Auto-correction

What's language?
I think go English, writing essays, pesky grammar rules, and is class
Buds it's sometime much more isn't it?
Language should be a content
To Abel communicate our ideas
But it's create Barrie's to separate us
Low. Middle high social class
It make done inferior
It make smoke want. Orb change their language
To climbs he social ladder and close bet daunting gal
But hen you abandoned your bailed. Ulterior ideas
Tied you your language
Rejecting you're insert I to have an idenor
Haw w works we life in today

First comment is using textese wasn’t a very pleasant experience. Even outside of school the way I type to friends tends to be the same except that I wouldn’t bother capitalizing my i’s or proper nouns or using commas. But other than that it’s very similar, at least in my opinion. Therefore, during my poem writing I decided to type much faster than normal, only glancing at my keyboard once in awhile to obtain some more interesting results.

As I go back to read over my poem I see that most of the ideas can be read. The beginning is pretty clear with a couple of auto corrected words between stanzas one and eight. None of them drastically changed the intended meaning. It was towards the middle, stanza nine that the passage got hard to read and even undecipherable at some points too. For instance, in stanza eleven ‘But hen you abandoned your bailed. Ulterior ideas’ the text is butchered. Though you may get the very basic of it through the words abandoned and ideas it failed to include what I believed to very important, values and culture.

Nowadays using texting slang and atuo-correct is not uncommon. It’s all over facebook, twitter, and the majority of the interweb. Some books are even written in forms of text messaging and we’re still able to read it and decipher the meaning. However I remain firm on my belief that texting and auto-correct is not a effective in communicating ideas as our current standard English. Most of what we read on social networking websites are updates on people’s lives, their current activity or just their mod. I believe it would be safe to say that you don’t usually read about philosophy or literature on sites such as facebook and twitter where the majority of its users use texting slang. Maybe it’s just me but I wouldn’t take anything written in texting language too seriously either. However I am neither saying that texting is an illegitimate language. Texting and auto correct are mainly used to type faster and shorten what can be shortened. While you can definitely use it to discuss philosophy and many great ideas it doesn’t express the importance and the details of it that can be achieved by using Standard English. Though auto-correct is a very convenient tool it over-simplifies ideas and sometimes changes the meaning of words completely, therefore it cannot replace our current standard english.

Blow One and Swallow

Looking at this ad your first impression may be ‘woah’ or ‘is that what I think it is?’ When  I first saw this my eyes automatically zoomed in on the women holding the new burger king sandwich then to the bold words ‘blow one and swallow’ underneath. In this print ad Burger King is is trying to promote its seven incher through sexual appeal. While it’s not uncommon to use sex as an attraction this ad focused primarily on the sexual connotations driving away any potential customers.
In this ad there is an image of an asian woman holding a Bk seven incher. If the image was as simple as that it wouldn’t be so bad but it’s her not-so-innocent expression that gives it a negative impression. Her eyes are focused on the sandwich with her mouth slightly open showing her obvious excitement. Not only that, the sandwich also happens to have white substance-I’m assuming mayo- oozing out. The message blow one and swallow only adds to the sexual innuendo. It’s in large black font making it impossible to miss with the words blow one in a special font to make out stand out more. in the bottom right corner is a descriptions thats says  ‘fill your desire for something long, juicy and flame-grilled with the NEW BK SUPER SEVEN INCHER.’ That sentence sets the picture for the audience. With the visuals, bold words and provocative description it’s hard to interpret this as anything other than a woman giving oral sex. The fact that she looks so delighted to do so makes it very condescending to women and sexist. Though it may be geared towards men trying to play on the idea that this sandwich is just as amazing as what the woman is about to do the negative implications prevent it from being successful. The inappropriateness of this ad also gives parents a bad vibe for fear of causing negative thoughts in hormonal teengares and innocent childern. Overall this ad relied too heavily on the sexual appeals that it failed to do its job of promoting what could have been a very delicious sandwich.

Blog #5 Final Reflection

Now that this project is coming to an end it’s time to hatch my head open and take a look about all the little goodies I collected. One thing I’ve noticed in Fairfield County is that the wealthier sections are mainly populated by caucasians while the not so wealthy sections are populated by darker skin minorities. The ones with bigger houses, nicer cars and more time on their hands tends to be white people while the ones living in condos, apartments and much smaller houses tend to be minorities. While in Darien I hardly ever saw any hispanics unless they were traveling the bus/train or working at a construction site. Though these stereotypes are racist and negative it’s based on some truth.

Food establishments and stores with the nicer service and overall environment tend to be made for caucasians. Places that hispanics, african americans, asians, (other minorities) frequented at don’t always get the smiling and sweet employees or the clean spacious floors because honestly, the managers of these places don’t feel the need to impress them. Nor do they value their patronage. Why can’t we all have equal service? Should we really have people serving others? Even if it’s just waitressing or greeting people, it involves belittling yourself in some way, shape or form and nobody should have to do that.

In terms of high school I see that the idea of social groups and cliques portrayed in movies do exist. However it’s not necessarily a bad thing. Who wants to go to school with a bunch of clones that mindlessly act like zombies. Sure cliques don’t sound that great-actually it sounds really distasteful but it’s part of high school and you can’t run away from that. Unless you drop out but that’s a really bad idea.

And there’s got to be some kind of hidden agenda behind the repetitive cartoon specials during Christmas time. hose big corporate leaders are thinking of a lot more than just quality family time.  

Overall, this project was very interesting. I will continue to observe Fairfield county in hopes of uncovering the truth of the world. Good day.

Blog #4 Holiday Hype

Maybe it’s because I’m asian and my family doesn’t celebrate really celebrate any holidays but what’s the deal with Christmas and New Year? On December 31 I was channel-surfing and settled for Fox News hoping that the New Years Coverage would interesting. Minutes into the show I found myself playing a game of who’s that famous person when my father looked up from his laptop and commented “crazy Americans. What’s so special about New Years?” Several days earlier as my mother was watching the telly she asked “Why do Americans like Christmas so much?”

My initial thought was it’s an American thing. But I was born and raised in America; I go to school in America; in middle and elementary school I said the pledge every morning. I’m definitely more familiar with America than China so why don’t I jump for joy when the 25th approaches?

As soon as December starts the television is flooded with Christmas specials and movies. Every year there has to be at least one broadcasting of ELF or the Grinch and people still watch it despite how many times they’ve seen it. The media focuses so much on Christmas that it’s hard not to get sucked into the red, white and green joy. Reruns of old shows are shown; kids get hyped up, the older audience gets all nostalgic; and you have a nation wanting to buy christmas presents.

New Years is confusing as well. Why do thousand of people crowd into Times Square on a freezing cold night just to see a ball drop and create a mess that some unfortunate person(s) will clean for less than a minute? Why must there always be some sort of New Years resolution? I want to get all A’s! I’m going to lose weight! I’m going to blah blah blah. Every year it’s the same thing. Doesn’t it ever get boring? Maybe there is some real value behind it but it looks like another to excuse for big company owners and managers advertise and for consumers to mindlessly shop like zombies with no after guilt because it was in spirit of the holidays.

Blog #2 Spongebob

The other day I decided to sit down and watch a Christmas episode of Spongebob. Personally I don’t hate the show but I can’t exactly say that it made my day. In that episode Sandy introduced the concept of Christmas and Santa Claus to Spongebob and in turn told the whole Bikini Bottom. Later that day everyone wrote a letter to Santa expect for Squidward being too mature and sophisticated for it. Towards the end of the day everyone (except for Squidward) gathered around their coral tree and sang The Very First Christmas as they waited for Santa. Sadly, he didn’t show and they all left angry at Spongebob for lying. Squidward of course had to gloat about being right but like usual guilt gets the better of him and he takes it upon himself to cheer up the poor sponge. His one act of kindness turns into many as he ends up giving majority of his possessions away. And the show ends on a positive note.

In the show majority of the characters are adults yet their behavior is that of a child. Squidward is one of the few characters (if not only) that is differently tends to be a negative character. His skepticism, grumpy attitude, and jadeness makes him more mature and adult-like though he tends to get past his opposition in many of the opposition such as when he moves into a closed off home filled with many other squids like him. The moral/lesson of the episode, like all Christmas shows was to encourage Christmas spirit no matter how the age, intelligence or even species. But why keep the Christmas spirit alive? I doubt that it’s for the good of mankind. When Christmas comes along one of the first things that pop into our minds is shopping (and vacation) and in the end that is the goal of the media. More consumers to fill their wallets. Sure those christmas specials are instilling values of warmth and community in us but in another perspective it could be seen as a clever way to brainwash the population into mass shopping sprees to create their perfect Christmas.

Blog #1 CGS

As a freshmen I remember my sister warning me not to become or at least look like a typical center kid. Dyed hair, cat ears, eccentric fashion and a unique passion or obsession for all things Japanese, namely anime and manga: that is the stereotypical center kid. But of course that doesn’t mean every student in CGS follows that description. It is safe to say that Center of Global Studies is split into two major classes; the described above and the ones that can easily blend into mainstream Mcmahon.

During my time at CGS I have noticed that there also seems to be a rivalry between the two major classes. While I choose to ignore it most of the time, it’s not exactly uncommon to hear some negative comments like “what a freak” towards the more stereotypical students. At the same time there’s always there’s also students who will call the more ‘normal’ ones stuck-up or obnoxious. When CGS introduced party platforms during the election these differences were brought to attention. The Delta Party that sought to bring change by closing the gap between Mcmahon emphasized community while the Bow Tie that wanted to embrace the CGS uniqueness because “we’re not just a wing in the hallway”. Although the Delta Party won (with the exception of the secretary) the presence of the Bow Ties still exist.

My chinese class is another good example of the boundary. The very first day of school, when we all choose our seats an invisible line was drawn between the classroom. In a way it’s voluntary segregation.

The after school anime club also has it’s own cultural space that is shared primarily between the ‘center kids’. And during that time from 2:15 to 3:30 (around that time) that the students, mainly freshmens gather to converse about anime, manga, games, and various sorts of japanese pop culture.

Despite the many differences CGS is a pretty friendly space. Though the boundaries and social spaces can be seen as a separation it makes CGS special. If everyone were to wear cat ears and obsess over anime it wouldn’t be unique anymore. And if majority were ‘normal’ students then it’d be pretty boring. High school can be either four long boring painful years or four fast fun and exciting years. And I have a feeling that if you spend more time trying to fit in and finding the right group then just enjoying yourself it won't be a very fruitful experience.