nothing wrong with these bodies either.  While a big step it is not enough to sway the whole population, and therefore hopefully other media’s will job on this wagon.

Last week’s class really got me thinking about music, and how it influences our every day life.  This weekend I went to go see 300!  And I looked very critically at the movie and found that for every battle scene there was this loud crazy music that’s job was to pump you up and get you excited, then there was the heart felt death of a son, and there was a completely different style of music playing and I dont think anyone paid attention to the movie.  Imagine if a movie had no songs in it, would it be as passionate and as emotional of an experience if there was no music?  Personally, I don’t think so.  Anyways just some late night thoughts!

For this weeks reading I did it on pitchfork and how they have created a new area of the music industry.  This reading was possibly one of my favorite readings I have done this year, partially because I love music, and especially love ways of finding unheard of music, and the second reason is because it made me understand more about the music industry.  First of all, I think what pitchfork is doing is amazing.  People don’t want editorial type information from journalists.  What people are interested in these days is simply what people equally as passionate about the music think.  They want people who have a general appreciation for that band to give them information.  This is why magazines like the rolling stones are starting to suffer because they are more intersted in the movie stars and easy story getters and instead pay less attention to the actual music.  The same problem is occuring with MTV and much music because they are focusing on reality tv shows instead of focusing on new music and stuff, therefore, they are starting to loose alot of viewers.  These viewers need somewhere to turn and why not turn to a web site.  Most people are always on the computer and therefore, their information is all in one place.  Although pitchfork gets criticised for alot of things, I think what they are doing is great, I think they really keep the music alive.

Okay everyone,

So usually I am not a fan of three days grace, and in fact there debut song from their new album was horrible.  Even the acousitc version of “pain” was horrid.  But, the rest of their CD is amazing.  I am so sick of hearing about the stupid little love songs in the world, and this is our relief.  It talks about the person who is left at the end of the heart break, and about the person who did the heart breaking.  I mean how often does this happen in most music.  I don’t know maybe it does…but besides that, the guitar work is absolutly impressive, and I feel like the lyrics really speak to everyone’s heart, especailly university students.  I just thought I’d let everyone know… its awsome and worth a listen