Four Readings and Where am I

“Transmissions from Camp Trans”

Claim- Transsexuals have a harder time in todays society than "normal" person, but this camp provides a safe haven for them.

Type- Classical

“Dark Webs Goth Subcultures in Cyberspace”

Claim- Internet goth blogs and pages give the mengtal view of what we might see as goth but the true person who is actually goth on these sites might not actually. "appear" as we think they should.

Type- Toulmin

“The Truck Stop as Community and Culture”

Claim- The truckers community is not as cowboyish as people think it is.

Type- Toulmin

“House for the Homeless”

Claim- The homeless are not just a bunch of hopeless, mentally ill, dreamless people. They are not all the same. They have real aspirations and agendas just like the average person.

Type- Rogerian

In my research process I have started on making my out line for my paper. I have already been too my field site and I'm going throughthe process of appyling what informaiton I have to my thesis and trying to get this information to be five pages. I sill need to extend my paper and I planning to look a bit more informatoion on other subtopics that shall go in my paper.

Field site Observation

Friday even March 28, 2008 I took the train from Holmes train station to the West End Station. I met with one of the members of the subculture, prostitution, which I will be observing and researching in the following weeks. The girl, whom I met by the West End train Station, is apart of the unique subculture of prostitution. She is about my age, 19 years old. She is a few inches taller than me, had dark smooth skin, and looked like she weighed about 130-135lbs, and was African American. As we met up and exchanged greetings we began to walk toward the street where she usually began her business for the day. (You are probably wandering how I found a subject to meet with and observe in this unique subculture. This answer is I knew this girl before she decided on such an interesting choice of jobs. I contacted her recently and asked would she mind me interviewing her for the subculture I was researching and observing) the area were she started off her day was very urban many of the houses looked dingy, run down, and old. The streets were small in narrow like many of those in the down town area and they had slightly headed down both ways of the main streets. I heard many cars playing rap music some doing what you would call, beating down the block( playing music loud from your car speakers, usually one installed, you feel the music rumbling through your house)and people some people shouting greeting toward my friend as she came down to the street she live and did business on. She lived in the section they called Pittsburgh. These are some of the questions I asked her and responses she gave:
Q- How long have you lived out here?
A- About a year and four to six months
Q- How long have you been doing turning tricks?
A- About a year and two months
Q- Why did you start prostituting?
A- I started doing this because I could not find a job I needed money and this was easy fast money. It’s not hard at all I could probably make 150-250$ in a couple of hours and be done working for the rest of the day.

There were many more questions I asked that day but this is all I am about to blog for the moment.

Act V- Questions/Answers

Q- What do the individuals in the subculture value?

A- They value being treated like human beings.

Q- What they disdain or what is taboo?

A- They do not like being treated like animals or discussing the crimes they committed.

Q- How do they obtain group membership?

A- To obtain group membership they only have to ask to join.

Q- What activities are important to the subculture?

A- Being involved in an activity to keep their minds active is important to them. An exsample is the acting that the do.

Q- What artifacts or behaviors are important to the subculture?

A- Being able to be themselves and not have to put up a tough front is valuable to them.

Prostitution

Research Topic: Prostitution

Citations:

"prostitution." Encyclopædia Britannica. 2008. Encyclopædia Britannica Online. 17 Mar. 2008 .

"qedesha." Encyclopædia Britannica. 2008. Encyclopædia Britannica Online. 17 Mar. 2008 .

"Sluts and Riot Grrrls: Female Identity and Sexual Agency." Journal of Gender Studies. Nov. 2007.Ebsco Host.17 Mar.2008

"The Trials and Tribulations of Being a 'Slut' - Ethical, Psychological, and Political Thoughts on Polyamory." ETHICAL Slut. Dec. 2006. Ebsco Host.17 Mar.2008.

Hubbard, Phil. Matthews, Roger. Scoular, Jane."Regulating sex work in the EU: prostitute women and the new spaces of exclusion".Gender, Place & Culture: A Journal of Feminist Geography.2008.Ebsco Host. 17 March 2008.

Which Article Helped me the Most:
The item from above that helped me the most was the excerpt from the Britannica Encyclopedia about prostitution. This piece helped to broaden my thoughts on what prostitution is thought of. It helped me see how other cultures viewed prostitution and see some of the losses and gains of prostitution socially. I learned that in some cultures prostitutes are used to help others worship the god(s) that they serve.And I learned that it could be legal in some areas, but still looked down upon. Another thing I learned was how prostitution in some places is used as a way for girls to acquire a rite to puberty.

Geeks, Nerds, or Genius

My Topic: Geeks/Nerds/Genius

Citations:

Bennis, Warren. Geeks & Geezers: How Era, Values, and Defining Moments . Boston: Harvard Business School Press, 2002.

GEEK FESTIVAL 2.0 FEATURES WII COMPETITION AT SCIENCE MUSEUM OF VIRGINIA. 2008, February 13. US Fed News Service, Including US State News. Retrieved March 13, 2008,from Research Library database. (Document ID: 1429937141).

When Nerds Turn to Jocks. 2008 March. March 14, 2008, From Research Library Database. (Document ID: 31213150).

NUGENT, BENJAMIN . "American Nerd: The Story of My People." Vol. 255 11 Feb. 2008 p58-59. 14 Feb 2008

Bowman, James. "Nerd-Do-Wells.Find More Like This." Ebsco Host. Feb. 2008. 14 Mar 2008.

Reflection: The Article that helped me on the topic I plan to do research on is "Nerd-Do-Wells". This Article was more on the line to the type pf nerd I was looking to talk about in my paper. The type of nerd that I was looking to talk about in my paper was nerd that are intellects. Some of the other articles I looked at talked more about nerds acoording to what type of groups a person was associated with that most Americans viewed as weird such as: medieval festivals, comic books, bugs, and etc. This article went to explaining how nerds are perceivcd wrong in our society,and how they should be perceived. It helped me see nerds in a new light and see what other things I should focus on writing in my paper.

Francis Farmer

In class the other day we went to the library so that we could learn from the librarian how to research information using databases and scholarly recourses such as Galileo, Ebsco Host and Google scholar. After the librarian showed us how to use the sources to our advantage we used what we had learnde to research our own subject. the subject (person)that I choose to research was Francis Farmer, whom was mentioned in an article that we read in class.Although there was much information on nonscholarly databases about Francis Farmer I found little information on Francis Farmer using the databases I had seen the librarian use. this is the information I found using some of the databases the librarian showed me.
Francis Farmer was an actress in the mid 1930’s. “The story of the rapid rise and tragic descent of Frances Farmer, the 1930's Hollywood actress, has been told before -- most memorably in the 1982 film ''Frances,'' starring Jessica Lange. It would be hard for any actress to compete with Ms. Lange's heartbreaking performance…” (Hoban 17). Francis Farmer was the rock star of her day. She went through the classic quick rise to fame, controversial views, diminishing mental stability, big comeback, then tragic death ( she died from Esophageal cancer).

Researching Process

The person that I researched was Ice Cube. In order to research some information on him I went on the internet. I choose to look up information on the internet,about Ice Cube, because the internet was the easy to access and it was quick and easy to get such an abundant amount of information off the internet in a short period of time. When I opened up the internet, by clicking on the E-net icon on the desktop, I typed in google.com int the search slot located at the top of the internet screen. I choose to look up information on google because google was a common search engine that I usually used to look up information for projects and was very suceesful with looking up information on. When I arrived at the google search engine I clicked of web for the where I wanted to look up information. in the box titled search I typed in Ice Cubes name. When I did this google came up with over 388,000 websites with ice cube mentioned on them or actual information on Ice Cube. I choose to look at the first five websites that popped up with Ice Cube's name on them. After looking at these websites and getting a few bits and pieces of information off them I typed in another search term. I did this in order to get more information on Ice Cube's life when he first became known publicly (and before he became know publicly), because the first term I had typed in had given me more information about what he was doing now, and I wanted more background information. The term that I typed in to get background information on Ice Cube was Ice cube- biography. When I typed this term google came up with over 197,000 websites that had Ice Cube's biography in them. When I looked on about three of these websites I found a lot of the background information that could help improve some parts of my paper. This was the research process that I used.

Tricia Rose

Tricia Rose is a professor of African studies at Brown University. She is also a feminist and Hip-Hop scholar and a native new yorker. She specializes in Black Culture, Black politics, Black social thought, Male/Female issues and popular culture. She is also the Author of a very informative book titled Black Noise: Rap Music and Black Culture in Contemporary America. I feel this would be an excellent literary resource on the subject of Hip Hop for the following reasons. This book had a very well written analysis on the biography of Hip-Hop music. It doesn't criticize this very innovative, historic, important, complex, raw art form. It is a very honest, clear, eye-opening and compelling look into the very real world of Hip-Hop. This book verbalized the realness of Hip-Hop. When I read this book, it gave me many thoughts. It made me think Hip Hop is a raw expression of feelings that are at times so unrefined, it may come of as brash, abrasive, misogynous, demeaning and offensive. All of the previous things said add up to Hip Hop equaling real human emotion. Every thing that one feels is not always good or pure or innocent or holy or moral and that is just reality. Hip-Hop can be a grim, startling, harsh look into reality at times, it can be the underworld that proper society wants to over look and ignore and act as if it doesn't exist. Hip Hops is real, grimy, hood, gutter, unrefined, ingenious, love, hate, harmony, self love, reality, truth, dreams, happiness, sadness, sorrow, drama, pain, ecstasy, lows and highs.. All of this wrapped up in one. I think I would love this book because it expresses that. There are very few writers and people who understand this concept. For anyone and everyone who is looking for a meaningful and well-written analysis on the history of Hip Hop, I would strongly encourage reading this literary masterpiece.

Dizzee Rascal

Friday in English class we begin on new unit on Hip- Hop culture. In order to redirect our mind set off of America's Hip- hop culture Ms. Irving showed us afew clips of otherHip-hop artist performing in videos in other countries. Many of the videos that she showed in class had artist that looked and basically sounded like the American artist that we knew of. Another thing that stood out in the videos that she showed us was that the artist that rapped were mostly of different races, not just black people.

One of the artist that we viewed in class was Dizzee Rascal.
Dylan Mills is the rapper known as Dizzee Rascal. He was born October 1, 1985. Dylan Mills grew up in East London and was raised by his single mother in Bow, England. While he was growing up Rascal was somewhat of a problem child in the area he grew up in. He was kicked out of four schools and put in jail for stealing cars. Mills got introduced to the music seen by one of his educators, and begin to MC at the young age of fifteen. Dylan's style of rap was considered garage with fa mix of reggae and grunge. While Mcing he came up with a name Dizzee (his nickname) and Rascal ( what many of his teachers called him because of his devious ways in school). Threw this common style of rap that was being used by many of the rappers in his area Dylan Mills became widely know as Dizzee Rascal.
In 2003 Dizzee Rascal started to became a hit nationally with his album “ Boy in da Corner”. A few days before this record was released Dizzee was stabbed several times at Ayia Napaa (a hotel resort), but made a full recovery after the album was released. Since the album was so huge it earned Dizzee the U.K.'s prominent music award, the Mercury award.

Peer Review

Yesterday, February 4, 2008, I participated in peer reviews in English 1102. Peer reviews are readings where a fellow classmate looks over a draft of a paper another classmates writes and then gives that classmate advice as to how to improve on his work and vice versa. They are meant to help a writer create a better final product, and especially provide student writers with opinions of how they could better their paper before they turn it in to a professor. In The peer review group that I had their were three people assigned to the group including me. First the people in my group each read over one another's papers then commented to each other on what needed to be improved on the paper. We also filled out questionnaires for each of the papers we read to help us guide our reading and problem seeking. I found per review to be very helpful. It gave me more insight on what I was to suppose to be writing and what was missing in my paper. The things that worked well in my peer review group were telling each other what worked well in the paper first and then telling what was wrong in the paper ( giving criticism). The questions that were given by our teacher to help guide our peer review discussion were fa nice addition because they helped us figure out some things to look for in one another's paper. Another thing also that worked well in our group was writing comments on one another's papers so that if we did not have time to discuss all the good and bad things about our papers we could at least have comments on our papers as to what was wrong with them. There really was not any thing that I would not have done in the peer group that I was in. I liked peer review it really helped and I look forward to doing it again on future papers.

PCU Movie

The PCU movie that I viewed in class had many exaggerations and fallacies about the way that college student act. The movie was about a group of college rebels trying to raise enough money to save their “frat” house from being taken from them. All of the students in the movie were apart of different clubs or a group and no one ever went to an real class. The president over the school was the typical evil snooty get on your nerves mid forties lady villain. The movie was very unoriginal with the way it presented the false college life of the 90’s.
One of the main fallacies that stood out in the movie to me was how they had all these college students protesting and representing different issues with the world at the beginning of the movie. All of the students that were participating in the “anti-what ever” groups were all extreme radicals of the issues they were presenting and they were all protesting at the same time. The groups that they represented were all in whoever pasted by face and they posted flyers every where in the one little space that they were in. This fallacy stood out to me most because of how extreme everyone that belonged to a group was. There were for the most part no students that were “in-betweens” for the groups that they belonged to. As a matter of fact in the entire part of the movie that I saw there was only one person that was not an extremist in her group and even she was a typical for a movie, she was the love interest.
In real college there are many groups that students may join, but not all students participate in theses clubs. Also in college the groups that students do participate in, not all of the people in that group are extremist. And another thing about real college is that not all the groups that are formed met at the same time. These are the reasons this fallacy stood out to me.

The Aids Picture

The AIDS picture that was taken and posted on a bill boards around the country by United Colors of Benitick was a very controversial site when first viewed by people in the 90's. The picture caused many people to question why such a picture would be taken and think about how they viewed AIDS in their world of that day. Although the picture caused people to think upon these things no one truly new the reason why United Colors of Benitick posted such a picture and there were no words, other than what was on the company logo, to hint at why they might have put up the photograph for all the world see. The true reason that United Colors of Benitick posted the AIDS picture and other controversial pictures alike was to get a lot more publicity. The picture caused Benitick to become a house hold name. Once people saw the picture news spread about like a California brush fire. People started to argue amongst one another some saying that United Colors of Benitick posted the picture to bring people AIDS sympathy and support, while others said it was to bring AIDS awareness and caution the world about the disease. With so Many people talking about the picture United Colors of Benitick got more publicity than if it had done a commercial in the middle of the NFL super bowel. Not only did the company get much publicity but it gained being remembered by people. No one would forget such a photograph and the controversy that it raised. United Colors of Benitick succeeded in their publicity stunt to gain more notice.

I just created my blog.

I just created my blog.