How about a PowerPoint?

When I first started reading this I wasn't exactly why. Even as the reading was drawing to a close I was fighting to stay awake. I do have to say that the story of how PowerPoint came about was kinda interesting, but not enough to keep me awake. I have to say that the whole idea has come a long way through the years. From Overheads and transparency sheets to the program that can put an organized project presentation together within a good twenty minutes.

The only thing that really caught my attention was what some people think about it. The whole experiment about the "fake high school student under consideration for a university football scholarship"(Parker) makes the truth appear out in the open. The three groups were given different visuals about the student, but each time they preferred the PowerPoint. It could be that it has something to do with PowerPoint being a piece of technology. I mean now days we have millions of technological advances that distract us and are made to do so. Though PowerPoint is a useful tool when it is needed. Many times it is not what is needed and what is might not interest the audience. For example, like the essay states, many students what to see how a professor or teacher thinks. PowerPoint makes this easy to do, but it is not the actual flow of thought. It is to organized to be so. When Clifford Nass brings up when he tells of his rant about "The Wizard of Oz" is that his students were able to see what he was thinking and possibly understand why he was thinking it. In many cases PowerPoint helps students more than harms them. As Nass says "What PowerPoint does is very efficiently deliver content... What students gain is a lot more information-not just facts but rules, ways of thinking, examples"(Parker).

To sum things up:
   PowerPoint has made everything easier in many cases. Especially in learning, work, discussion, and meetings. There are always exceptions, and those exceptions can also be helpful to students or to people in general.

"sometimes right, sometimes wrong, and sometimes illiterate" (Schiff 10)

     I was unsure about how to take what I was reading. I was always told that Wikipedia was "evil" so to speak. I've never used wiki due to this repetition of negative views of it. Yes I have looked at something to find a name or something small and unimportant, but not for a paper or anything of that scale. I've had multiple friends saying that it's ok to use wiki as long as you use their citation and find the information on that source. To me that was the same as using wiki. Why not look for a better source?
     Like the essay says, wiki can be edited by anyone. If someone has a computer and internet access, plus the will and time to do so, they can make a post, or edit someone else's post. This causes more problems than what I read in the essay. I can see things being changed that are not caught by the admins or sweeper bots. Not everything is going to be caught, but with so many Wikipedians how is it possible to revert something at the same time that it is being changed by hundreds or thousands of people? I would get so annoyed. Every time the page is refreshed something would be different and have to be reverted again. What if the revert somehow gets messed up and is wrong after it is fixed? is there a way to fix the fix with another revert? It just seems to complicated.
     There is no way to tell if someones publication is truth of false until someone else or thousands more agree or make change it out with the correct information. The checks and citations are helpful, but if they are trashy citations then the information is shot as well. Everything is hand in hand. If one is wrong then most likely the other is too. Plus if false information is left alone and built upon by others nothing is solved. The information becomes invalid, even if some of it was correct. With that it would have to be completely changed, replaced, or extremely edited to a correct state.
     When things are right on the page the idea of Wikipedia works perfectly. Though I would still be a little hesitant to use wiki, I would be a little more likely to do so. I know wiki is not supposed to be an Encyclopedia (in the idea of correct-ness) but if there was a way to go and verify each post I'm sure many would not be so against using it. I guess I should rephrase what i said. If there was an easy way to verify the information in the posts. Since it is edited added to by anyone at anytime, this can not be. Even if the one who posts the information is a professor, who is knowledgeable in the topic, there will be those who think they are right and you are wrong and that their opinion or knowledge has the merit to destroy what was already fine and dandy. If things are right.... LEAVE THEM ALONE. Kinda like if your car isn't broke there is no reason to fix it, or no need to break it so you can fix it. That is just idiocy.
     On the topic of Wikipedia and literacy, I am not sure where I should start. It is not something that can be solved in one night. Since people will not use spell check. (I am even at fault of this on these blogs) The way the topics are posted on make no sense, at least not if the person did not read what they were editing or adding to. The sentences will be jumbled, the information will repeat itself, and there is no real way to solve this. Unless those doing the posts will stop and read the topic and those posted before, re-read their posts, and make sure not to repeat or dismantle the whole freaking sentence. I for one do not like being discombobulated because of something that makes no sense when I read it.
     So in my opinion, there are to many faults for wiki to be used as a source. For it being a way to find a source... maybe. As I use it to find names, places, names of events, etc... It works perfectly, and if someone can tell me a better way to do this please let me know. It's just that in my mind Wikipedia is like a subway with forty or more trains, and about two hundred thousand to many people trying to get on the trans. To many people in one place doing the same exact thing. Then of course there are issues like Wiki leaks that causes more problems around the world. How do we know the information is not being used against the US as it is leaked out to the public, or to anyone in the world that has an internet connection? Oh well that is just my ideas and opinion.

What is true about life

As I read each Act and the sequel I was starting to wonder how the play could seem possible and what seemed to be fake. I looked at how each character was acting in each scene and decided that it was actually kinda normal. They were not doing certain things that are not unnatural so to speak, but there were times where I wondered if that was even possible. I mean when Liza runs to Mrs. Higgins it was a little confusing to why. I mean, why would you run to the mother of the man you are running from? That really makes no sense to me what so ever. Yes I can understand why she ran, and that she really had no where to run to, but why there? Oh well. Then of all things Albert Doolittle shows up... in a fancy suit... yea... I really don't know what to to say to that. I mean it doesn't seem logical that a guy would go and search this drunken man just to use him as an Ideal of sorts to show that he became part of the middle class. When he is part of the lower class and wanted nothing to do with the upper class.

Another idea that struck me was the conversation between Liza and Higgins in the last act. It was all kinda confusing. I mean I know they both respect Mrs. Higgins, but they were in a full fledged fight and then oh sudden stop! That really doesn't happen I don't think. Then as they are leaving for the wedding (at least Mrs. Higgins and Liza) Liza and Higgins seem all hunky-dory. So much confusion. Anyone else confused or struck by that?

A mysterious man with a notebook finds a friend.

     I have to say. I have actually enjoyed Pygmalion so far. I find it entertaining, i guess. I also wish I had the ability to tell where people were from just from the way they talk. I have to say that would be pretty cool. I really didn't get what would happen from the beginning of the first act. I never expected that Higgins was really a Professor. I just thought that he was some guy writing in a notebook. I really thought that the main characters would be the mother and daughter, but surprise it's not! Who knew. Plus the fact that while reading, it is storming outside so the rain at the beginning fit. Anyway, back to Pygmalion.
     In the encounter in the church, during the rain storm, the fact that it ended up that the two men that were looking for each other were both there and brought together by Eliza. I can't help to find that a coincidence that one man is back from India to see another and the other about to leave for India to see him, when Wham! Here they both are after the previous events they are just like "Hey, here you are I was coming to see you." "Really me too." Yea like that really happens.. Anyway off my rant about legit and logical reasoning. I really could not make any sense of what Liza said while in the church, it just seemed like babbling. I guess that is what Bernard Shaw was going for. Liza, indeed, does need speech and grammar coaching or tutoring. Higgins and Pickering really have there work cut out for them. Earlier in Act 2 did Pickering say that Higgins could beat his 24 vowel sounds with 130? ARE YOU KIDDING ME? That is a lot of vowels. Just thought that I should point that out.
     I was laughing so hard when Alfred Doolittle showed up. Just after they get done asking Liza about her parents or her being married he comes out of no where. That and the fact that Liza told them that she was thrown out and she had to find a way to make her own living. Doolittles' character is what made me laugh the most. Not only is he a slacker and doesn't do his own trade, but his name fits him. Doolittle.. Do little... makes perfect sense to me especially sense he does little to get by. When he finally comes out and offers to "sell" his daughter, he goes about it in a strange way. He says that she is worth five pounds, but won't take ten for her when he is offered. Higgins and Pickering both know that the money will be a waste, but Doolittle says "Don't you be afraid that I'll save it and spare it and live idle on it. There wont be a penny left by Monday"(Shaw 48). This was funny because the first time I read it I read that he would save it and spare it and live idle on it, but turned around stating that it would all be gone by Monday. Of course after re reading it i read it right but I still found it funny.

Love love love love.... and vegetables.... yea I have no idea about the vegetables.

   I have always been fascinated by poetry. Even trying my own hand at it time and again. Though I can't say that I have written many that have a rhyme scheme like "To his Coy Mistress." In school I was taught how to break down poetry, but unfortunately some of those skills elude me now. I can still pull out a general idea from a poem and see the imagery that is used. I believe that Marvell is the speaker of this poem. In my mind I'm thinking that this was his way of telling how he felt to his "mistress," if there was one I have no idea.
   Somehow as I was reading "To his Coy Mistress" I found that there were parts that confused me. Especially the part about "vegetable love." I have no idea what to say about this. Even more so to the explanation in the notes, "11] vegetable love: that of his "vegetable" soul. Um... that is all I can really say to this. I mean the only thing that is popping into my head after reading this so line so many times is a rabbit eating a carrot. I'm pretty sure that has nothing to do with the poem. Unless of course this guy loved rabbits, but enough non-sense.
   What I can see from this poem is that these two are in love. Like all love there is never enough time, but this love reaches into a heaven like state of "eternity" full with "winged chariots." Of course time is there to ruin everything again. (CURSE YOU FATHER TIME or whomever)
    In the end it seems to me that the two lovers know their fate against time. Giving their love away and putting everything they have for each other together and throwing it out of "the iron gates of life." Both knowing that they cannot stop time. The sun will still pass over again and again and the two lovers keep living their lives.
   Maybe I'm completely wrong. I'm pretty sure that I am actually, but I'm a little rusty against poetry. Then I think a poem can be read many different ways. Each reading can uncover something different, while covering up what was read the time before.

Catherine in the Mirror

When I first started reading these essays I wasn't sure what I would write this blog about. The more I read, the more I found things that I had not realized. On page 468 Lyn Pykett brings up the variations of Catherine on the ledge where Lockwood is sleeping, or at least trying to. On the next page, "Catherine begins her life as Catherine Earnshaw and ends it as Catherine Linton. Catherine Heathcliff remains an unfulfilled possibility, a route not taken, although some would argue that this unoccupied term in fact names Catherine's true identity."(469) This being read made me think about the fact that Catherine even stated that "Heathcliff is 'more myself than I am.'"(86) Even though Catherine was married to Heathcliff, she still saw herself as his.

In connection to Catherine is Cathy. My blog title is not meaning that Cathy is a mirror image of Catherine, as the essay and novel clearly tell us, but that Cathy's life or actions were a mirror image to Catherine's. On page 474 Pykeet points out that Catherine's puberty is reached when she goes to Thrushcross Grange. Becoming more civilized, in some ways, than when she was young at Wuthering Heights. Cathy on the other hand mirrors her mother and goes from the Grange and her civilized life, to Wuthering Heights and a more savage lifestyle.

Another point that I saw was the fact that where Catherine was unable to complete the cycle of Earnshaw to Linton to Heathcliff. Cathy was able to complete this cycle. She started as a Linton then married Linton and became a Heathcliff. After Linton dies Cathy marries Hareton and becomes an Earnshaw. This of course is in a mirrored way to Catherine's life. Where she went from Earnshaw to wanting to be with Heathcliff, but ended up a Linton, Cathy just went through them all in the opposite order.

I hadn't thought about the two Catherines as mirror images (in life choices) of each other, but now that I see it things seem a lot more interesting.

On your left you see Communism... We will be arriving at Wuthering Heights shortly...

     So I have to say that at first I was really confused about why we were reading about Communism. Well that was the first thing that pooped into my mind when I say Marx. After reading more about I found that the Marxist criticism was an easy way to look at Wuthering Heights. Plus the fact that one of the back stories that jumps out in Wuthering Heights of the "power struggle" between the characters, is like that of the "power struggle" in Communism, where each is pushing their idea as the correct one and fighting others' ideas down at the same time. 

      

     I can not say, or at least will not say that there was much that struck me about the reading itself other than the breakdown of Wuthering Heights. In all truth after reading the essays I was brought back to page 382 again and again just to re-read where Marx and Engels argue that economics provides the "'base' or 'infrastructure' of society." This one passage made me think of where each character is placed in the hierarchy that is touched on paged 398. Heathcliff is said to be a gypsy, but he is the only one in the character that seems to make a complete round about with his monetary situation. He comes into the Earnshaw house hold poor, leaves, and comes back as rich as can be. 

     

     Another passage on the 382 stuck with me as well. 

          "Marx later admitted that the relationship between base and superstructure may be

            indirect and fluid: every change in economics may not be reflected by an immediate 

            change in ethics or literature."

When I read this I was trying to place this in a fitting context within Wuthering Heights, but I was at a loss. I kept reading and when I read the definition of "homology" it hit me. This fits Heathcliff perfectly. Heathcliff is "sometimes unbalanced, often delayed, and always loose correspondence between base and superstructure. After everything that Heathcliff is forced to put up with from Hindley, he leaves. Coming back he is a changed man, his revenge plot is delayed by three years, and more so with the time for everything to proceed as planned. He is unbalanced in the way he acts, especially toward many of the characters. More so Catherine, who is treated with love one moment and contempt the next. Going back up to the quote above I want to point out that my observation does have its' flaws. Where it says that "economics may not be reflected by an immediate change in ethics or literature," fits Heathcliff as well. Though it is a more immediate change he has his moments where his "savagery" come out. Heathcliff was unruly as a child and did what he pleased most of the time, but when he comes back after those three years he is a different person. It is as if the fact he has money has changed him. I guess it does not completely change him since he does act unruly in some instances, but I will back those moment up with the "fluid[ity]" of the relationship between base and superstructure.