Class and Virtue

This essay by Michael Parenti talks about the way Hollywood shows class distinctions in the movies and promotes the lifestyles of the upper class. I can’t really relate to any of the movies that Parenti is talking about because I haven’t seen any of them. However, I think I’ve heard enough things about the movie Pretty Woman to understand what he is talking about in the essay. He talks about how the character played by Julia Roberts, works as a prostitute and is hired to by a rich businessman to be his girlfriend for a month. The job is a dream come true for her, but she doesn’t really know how to act the part of a rich girlfriend because she comes from a lower class background. She learns how to talk, dress and act in a way more suitable to the upper class and suddenly the rich man finds himself actually falling in love with her. This shows that Hollywood movies do typically promote the values of the upper class. Because as soon as Julia Roberts character transformed into an upper class citizen she got everything she wanted and lived happily ever after. I don’t think that all movies follow this same pattern, but a lot of them do tend to favor the lifestyle of the upper class.

Grey's Anatomy

Finally, Grey’s Anatomy was all new this week!! The episode was about the history from our lives coming back and what we have to do to deal with it in the present. We find out that Izzy had a daughter eleven years ago that she gave up for adoption, and her daughter was now in the hospital for cancer. She needed a bone marrow transplant and the parents wanted Izzy to donate her bone marrow because she would be a match. It was really hard for Izzy to deal with all the information at once and she didn’t know what to do. The worst part was that her daughter didn’t want to meet her. Izzy quickly changed her mind and decided to donate the bone marrow because she knew her daughter’s life was more important than meeting her right then. She knew she would eventually be able to meet her when she was ready, as long she was still alive. Although George and Izzy were fighting, George was right by her side throughout the whole procedure. He even forgot about his own wife, Callie, to take care of Izzy. I think that George and Izzy will eventually end up together because they obviously love each other. A past boyfriend who happened to also be a famous surgeon, showed up in Christina’s life in this episode. He did everything that he could to win her back, including trying to outshine Burke (Christina’s fiancée), during surgery. But she made it clear to him that she wanted to be with Burke, and he finally left. I think that our past will always come back to haunt us, but the only thing we can do is try in deal with it in the present one step at a time.

Batman

I have to say that I have never thought about Batman and queerness before reading this article. Growing up with many older boy cousins and a brother, I have been watching superhero stuff since I can remember. I don’t think that Batman and Robin have a relationship that is queer at all but I think that’s because I have been watching them for a long time without that thought ever crossing my mind. The points that the author of this article brings up are valid. For example, the fact that the only time Batman shows his body his when he is around Robin does seem a little queer. But I only think that people will make the queer connections after reading an article like this one. If someone were to watch the movie, like me, and then read the article, I don’t think they would believe that Batman is queer at all. However, if someone were to read the article first and see all the points that the author brings up, I think that their perception of the movie and Batman’s relationship with Robin might be a little swayed towards the article. I still don’t believe that Batman is queer in anyway, and the prime audience that watches these superhero films will probably agree with me. I don’t think the author is saying that batman is queer, but just stating her opinion by pointing out different things she noticed in the movie, and I don’t think there’s anything wrong with that.

Dawn of the Dead and Shaun of the Dead

Over the past couple of days, instead of studying for my chemistry and biology exams, I decided to watch Dawn of the Dead (the new version) and Shaun of the Dead to get ideas for my research paper. Dawn of the Dead wasn’t that exciting; I definitely liked Land of the Dead better. In the movie the zombie outbreak was just happening and the people didn’t know what to do. All the main characters end up trapping themselves in the mall to hide from the zombies. I didn’t like how the zombies in this film could run! I thought zombies always walked around really slowly making loud noises, but not in this movie. Shaun of the Dead was the funny version of a zombie movie that made a lot of reference to Dawn of the Dead. Just like in Romero’s Dawn of the Dead, the zombie outbreak was just beginning in this movie and the people had no idea what they were. The movie turned out better than I thought it would be. It had a love story, and it developed all of the characters really well, unlike in Land of the Dead. I’m glad I watched it because it helped me develop a lot more ideas for my paper. After watching it, I decided I wanted to write about the differences in special effects of Shaun of the Dead and Land of the Dead. Hopefully, by writing about both of these movies, I’ll have a lot to say and I won’t have to worry about the paper being too short.

October Road

Sadly, this week’s episode of Grey’s Anatomy was a rerun again, so I watched October Road. This episode of October Road revealed a lot of secrets of many of the characters. Nick finds out that his dad his dating the dean of his school, who is also his boss. He also finds out that the dean had rearranged for him to come back to his hometown in the first place so he could reunite with his dad. I thought that was interesting because if it weren’t for the dean inviting him to come back and speak at the school, he would never have come back home. Another main character, Eddie, who used to be Nick’s best friend, has developed a relationship with the local bartender, Janet. Eddie has the reputation in town for dating all the “hot” girls, and Janet doesn’t really fill that hot girl term because she is a little heavier. They both have strong feelings for each other, but Eddie is scared to go out in public with Janet because he is scared of what other people say. I think that’s so sad, because Eddie is letting a good thing pass by just because of what his friends might say. Janet is a great girl, with a wonderful personality and Eddie knows that, but all he cares about is ruining his reputation of consistently dating the hot girl. I think that many people pass up great things in life like Eddie just to keep up their so-called good reputation. However, I believe that we should care less about what other people think and make our own decisions in life based on what makes up happy.

Paper Ideas

After discussing Land of the Dead in class this week, I’m still a little undecided on what I’m going to write about. The topic about the special effects sounded really interesting to write about and it also seemed like it would be easier to find information backing up the topic. I was thinking of maybe focusing on the lighting and the costumes/makeup. We discussed in class that the director used lots of darker colors to make up the background. He used colors like dark blue, grey and black in the set to create a darker mood. The only lighting or source of electricity came from the building where the rich people lived. The low lighting helped bring out the features in the zombie costumes. I never thought about how lowering the lighting would help emphasize the different parts of the costumes. I think this topic would have a lot of information and sources to help me get a good start on the paper. I can look up what goes into creating the scary looks of the zombies and how the lighting plays a major part on how they are portrayed to the audience. The other topic I am still thinking about is how gender played a role in the movie. Specifically, with the girls and how they played the stereotypical roles, like the “tomboy”. However, I think this topic is going to be harder to write about and have less sources on it. So at this point, I’m leaning towards writing about the lighting and makeup of the movie.

The Land of the Dead

The Land of the Dead is probably the first real zombie movie I have ever watched, and after finishing it today in class, I thought it was pretty good. I was expecting it to be a lot scarier than it was though. Horror films are not usually my first pick when I go out to the theaters or rent a movie, but it was a good change of pace. I really have no idea what I’m going to write about, especially for eight pages. Since I haven’t really seen too many other horror or zombie films, I’m probably going to stick with this movie and focus on some aspect of it. I’m thinking of maybe writing about the race/gender/sexuality/social class aspect of the film. There were a lot of example of all those throughout the movie. For example, with the main zombie being African American it shows the gender and race stereotypes. Another topic I was thinking of writing about was examining a scene or certain characters. This might be easier because I can focus on a certain part and develop my idea. For either topic I choose, I think the hardest part is going to be making it long enough. I’m going to need to start researching my source soon and hopefully that will help me choose a topic. I just need to pick the topic that I’m most comfortable with and have a lot to write about, so I don’t get point off for the paper being too short! But hopefully once I start writing, it won’t be too hard.

The Namsake

Last weekend, I went to visit my friend in Birmingham and she wanted to go watch the movie The Namesake. I had never heard of the movie and when she told me what it was about, I wasn’t really interested. She finally convinced me to go, and to my surprise it was an awesome movie! The movie was about a family moving from Calcutta, India to New York and adjusting to the completely new lifestyle. It started off in India with the parents, Ashoke and Ashima, getting married. They then moved to a little apartment in New York with little money and no idea what to expect from this foreign land. After a couple years of struggling they moved into a nicer house and had two kids. The story basically focused on their son, Gogol played by Kal Penn. It followed his struggles in trying to live a normal life in America while holding onto his Indian culture. I thought Kal Penn wouldn’t be good in a serious role, but I definitely underestimated him. Kal Penn along with the rest of the cast did an excellent job. I liked this movie a lot because I could relate a lot of aspects of it to my own life. Just like the family in the movie, my parents moved from India and struggled a lot before they ended up where they are today. Sometimes I do find it hard to balance both the Indian and American cultures in my life. However, I think I have it easier than Kal Penn did in the movie because I am exposed to my Indian side a lot by having a lot of family members close by. I have also been back to India a few times with my parents and brother. Overall, I thought the movie was great and it did an outstanding job portraying the life of this Indian family trying to adjust in America.

Reading and Writing About Movies

This week’s readings were about analyzing movies, and taking time to discuss them instead of just watching them for leisure. I liked the part where they talked about movie genres and how people expect certain things from certain movies. For example, you go to comedies prepared to laugh and to horror films prepared to be scared, and if we don’t get those things from the movies we are generally disappointed. The article talked about how even though we pay attention to genre, the critics don’t, and I thought that was interesting. When reviewing a movie, I would think that genre would be a big part of the discussion. But many critics look at the movie as a whole and tend to compare then to such classics like Casablanca. I also like the part about movies being a powerful cultural tool. I definitely believe that many more people today are comparing their lives to what they see in the movies. I agree with the part in the essay that talks about movies guiding our behavior. People these days want to dress and act like many of the movie stars they see on the big screen. Even when it comes to dating, many people are getting ideas from what they see in romantic films. Being a girl, I think it also gives us false hope of the perfect guy entering our lives and courting us away on extravagant dream dates. I think that as the years go by, many more people are using what they see in the movies in their everyday lives. The way they talk, dress, and act are all influenced by what they see, and I don’t know if that’s such a good thing. Depending on the movie, it could cause children to act in ways they shouldn’t be, but I guess that would be the parent’s job to monitor what they are watching.

Grey's Episode 8

Yesterday’s episode of Grey’s Anatomy dealt with secrets. Last episode, we learn that Callie has inherited a lot of money from her parents. George gets upset that she didn’t tell him about the money and they get into a huge fight about it. So George went over to talk to Izzy about it. Let’s just say that they both got extremely drunk and ended up sleeping together. This episode starts off as the next day, and George could not really remember what happened, and Izzy didn’t really bother to bring it up. But once he finally realized that they had slept together, he was furious. Izzy wanted to tell Callie, but George refused. He said that he would rather have the burden of keeping a guilty conscious for the rest of his life instead of telling Callie and breaking her heart. I think that George is being completely selfish. Callie has the right to know what he did with Izzy, even if it will hurt her. Then she should have the right to decide if she wants to be with George despite of what he did. Keeping secrets like that from the people you care about will come back to hurt you in the end. I definitely believe that there are some things that should be left unsaid, but in this case, if I were in Callie’s shoes I would want to know. I think that Callie is going to find out what happened somehow, and it’s going to be really hard for her to forgive George, because he was not honest with her. Being honest is the best thing you can do because the truth will always come out in the end.

October Road

Yesterday a new show called October Road, premiered after Grey’s Anatomy on ABC. I initially started watching it because it starred Bryan Greenberg, who used to be one of my favorite characters on the show One Tree Hill. The show is about Nick Garret, played by Bryan Greenberg, and his return to his hometown after ten long years. He left right after high school for a backpacking trip through Europe, and he promised his friends and his girlfriend that he would be back after six weeks. But after those six weeks, he decided he didn’t want to go home and he wanted to take some time for himself. Within those ten years, Nick wrote a book about his hometown and all the people in it. The booking ended up becoming really popular and it made him famous. He was then asked to return to his hometown to lead a seminar at his local college. When he returned home, he was not welcomed by some of his old friends because he trashed them in his book. At the end of the episode Nick decides to stay longer and maybe get inspiration for his next book. I thought the show was pretty good and it kept me interested. I think it will do pretty well because it’s in the time slot after Grey’s, which a lot of people watch. However, a lot of people also watch Ugly Betty before Grey’s, so I don’t know how many people will stay tuned for three hours of TV. I guess we will just have to wait and see how it does.

Spring Break

My spring break has been going pretty good, even though I’m stuck here in Michigan. My days have consisted of sleeping in, working, hanging out with my friends, and avoiding my homework. I also went bowling, and I can’t even remember the last time I went. My score was 80 and I’m sad to say that my eight-year-old cousin beat me, but it was still lots of fun. The weather was unusually gorgeous on Tuesday with sunny skies, and 70 degrees. I was so excited to go outside in flip-flops and no jacket! But of course on Wednesday night, it snows and we’re back to our normal cold, gross weather. But what do you expect? It’s Michigan, the weather changes every five minutes! Although, the beautiful weather left as quickly as it came, I enjoyed it while it lasted. Now it’s Friday, and I’m wondering where the days have gone! I can’t believe break is almost over and I have to spend my last weekend catching up on homework. I have to study for a chemistry test that’s on Monday. Who puts a test on the day after break? I really think that my professor wants all of us to fail. Overall, my spring break was very relaxing and I’m sad it’s coming to an end. Now I have to get back to reality and start studying if I don’t want to fail!

Reality TV paper

I thought that this paper was a lot harder to write than the last one. I think I mainly had trouble because I do not watch a lot of reality television in the first place. At first, I was going to write about how reality television was unrealistic, but I had a very hard time getting five pages out with the shows that I had chosen. I finally decided to write about how reality television is realistic in the cases of American Idol and Amazing Race. At first, I still had a lot of trouble writing five to six pages on this subject. Finally, I just started describing the shows in detail, and it slowly took off from there. I actually think that most reality television shows are unrealistic, but with American Idol and Amazing Race I found more reasons why they did show reality. With American Idol, I think the show is real because the audition process is similar to regular open casting calls in the real entertainment business. Also, the contestants have be a good singer to make if far in the competition. In Amazing Race, the contestants have to have strength, speed and intelligence to win the race. So I believe that both these shows represent many aspects of reality compared to a lot of other reality shows on television right now. Overall, I thought this paper was kind of difficult, and I definitely had to work a harder lot on this one than the last paper to make good. However, once I started getting my ideas out, it was much easier to bring everything together.

House

This week I'm going to write about the show House because Grey's Anatomy was a rerun, yet again. Dave Mathews guest starred on the show, and I was surprised at how good of an actor he was. He played a person that had gotten into an accident at a very young age, and had suffered sever brain damage. The brain damage caused him to forever be in the state of mind of a five year old, and his father has always taken care of him. He can't speak that well or even button his shirt, but somehow he is amazing at playing the piano. So him and his father created these charity events where he plays the piano to raise money for people that have the same disease as him. During one the charity events, his fingers stop functioning and that's when he is taken to Dr. House. House wants remove the right half of his brain because he thinks it will completely cure him, and the father is left with the decision of letting them perfom the surgery. I don't know what I would do if I had to make that decision. On one hand, the son could be cured, but on the other hand he could die. The father ends up consenting the surgery and of course the son turns out fine. Another big thing that happened on the show is that we learned that Dr. House had brain cancer, or so we thought. The whole episode all the people in his life were hurting at the thought that he was going to die and taking time to be extra nice to House. A few of the doctors decided to test him again to make sure he wasn't misdiagnosed with the cancer. When the results turned up negative for brain cancer, they were so excited to tell him. When they told House the good news, he became furious at them. It turns out that House had faked cancer so he could get the pain drugs injected into his brain. House had a previous addiction to Vikodin and it turns out he isn't over it. I thought it was crazy the lengths he went to, to get the drugs. He tricked everyone that actually cared about him, and in the end pushed them farther away but creating such a lie.

grey's Episode 7

Sadly, this week’s episode of Grey’s Anatomy was a rerun, but luckily I haven’t written about this episode yet. In this episode all the guys of the show decide to take a camping trip to get some fresh air and space from all the women in their lives. Back at the hospital, Dr. Slone has a completed surgery of turning a man into a woman. The man having the surgery, Daniel, has his wife with him, and Meredith asks her how she is dealing with all this. The women tells Meredith that at first, when her husband told her he wanted to become a women, she couldn’t handled it. She left him and tried to get her mind off of him by dating other men. After dating other men, she realized that she just wanted her best friend, Daniel back regardless if he was a man or a woman. This kind of ties into our discussion this week about homosexuals and how they are not accepted by some people in our society. Like the homosexuals, people like Daniel may not always be accepted in our society, but I believe the people that truly care about them will always be there. I think that people should be able to express themselves in whatever way they want, we shouldn’t hold their sexuality, race, or gender against them. I know that in our society these stereotypes and prejudices will always exist, but hopefully by different shows bringing up these topics, people will slowly begin to accept them.

Society’s Need For a Queer Solution

This reading dealt with issues of homosexuals and the different ways they are being portrayed on television. It talked about how television portrays homosexuals only through comedies like Friends and Will and Grace. I think that Will and Grace has a good example of how being gay doesn’t have to fit into one type of person. With Jack we see the “typical” flamboyant, gay guy that flaunts the fact that he’s gay and is proud of it. With Will we see a completely different guy who is career oriented and not only identified by his sexuality. I like that it shows both guys and that you don’t have to fit into one type of person just because of your sexuality. I think that people should be able to have any sort of identity they want and leave their sexuality out of it. From the clip of Dawson’s Creek, we see that Jack is struggling to find his place. He feels that he can’t be the jock and gay at the same time. Dawson’s Creek is not a comedy and it addressed the fact that he was gay and trying to fit in with the other kids in high school. I think that kids can watch shows like this and be able to feel more comfortable with their sexuality and know that they are not the only one going through it. I think many television shows now are less afraid to have homosexuals as main characters on their shows. One show that I just recently started watching called Brothers and Sisters, has a gay guy on it. He is one of the main characters and from the outside and the way he acts you could never tell he was gay. Like Will’s character from Will and Grace, he is a well accomplished lawyer and he doesn’t flaunt the fact that he’s gay, but he’s definitely not hiding it either. I think as the years go on many more shows will start addressing homosexuality and hopefully it will be less of an issue.

Twentysomethings

This reading talks about how people in their twenties now are kind of a lost generation. He says that their generation is getting dumber and they will do worse than their parents. He talks about television shows such as Melrose Place that showed a group of people in their twenties messing around and not taking life seriously. I have never watched the show before but I’m guessing it’s like a soap opera with younger people. In a way I kind of agree with the author when he says that this generation is lost. If we look on TV, most of the dramas and comedies have people that are older than 30 or in high school and younger. All the people in their twenties are mainly found on reality television shows. This shows they have no real goals other than to make money by competing on TV, and have their fifteen minutes of fame. On the other hand, I don’t think that we can group that whole generation into reality TV slackers. Many people in their twenties go to college, find a job and ultimately do better than their parents.

Grey's Episode 6

This week’s episode was the conclusion to the three-part event on Grey’s Anatomy. Meredith dies and goes to heaven where she comes face to face with people that had died in her life. They all join together to ask her why she purposely drowned, but she could not get herself to admit to them that she killed herself. She kept telling them that she couldn’t swim because the water was too cold, but they all knew what really happened. Once she finally admitted what she did, she realized that she made a terrible mistake and that she needed to be with all the people that she loved. She then saw her mom in heaven and realized that she had died too. Meredith’s mom apologized for yelling at her for not being good enough. She told Meredith that she was anything but ordinary and that it wasn’t her time to die yet. Meredith then regains a heartbeat and comes back to life. The fact that Meredith dies and comes back to life proves that television drama does not represent reality. The basis of the show is realistic, in the aspect of having doctors saving people’s lives, but when they show things like that it proves that they bend reality in the best interest of the show. They obviously weren’t going to kill off Meredith, because she’s one of the main characters.

Life According to TV

In this week’s reading, George Gerbner talks about the misrepresentations and biases of the world according to television. He did an experiment where he asked questions about these biases to heavy television viewers and light television viewers. He found that the heavy TV viewers chose TV influenced answers and the light TV viewers chose answers that were closer to real life. He talked about how males get most of the leading roles and females are given small parts on TV shows. I don’t completely agree with that statement because there are more and more shows today with females as the main characters. For example, Desperate Housewives, Grey’s Anatomy, Girlfriends, and many others have strong female characters with real jobs and responsibility, both in and out of the home. He also talked about how people over the age of 65 are showing up less in television. I agree with that because it’s hard to find a show nowadays with the main characters all around that age. He said that young people think that older people are less healthy because that’s how they are shown on TV and don’t necessarily agree with that. I don’t think that just because someone is older it means they are unhealthy. For the most part, I agree with the other points he brought up about race, work and crime.

Grey's Episode 5

Last week the episode ended with Meredith falling in the water. This week the episode started with Meredith kind of bobbing in the water with her voice in the background talking about life. One minute she’s in the water swimming and the next thing we know she decides to stop swimming and just let herself sink into the water and ultimately, drown. In the midst of all the chaos, Derek manages to find Meredith and pull her, now blue, limp, body out of the water and get her to the hospital. The episode ended with all the main characters all standing together waiting to hear the fate of their good friend. I know that Meredith will survive because she is one of the main characters, but the issue of suicide is a prominent problem in our society today. I think that Meredith is going to realize that her life is not that bad, and then decide to fight for her life and come back to life. Because it’s television, Meredith can come back to life, but many people that decide to commit suicide cannot reverse their decision. I think suicide is horrible and unfortunate problem in our society. I don’t think anything is worth taking your own life. As much as I would like to think and hope that these problems don’t exist, I know it does. All we can do is help raise awareness about suicide and try and prevent it in the future.

Grey's Episode 4

Today’s episode of Grey’s Anatomy was the first of a three-part continuation. In the beginning of the episode, the interns were doing triage drills to practice in case of an emergency. In the middle of their drill practicing, the chief of surgeon comes into the room and tells all of them to get ready to leave because their has been some kind of accident where there are numerous people in critical condition. Once they reach the scene of the accident, all the interns freeze in their footsteps at the horrifying scene. It turns out that somehow a huge ship had crashed and many people were hurt. Bailey, the attending doctor, yelled and told them all to snap out of their shock and start saving lives. Each of them tended to different people and reacted in different ways. Alex, George and Meredith found injured people right away and started helping them, but Izzy still stood there frozen in her tracks. I don’t know what I would do if I were in that same situation. I want to pursue a career as a doctor, and I may one day have to go through that same kind of thing, and I don’t know if would freeze up like Izzy. I would like to think that I wouldn’t, but we will just have to wait and see. I give so much credit to doctors, emergency workers, and any other people that live to save other people’s lives. Finally, a man then approached Izzy and begged her to help a friend that was trapped under something. She hesitated but finally went with him. The episode ended with all the interns in the middle of their cases. Meredith, however, had been pushed off the dock and into the water by one of the patients acting out from severe pain. I can’t wait until next week to see what happens to Meredith and all the other interns with their extreme cases.

Adobiography

I thought that this paper was fairly easy to write. I thought the hardest part was picking the advertisements because I had to flip through a lot of magazines before I finally found three ads that I could write a paper on. Starting off the paper was a little difficult, but once I started writing the words just kept flowing, which is good. The peer conferences were pretty helpful. My partners pointed out some things that I probably wouldn’t have found on my own. I liked how Ellen read through the papers and gave her comments. With her comments, I knew I was on the right track and I knew exactly what I needed to work on to do well on the paper. This was really helpful to me in writing the final copy of the paper. Another thing that was really helpful was the checklist. I liked having it and so I knew exactly what I needed to add to my final copy. I do think that having the checklist and all the requirements of the paper from the start would have been a little more helpful. Overall, I thought this paper went well for me and I hope it shows up in my grade.

The coolhunt

I thought this was a pretty interesting article. I really didn’t know that they were actual people that go out to different neighborhoods and find kids to tell them their opinions of their products. I think that is a really good strategy for increasing sales because what better way to find out what the people want then to ask the people. In the article, it talked about Baysie going to a neighborhood in the Bronx to find out the kids feelings on their new shoes. To her surprise, many of the guys liked a shoe that was made for girls. So she took that information back to work and decided to turn that girl shoe into a guy shoe, and it did much better in the market. Although it’s a good strategy to ask people their opinion, how does that one opinion talk for all of the consumers of the product? What exactly is the definition of “cool”? I think that many people just buy the products because it is a certain brand name, or a certain celebrity was wearing it, regardless of what it might say. This is why coolhunting works. If one person is wearing it, it will catch on and soon become a popular item for the most part.

Grey's Episode 3

In today’s episode, Meredith’s mom comes to a completely lucid state after five years of suffering from Alzheimer’s disease and not remembering anything. The last thing she remembered was Meredith going away to Europe and the only thing she wanted to know was whether or not Meredith had followed in her footsteps and became a surgeon. The whole episode Meredith was trying to avoid her mother, even though everyone was telling her talk to her mother because most people aren’t given that kind of opportunity. Despite everyone’s advice, she decided to stay away from her mother, and at first I didn’t understand why. If I had the chance to speak to my mother after five years, I would jump at the opportunity. When she finally built up the courage to talk to her, her mother yelled at her and criticized her for not being the best. Then I understood why she didn’t want to talk to her, because she knew everything she accomplished in the past five years would not be good enough for her mother. I think that many parents have this standard that they expect their children to meet, and no matter what they do it’s never enough. It’s sad, because the kids beat themselves up about it and end up resenting their parents. I’m not saying that all parents are like this, in fact most aren’t. I think the best thing a parent can do is to encourage and support their kids in everything that they do. In the end, I think that Meredith’s mom realized that she made a mistake in yelling at her. Unfortunately, she went back into her state of Alzheimer’s before she could tell Meredith that. As for last week’s cliffhanger, George and Callie eloped in Vegas and Christina accepted Burke’s proposal.

Grey's Episode 2

Last week on the show we learned that George’s dad died from cancer and this week we expected to see him go through a grieving stage, but we didn’t. Instead of moping around and wanting to keep to himself, George turned to sex to ease his pain. He turned into kind of a sex addict. His poor girlfriend couldn’t take it anymore and asked his best friend Izzy, to keep him occupied and away from her for a while. Izzy tried to talk to him and get him to let his feelings out, but he wouldn’t really budge. It wasn’t until he had to operate on a person that had the same condition as his late father, that everything really hit him, and he finally started talking. What are the different ways that we go through grief? Is there any right/good way to help ease the pain? I think that everyone deals with death in different ways. The best thing we can do is be there for the people we love when they have to go through tough situations like that. Izzy and George’s girlfriend, Callie, were both there for him and although he kept it inside in the beginning, he finally leaned on them for comfort. After his talk with Izzy, George realized that life is too short. He then rushed to Callie and asked her to marry him. I think that George definitely loves Callie, but I think he is acting too impulsively with the marriage idea. I believe that Callie thinks the same way, which is why she hasn’t given him an answer yet. We’ll have to wait until next week and see what her answer is!

The signs of advertising

The purpose of advertisements is to sell the product and most advertisers will do anything they can to trick us into buying their products. In this article they discuss the fact that we are more likely to buy brand name items, like jeans, because they project a certain image. I agree with this because so many people today spend their money on expensive brand name clothing, even if the quality of the product doesn’t live up to the extremely high prices. People have the mindset that the products with the brand names attached to them will make them feel confident and sexy. This is why most advertisements use “sexy” images because they know that sex sells. I definitely think that these kinds of ads sell better in our society today, because most people have a common goal of trying to be sexy, and they believe that with buying these products maybe they could achieve that. However, some people can take the ads in a very wrong way and see them as a threat to our society. Like, the calvin klein ads mentioned in this article. The ad for underwear featured younger boys in their underwear and many people thought that it was promoting homosexuality and it qualified as child pornography. I thought that it was a little crazy for people to take it that far. How are they supposed to sell children’s underwear, without having children wearing the underwear? How come it’s okay for adults to be in an ad wearing their underwear? Like Victoria secret, for example? All ads are going to offend someone somewhere, so there is really no way to keep everyone happy.

Weasel Words

I thought this was a very interesting article. It’s amazing all the words that advertisements use to trick the viewers into buying their products. Before reading the article, I never really paid attention to the amount of weasel words that are used in most ads. Some ads consist only of weasel words and do not even say anything about the product. It astonishes me that we fall into their traps and purchase their products just from watching these ads without even knowing exactly what we are buying half the time. I knew of some of the weasel words mentioned in this article like “help” and “new and improved”. However, I never thought of words like “virtually” as being a weasel word before reading this. I think that ads use more than just the words to persuade people to buy their products. The way they lay out the ad with the objects, colors, and scenery also play a big part in attracting consumers to their products. For example, if an ad consists of “good looking” people I think they are more likely to sell their products. After reading this article, I’m definitely more aware of the words and objects that are used in different advertisements. Now I will take more time to look behind the weasel words and see what the advertisement is actually saying before I jump right in and buy the product.

Grey's Anatomy

One of my favorite shows on television right now is Grey’s Anatomy. I was excited to hear that the show won the golden globe for best drama this year, and I definitely think they deserved it! The show follows the lives of a group of surgical interns and their crazy work schedules and complicated relationships.

In this week’s episode we learn that George’s dad, who just went through surgery for cancer, was only hanging on with life support and the family had to decide whether or not to continue with the life support. George and his family are very close and they immediately looked to him for the answer. Although it was extremely hard, George explained to them that he was going to die so they should put him out of his pain and take him off the life support. Together the family agreed with George’s decision. When they took George’s dad off of the life support, it was a very emotional moment in the show. They did an excellent job of expressing each characters emotion and that in turn pulled me in and heightened my emotions as well. I can relate to George and what he went through because my family had to make the same decision with my grandma. It was one of the hardest things my family has ever endured, and I think that the show did a great job showing the hardship that George and his family encountered.

Meredith, another intern, was inspired to mend her broken relationship with her dad because she saw the wonderful relationship George had with his dad and she wanted to experience that before it was too late. She took a small step and asked her dad if he snores, because her boyfriend, Derek, had been complaining about her loud snoring and she knew that she didn’t get it from her mother. Although it was a silly question, the question helped them hold a conversation, which is something they haven’t done in a long time. I’m glad Meredith built up the courage to talk to her dad and help restore their relationship. I think this episode had a good message, saying that life is too short, and we should not live it being mad at family and the ones we love. We should do everything we can to keep our relationships with our friends and family alive because we never know when they will end.