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| Bummer (Photo credit: Wikipedia) |
Saturday, April 30, 2016
Hindsight is a Bummer
Friday, April 29, 2016
Ice Cream Headache: Why is the freezer empty NOW?
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| It's the picture of Italian ice-cream in a shop of Rome, Italy (Photo credit: Wikipedia) |
I have no idea.
Tuesday, April 19, 2016
Did you ever have one of those days?
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| Doc, age 3. He's very suspicious of cameras |
It's hard to keep on track with all my courses when stuff like that is happening. Yesterday in class, the prof had us write 5 blog posts in class (we're in a computer lab), and I'm having trouble accessing the file. I feel like an idiot now. I didn't post them from the lab because I wanted to do it on my own computer so that I could run Zemanta for pictures and article suggestions.
The one piece of good news is that the due date on the research paper has been pushed back to next Monday instead of tomorrow. Or maybe it's not good news, since that just gives me more time to worry about it.
Tuesday, April 12, 2016
Writing about War is Hell
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| The "Heroic Age" roster of the Avengers. Cover art for Avengers vol. 4, #12.1, by Bryan Hitch. (Photo credit: Wikipedia) |
I had a scheduled conference yesterday with the prof to talk about how she wants me to revise my research paper draft. She gave me some ideas about how to fix the wording of my thesis, and told me to quote both my sources and the film a lot more. Luckily, she thought the scenes I chose from AAoU (I'm kind of tired of typing out Avengers: Age of Ultron. Hey, I just did it again) worked, so I don't have to start anything over. It's going to be a lot of work.
Friday, April 8, 2016
I've Got a Thesis!
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| Regions of the brain affected by PTSD and stress. (Photo credit: Wikipedia) |
The irony here is that the most important long-term benefit of a warrior code is that it helps prevent the worst effects of PTSD--if he would accept the same values that the others do, he would be able to find support in being part of the group and probably suffer a lot less.
A Great Book, Finally
Today is the second anniversary of my mother's death. I woke up thinking about her, partly because I had a dream about her, in which she told me to "get cracking on that homework." Since I'm just about up to date on everything else, I figured that this was my subconscious telling me I was missing something. That was when I realized that I hadn't been posting. So, here goes.
The book that has helped me the most with my paper is The Code of the Warrior: Exploring Warrior Values Past and Present, by Shannon E. French, who is a philosophy professor at the U.S. Naval Academy. Since she works in a military setting, it was probably only natural that she would want to write about this topic, and she obviously had access to plenty of current and former "warriors" to flesh out the research she did on warriors of the past. One of the things that helped me is that it seems that the people (virtually all men) she consulted or quoted seemed to be able to detail the codes that governed their behaviors as members of the military, which fit what I saw in Avengers: Age of Ultron. I'll talk more about that in my next post.
Anyway, it's a terrific read; I couldn't put it down. Check it out.
Tuesday, March 15, 2016
No More Stalling
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| English: Basic morphological diferences between bacteria. The most often found forms and their asociations. Français : Formes bactériennes les plus courantes et leurs associations. (Photo credit: Wikipedia) |
I want to talk about a wonderful, useful, great find of a book for my project, but I'll save that for my next post. Since I'm not stalling, it should be up in a few hours (I'm hoping to get some sleep).
Saturday, February 27, 2016
I Listen to a Grandma Rant
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| The cast of Phineas and Ferb perform "Carpe Diem", which includes many characters drawn on the show. (Photo credit: Wikipedia) |
The second commercial was for a toy called "Booger Balls" (you can get this on Amazon). You mix it up in a bowl, then throw the balls at your friends, covering them with slime, and hilarity ensues.
Grandma pretty much freaked out, and I learned that one of the things that gets on all her nerves is the "rampant vulgarity that is consuming this country." She didn't stop at the commercials, either. A certain presidential candidate came in for extra abuse ("even his hair is disgusting, and when he talks, you want to duct-tape your ears shut for fear of being contaminated!"), and so did the FX network for some sitcom I never heard of before.
Now, don't think that my grandma is some kind of uptight old lady who can't take a joke (the rant was hilarious! I laughed myself into a coughing fit). She meant it to be funny, but she also meant it, period.
Net result? I kind of agree with her. Aren't you supposed to outgrow the need to gross people out? And, her strongest point was about the message this kind of thing is sending kids. "Do we really need to make being revolting an asset for an attractive personality?" Then I imagined some little runt hitting me with one of those balls, and I was completely on her side. But I can't let her know, or she might pull me into a crusade that would have me marching outside Toys 'r Us with a "NO MORE BOOGERS! NO MORE FARTING GAMES" sign. Btw, did you know that there's recipes for some kind of food called "crusty booger balls"? They came up first when I was searching for an image of the toy.
Hey! Look at how much I wrote. This should count for 2 or maybe even 3 entries, right? Please?
The Sinus Infection from Hell
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| Is this gross, or what?!! An infection of the maxillary sinus as seen on CT (Photo credit: Wikipedia) |
The rest of the time I've been hanging out with my grandmother. She came to live with us a few months ago when she sold her house (it was too big for her to keep up). Dad asked her if she'd like to make our house her home base (she wants to travel with a couple of her friends), and it was all set. She watched Age of Ultron with me, but gave up when I started watching my three possible scenes over and over. She had some good ideas, so I was sorry she left.
I'm on my second day of antibiotics, and I still don't feel any different. I'm worried about school on Monday.
Tuesday, February 16, 2016
Coming up with a research schedule
I'm still thinking pretty hard about my movie (oops- got to get used to using "film" when I'm working on this project). Avengers: Age of Ultron has several scenes I'm thinking of using. I'm definitely going to use the scene near the end with Clint and Wanda, where he lays out what it means to be an Avenger, and I'm looking at Tony and Bruce deciding to use the staff for Ultron, but I also need Cap chewing Tony out for not sharing info. I think. That's as far as I've gotten on my primary research to date.
Sunday, February 14, 2016
Waiting is the Hardest Part
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| The "Heroic Age" roster of the Avengers. Cover art for Avengers vol. 4, #12.1, by Bryan Hitch. (Photo credit: Wikipedia) |
The reason I'm asking this is that it seems to me that they don't, and they probably should for the good of the group. This brings me to the fact that I am worried that I am partly drawn to that conclusion because I have a pretty good idea what the filmmakers are planning for the future films, thanks to my older brothers, Paul and Brian. I'll get to that in my next post.
Monday, February 1, 2016
Men's Studies and Avengers: Age of Ultron
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| Captain America and The Avengers (Photo credit: Wikipedia) |
I've got a lot of thinking to do, and a proposal draft due on Wednesday, so I'd better get to it.
Wednesday, January 27, 2016
It’s Later, so Here’s the More, as Promised
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| Ultron takes over Iron Man's armor. Cover of Iron Man vol. 3, #48. (Jan. 2002) Art by Udon. (Photo credit: Wikipedia) |
Only the second week of classes, and I almost fell behind already. I forgot about this blog. I remembered about 10 minutes ago while I was
brushing my teeth. Not sure if there’s
any connection there. Anyway, about the
lesson I had in not naming names. A
person of my acquaintance (is that vague enough?) recently lost his (could be
her, but I’m going with him for convenience’s sake) job because of comments he
made about the business that employed him.
No, he wasn’t complaining about them.
He was kind of bragging, and gave away a hint about something new coming
from them. They took this as him giving
away their “secrets,” and that was that.
I don’t think he knew that they were reading his blog. I’m going to be very careful from now
on. And yes, this entry counts, because
it’s about writing and audience, and I’ll get to my project in the next entry. I’ve pretty much settled on Avengers:
Age of Ultron, but I’m not sure about my approach.
Wednesday, January 20, 2016
Starting my research blog
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| English: A panorama of a research room taken at the New York Public Library with a Canon 5D and 24-105mm f/4L IS. (Photo credit: Wikipedia) |
Welcome to my research blog for my English 102 class. I’m a first-year student at a community
college that I’m not going to name because I just had a lesson in why you
shouldn’t name names (more about that later).
I did okay in 101 (I think the prof liked my grammar more than my
writing; he went on and on about how he appreciated not having to mark a lot of
mistakes. But he didn’t have much to say
about WHAT I wrote. He did ask on one
paper that I try not to use so many parentheticals. I guess he had a point.).
Anyway, this term I’m going to be writing a research paper, and the
materials I got on Blackboard make it sound as though this is a much bigger
deal than I expected. I mean, I’ve done
research papers before, and they got good grades.
I’m already over my
100 words, and I still haven’t said much about myself. I’ll save that for my next post.
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