Andres Llamas

English 115

Professor Rowley

3 Dec, 2012

My Influence to Excel

 

Going into college I was unsure of the skills and capabilities that I had gathered over my high school years. I knew I had paid attention to what I was taught but the actual material I thought had not prepared me for college level courses so naturally I was skeptical. My senior year of high school was especially less structured. My teacher had just been hired at the school and this was his first time teaching an Honors English class. The entire year, I spent it watching movies and reading books and short essays that did not teach me anything about how to better my skills in literature. When I found out that my SAT scores had jumped me from the basic English level courses to 115, again I was fearful. I thought that I was going to sink as soon as the semester began and that I was going to fail it all together. I quickly realized that I was not going to be thrown into the shark tank, but rather guided by a motivated and dedicated professor.

            The first day of class was the day I saw that I was not going to be allowed to fail. It was clear to see that my professor was one who was determined to see her students succeed and excel. She was not the type to sit idly by and let her students slowly drown and leave their grades in their own hands. With the weekly exercises on grammar improvement, vocabulary expansion and readings on thesis building and how to improve your essays, I feel I learned a lot. I do know that my grammar and actual sentence structure needs work because I have had so many years of what I call loose instruction, which is basically not being instructed on correct punctuation, or grammar.

            All of the newly acquired skills that have been taught to me over this last semester, I can acknowledge still need fine tuning. Through the semester though I have gained a valuable base upon which I can build my skills further. I will be able to use this base that I have to articulate my thoughts and emotions better to my peers and professors now that I have gotten the fundamentals required for higher levels of English classes. I am very grateful to my hard working professor for giving me these skills. Thank you professor Rowley.

Life Change

Andres Llamas

Professor Rowely

Engl 115

23 September 2012

Taunting Reflection

Many of us as humans desire a chance to change or enhance ourselves. Why is this? Is it because we want to make up for our past? Tweak our perceptions of the now? Ensure a certain future? Why is it that for most, we embark on this journey at the beginning of another great passage in our lives, a passage known as college? Is the need for this change brought on by the simple fact that we are transcending the confines and prejudices of high school and stepping into the free world that we see as college? No matter the reason, a change in some way or another, calls to us all with its promise of a blank slate, a fresh start, and a clean canvas. Change entices because it gives everyone the same and equal opportunity to reinvent themselves and wash away the taunting distain that haunts our present and jeopardizes our future; for me, my distain was that of self-acceptance and coming to terms with who I truly am and who I was pretending to be.

As I stated, many people desire a change in their lives for some reason or another. For me, it was a combination of several things. My reasons ranged from wanting to fit in, to trying to differentiate myself from others, to wanting to be happy, to trying to please others no matter what the cost. At the beginning of freshman year of high school, I tried to make a change. I thought it would be easy seeing as how I was attending an entirely new school, where no one knew me and I could be whoever I wanted, but I was wrong. Although I was in a new setting, inside I was still the same; I still carried all of my same mannerisms. To try and solve my problem, I tried changing my overt appearance. I tried to dress like the new kids, but that didn’t work either. I tried changing the way I spoke and expressed myself but that also did not work. No matter what I tried, it seemed to lead me to no avail. Along with all of my failed attempts, I also had to struggle with the conflict between my true self and my fake self, which would eventually prove to be too much. I carried on aimlessly and mindlessly through that whole year without caring about much, except trying to reach the light at the end of the tunnel, which for me was going back to my old high school.

I walked in through the sky blue doors of El Camino Real High School, to what I thought I would be able to call home, only to realize that home had changed a lot. All of the people I had once called friends, had all changed drastically, while I remained the same. They all acclimated to the new environment while I was stuck in the old one. It didn’t hit me right away, but I was in the same place that I had been in at the other high school; I was new, had no friends, and I still felt out of place. I was again faced with the same problem of having to change. This time I took a different approach, and began with changing who I was on the inside and how I saw things. Before, I always put others before myself. I let people use me as whatever they needed just so they would be happy. So when I decided, “enough was enough” I knew exactly where to start. I was going to put myself first and make myself happy before everyone else. I chose to stop caring about what others thought and what others said, and put my emotions and thoughts first. As soon as I decided to make this change, everything in my life changed. I went from being forgotten and ignored, to being sought out and sociable. I quickly made new friends and got involved in things like my high school swim team where I made even more friends. Everything was finally looking up for me, all except one thing, and I wouldn’t confront that until my senior year.

Going into my senior year, I was the guy that everyone knew, and I knew everybody. I thought I finally had everything I wanted, all except for one thing. Everything that everyone saw or thought about me was actually a lie. For years, I had become accustomed to wearing a mask, a mask that hid from everyone, including myself, who I really was. Everyone saw a sympathetic, genuinely nice guy who never seemed to be able to maintain a relationship with a girl. All of the things they thought were true, except for the fact that they thought my sexual interest was in a female, when it was really with a male. All those years that everyone asked why things wouldn’t work out, or why I didn’t have a relationship with a girl was because I didn’t want one with a girl. I was a gay teenager who longed to finally be able to be open about who I was so I could get to experience that part of myself. I had told a few friends by this time and each of them were telling me to do the same thing and come out.

I have a really “no nonsense; this is the cold harsh reality of life” friend named Angie who really helped me on my journey. Every once in a while when I would come to her telling her of the same desire I had, she would say the same thing, “then just freaking do it!” “It’s your life right? Shouldn’t you be the one who’s happy in it?” Every time she would ask me these questions, and every time my answer was “yes.” Toward the end of my senior year I finally had had enough and came out. I decided to let my boyfriend at the time finally upload the pictures he had wanted of the two of us to Facebook for all to see. To this day, opening that metaphoric closet door that we all have heard of, is the best decision I have made. Since opening it, I finally feel free; I feel free form the judgmental shackles that I myself had placed on the entire situation constantly fearing what others would say, how I would be treated, and what would become of all the friends I had made over the last three years. I quickly realized that the only thing I had to fear was the fear itself because everyone stood beside me. As word got out no one believed it. Everyone was so certain that I was straight and just hadn’t found that right girl yet; when the dust began to settle, I opened my eyes to see that I was not standing alone and that all of my friends, were still there standing beside me.

I also used the mask to hide myself from my family. Growing up Catholic and very religious, you are taught that being a gay man was a bad thing. I was told that others like me would “burn in a lake of fire for eternity” once judgment came; as a young teen these words filled me with fear, not only of what would happen to me in the end but of fearing what my family would do or say if they found out the truth about who I really was. This was another fear that I built up too much in my head. When I did come out, all of my family accepted me just as I am.

When to make this change is a daunting question. Today, many make a change at the beginning of college. Why college? College is the time when people make a change because here, they are unknown. It is a complete new chapter in a person’s life and they have the freedom to mold themselves into whatever they dream. For centuries, college has been described as a place to expand one’s mind and fill it with knowledge and make choices that will shape our futures, so what better place than college? In high school, you have a reputation; everyone expects you to be a certain person or behave a specific way. In college, no one expects anything from you. You have the freedom to become and try whatever you want. In 1984, the author Jennifer Crichton published an article in Ms. Magazine titled “Who Shall I Be,” which centered entirely on change and how there are many different types of change. One of my favorite truths from her article is that, there is no set time frame in which you must change. A person has their entire life to make any changes or adjustments to their character because as long as you want to change something, you can.

Change is something that calls to everyone at some point because it is that sense of refreshing not only yourself but your entire life and perspective. A change can be anything from an external change like, the way you wear your hair to an internal one like mine, where I came to terms with my sexuality. Regardless of the change you want to make, the only way you will come out of it happy is if you make it for you. No one should feel pressured to make a change by a certain time because just as Jennifer Crichton said, “I have the slate of the rest of my life to write on.”

Dark Night Essay

Andres Llamas

Professor Rowley

Engl 115

21 Oct 2012

Comic Book Chaos in the Real World

In today’s society there are many different aspects that create what is known as a hectic and chaotic life, anything from wake up routines in the morning, to the traffic encountered every day, from the office politics to conducting the miniature circus that most call family at home. No matter what a person’s life may consist of, there is always some form of chaos involved in it, just as how in the 2008 film The Dark Knight the infamous comic book villain the Joker exists to purely create chaos and plunge the city of Gotham into madness. But just as the Joker caused chaos in Gotham, the Batman, the comic book’s super hero, added order and structure back the city. Even in a society when just about every aspect of life is chaotic, it only takes one to add structure and order to the madness that we know as life. This shows how important order is to society because without it, everything we value and hold dear could crumble.

            In Christopher Nolans 2008 Batman: The Dark Knight, the public is introduced into the dichotomy that is the battle between good and evil. In The Dark Knight, the Batman (good) is put up against one of the most infamous comic book villains known in pop culture today, the Joker (evil). In today’s society there are many different people and forces that could be categorized as either of the two; everything from law enforcement, which in special circumstances could be either good or evil just as in the film. In the film we see the Joker trying to wreak havoc on the people of Gotham, trying to “stir the pot.” In today’s world something like, criminals could be compared to the Joker and his antics. Any kind of criminal, whether they are rapists, thieves, or launderers, cause chaos or problems for people in everyday life. Along with the Jokers in society, there are also any different forces that can be called Batman; law enforcement for example could be characterized as the Batman of society trying to restore order to the community. There may be some who oppose my theory but there are also people who share my view on the subject.

            In a critique, edited by Sonia Maasik and Jack Solomon, about the Dark Knight movie poster alone, one of the things discussed is how the Joker relates to a very real threat that America faces today and that is terrorists. Since the infamous 9/11 tragedies Americans have become much more alert and unified against terrorist forces. As the editors Maasik and Solomon put it, “This image would be immediately recognizable to American audiences as alluding to the September 11 attacks on the World Trade Center and is a key signifier…” (Maasik, Solomon 370.) The image mentioned in the editors text is of the movie poster for the film which has a burning sky scrapper which is very easily associated with the burning buildings that was the World Trade Center on that dreadful day eleven years ago. The Batman standing in front of the burning building is a symbol to which we can elude the forces of good and aid in reality in real life such as policemen, the army, the navy, and any other forces that provide a positive and reinforcing influence on our society. The example of the movie poster is just one example of how people today associate chaotic events or tragic events with just about anything and how just about any person, group, or object can be eluded to good or evil; order and chaos.

            The Joker of The Dark knight is unlike any other because he is not influenced by the same common things that every other petty criminal is driven by like money, power, or revenge. The Joker is driven by pure madness; he has one goal in mind and that is to cause chaos for the people of Gotham and that is it. There is one specific scene in the film where he is talking to Gotham’s supposed “true hero” Harvey Dent, who later becomes the villain Two Face, in which he explains his motives and philosophy for the first time. The Joker explains that his intentions are not to gain anything, they are not to force control over the people of Gotham nor the mafia factions of the city but simply to “introduce a little anarchy.” (Leger, 2008) Not only does he use his own plans to create chaos and anarchy as is true when he forces the two fairies to choose who will live and who will die but he also creates others such as Harvey Dent to aid him in his plan. Harvey Dent is to the Joker as an intern is to a politician. A politician takes in a young intern or aspiring politician and grooms him/her to take over their seat when they retire. In doing so they impose their beliefs on them and in some way recreate themselves for another term. Just as politicians do today on Capitol Hill, the Joker took Gotham’s white knight, Harvey Dent, and twisted and morphed his perspective turning him into the villain Two Face who is obsessed with luck deciding fate as opposed to any set of social rules to keep balance and structure. The Batman being the city’s real hero quickly acts to amend the abomination created by the master fiend. Seeing what has become of the white knight, Batman decides to try and help him but by this time it is too late. Two Face or Harvey Dent dies in the struggle between Batman and himself; rather than allow the public to lose hope in public heroes or in the organized system, the Batman takes the fall for all of Harvey’s misdeeds, and in turn he himself becomes the villain. This chaos and spread of anarchy is not only seen in films but in the real world as well with everyday people.

            In order to prove that it only takes one to actually introduce some organization to chaos, I myself performed an ethnographic study (a study of an area/location where people gather and socialize and one observes the behavior expressed there.) I went out to a night club where just the thought or mention of the word many think crowded, noisy, and of course, chaotic. As soon as I arrived I saw that there was a lined that had been formed in front of the main entrance doors before actually getting to buy your ticket and entering the club. Obviously the line was not something orchestrated by the crowd itself but b someone else. Now who could have organized all of these energetic, young, rambunctious young adults, myself included, into such an organized matter? As I approached the main doors, I got an answer to my question; it was the night club security. In this somewhat twisted version (for the sake of relativity) of the film, the side of structure and organization is represented by the night club security; we will call them the batman team. The crowd represented the disarray and chaos that is the Joker. Now not only was this little generalization true outside of the night club, but it was also true inside the club. Posted at every door, outside the restrooms and in all of the main passage ways was security. Their job that night was to make sure everything ran smoothly and that nothing got too out of hand. Just as expected, the batman team held strong and no wild Jokers had to be escorted out of the club.

            No matter how hectic or mad any situation, it only takes something as simple as some pre planning or possibly something as complicated as law enforcement or in a national matter, a branch of the army to re-instill structure. Every day can be a constant battle between order and chaos; it’s ironic how the more one tried to avoid it, the more they actually encounter in their life. Just as in the film, the chaos was defeated and order was triumphant. When things seem their darkest and most out of control always recall upon the words of Harvey Dent, “the night is darkest just before the dawn.” (Aaron Eckhart, 2008)

Creation or Possible Abomination?

Artificial minds, is this really possible? I feel that humans one day will be able to create some form of artificial intelligence in the future that can compute, analyze and react to its stimuli like humans do. As expressed in the article Artificial Minds by Jason Holt, it is possible, but can this pose a threat? In is article he uses the example of the movie the Matrix to prove is point. Yes, that is just a film, along with the Terminator and the Alien movie series which all have and use a form of artificial intelligence. I think that within the next 10 years we will have actual mobile robots that can process and analyze information and scenarios presented to them. One of the main arguments of the article is that computers cannot act as we do because they lack a mind, or that computers can be like us because we don’t have a mind. I don’t think that either one of these points of views is correct. I feel that humans have a mind, if we didn’t have a mind, then how is it that we have been able to develop such intricate technology and solve world problems in civilized manners. Robots, to my knowledge, have processing centers which allows for them to react. Now if you think about it then we humans also have processing centers which we call our brain. Now the next possible problem is the robots beginning to think too much on their own and rebel against their creators like in I, Robot. But I don’t think that technology will ever get to the point where it will rebel against us.

Can This Love Be Real?

This is finally something I can wrap my head around, technology and love. In the 2001 film Artificial Intelligence the people of that society and time explore the idea of a synthetic being that can not only respond to external stimuli such as pain but that can also comprehend and feel emotions like love. To us in 2012, this seems like a foreign concept, a completely outlandish notion. “A machine that can love, not possible.” But that is only because we do not view the entire spectrum of what machines already do for us in today’s society. If one is really to think about it machines do just about everything for us; machines wash our clothes, brew our coffee, and even brush our teeth. There is still one very important piece of technology that allows for even a wider range of functions to be carried out, the cell phone. A cell phone allows anyone to do just about anything from talk to someone face to face using face time, to order your dinner so you can just pick it up, or send a text to a family or friend expressing how much you care for them. In the film they succeed in creating their synthetic being, a child who can love, but as predicted the problem then becomes the human, us, being able to love a robot. I have no doubts or reserves about us one day being able to create a robot who can understand and express the human emotions we take for granted but then the problem I see, just as in the film is us the creators being able to love our creation in return.

Not Another Lit posting

I haven't uploaded a post recently mainly because I haven't been reading the assigned class articles, but here goes another posting on the exciting read that is English 115. For this week we were assigned to read two different articles both taking a different stance on technology and how it is viewed and used in modern day society. The first article I read was written by Sherry Turkle and is titled Can You Hear Me Now? This article focused mainly on what technology is doing today; how people have become reliant on their laptops, blackberrys, and tablets to communicate and relay information as quick as possible. I feel that this article did a really good job at countering her own argument which I feel gave her stance more credibility. She provided views form the other side of the argument and that allowed for the reader to weigh both sides of the topic. The next article was written by Clay Shirky and is titled Gin and Surplus. this article was  a bit more one sided. He used only his point of view for the article and did not give a lot of information on the other side which caused his argument to lack a bit of credibility like the last one had. While the last article focused on how people are with modern technology, this article focused mainly on the origins of this social revolution on he sitcom from years before. I personally think that the better article was the one written by Turkle because of the counter argument provided in the article. Her article was also much more optimistic as opposed to the cynical view of Shirkys article.

Confusion for Homework

Here’s another post for my English class guys. I had to read The Veldt by Ray Bradbury and all I have to say is what? I read this excerpt for class and thought I would understand what it had to do with but as I began to read it, I began to get lost in the reading. At first I believed it was going to be an excerpt about a happy married couple named George and Lydia Hadley who are discussing their children’s nursery. I was under the impression that their two children were around the age of one to two. As you read on you find out that the nursery is no ordinary nursery nut instead a high tech thought projector of some sorts. From what I gathered, this room is made of crystalline structures that illustrate whatever the subject is imagining. The two parents enter the “imaginarium” as I call it and get to see what it is that their children are thinking about. As they enter the room they see that their children spend a lot of their time imagining and playing in Africa. They not only see the scenery but also get to see the violence and hostility that their children imagine. They not only see the pride of lions eating their prey of the day. Seeing this, the two parents become alarmed and worried, call upon their trusted psychologist to analyze the situation. After analyzing the room he suggested that the children be given a break from the room. In the end it turns out that the children made the room come to life, and eat their parents. I got so lost in the reading of this story that I really stopped paying attention. Well I hope you enjoyed this blog guys.

Plugged In-ness: New Way of Life or Regression in Progress?

I recently read an article focused on how society is "plugged in" and beginning to seclude themselves from the real world. In today's society, whether it be for scholarly purposes or for personal interests, the Internet and technology are a necessity, but the question then becomes when is enough, enough? In the article titled Is Being "Plugged In" Changing College Campus Life? authors Liz Williams, Ethan Kolek, and Meg Kluge, students at the University of Massachusetts discuss the benefits and costs to technology and use of the Internet in the world today. Some of the topics discussed in the article are things from membership in campus groups and organizations decreasing in the last 20 years to how the Internet is beneficial in sharing information in a timely manner not only locally but across the world. In the article, the authors kept a very neutral stance on the subject, being careful to balance both sides of the argument but I can state my side a bit more clearly. Even though I agree with the authors that now because of technology, there has been a decrease in the "personal" aspect of actual socializing, I feel that things like phones, hand helds, and more recently tablets and ipads are more helpful than harmful. I do remember the days, although I was fairly young, when you could have a conversation with someone and have their full attention; today it is difficult to carry on a conversation with a person without hearing a chime or feeling a vibration in your pocket or purse alerting you that you got a text, Facebook notification or Tweet. The benefit of having your entire world in the palm of your hand is that you will never miss a single thing. Anyone in your close circle or friends, family, or loved ones can very easily send you the information necessary to keep up to date and informed; everyone can be up to date now. If it isn't all that clear, I'm for this new age that we are stepping into. I feel it will be the start to a new age enlightenment period where everyone will soon have access to all different kinds of information around the world. So when is enough ever enough, I feel that when it comes to acquiring information, there is never a limit that can be placed on it, after all, how can anyone place a limit on the ever expanding mind?

Facebook: Addiction or Healthy Habbit?

Facebook, the worlds largest most popular social networking site. Just about everyone in every culture has a Facebook account where they post status updates about their days, struggles, and thoughts, pictures and let others know where they are by checking in. As useful of a tool that Facebook is to reconnect with long lost friends, co-workers, or distant family, some have become addicted to it. Myself being an 18 year old college student can atest to the fact that I may spend too much time constantly checking on what my friends are doing, or uploading pictures and maybe sharing too much information about my life. As I came to the realization that I may share too much or spend too much time on Facebook I saw that as do many others. The X generation, as is called anyone born during the 90's, has grown up to rely on the internet and its various tools, like Facebook. You can log into Facebook at any given time on any given day and see a teen who a status update in the last 5 minutes or a photo of him/herself. You look around any campus, whether it be a high school, college, or university and you can see a large number of people using their phones or laptops to look at what everyone they know is up to. As an assignment in my class I had to go 24 hours without checking or updating my Facebook; I thought it sounded easy...at first. I told myself, "it won't be hard." "Just don't log in." It turned out to be quite the challege. Having the Facebook app right on my phone made not checking it that much harder. My phone would buzz and chime alerting me that I had a new post, or that I had been tagged in something several times in that one day alone. The urge to reach into my pocket and pull out my phone to check it was great. Once the day was over, and I had gone into review all of my notifications, I saw I had a slight reliance on Facebook. Whenever I was bored, not speaking with someone, or walking from class to class I would use my phone to check things out on Facebook, but not being able to use it made me actually see my world. I actually looked around my campus and noticed just how big and fairly green CSUN is. I got to look at the people with whome I actually go to school with. I believe that Facebook is a very useful tool that just about every person on the journey we call life carries in their arsenal to keep informed as well as entertained. Facebook can be a healthy habbit and not an addiction as long as you do not become heavily reliant on it, and by heavily relaint on it I refer to keeping your phone in your hand all day in a death grip as if it were your life line. Instead casually check it out and learn to use it less. So now I ask, are you addicted or not? 

First Time Blogger

Living in the San Fernando Valley in southern California can be a little boring. Everything becomes somewhat menial and tedious. I saw the valley like that till I got into college. I'm a freshman at California State University, Northridge studying biology with a focus in cellular and molecular. This blog was born out of an assignment assigned from my English 115 class that is currently forcusing on the impact of the internet on modern day society. If you ask me, I say the internet is, excuse the cliche,a double edged sword. It is undisputed the most useful tool to date, allowing people around the world to access limitless information and share thoughts with on another but at the same time it is dangerous and risky because once something is put up onto a site or uploaded, it will be there forever; there is no taking it back. I hope you enjoy reading this blog.