Esme's Blog

Work Union

esmeflo90 — Thu, 10 Dec 2009 05:28:45 +0000

1) Gilb is writing his essay to all those people who have a job in construction, or work with their hands. he is telling these people who there is nothing wrong with the careers they have they do hard work and that should be looked upon as something to be proud of as it was in previous years. The people who work with computers aren’t the ones who should be getting as much credit as the people who actually worked and sweated and got tired after they worked on a building project.

Work makes life sweet

esmeflo90 — Thu, 10 Dec 2009 05:20:20 +0000

2) Bell Hooks says that if you do something that your completely in love with or at least something that you enjoy, go ahead and pursue it. the money will follow you. I guess that if your really good at something it doesnt matter what it is eventually it will pay off in your benefit. For a lot of people this may be something amazing, a lot of people think what they need is just a great paying job because really thats what a lot of people are studying in school for. It’s really encouraging to hear someone say do what you want and the money will follow.

Gender

esmeflo90 — Thu, 10 Dec 2009 05:12:45 +0000

1) he suggests that biology and evolution are the reasons behind who we are wand what we choose to do in our lives. His main claim is that there are sex differences in everything ans associates it with Nature vs nurture.

3) pinker claims that sex discrimination has vanished which is completely false, everywhere you go in one form or another you can find someone in some sort of business thinking that the promotion will go to a male employee and not a female employee. Often the reasons are behind myths that all women or all men handle themselves in the same manner. Someone of an important company might hand over a promotion to a male worker because he fears that if he were to give the position to a woman she’d crack under the pressure, which could happen to anyone not just specifially a woman.

The other gender gap

esmeflo90 — Thu, 10 Dec 2009 05:02:30 +0000

1)Barko talks about how we have come far in the fact that women and men can do the same kinds of work. they can work in companies side by side, but the fact is that although we may think of these people as equals , men and women are often paid significantly different wages.

Women and work

esmeflo90 — Thu, 10 Dec 2009 04:50:09 +0000

1) Lesuer speaks about how women , when she was growing up and through most pf her adult life were supposed to make a living. she talks about what the choices she has for careers, she could be a teacher, a nurse, a china painter, embroider, or quit maker and she even mentions whore. she mentions a few of the activities that women were supposedly doing at home. During these times when men were fighting the war. women were not even allowed to take some of the courses that men were allowed to take in college, they were encouraged to take domestic sciences. so they were being taught to do things within the household.

2) when she calls Hollywood a “meat market” she refers having to show off your legs everyday when you wanted a job for the day and just overall looking good to get the part in a film. it definitely still holds true today, everything in Hollywood is based on looks, if you dont have the perfect body, or have a pretty face, Hollywood talent scout gladly reject you.

making peace with the Greeks

esmeflo90 — Thu, 10 Dec 2009 00:21:07 +0000

1) I feel that what Ashton did by having a talk with the members of the fraternity was at the time “sucking up” but what she didn’t realize was that those methods of having your students take the reigns of the class by suggesting something that could be beneficial for everyone makes a lot more of a difference. Students, like to be treated as adults to and also praised for their positive efforts. I feel that this tactic is used mostly on adults, trying to butter them up so that you can get something in return whether your doing it to your parents for a new car, or to a teacher for an extension on a paper. I felt that was exactly what she did. She didn’t realize that what she was doing by “sucking up to them” was testing out a new tactic of getting her class less rowdy and that could have been something that she could use later on. It also got her to realize that just because someone has joined a fraternity doesn’t make them the stereotypical binge drinker who stays up all night and went to college just so they could party. she was able to see that there was more to them.

2) I think the audience for this article is teachers like herself that may benefit for the path that she took in handling this dilemma that presented itself in the form of 11 fraternity brothers. I think she wanted people to stop think outside the box. Sometimes we have wrong assumptions about certain things, and if people read the situation she was put in , maybe people would understand. I feel like these frat boys are guys who are right before Ashton’s eyes evolving into the men that they are going to become. I guess they proved her wrong in the sense that just because something appears to be a certain way doesnt always mean it is.

3) the fraternity brothers in this essay were acting perhaps the way that all fraternity brothers act, spontaneous, loud, and joke alot around each other. their attitude in her classroom gave off the idea to Ashton that they were all about partying and ahving fun. what Ashton didn’t know was that behind those partier personas were 11 guys that were perfectly capable of being mature and stepping up to the plate when she asked them to interact more with the class and make eveyone feel like they were part of the group.

4) I think a teacher can acknowlegdge studen’t group identities by the way they interact with each other when put in some sort of group. A student can’t just sit there in class and not really participate by not raising their hand and be thought of as unintelligent. I feel that is the case for alot of students; they have a lot to say but don’t feel the need to say things sometimes because they aren’t being put in group discussions and as a result aren’t being asked to get to know any of the other students in class. Even so, what i’m getting at is that the more comfortable a student feels in his or her classroom will determine how much a teacher can get out of them.

Reptile dreams

esmeflo90 — Wed, 09 Dec 2009 23:44:49 +0000

1) In the opening paragraph Bradsher announces that “Clotaire Rapaille seems an unlikely person to have reshaped American automotive market research and marketing.” he says this because of the fact that Clotaire Rapaille was a Frenchmen. He later goes on to tell Rapaille’s experiences as a young boy coming in contact with an American soldier and wanting to be like him because he seemed powerful and strong, unlike the french who were fearful and the Germans who seemed cruel. He makes it clear that from that point on rapaille’s life became influenced by the power that he had seen in that American soldier and his vehicle.

2) I’m a little uncertain about the way i feel about Rapaille. I admire him for being able to come to this country and have such a huge influence on the marketing of SUV’s. He came here at 38 years old and was able to become highly successful, but i also feel like the approach he was using was only half way there. He was primarily interested in marketing these cars to men, and was leaving women out of the equation.

3)I think in his essay Bradsher presents rapaille’s views more favorably then anything else. he seems to like what he was able to do with the company and the way that these vehicles (SUV’s)were marketed.

4)The way that SUV automobiles , for the most part is pretty sexist. It describes how the typical male wants to see themself, strong, and wanting something that makes them live on the edge a “reptilian” sense, a sense of survival. I think that they are doing a way better job aiming at the men and not at the women. shouldn’t they do a better job trying to aim at both sexes instead of just focusing on the males?

common scents

esmeflo90 — Wed, 09 Dec 2009 23:06:45 +0000

1) Barry’s grandmother seems, although humorous,makes an interesting point. she basically says that everyone is a certain way, she says that everyone expels odors and that their not all going to be pleasant smells. people can complain about the way certain people smell, but to someone else the scent of your home could be offensive. It does seem like what her grandmother said was something philosophical;its something that is about understanding ones self and the culture that they come from, for example the cuisine and the fact that a lot of the people in her household were smokers and used certain products for their hair and on their skin.

2) I think Barry’s thesis in her comic strip is basically we come from different backgrounds and that our homes are a reflection of what our culture is like including the scents coming from it.

3) I think the narrator has put herself in the comic as the little girl who asks everyone about the scents she is smelling coming from other peoples homes. She puts some personal pieces in there about her family and maybe she adds a little bit of an exageration when she talks about how some smells are over powering. there are alot of people who associate some sort of bad food smell with a certain country. I’ve known a lot of people to do that.

Should English be the law?

esmeflo90 — Wed, 09 Dec 2009 22:33:54 +0000

1) I think King’s basic claims for ” should english be the law” ar that living in the united states people should know how the language , just because of the fact that live here. He speaks about other cultures around the world for example people who come from central America and mexico are very reluctant to give up speaking their native language. He feels that people shouldn’t forget their native language altogether, it is beneficial to know their language, but knowing english is also something that they should know. English is a language that is known throughout the world and can be very beneficial to take the time to learn. I feel like a lot of people who immigrate to this country and have children are exposed to english and how to understand it, the problem sometimes is communicating. For the longest time my parents and i were able to have a conversation with them speaking to me in spanish and me responding in english, and we understood ourselves perfectly well. Today my parents have improved their english because my brothers and i continually speak to them in english and also the time that they have spent here and in their jobs.

Witness

esmeflo90 — Wed, 09 Dec 2009 02:18:39 +0000

1) I think the author decided to call the essay witness because he wants to describe as the witness to what has happened to him, for you to be a witness to his tragedy and in losing his left leg and also losing the will to live. I feel like the term “witness” is a verb because i think he wants us to see or imagine what it was like to go through what he went through.

2) the essay is pretty powerful on its own, and it being told straight form the author is much more powerful then if it were told by the perspective of another person. The perspective of another person could also benefit in telling us how they see this person , but on the other hand they wouldn’t know the thoughts that were going through this man’s head at the time, which is very important for the reader to know.

4)”everything I have written here seems flat: horns dissonant, the drums lagging, the piano choppy. today the light came : I’m here” I think the reason he chose to end his essay this way was because he wanted to let the readers know that his life was an unhappy one and he expected to come to some conclusion about the way he felt about his life, and it seems that at the end of his essay he lets us know that life for him hasn’t been good , he hoped to know how he would feel at one point in his life and it seems he doesn’t feel good about it.