My Mini Memoir

On September 5, 1989, Angela Pope and Steve Wilkins Senior welcomed me into the world. I was always a happy and playful baby, or so I’ve been told. I had a pretty normal childhood: hung with friends, got into trouble, played jokes, the regular. Like all children, I started school around 5 years old. My teachers found something special in me at an early age. My reading and comprehension was ahead of all of the other students. I learned how to read and write complete sentences before I graduated from kindergarten. When I made it to the 4th grade, I really became to develop a sense of self and I began to act out and be rebellious, but I still had the highest grades in class. I also got my first real girlfriend around this time. We were together from our 4th grade year, all the way to our 7th grade year. My mouth became extremely smart and I’d say around the start of the 5th grade, I became a huge smart ass and people started to hate me. One event happened that drew everyone closer because I was attacked by a Rockwieler and it took a chunk out of my side. Everyone realized that it could have been more serious than just getting 13 stitches, so they became nicer and I changed up my attitude and started to focus more on school. The happiest moment of my life came last year when I graduated high school. Everyone was so proud of me and I was proud too, but mad because my dad didn’t show up; typical. I graduated number 12 out of my senior class, was awarded 2 scholarships and a grant. Now, I’m where I am now; a freshman at the University of Memphis. I love my life.

My Movie

The movie that I'm doing for my research paper is Malcolm X. Before I had my meeting with the teacher, I really didn't know what topic I was going to do...since I did my rough draft SO different. Now, a couple of topics have been going around in my head that would make an excellent paper. One of them being the whole Christianity versus Islamic beliefs. Malcolm felt that anyone who was Christian was evil or something like that. He believed that there was only one "God" and that was Allah. Another topic I'm kind of focusing on is like a comparison and contrasting of the movie and the book. In the movie, the Islamic beliefs are to dominant; however, in the book, Chrisianity is so dominant. If I was to focus on this topic, I would have a lot to say, but with the other topic, I could still pose a very good argument. So, I'm on the fence about which direction I want to go in. WIth the right amount of sources, they both would be easy to prove, especially with just using the book and the movie alone. I'd need to know something about Malcolm X...of course. I could also look at reviews which talks about the topics of the role of religion in both the book and the movie. I could even consider looking at the Christian and Islamic religion and find resources on how powerful religion was during tha time period.

This is one movie that has plenty of different sources for use. Of course, the movie is one of the main sources, but the autobiography is also a very important source. Other sources I've found were encyclopedia articles describing Christianity and Islamic beliefs. For future resources, I can consider looking up what movie critics had to say about the film in general, and check to see if any critics told their view on the use of religion in the movie.

MORE ABOUT ME!!!!! YAAAAAAAY!!!

When I was younger, I couldn't stand reading or writing, but now that I'm more use to reading and writing, I like it more and more depending on what it is that I'm reading or writing about. So now, I do read and write when no one tells me too. It's a good way to keep the brain stimulated, especially now since I'm a college student. I typically read anyting that interests me. It could be anything from action novels, to drama, to romance; as long as it has a good story plot, I'm interested. Mostly, I find myself reading suspence novels. For example, I recently finished a book called Curtains of Blood by Robert Randisi. It's a story about Jack the Ripper and a detective trying to find and stop him. It's very suspensefull from the beginning to the end. (I WOULD HIGHLY RECOMMEND IT. YOU WILL NOT BE SORRY). I believe me reading suspence novels made me more of a reader. I'm a very inquisitive person and always getting into stuff, and with suspence novels, my mind is always wandering and racing. It keeps me mentally stimulated and want me to read more; so I do.

One pleasant memory deals with me and my books. I have completely written one book called Can You Keep A Secret. It's a suspence/action/drama about the life of a group of high school friends and one of whom's older brother is an attempted murderer. The main character knows he should tell, but is afraid of his secrets coming out, so he's blackmailed into keeping his brother's attempted murder a secret. However, the only bad thing is that the young girl his brother tried to rape and kill is the main character's best friends little sister. But, in the end, the brother in convicted and sent to jail. Writing this book kept me so interested in writing. It was fun coming up with new concepts and elements to add to make the reader wonder what's going to happen next. When I finished, a lot of my friends loved it and kept asking me about what happened to the characters next. So, I'm in the process of writing the sequel, where the friends are now in college and the convicted brother escapes from prison to get revenge against his little brother and his friends that got him convicted. This one is filled with more suspence and action than the first one. Hopefully, I can get them published but for now, I'm enjoying just writing them.

This kind of helped me become an active reader also. I use to just read and answer, but now as the readings get more and more complex, I find myself occasionally taking notes in the book or on a sheet of paper. In some way it helps me, but on the other hand, it don't. It helps me because I'm able to be like, "Ok, after breaking it down I understand it more." However, it also confuses me a little bit after I continue to read and something comes up that cancel out what I previously thought. Then I would have to go back and read it over again...and again...and again. (I'm easily confused).

I'm A Philosophizer (LOL)

I'm really enjoying this semester a lot better than last semester. Last semester, I was new and felt all lost and stuff. Now, I feel like I've been here forever and I'm able to maneuver around campus easier and better. All of my teachers this semester, are AMAZING. They obviously take pride in their job and take it very serious. That really makes a BIG difference in how much I'm enjoying this semester. My teachers make the lessons easy and understanding, but they also make you think on a different level. This semester, I'm in a dorm and that could also be a reason why I'm enjoying this semester so much. It's also different because this semester, I can look forward to going to class, knowing that I will be learning valuable information. Last semester, some of my teachers were easy and mostly gave answers and had me study them, but now I can be given a problem and being told to solve it myself, which helps me improve my skills. I've learned a lot of stuff that I didn't even know in high school, especially in Math when it comes to solving certain problems. I've also learned a lot about writing in English. I've been able to find out how to better break down a certain piece or story and get thee meaning of it in a different and more efficient way. Even though I've been doing good so far, there is one thing that just frustrates me the most this semester...and that is my American Government teacher. I will not name names, but he's just boring. I know the teacher's job is not to be a friend of the student first, but he could try to initiate some kind of class discussion. He just gets up there and talk about the lesson for the day, then dismisses us...like 30 minutes before time's over. Then, he sometimes writes the notes on the board instead of using the projector and doing a power point or something. When he does this, it frustrates ME AND THE WHOLE CLASS because his penmanship is HORRIBLE!!!! We could hardly really learn because we're always asking him what something means, which after a while gets old then people just start putting their stuff up and just listening to the rest of the lecture. Other than this little mishap, I don't think anything else frustrates me...besides the walking around campus. LOL. I don't think there's anything I can or should do to make this semester better, simply because of the fact that this semester is A WHOLE LOT BETTER than last semester. I've been enjoying every minute of this semester because I'm able to attend plays and concerts, I can chill with my friends whenever I want to, and I don't have to worry about missing a class or anything. (That was the only thing on my mind last semester because my parents really try their best to conserve gas. Cheap people. LOL) Although, I would love to be in some clubs and associations, but since it's the first semester, I felt I should pay more attention to class and get the hang of how it all works before I start participating in stuff like that. At the start of this semester, I wish I would have known that there would be so characters on my floor in my dorm. (I know this has nothing to do with school, but it's true.) There are the people that come back to the dorm at 3 or 4 in the morning, making noise on purpose. There are the ones that have thousands of people in their room (the people across the hall). There are people that are just too quiet and it worries me. (LOL.) The quiet ones are always the ones that you have to watch out for the most. As far as school and classes are concerned, I wish I would have known how my Government teacher was, so I could have avoided signing up for his class. Out of all of this, I'm hoping to become better enlightened and smarter. I want to improve my skills. I want a degree, but I want an education more. You could never be too smart or know too much in life. A person's education is one of the most important things in the world and your education is basically an outline of how your whole life will turn out. Therefore, I want a better education over anything in the world, when it comes to school anyway. I define education as a better means of life support. like I said, it's hard to live a life without an education, no matter how many resources a person might have. I think curiosity plays a MAJOR role in education. Curiosity is what makes people think therefore, if you think, you'll be able to ask questions in hoping to get a better understanding of something. If you're never curious about something at some point, then it's going to be so hard to just really know what's being talked about.

Response to Movie Article

I really didn't understand the WHOLE artice in general. There were bits and pieces that made me agree, but other parts made me just stare off. It was like the teacher from Charlie Brown was reading the article to me and all I heard was the "wa wa...wa wa wa wa" stuff going around in my head. LOL. It was pretty boring, to be completely honest. I believe Houseman was just breaking down the origin and concept of movies, and how they are "the most compelling instrument yet devised for communication between human beings"(227). I'm pretty sure their could have been some kind of way for him to do it in less words, but hey, I guess their was a lot more to say than I thought. I don't think anything about this article related to me and my movie experiences because I know a lot about movies because I'm always watching then. For example, when he talked about how much of the movie production the director controlled. I pretty much knew that the director had power over EVERY element of the movie's production. When I read this article, I didn't find myself just jumping out of the bed like, "Wow!!!! I'm so glad I read this. I have a better understanding now!" I mean, I'm not saying that the album is 100% useless because maybe someone else read it and got a better understanding of movies, but I just didn't find myslef learning any new information from it that I didn't alrady know.
Another question I had to adress was, "How might you use this as a source?" I really don't think I will able to use this as a source because of the fact that most of the information in this article, I slick already knew. Someone else however, could find this article to be very beneficial to them, but for me, it would still be a good article for quotes though. Overall, this was not a favorite for me. I liked last weeks blog assignment the most.

ADVERTISEMENTS

First of all, let me start by sayin I really loved the topics this week. Basically because we got to watch videos. YES!!!! :)

THE EVOLUTION OF BEAUTY
I think the argument in this ad was that no matter the age, you can still be beautiful. However, I didn't like the way they chose to show it. What I mean by this is that, I didn't like how they had to photocrop her face into this skinnier woman with no flaws. That's not real beauty. Them showing her as herself, extra skin and all, would have shown buyers that their product is for women everywhere; the average woman. Sadly thought, that's what people want to see. They'd rather see the "beautiful" rather than the "real." Overall though, I thought that it was a poor attempt at getting buyers because of the fact that it wasn't real.

PLAYSTATION 3 vs. WII
I found this ad very funny. LOL. Off the top, I could alrady guess that the arguement was that if you wanted to be young that you should get a Wii and PS3's were for old people. I found a couple of true life things from this ad thought. For instance, the Wii will have you up and moving, while playing the PS3 will have you just sitting down the whole time, which was probably something else the ad was telling us seeing as how the PS3 representative was kinda of heavier than the Wii representative, who was smaller. I'm guessing by the PS3 rep running off, that the Wii won in being a beter system. This ad left out the fact that both systems are not always as efficient as they are said to be though. They both can crash and burn without any sign that it's going to happen. I don't think there's anything harmful about this ad though...I just think they could have better advertised it.

CINNAMON TOAST CRUNCH
This ad was stupid to me. I didn't understand it all. Were they arguing that only perfect, happy families were good enough to eat Cinnamon Toast Crunch? It that's the case, then they're wrong becauase my family eat 'em too and we are nowhere near perfect. LOL. I found myself just looking at the screen like, "Are you serious? Is that it?" I just didn't like it. I don't know what to even say about it. The makers of that commercial could have kept it. If it's any conselation, I really love the cereal.

OBSESSION
I don't really know what the argument was in this ad. Maybe the arguement was, "I bet I can get this woman to kiss me because I smell so damn good?" LOL. I really have no clue. All I know is that the cologne must smell so good, that no matter who wears it that they will be unresistable. They could have made this commercial more understandable. For example, Hillary Duff made a good commercial with her fragrance, that both incorporated her and the name of the perfume into the commercial. This commercial just flopped big time. On the good side, my brother got some of this cologne and it smells pretty damn good.

Speech Responses (blog 3)

"CAST DOWN YOUR BUCKET WHEN YOU ARE"
Just by reading whoe the author is, Booker T. Washington, I knew that it would say something dealing with race. I felt that this speech was well put together, seeing as how African Americans weren't considered to be that educated back then. It showed that Booker T. Washington was a very eloquent person. The name of the speech confused me at first, but as I read on, I began to understand why he chose the name that he did. By the title, he's saying that you're always available to new resources that you never had before. You'll always be able to make good things happen out of bad situations; as did the people in the destressed vessel did with the water. When I finished reading, it was obvious that Washington is trying to make everyone get along. He's aware of the fact that we're all here, therefore we have to be able to put up with one another. He's trying to get everyone to be on the same page as far as equality is concerned. I love this speech.

"THE SOLITUDE OF SELF"
Before I even read this speech, I knew I was not going to like it because of the length of the article. After reading the first little paragraph, I was like, "okay, I might like this because I love hearing women sound off about their rights," but once again, it changed. I didn't like it. She was basically saying how women should be treated equally and how, according to the government, women should be treated the same as men. I agree with her right here because I do feel that women are treated worse than men because they're expected to do this and that. However, I still feel that she could have saved me the long agony of forcing myself to read this by simply stating her claim and giving her reasons for why she feels the way she does. Overall, however, I loved hearing her voice her opinion because, theirs not that many women that does voice their opinions nowadays; but, it was still kind of boring to me.

"THE GETTYSBURG ADDRESS"
In this speech, Abraham Lincoln is addressing the soldiers who've died during the Civil War and those who are still alive. He's saying that we should not let them die in vain because they've fought for what they believe in and were defending their country respectfully. I guess you can say that Lincoln's boosting everyone's morale a little bit; trying to get them to look at the situation in a good way and not a bad one. I like this speech, not only for the fact that it's uplifting, but because of the fact that you could tell that every word was spoken out of sincerity of the situation. He's saying that no matter what, those both fallen and still living will be remembered and should be remembered for what they've done in the name of the love of the country.