Response to New York Times Article

New Jersey Moves to End Its Death Penalty was a very interesting article. A bill is currently being passed to end the death penalty in the state of New Jersey. During the Senate's vote on the bill there was a clear divisive vote between the Republicans and the Democrats. Personally, I would have voted against the bill. I believe that if someone takes someone else's life that they do not deserve to be on this Earth. Someone who is conniving and kills people just does not deserve to live. I am very scrupulous when it comes to right and wrong. In the article it talked about what the state of New Jersey would do with the eight inmates who are currently on death row. It said that they would put the dangerous inmates in rooms that are not at all capacious, only seven by eleven feet. The others inmates that aren't as dangerous would be put into regular prison and usurpted. I guess it would be better to be with other inmates instead of being held in a small room just sitting around and have atrophy. Overall, this article really informed me of what is currently going on in the state of New Jersey.

The Waiting Room

The play, The Waiting Room, portrays many messages throughout it's script. Though to me it had one message that stood out the most. The main message to me was that no matter how you look on the outside you are beautiful within. Throughout the play three women, Wanda, Victoria, and Forgiveness From Heaven find that no matter what they do to their bodies or how they dress that they have an inner beauty. They become friends even though they are all from different time periods and help each other throughout their journey of finding themselves. They all may have different views on different subjects but they go beyond that and all begin to understand each other in a more deeper perspective.


Lisa Loomer ties in social commentaries about today's society throughout the play. In the play she shows how gender roles are prominent through the 18th century character, Victoria. Victoria's husband, , doesn't want her to learn more about her condition and she is pretty much his personal slave. Even though she comes to find she doesn't love him she still goes back to 18th century England with him. As for health, Loomer talks about social issues from each of the three character's time periods. Wanda a character living in recent times, finds that her numerous breast implants have lead to breast cancer which is a great problem in our society today. Victoria a character living in 18th century England is having a problem with hysteria and her husband suggests taking out her uterus because of the hormones making her crazy and her tight corset is making her uterus produce more hormones. Then there is Forgiveness From Heaven a character from ancient China who has bound feet and her toes are falling off. All of these health issues were and are a problem in each of the women's time period.

Throughout the play the three women's personalities evolve. Wanda, who is a very outspoken woman from New Jersey is very blunt and has no secrets about her body. She's a very smart girl, but her character doesn't always come off that way. By the end of the play you really get to see the real side of Wanda and her intelligence shines through. A really good quote that shows Wanda's personality is, "Hey. Hold on, I'm reading an article about breasts." In this quote it shows that Wanda is very open about her body and doesn't really care what others have to say about it. Victoria, a woman from 18th century England is very proper, has a bit of hysteria and her husband controls almost every aspect of her life. Throughout the play, Victoria becomes the leader of her own life and her hysteria decreases. "But I'm afraid that.... My husband and I were discussing Freud's theories, you see, and my husband, quite accidentally of course ... dropped Freud. Into the fire." I believe that this is a great quote because it describes Victoria's proper personality and how her husband controls her life. Forgiveness From Heaven is a woman from ancient China. She is very naive but positive and has bound feet. Forgiveness From Heaven really evolves, because she first starts out with bound feet and is losing toes so she can please her husband. By the end of the play she is able to release herself from the pain of bound feet and realizes that whats on the outside doesn't really matter as much as what does on the inside. "Little problem with big toe... Fell off this morning." In this quote it shows that Forgiveness is naive and that even though her toe may have fell off she is still positive.

Ken and Larry were interesting characters. At first, it was confusing to the reader at why they were in the play, but then their roles became more prominent throughout the script. The purpose of Ken and Larry were to show how people can be deceiving and how the pharmaceutical industry can be corrupt with ways to only benefit America. In this play I believe that Loomer is trying to show that the pharmaceutical industry wants to do whats best for America but may not go about the right way while doing it.

I believe that Loomer concluding the play with Wanda telling the story was a great way to end it. I think she ended the play with Wanda's story because it really showed how of the characters evolved. Loomer tied in the ending of the play very well. The only thing that I would go about changing would be to clarify more on what happened to Forgiveness. Other than that, I believe that the end of the play was the best part and I couldn't have written it better myself.

Response to the Fairy Tale Aritcle

The fairy tale article we read in class opened my eyes to new ideas and also increased my knowledge on what I have already learned about beauty. In this article it talks of how the fairy tales we have come to known and love may be harmful to young children. If you have noticed, the fairy tales usually involve a beautiful princess and prince and then the villain who is evil and ugly. In these fairy tales the evil villain is always associated with being ugly therefore, meaning that only beautiful people are worth living or being rescued. A really good quote that I pulled from the text was, "We don't discourage children from reading fairy tales, even with these misleading stereotypes and failure to include minorities, but we strongly recommend parent or adult interaction while children read or view fairy tales." This proves that the fairy tales that children are reading may have a harmful effect on their future beliefs. I never before realized that fairy tales had this kind of effect, but this article has opened my eyes towards the reality of fairy tales.

After reading the article in class, we had a sort discussion on the roles of women and men in todays society. We first began talking about what roles our parents play in our families. It was really interesting to hear how my classmate's families functioned and how their ethnicity tied into what their roles were in their family. We then went on to talk about what women and men are expected to do. We came up with a list of expectations for both genders. Some of the expectations on the list for women were to cook dinner, be the caretaker, and drive the kids around. Some of the expectations for the men were to make the money, fix things up, and relax from a hard days work. Overall, this conversation really opened my eyes to how our society has changed and progressed.

Response To: The Morality of Fat Article and the Beauty in the Eye of the Beholder Article

The Beauty in the Eye of the Beholder article was a great piece of writing. I found that it was more "to the point" than the other article. I enjoyed how the article gave comparisons to the early days of America and how our views have changed since then. A certain quote really expresses how our beliefs have changed, "The attractiveness of larger women in early modern portraiture is at least in part explained by the notion that to be plump was to be well-nourished, which was to have wealth and status." I find that today our views on beauty have been seriously twisted around from what they used to be. Overall, I really liked this article and the information it presented to me.

The Morality of Fat article was very interesting. I found that this article was harder to understand the first article. It was hard to find the main idea of the article, but it ended up being really good. In this article I found a few sentences that really stood out to me, "A recent Harris poll found that 74 percent of Americans are overweight. Which is not surprising. This country supplies enough food for people to consume 3,700 calories every day. Few people require more than 2,000 calories a day." These sentences show how much America needs to change health wise. I found that this article had a lot of great information and I really learned a lot from it.

Seminar-Beauty in the Eye of the Beholder & The Morality of Fat

The seminar held in class on Monday was really eye-opening. I was a moderator for one of the groups and it was really interesting hearing people's views on beauty. We talked about how the media and advertising has a huge effect on what people believe beauty is. One interesting point that we covered was talking about our various ethnicities and how each of our cultures have different views on beauty. I think that everyone in our group came out with a greater knowledge of how the media controls a lot of the aspects of beauty today. I really enjoyed being the monitor for this discussion, although it was hard to make sure that everyone said what they wanted to say.

The seminar held in class on Tuesday was amazing. Our class came into one big group and we discussed an article on The Morality of Fat. I actually found this conversation more engaging than the previous seminar's n conversation. I learned more about the media's view on beauty and also the reality of the overweight ratio of America. A really good point that was made during the seminar was that when we achieve a certain healthiness, we are then going to be able to achieve inner beauty and aesthetic beauty. I thought this was a great point and I fully agreed with it. I do believe that we need to achieve healthiness and then we will find our greatest inner beauty. This was definitely one of the best seminars that I have participated in.

Women of Mali

The already beautiful women in Mali are deciding to embellish their features by using bleaching products that makes their skin white. These bleaching products make their dark skin more pallid, but cause pain and blemishes. Women bleach their skin to be accepted and be viewed by men with a more salacious desire. The thing is, women are causing unsalubrious pain to themselves it is hurting their moral well-being. These women probably have ebullient personalities and are very jovial, but they probably do not know the harm they are doing to their bodies. I find it mesmeric that women would bleach their skin just to be accepted or draw more attention to men. I hope that in Mali the women educate themselves with what they are doing to their bodies and stop bleaching their skin for the good of themselves.

You Tube Commercial Response

The campaign for beauty you tube commercial was really amazing. It really showed what is going on today with body image and how girls are being influenced by the media's perspective of beauty. I liked how it actually referenced other commercials, billboards, and magazine adds. The commercial empowered me and I hope it will also empower others.


I believe that the central message of this commercial is to turn away from the media's perspective of beauty. In our world today, the media has "brainwashed" us with their perspective of beauty. It's time that we stop listening to the media's idea of beauty and start realizing that everyone is beautiful inside and out. I think that this is what the commercial is getting at. All people see are super skinny models and believe that everyone should look like this. We were all made in different shapes and sizes. Everyone is unique and we need to embrace that. I believe that this is what the campaign for beauty is trying to express to us.

Symposium

During our symposium, we began talking about the four cardinal virtues. It was really interesting to hear others views on prudence, fortitude, temperance, and justice. We spent a lot of time trying to understand how these four virtues tie into our daily lives and even if they do. Then, we were asked to say what virtue we would add to the list of virtues if we could. I said that I would add tolerance. I would like to add tolerance because our world is and has been troubled with hatred. The world needs to gain tolerance for other races, religions, and cultures. I believe that tolerance would be a great virtue towards the list of the four cardinal virtues.
Overall, I really enjoyed our symposium. It opened my mind to new ideas and beliefs. Now I have a better understanding of the Ancient Greek society and my classmates views.

Ancient Greek Society

Women's roles in Athens were very different from those in Sparta. Women in Athens were more refined I guess you could say. In Sparta women "wore the pants" in the family, had control of land, and competed with men in athletic competitions. In Athens, the women also had control of land but they had a guardian called a kyrios who controlled every aspect of the woman's life. In Athens the women were more restricted to what they could do, unlike in Sparta where the women were able to have more freedom.

Even though the Greeks were considered advanced and culturally elite, I believe that every great society has it's flaws. As for the Greek culture, one of it's flaws was gender equality. Overtime, gender equality did change as most flaws do.

I believe that women were depicted in more of a reformed manner by artists. After understanding Ancient Greek society more closely, I realized that women were supposed to act proper and therefore artists portrayed this in their artwork.

Beauty

Youth is beautiful. Youth is beautiful because when you are young you're in love with life, care-free, and ready for anything. When you're young you let your confidence shine through and that, I believe, is beautiful.

Today, many people believe that a "perfect" human form is a skinny beautiful woman or a man with stunning features, good looks, and a "hot" body. The thing is, everyone is different. I believe that people's views on a "perfect" form need to be changed. I personally don't think there is a "perfect" human form. Like I said before, everyone is different and you aren't going to see a super model walking down the street on a daily basis. The culture we live in today is corrupted with perfect beauty and unrealistic fantasies. Women are expected to look perfect, have a large chest, and be skinny. Men are expected to be somewhat muscular and have good looks. The crazy thing is we were all born with different shapes and sizes and that is why we are unique. Our world needs to turn away from our images of a "perfect" human and realize that we are all beautiful and unique.

What is beauty to me?

Nature
Nature to me, is beauty. I believe that nature is beautiful because it was created to make people happy. Nature is lush and beautiful. When you go to a forest, for example, or see pictures of one, you see the scenic green trees and bright flowers and it puts a smile on your face. Nature is untouched beauty. It hasn't been remastered or photo-shopped. It's just there, beautiful in itself. Nature is what beauty is to me.






Laughter
I see beauty in laughter. Laughter is beautiful to me because even though everyone speaks different languages we all laugh in the same language. I also believe laughter is beautiful because everyones' laugh is different. From high-pitched to low-pitched, you never hear the same laugh. Your laugh gives you your own special personality and that is beautiful. Laughter is what beauty is to me.

I have created my blog =].