Pg 172 Seeing # 1&2

1. Wherever heart is, that is usually home, for those who have deep roots in a certain place, that feeling is even greater. Movement and progression is wonderful, yet to truly be able to claim that you are from some where is another thing. It's things like the family that's had the house in their family for 100 years, or someone who has gone through disaster in an area but they kept their family there because they are just used to being there. You could probably even ask Hurricane Katrina victims, "why didn't you move out?", and they'd probably respond with something along the lines of the fact they didn't want to abandon their home.

2. I feel like the tone of the paper touches more on making your home one place and staying their. Along with giving the benefits of coming from a home that has been and is deeply tied to one area, while Richard Ford makes it seem like wherever you lay your head is home. I feel more at "home" with Sanders.

Seeing p538 1&2

1. Deresiewicz shows that in American mainstream we show our "working class" in some ways that simply aren't reality. From the films like "Million Dollar Baby", and "Good Will Hunting", or even "Simpsons" either show harsh extremes or play off the middle class for laughs. Today we lack a more realistic feel within media for the "working class", they show a regular family mom & dad, two children and one of the parents works really hard so they lead a nice life. What about the struggling mother with a child that works two jobs, or the father struggling to keep a job to pay his child support. Our media does a great job to smudge the line between working class from middle class as the two within media have seamlessly intertwined. To be honest the term working class doesn't really even exist even more. The poor has been pushed to the side, and you barely see them unless they beg you for change on the side of the sidewalk.

2. Deresiewicz audience was most likely someone caucasian, above the age of twenty-five and doesn't have the greatest grasp on the how others are doing outside of his or her community. To be honest if he ddn't directly link the working class with the south it opens the essay to really talk about America as whole, and not one who listens to country music and watches NASCAR.

P. 145 Seeing 1&2

1. Hirsch does a very detailed job in picking out each detail of the house making it seem like facial features of a person, from the roof, the windows, the door, and even the color of the house. The house in this picture sticks out from the point of view in terms of scale the house is giant and towering over everything in the picture, even though the only participants in the picture are the house, train tracks, and the sky. For my eyes the sky which was done with such grace catches my eye the most the shadow on the house relishes my eyes away, and until I look very closely I can't even see the train tracks. Hirsch does a great job in eloquently reinforcing the simple details of the painting making them major.

2. The features of the house such as the roof, the windows, and the shadow the house casts has been personified into more human like features and emotions drawn from these seemingly normal architectural features. Hirsch repeats certain phrases where the house appears to be holding it's breath underwater, and its also ashamed of itself. By simply repeating these lines it hammers home the theme of Hirsch's vision. Initially I just see a lonesome house from the train tracks, Hirsch adds such a dreary description of the house where it turns into a dark and almost haunted in a sense.

A Singular Story

Last week we watched a very inspiring and insightful video featuring a writer from Nigeria named Chimamande Adiche who presented a personal narrative essay on the dangers of a singular story. Not only did she keep my attention for the entire 15-20 minutes she spoke, I giggled, thought a little bit harder, questioned, and even at the conclusion of the video I thought to myself I need to watch this again. Today as I write this one of my friends tell me an old proverb that links directly to what she said, "never let a lion tell the history of a giraffe". Our singular stories limit us until we get the entire view, for a singular portion of the truth makes it false. I believe what she touched on was more then amazing, from the back story and how she brought in personal experiences that made the audience feel like they were right there with her in childhood days. She allows the audience to take a gander into the faults and success of her life, but without one or the other each side of the story is only a singular side. You can't have failure without accomplishment.

Journal: p.127 SEEING #1

Busch's wrote a magnificent essay dove into the value we as humans give to certain items. Somethings we see as amazing others may find as trash, many say "one mans trash is another mans treasure". Sometimes it is the stories behind an item that give it its value, for example you see an umbrella, to me and you it's regular, now let's say John F. Kennedy used the umbrella, now its allure and value change dramatically. Not only can the story behind something add to its value, but then again look at the sentimental value people attach to certain things...that can change everything. We both can own a blue shirt, but to me it could be my favorite blue shirt, if you lost your shirt you'd be okay with it and probably buy another, but me on the other hand I'd be hurt, crushed, and pain-stricken. For me one of my most sentimental things I hold dear, are not material things but things my close friends have given me. A doodle from one of my best friends in my hometown, the pamphlet from my great grandmothers funeral, and a ring on a string necklace from the first girl I ever fell in love with. The type of things you can't replace or duplicate are the ones I hold dear. I feel like Busch covers most collective relationships, except for things on a material level, like when sneakers are over 300 dollars and my friends look at me like why is this? Then I have to tell them on the history of the shoe, when it came out, how many were made, and it brings me back to the core of this essay...the story behind our every day things.

Journal pg. 94 Seeing 1&2

1. The very first thing I recognized was the poster of Bruce Lee on the wall his snarl and recognizable face caught my eye, that's one of my childhood favorites. Secondly the basketball posters and cards on the wall drew my attention, simply because they are objects I really enjoy as well. His room is almost overly nostalgic in a sense and is fitting for a teenage boy. The cultured tones, mixed with everything a kid would love, sports, kung-fu, music, and so forth. From this piece of work I can tell that Osorio's style goes above and beyond to hammer his point home.

2. Still being 18, I'm still within my teenage years, and spotting such things such as basketball posters, a pair of turntables, car posters, and a Bruce Lee poster on the wall made me feel nostalgic to the point where I wanted to actually call my mother and ask where were some of my objects like this. Yet the glass mirror floors, and hands reaching out of the walls holding basketballs kind of send it over the top to where it falls over the thin line of fiction and fantasy. To some point the room hits all major factors of a teenage boys dream room, but that's the point exactly most teenage boys dream of something this cool. The room comes out as an over glossed fantasy that has some outright outrageous things. Non the less I don't think the average fifteen year old has mirrors on his floor.

Pg 91 Seeing #1&2

1. Cole does an amazing job on bringing things down to scale. Focusing on the smaller things that we seem to overlook, our perception is what deceives us in the end. Cole is is infatuated with the scale on which we look at things and how they would look to others, imagine what the world is to an ant, or how gargantuan the sea or sky is. Cole's essay changed my perception in the manner that what humans see is microscopic compared to what really is going on. Microorganisms living all over our bodies and inhabiting the earth that we can barely see let alone probably see our bodies as walking planets. To experience things in a different manner we have films like "Honey I Shrunk The Kids" that puts the viewer in shoes of a human that sees blades of grass as skyscrapers. Yet to some extent Cole's essay doesn't necessarily change my outlook, what isn't seen isn't known, well at least until you bring a high powered microscope.

2. I believe that Cole ends her essay with a quote to set a familiar tone, if the reader is familiar with the authors work they would relate the ideals of the other work with Cole's. Maybe she was influenced heavily by the author and believed that it set the tone in closing. If she didn't use a quote, maybe the reader wouldn't relate her ending point with another author and it could've been stronger maybe if it were her words. Schrodinger's paragraph runs a little long but the first sentence embodies the thesis of the essay perfectly and would've fitted better. Throughout the entire essay certain things are noted and summarized, it gives a little more insight to what influenced the essay, and what work went into it. Some of the notes being her own, some of the references very recognizable and insightful, and they all make the reading easier.