Response to Classmate "Dom" :South Park

While reading this blog, I noticed that I too saw a South Park show that was pretty similar. It didn’t include a lot of prejudice about race or sex, but it was about today’s modern society. I did find that the whole episode about what Dom was talking about to be quite funny, but at the same time, it was true. Certain people do take advantage of certain situations. Some people take it too far as to harm others because the people think that they won’t be taking responsibility of their actions. It is true that specific people do get away with certain things even though we frown upon it. One example would be how Dom explains in the Episode of South Park, Mr. Garrison, an elementary school teacher can sue the school if he was fired for being gay. From then on, he took advantage of that and tried to purposely get himself fired. Though what I am talking about is not similar in the same ways that Dom Explains in his blog. It deals with certain problems among adolescence at this time.
I saw an episode of South Park that dealt with the kids and of course, Face Book, a well known social network where people can exchange pictures, videos, thoughts, etc... In this Episode, Stan’s friends are all on their face books, and they are having a good time. They find out that Stan does not have a face book, and intend on making him one. They eventually do make him one, but Stan does not want it. Throughout the episode Stan is confronted by random people about face book, and why they are not his friend on face book. Stan ends up with over one million face book friends. Stan did not want to have a face book in the first place, but since he had one, he felt like he was forced to go on it every day and do the things that everyone would do on face book. On the other side, Stan’s friend, Kyle, is addicted to face book games, and competing to have more friends than Cartmen. Kyle notices that one person has no friends, and he decide to friend request him. The other person obviously accepts. After this happens, Kyle notices that his friend is dropping significantly, all because he made friends with that kid who had no friends in the first place. The rest of the Episode is not really significant to the rest of the idea that I am trying to explain but this much of the episode explains a lot.
This episode helped me to understand that there are two types of people who go on face book for a reason. One person is of course, the addict, who goes on face book to play games, talk to people, post things, and pretty much almost everything that can be done on face book. These people generally go on face book every day, for maybe hours at a time and it doesn’t fatigue them in any way. The other person is the one who generally either does check their face book every once in a while, or they would hardly check it. It isn’t saying that they don’t like face book, they just do not find a need to be on face book all the time to know what is going on in their friends lives. These people might check their face books, at most once a day for at least five to ten minutes. Or they might check them once or twice a week and it goes on for months, years, or they won’t even check their face books at all. It’s probably because they feel no need to use face book, or they have their own methods of contacting their friends, like a cell phone, skype, etc. there is a lot of difference between how these social networks develop. People take advantage on what they used to be and now is has become something that people are beginning to frown upon, like how Myspace use to be.

Response to Karen's Post: My Tintern Abbey

After reading this post I realized that Karen's story was similar to one of my own. Though I have never read the poem Tintern Abbey by William Wordsworth, I can relate to it as if I were him. I tried remembering a place that I had the most attachment to, and calmed me down, and I could only come up with one. The pond in my backyard was the only place that I felt the most connection to. There were other places that I could have chosen, but the pond felt to be most peaceful place to be.
I remember when I moved into from my old house to the new one that I now am living. I went to the back yard to check it out, because as a kid you want a big backyard to play a lot of games. As I was wondering through the back yard I discovered a small pond that was located at the far corner in the back yard. I remembered that it was very slimy and mossy all around the edges of the pond. But in the middle of the pond was this clean surface, as if it were never touched by any outside debris. It looked so peaceful and untainted in the middle, and I would glance at it and see the reflection of the clouds in the sky.
At the time I was with my twin brother, and if no one else could tell we were pretty much complete opposites. I was always the calm one who didn’t cry all the time and I didn’t really care what was going. My brother on the other hand was very loud, annoying and simply too much to handle. He was also with me in the backyard when I discovered the pond. He did not take in the majestic scenery that I saw, so instead, he picked up a rock and launched into the middle of the water. As the rock was airborne, I felt a sense of displeasure. When it broke the surface of the water and clunked right the middle of the pond I was not at peace. I lost my temper and I ran to my brother and yelled at him for doing that as well as push him away from the pond.
During the next few years, the pond seemed to take on a different look. It was getting smaller and smaller. I remember trying to fill up the pond by running a hose from the side of the house to the pond, but of course, I did not realize that the hose was not long enough to reach the pond. I felt like I have failed to save this pond, but my father was looking from outside of the window and saw my failed attempt to save the pond. I felt helpless to save the pond as it became a small puddle, and eventually dried out. I was not the same as I was before; I was always tense and uneasy.
One day I saw my father at the same spot where the pond used to be and he was carrying a shovel in one hand and I did not understand what he was doing, but he said it was a surprise. For weeks I did not want to know what he was doing, until he calls me over o the spot where the pond was. I could not believe my eyes, right there, in front of me was a pond, just like the one I saw years before. I did not know the feeling that I had, but I felt like I was completed. I felt so much at peace to stare at the middle of the pond, still untouched and quiet. Years would pass and the pond still looks the same as we left it. I still remember myself, a few weeks before college started, I was in front of the pond gazing at the mysterious beauty, I noticed that I saw life beginning to stir up. I looked closer, and I saw tadpoles, and fish in the water. I thought to myself that this was an amazing gift that this pond has brought me and I can still remember it till this very day. One day, when I live in my own house, I am going to build a pond in remembrance to the one that I have been growing up with as a child.

Just last week I was watching a show called The Colony. as i was watching this, i was wondering how a group of completely different people from completely different backgrounds are able to live in an post-apocalyptic event. they were tested on both their survival skills, and their ability to communicate with each other to live a maintainable life as a "Colony". i connected each of the characters in the show to the the stereotypes that i had read in an article called "Living The Image" by Andrew P. Smiler. He mentions different type of stereotypes and their behaviors. i was able to connect most of these stereotypes with the cast  in the show. i found it quite fascinating how we are in  a world of different people, yet we depend on everyone to contribute to each others survival. even on a small scale, people ranging from different social status' like from models to doctors, contractors to soldiers. i felt that i could connect with these people, as well as the stereotypes that Smiler notes in his article. its also shows us how ignorant we are of others, until a situation like this one shows us the reality of how much we need and rely on each other for survival. we are not lone wolves. we are a team. I also related this to other natural disasters that have been around for the past few years, and i notice that we the people only help each other when its too late, we wait until the action happens, then we try to find a reaction to fix it. we do not try to predict the action, simply because we cannot determine the future. all we can do is just to prepare ourselves for the future and hope that everything would go the right way. the Colony showed me that we all have the potential to live a better and more organized lifestyle, other than taking things for granted. Nugent mentions that we rely too much on our future that we do not try to acknowledge what the world is today.