Stupid Girl

Summer Assignment 1                                                                                           Carisa Hutchison

With a keyboard at my fingertips and the World Wide Web in the palm of my hand, I daringly stepped into the blogging universe for this summer assignment. After having the somewhat unexpected pleasure of evaluating several very interesting student blogs, I chose three of the most personally memorable. All are very different and have their own distinct characteristics and idiosyncrasies.  The three blogs I chose to assess were Clare Brown’s “Nobody Left to Hate,” Aaron Wilkes’s “Article for Creation,” and Landon Miller’s “Rough Draft 2.”

Clare Brown’s blog “Nobody Left to Hate” was extremely intriguing. With a lovely color scheme and the eye-catching title Chasing My Thoughts, her page was very visually appealing and attractive. Her site was also exceptionally easy to navigate with clear-cut posts and pages. I found her “Nobody Left to Hate” blog immediately and was excited to see what she had written about. Her article was fascinating and packed with information. She chose the recent and controversial topic of the Columbine High School shooting and summarized all her data in an easy to read, genuine manner. All of her information was very fact-based, but she still kept her readers interested with her dynamic style. She demonstrated a very large vocabulary and even chose to use literary devices such as alliteration and assonance throughout. Clare also pulled information directly from the book Nothing Left to Hate by Elliot Aronson, making good use of both direct and indirect quotes. Clearly stating her theme and dramatically making her point, Clare Brown made her blog “Nothing Left to Hate” a personal favorite of mine.

“Article for Creation” by Aaron Wilkes was slightly disappointing, to put it nicely. While I was drawn to his title Mt. Dew, Memories, and Too Much Fun, I found that not only did the three topics in his title not really relate to each other, but they also did not relate to anything on his page in the least. After clicking on his link and directing myself to his page, I also found that his previous title did not transfer onto the page at all, and the first thing I saw was the gigantic sentence, “I Lived Through the End of the World and All I Got Was This Lousy T-shirt . . . It’s Not Even the Right Size.” While possibly humorous to some, this was also extremely irrelevant to anything he had to say, and immediately deterred me from wanting to pursue his thoughts further. The black and white background and setup, although drab and dull to me, were not outlandishly unattractive. However, his header overlapped onto his first sentence of his article, making it hard to follow. Even with this flaw, it was fortunate that I did choose his first blog, “Article for Creation,” because his others were very difficult to locate. There were no headers to speak of, so I could not scroll through his page and easily find any of his other items. He did have links to his other entries directly to the right, but they also repelled me due to their lack of professionalism in their titles. For example, one in particular was titled, “Case Clusters . . . woo.” The topic Aaron chose for “Article for Creation” was somewhat controversial and interesting, but the way he chose to present it was not. He simply listed facts and stats, all of which are from an anonymous author. I was not intrigued or impressed by “Article for Creation.”

The last blog that I chose to evaluate was “Rough Draft 2″ by Landon Miller. His title for his page, Life of A Band Geek, was quaint and helped reveal his personality. His articles and pages were very easy to find, and his homepage was attractive and welcoming, decked out in bright colors and a vivacious ocean theme. I did have a slight difficulty following his thoughts in “Rough Draft 2,” (possibly because he did not have a real title to his blog) and I never really understood what his topic was, or what his opinion on his topic was, although it did seem to be negative. These issues, some misspelled words, and a few grammatical errors did put a damper on my opinion of his blog, but I loved his page and ocean theme.

To conclude, I actually enjoyed this assignment. I took a bold step into the vast blogging universe this week, and learned a great deal from what I saw. The good, the bad, and the ugly alike were all exposed and at my fingertips, and that was both intimidating and exciting. This essay will now also be lovingly placed into the blogging world, where it will have the same privileges, and where readers just like me will be able to either admire my work or rip me to shreds. What an honor!

Summer Assignmnent 2

Sandy Banks is a lovely black lady who would not catch my attention if she were to walk by me on the street. I came across her body of work on the LA Times RSS Feeds, at the bottom of the list of opinions columnists. Her name even seemed unassuming, and so I looked through every other columnist’s work before I begrudgingly clicked on hers. While all of the other columnist’s opinions seemed to be dull and negative ones having to do with the failing economy, I was pleasantly surprised to find that her articles were different. I began by skimming the headings of the articles, and was interested in the majority of them. As I began reading I discovered that she seemed to have a great interest in teens in general, and generally wrote about their opinions on very controversial topics. I began to learn about her personal life through her work, and learned that she has a teenage daughter herself, and has very liberal views that I strongly disagree with and love reading about. Ms. Banks didn’t really pose arguments or try to persuade her readers. Her articles were more like narratives, with subtle opinions laced into the plot. She didn’t use a large amount of literary devices, but her word choice was very descriptive and hooked the reader. I would love to continue my subscription to her feed.

I am a music lover…a music breather. So I was thrilled when I subscribed to the Music Reviews feed of the LA Times. I was disappointed, however, upon further inspection. I skimmed through all of the headings itching to find something of interest. I found many articles on classical music and philharmonic developments, which unfortunately did not interest me at all. The headings themselves did not help; they were all very dull and would not grab anyone’s attention. I was also let down when I discovered that none of the few “reviews” on recent albums were actual reviews, but rather short memos declaring that there was, in fact, a recent album by so-and-so band and it was fairly pleasant. Also, each time I made an effort to click on an article that did interest me, the page told me that the article was no longer available. Ironically, each time I clicked on a Philharmonic or smooth jazz related page, I was able to read until my heart’s content. In those articles, the words themselves were dull, factual, emotionless, and ultimately mind-numbing, with no traces of a single literary device. Needless to say, I am not interested in keeping this feed around.

Oddly enough, I found a great deal of pleasure in reading through the Fashion and Style feed of the LA Times. I did not expect to be so captivated by the articles, as I am not really a fashion connoisseur like some. However, all of the headings that I came across were attention-grabbers, and the articles themselves did not disappoint. The content was shallow and smacked of black and white couture, caught between fashion’s constant urge to be different and unique and the bad habit of ridiculing those who are. Idolizing the actresses and the rock stars and the no-talent celebutantes, the fashion and style feed was inexplicably addictive. Each article was different, some with a very small amount of content that left you wanting more, others with a little too much information and fluff. I consistently enjoyed the writer’s style and word choice, and was often pleasured by a simile here or a metaphor there. Each article was factual and opinionated, with a select few that could have been portrayed as argumentative. I greatly enjoyed my hours of devotion to the Fashion and Style feed, and plan to continue regular readings.