This Is How We Live

      I really enjoyed readying This Is How We Live, by Ellen DeGeneres. She really puts the way technology is making us lazy. My favorite part of the reading was the beginning where she was bashing on everyone. She says, "We used to have breath mints. Now we have breath strips that just dissolve on our tongue. Can we not suck anymore?" (DeGeneres 638) I found that part really funny. Saying that we have become lazy due to all the advances of technology. 

    She believes that technology is torturing us and she uses many examples to prove her point in a hilarious way. First she states that you need scissors to open a scissor packages. 

    She ends her article by saying, "My thought is this: Chances are, if you need both of your hands to do something, your brain should be in it too." (DeGeneres 642) This was very interesting to me because I believe that no matter what you do, your brain is working. Even though she is sarcastically telling her point, she is saying that nowadays there are cellphones which you don't need your hands anymore but really you use your brain and hands together to work the object. 

   Just like the discussion we had in class. Where it was discussed, what makes something a technology? And our conclusion was that something that made doing tasks easier. This ties in very well what Ellen is trying to say. 

Everything Is Bad For You

Steven Johnson

Libby Sarkis

English 102

Nicole Williams 

I found a lot of what Steven Johnson said interesting. Johnson challenges the image that pop culture has decreased. Johnson uses the word "Sleeper Curve", to argue his point that, "the Sleeper Curve is the single most important new force altering the mental development of young people today." (459) He implies that pop culture has become superior to traditional culture. He uses this to argue against modern image of the deteriorating standards of pop culture. 

I agree with what he has to say. I believe that our generations TV shows are much more deeper and just like reading a book. I also found it interesting on page 461 when he goes into frenzy if video games came out before reading. Even though he doesn't fully believe in what the frenzy would be like, I still found it interesting and made me think in another way. What if books came out after video games. Peoples minds would drastically change on how they see books, compared to nowadays. 

Observation Practice 

Libby Sarkis
English 102
2/24/14

      When I went home for the weekend I was able to observe people at my work. I work at TjMaxx in Easton and I am very known their and people like me. This allows me to get the gossip from both the teenagers my age and the older women. Once when a costumer would leave the register, the gossip would start up right away. There is one women that I work with that all she does is talk and talk about her life. Her name is Marge and she feels like god is out to get her or something. She constantly talks about her bad luck and never anything positive. She is surely someone that no one likes to be around.

     I love to work at TjMaxx for the one reason that I get to be somewhat a therapist for some costumers. They feel like its okay to spill all their problems to me and that it will help them. I have a lot of gossip from people in the Easton town. I always try to console them and give them advice but half the time I am just thinking about when my next break is. A lot of costumers also think that they are being sly when they try to either steal or when returning try to return something that isn't ours. But what people don't know is that we have a great security system and we catch everyone.

   Another thing I noticed was that once when my boss would leave the front desk, the workers would slack much more and not do what they were supposed to. Everyone feels like that since the boss isn't their watching them that they have the right to not do their job. TjMaxx was a good site to observe because there is a constant flow of people coming in and out. Also that not one day is the same, you witness things that you wouldn't think you would normally think you would.

Commencement Address

Libby Sarkis
Journal #3

2/17/14

English 102

I really enjoyed reading Commencement Address by Jon Stewart. It was witty and really put perspective on college students nowadays. The way Stewart makes his statement in a humor kind of way makes his advice so much more appealing to students, but also has his serious moments which makes the speech successful.  He really shows to the graduates that "College is something you complete, Life is something you experience." (Stewart 128). He tells them to do what they like and life will fall into place. 

He says that we have to ability to be whatever we want to. What is done in college doesn't define who we will become. It is the person we become after college and which way we go in life is what we become. He tells the graduates, 

                "So how do you know what is the right path to choose 

                 to get the result that you desire? The honest     

                 answer is this: you won't. And accepting that 

                 greatly eases the anxiety of your life experience"

                                                  (Stewart 127)

After reading this quote, I really started to think back to what my parents were telling me when I was applying to college. My mother made me believe that going to college and the major I choose freshman year will make my future happen. She makes me believe that I NEED to know exactly what I want to do with my life at eighteen. And in reality, I have no clue what I want to be. One day I want to be a lawyer so then i have to change my major, then I want to be in T.V. production, so that goes another major change. After reading this article I can finally see that college is here for the experience. Society wants me to be here. Now its what I become and do with myself after college that defines who I am. 

He states at the end that we will all be ok, and I believe him, with every word he says. 

Libby Sarkis

February 10, 2014

Journal #2

                                                                     Glogster Blog

I based my digital collage on the branches of my life. I became who I am now from how I grew up and what I went through my life. My theme for the Glog is nature and for the background I chose a cedar tree so I can easily make the different branches or stages go my life. Also because the cedar tree is the national symbol for Lebanon. On the Lebanese flag the cedar tree is represented and is a big part of the culture. I also used the animated arrows to give my audience a better vision for where to go next. I decided to put two quotes on my blog to stand out. The first one, "Life is like riding a bicycle. To keep your balance you must keep moving." by Albert Einstein really shows that even though my Glog ends with the BSU section, that it will keep going forward and I have much more ahead of my life. The second one, "A person without the knowledge of their past history, origin and culture is like a tree without roots." I chose that quote for the main reason of my whole theme. The quote is basically saying that without knowing your past, is like a tree without roots, which is very unlikely because roots re the base of trees. The roots are there for stability, just like your past is their for your stability. My first "branch" starts of with two pictures of my brothers and I. I chose these pictures because thats how I started my life. My parents brought me into this life with just me and my brothers for us to start our own adventure. The next stage is where I start to branch of and make my own life. The next branch I show myself with my best friend Natasha. She is a very big part of my life. There are no words to describe how much I love her and that she basically is a sister to me. We have been through so much together and are still as strong even though we are apart. My next branch is about my soccer team. Soccer was a huge part of my life. It was a family sport and the team was like my second family. I have been playing since I could even walk. The next branch I made be my junior/senior prom. I picked this part of my life because I got to be with the people I grew up with and who taught me to be myself. Prom is a symbol of of the ending of high school were you can have a fun time for the last time with the same kids you grew up with since kindergarden, which then sets up my next branch. Graduation is a very important stage in a kids life growing up. Graduation symbolsis that you have to say goodbye to the people you have known your whole life and start to grow up and face the real world. Graduation is the culmination of all my hard work. Its proof that everything I have done and worked for paid off. It is only the first step for me to conquer a new undertaking and a new challenge. It just means that I have attained the skills and knowledge needed to prepare me for much bigger challenges and chances in life that will take me to the next level in life, which brings me to my next branch and the last one

till I grow older. My next branch is the part where I go to Bridgewater State University. Where I become a bear. I have pictures of my roommates Katie and Shannon who aren't only my roommates but my best friends and even my sisters. They have been with my for a lot though college and I won't be where I am today if it wasn't for them. I really like the ideas I put together and I feel like its very original and shows my identity. The way my branches grow into the middle of the trunk. All these big parts in my life all come together and make on big trunk, me.

Libby Sarkis
January 29, 2014
Journal #1

        My Alter Ego 

      After reading the article Alter Egos: Avatars and Their Creators, some thing I found interesting, was that each one of their "alter egos" were completely opposite of who they were in real life. For example, Rebecca Glasure is a female Asian housewife, and her avatar is a big, black male. I found this interesting when she said that people online took her much more serious when she was a male character over a female. She liked being online more then real life, because she felt more accepted in the internet than she did in every day life. Up until she had her child. 

   

   After reading this article, the movie Avatar came to my mind. The way the main characters life resembles Jason Rowe in the article was very shocking. Both boys were in a wheelchair and were physical disabled. Their alter ego characters were both very strong, muscular physical person. They both felt power when in their alter ego. Jason even goes and says, "The internet eliminates how you look in real life, so you get to know a person by their mind and personality." The way people use an alter ego to make themselves a better person is a way to really show people that you should get to know them before you judge their appearance. Many people in this article said that they felt that people online excepted them more when they weren't themselves.