Three Day Blow from Ernest Hemingway

My second story was from Ernest Hemingway, it was called Three Day Blow.

Here you can find it.

In these story there is two friend(Nick and Bill), talking to each other about life,books,baseball, etc.

In these story which was touchable for me was that:

Nick seemed so indecisive even about very important issues about himself. Nick totally reminded me Benjamin from The Graduate ( a guy which is standing at left-top ). He broke up with her girlfriend. But it is unclear in the story that is nick wanted to broke up or she wanted it. But Nick is thinking to go back to relationship and trying to decide to marry or not to marry with her. By this thoughts of Nick i thought he broke up with her because he has opportunity for return his decision.

While i was doing research about Hemingway, i find interesting theory of him;

Iceberg Theory:
These theory contains not giving simple informations about the story, if you will describe them strong enough , there would be no need for giving these information openly.

For example in this story, there is no clear information about from who this relationship between Nick and Marge ended. But from the attitude of Nick, we can understand he dumped Marge, i think these is use of the theory.

I liked that story indeed, Nick's pensiveness was very realistic,

I will recommend it

The Garden Party from Katherine Mansfield

As i said before, Eng course in SU helped me to find a new interest area. This area is "Trying to read short stories wihout saying "So what?" , trying to understand them and enjoy" (in detailed way ^^^). Yesterday i have read The Garden Party by Katherine Mansfield. There is short information about te author;

• Born in New Zealand, moved to London when she was 15.

• Modernist writer of short fiction.

• Other well-known stories; The Daughters of the Late Colonel ,The Fly

• Unfortunately died early; when she was 34 from tuberculosis

Story begins with a scene of a rush caused by a party which organized by wealthy family. I don't want to write the rest of the story because i thought maybe you want to read it.

Just click ;)

My opinions about the story,

Although i sometimes forgot because of the rush caused by regular life i am being adrifted and thinking like the television, common newspaper, in other words thinking in a way which i am expected, i frequently realize that our bones even will not exist 100 years later. So people will only remember us with what we have created in our life, or another option, no one will remember... And then i am giving up all the complex, little problems...

In this story, when Laura visits the poor family and saw the dead body, she is trying to say something;

"Isn't life," she stammered, "isn't life--" But what life was she couldn't explain. No matter. He quite understood.

So if i were Laura, i would say,

Isn't life is so short to be obsessed for little things like social statue of yourself, how much GPA have you done, how many stylish clothes you have etc.

So, how would you complete this sentence? ;)

See you

Original Photo by Neloqua licensed under Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic.

Thank you!

There is something happened and i couldn't post it under Sonja's post, so i think i can write it here:

Waow ! Called as a queen is very significant for me :)

Thank you Sonja, i didn't do this for extra credit, it was just fun and educative. Maybe this words are not like realistic but i will show it by trying to post everytime, :)

I am getting exited for my blog, day by day. It is like my baby, learning new things everyday and growing.

Thank you Sonja, for giving me courage and reading my posts and commenting them :)

So thank you for these reward, it made me more enthusiastic.

Congratulations to other bloggers.

See U!!!

28. Last Assignment of ENG courses

I have finished my research paper, wiki reflections and i wrote 2 blog posts. I think i am making my last assignment for ENG courses, and this is I-Search paper. I know this assignment from last term. (I-Blog Paper). However, i forgot that what's shortening was that "I" ? I hid this assignment to last because i know this is fun. "It is like little Sonja, doing interview with us :))"

Original Photo by Kennymatic licensed under Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic.

Edit after 1 hour; I finished my I-Search Paper, while i was writing it some idea came to me. What is happening to our essays? :) Imagine they are collected and duplicated. Everybody worked very detailed on them, for example , Serra is writing about Hippies, Bahar is related with Lesbian Marriages, my subject is African-American stereotypes in media, Can is related with Kurdish Stereotype, i think Hazal is doing something related with Mexian stereotypes in U.S media. We can create a handbook called "Ethnical,cultural ,racial group's various problems and features" :D

ENG 102 A2/B2/C2/D2 students present proudly,

27. Summer Plans

Actually this will not be very happy post. Because altough i missed my family a lot. I would miss my closests who i had in Sabancı, When i go to Antalya, first thing that i am going to do will writing a long feedback for myself about this year. From social ways , academic ways,etc. Because when you get out from atmosphere which you belong for long time, you are being more objective for yourself.

I after that, i would prepare a list for my improvement according to my feedback and GPA of course :D

I would not be so much selfish of course. Here is my brother called Meriç. He is going to first grade and he is good at chess ;). We are "kanka*" with him although there is 12 years between us :).

Summer in Antalya is like a hell. Because it is very very very hot. So i must prepare myself living next to sea at summer because there is no other alternative way for excaping from that heat except jumping into water ;)

*best of best friends :)

26. Tv Room 24/7 Nights

I must confess something, from the childhood , i like being nerd :)

Always i was biased to being nerd in my life. Well not kind of nerd that is very closed to world and relationships , but i have special interest to the assignments, to books, to course materials to pencils, to highlighters, to coloured-note cards, i don't know. I like process of studying. Although i am not very bright student, i like studying especially the lectures which i
like most like ENG :D

However i am a person who couldn't manage her time very properly so i am being stucked sometimes.

As i mentioned before i am continuing my day in nights too caused of lack of time like tonight :D. But now i am at the TV Room, because IC is very far.

But, stress is kind of factor, which brings lack of motivation. Please God! Help me for organizing my time properly :D

However, Nerdless rocks ^^ ;)

Edit after 4 hours: Serra and Bahar also joined me. We studied math together and edited our research papers. When we were bored we played some music from MTV,did some crazy dance and did some pilates on the tables :D. It was fun!

Original Photo by Zoghal licensed under Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic.

25. Precious

Today i finished watching precious.

Like Sonja and other bloggers mentioned , it has lots of similarities with the bluest eye. In fact in this post i always wrote first Pecola and than i turned it to Precious :). Also movie has got its own style like the bluest eye have its own style. In the movie there are lots of trick for describing the story well. For example, in some scenes especially when Precious has hit to her head. In other words when she feel pain, she remembers the worst experience(and the most painfull) of her. This experience is as you wish , her father's rape to her.

Other is in some scenes frame is shivering like when Mrs. Rain or other women who is detecting for social help listening Precous's life and her drama. I think they chosed this method because they wanted to show this people couldn't understand this pain and it is very shocking to them.

And realize that, in the public sphere they call Precious's full name as Clareece P. Jones. But while Precious writing her name she writes it as C. Precious Jones. She like Precious more than Clareece. I think it is because she wants to feel herself precious.

And Precious's mother always play numbers. Maybe she is searching for another start, another life and the key is money. Money can solve problems of her life. But she never try to solve the problems by herself and being selfish.

And the most effective symbol was Mrs. Rain for me. I don't know why that they called her surname rain? I think it can be Mrs. Sunny ? How great person she is? I adored her during the movie.

Another thing i want to mention is, it was a coming of age movie. Precious was very very very VERY strong girl. She didn't run away from life. She saw other people's helps and efforts for her and never gave up. If i were Precious , i don't know, i would given up very early. Precious completed her coming of age very succesfully. And other character Precious's mother, couldn't do it.

Precious character is more optimistic version of Pecola. Precious is obviously more strong than Pecola. However she is more lucky. Because she has a teacher like Mrs. Rain.

On the other hand, movie has got similarities with The Color Purple. Celie was also being raped by her father and her hero like Precious's Mrs. Rain , was Shug Avery. And during the movie we were always hearing Celie's talking with herself and god. Also Precious is always doing that during the movie. I think it is method for describing us how they are handling with bad situations and how they are being impressed.

And here are my favorite quotes from movie,

Mrs Rain:
"The biggest responsibility of you is being yourself."

Precious:
After learning that Mrs. Rain is lesbian.
"My mama said that homosexuals are bad. But people who raped&beat me was not homosexual."

Precious:
Some folks has a lot of things around them that shines for other peoples. I think that maybe some of them was in tunnels. And in that tunnel, the only light they had, was inside of them. And then long after they escape that tunnel, they sitll be shining for everybody else.

Picture retrived from, 24 May,2010: http://sisterrose.files.wordpress.com/2009/12/precious-movie1.jpg

Sorry !

It is little disturbing that i posted lots of thing to my blog today. I wish that i managed my time properly but i couldn't, until 28 May i will try to post regularly. I am sorry again.

24. Is there ENG 103 or 104 :D?

I really don't want to graduate from ENG courses. Can't we open this 103 an 104 courses? As i said in the class i don't want to left Sonja's class. So at least can i be guest to some of your lessons next year Sonja? I know at morning sophomores haven't got lots of lesson. I can join your morning sections. I can act like a ordinary student just not caring for participation mark so not coming to class regularly. So class will not react me ;)

So this will not be the last week , i don't accept it :) no! :)

Original Photo by Sibi licensed under Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic.

23. SUşenlik

As you know our university's shortening is SU. And SU means water in turkish. This weekend we have our spring-festival in Sabancı University. Unfortunately the weather was awful and saturday night was very rainy. So the name of the festival; "Suşenlik" became real :D It was full with water. However the sound-system was good and nothing canceled because of rain. But to tell the truth , it was dissapointing for me , lots of my friend from Istanbul didn't care the festival and went their homes again in the weekend. Freshmans were really small amount in the festival. The most enjoyable activity was playing frisbee on the wet-grasses with my friends. The kitchens/study rooms were locked i didn't understand why, so we couldn't cook, that was another annoying thing for me and other boarding students. Today this is last day of the festival, i am little boring i know but i can't have fun at outside so i decided to stay at room and got prepared for this busy week :)
But there is MFÖ concert at night and at 18.00 Hasan Can Saral's group is performing so i must get out from room. :D I hope next year, it will not rain and we can sit to grasses under sun without feeling cold and other sophomores will join to us too :)

Picture retrived from, 23 May,2010: http://www.resimupload.org

22. I want my guitar back :(

I am playing classical guitar since 2005. But unfortunately next year i paused my courses with the instructor because of our university entrance exam. This year i brought my guitar with me to Sabancı. But i couldn't manage my time properly for studying guitar. And than my guitar broke down. And than my tuner broke down. I am really upset because i was used to playing guitar when i was unhappy, when i was exhausted, when i was enthusiastic, when i was hopefull.... In this picture it is my second year on classical guitar. I am on the concert of our music course. First i was having stage-phobia, but then i got used to be in front of lots of people. I realized that, if you play bad on the stage , nobody is remembering it later, but if you play good, everybody remember it :) So what must i do? It is not right time for taking care of my guitar again. Finals are almost starting... The best result that i found is i started to listen classical guitar songs which i can deciphere by myself, when i went back to Antalya for summer holiday, i must fix my guitar and start to study this songs. Wish me luck! I want my best-nothuman-friend back :)
Here is my favorite 5 classical guitar song:
1)Recuerdos de la Alhambra by Francisco Tarrega (i can't play it)
2)Milonga by Jorge Cardoso
3)El Testament D'Amelia / arranged by Miguel Llobet Taylor
4)Lagrima by Fransisco Tarrega
5)Asturias by Isaac Albeniz (i can't play it)

21. Last Pub Quiz and the Upcoming One

Elif has got a rule, this is turtle-rabbit rule. It contains that who started to the game from back, will win like in the race story of the rabbit and the turtle. We started from back in the pub-quiz of the bluest eye and we won. Later i looked at pub-quiz-ranks , our mark is not very high. This upcoming pub-quiz is more challenging. We decided to study it before wednesday. There are lots of things to study. I made a list for you, you can study more easily from that list. We can write this list down and put a tick next to it, which we had our overview :)

"The continuing myth of adolescence" Sharon Nichols
The Graduate (the movie)
"Where are you going, where have you been?" by Joyce Carol Oates
"Stereotypes,positive or negative, cloud the truth" by Cathy Hwang
"Who is a whiz kid?" by Ted Gup
"Hailing while black" by Shelby Steele
"Black man and the public space" by Brent Staples
"Deadly Identities" by Amin Maalouf
"Three ways of meeting oppression" by Martin Luther King
"A party down at the Square" by Ralph Ellison
"My Oedipus Complex" by Frank O'Connor
"A rose for emily" by William Faulkner
"Hanife" by Sevgi Soysal
"The Lottery" by Shirley Jackson
"Shooting an elephant" by George Orwell
"THE BLUEST EYE" from TONI MORRİSON :D
"Precious" (the Movie)

Good luck to everyone!

20. 50 Great Short Stories

Picture retrived from, 23 May,2010: http://www.futurum.dk/student/contents/media/BIG50GreatShortStories.jpg
I was in one of my friends room and i saw a black and small book called 50 Great Stories.
When i started to look inside that, i saw one of our stories called "The Lottery".This was my favorite story, i have already post something about it in here. It was edited by Milton Crane.
When i have read the foreword, something woke up in my mind;

The topic of the foreword was; What makes a great short story?

"The sudden unforgettable revelation of character; the vision of a world through another's eye; the glimpse of truth;the capture of a moment in time.(. . .) It can discover depths of meaning in the casual word or action; it can suggest in a page what could not be stated in volume(. . .)"

To tell the truth, before SU and our ENG 101 and ENG 102, when i read short stories it was making me uncomfortable, i was thinking like "So what?" when the story end. I was expecting like there must be obvious event or it must be like a small part of novel. After we started to interpret this stories i realized that there is a process for reading and understanding short stories. And when you start to learn it this little stories are turning to little treasures , which everbody can find different things inside that :)

Here is the list of this 50 great short stories, i want to read them in the summer. And i am planning to spend one day to one story. First i will interpret by myself, and than i will look internet to see what other people thought about this story,

It will be fun! :D

19. The Color Purple

Photo by Matt Mcgee licensed under Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic.

Two of my closer friends is presenting The Color Purple, so i heard a lot about this movie for last 3 three days. On Sunday i watched it with them , because i started to wonder about the movie a lot.

Steven Spielberg is the director of this movie. Released in 1985.

While i was watching i felt like i am watching the movie adaptation of The Bluest Eye. Celie who was the head character has some common traits with Pecola.

Both were raped by his father.(Celie's father was step father but she didn't know it.)
Both were not accepted by society , even from black people because they thought they were ugly. (I really don't like to say, "they didn't accepted because they were ugly", for who they was ugly? In my opinion Celie was not ugly in the movie, by the way what is ugly? who is ugly? and who is deciding this?, well that can be another post , ok. ^^)
Both have one aim in the life which prevents them from giving up. Celie's is be together again with her sister. Pecola's is to be beautiful.

But their end is different. Celie is gaining her self-confidence thanks to Shug Avery, she slowly slowly starting to rebel. And when she learned that Albert hides the letters from her for many many years. She showed her thoughts clearly and started to determine her own destiny.
Shortly, her ending was happier than Pecola.

Another thing i want to compare is the "beautiful women" character in the movie. Shug Avery is like Maureen Peal in this movie. Both are more light-skinned, self-confident and fashionable. But in the novel, Maureen was humiliating Pecola, unlike in The Bluest Eye, Shug Avery is one of the biggest factor for Celie to love her-self and find her beautiness.

The Color Purple is adapted from a novel. Maybe some day they will adapt The Bluest Eye too:)

(Video Retrieved May 12, 2010 from:http://www.teachertube.com/viewVideo.php?video_id=167627)
But there is theatre of the bluest eye,if you want to watch one scene of it:

18.Cholly's situation against white mens

Yesterday discussed about Cholly's situation against white mens, he couldn't show him anger to them so because of this "emotion collection" inside him , he hated from Darlene although she didn't do anything.

This interperetion of Sonja has been the ice-breaker for me.

This is one of my biggest self-shiftiness.

When there is a person i like so much, i am being very very fool. I am realizing him or her disturbing specialities but to fear of ruining this love i am convincing myself like "Noo, he is not like that, he is just trying to do another thing...".

And that is interesting because by doing like that and not showing my anger to this people, this emotion is not being dissapeared. It is waiting inside me and when another person does the same disturbing-mistake i am showing my reaction to him or her very strictly because of this collection :(

I must give up doing this. If people will not want to hear my thoughts , although i love them so much , they must decide with themselves to be friend or not to be friend with me. And i am always being very sad about showing my reaction to another person like this.

I must face with this speciality of me...

Cholly is afraiding from the white-hunters because of fear. And i am afraiding to show my real opinions to people i love so much because of fear of losing them.

I know i used this place for very personal thoughts of me ,sorry, but in the lecture when i heard Sonja's inteperetation i was shocked and thought like "Oh, God! That is what i am doing !!"

17. Tragic Mulatta and others

While i was reading The Bluest Eye, i came across some familiar stuff. One is the concept Tragic-Mulatta and other is Shirley Temple. The first is material which i have used on my Research Paper. I want to give brief information,

There are three main groups of black women according to the stereotyping in media: mammy, jezebel and sapphire.(i am paraphrasing my research paper :D)

Mammy is fat, middle-aged, not carrying any ambitions like marry with a white man, cannot be sexy,very happy to serve whites, all the time they are smiling and laughing:

Jezebel is desirable and always sexy black lady:

And Saphirre is assertive, successful but unreliable lady who has obsessions about her appearance, romantic lover, precludes all woman who is trying to attract her male. (Şen, 2010) :)

And beside these there is one more stereotype , it is independent from these three, but in my opinion it fits more on sapphire type, Tragic-Mulatta. Tragic Mulatta is a character who is light-skinned. She is not white and she is not black. She acts like white people and has got higher statue however she is still being humiliated. Her biggest aim is to marry with a white man and live exactly like whites.

According to Kretsedemas, our era's tragic-mulatta character is Wilhelmina from Ugly Betty,do you remember her?

I think she is the future of Maureen Peal, especially the eyes and clothes :)

And other thing is Shirley Temple, when i opened and put my book in front of me in living room, my mother looked at it and saw the name "Shirley Temple". She said: " Ohh, i now it, she was beautiful,cute,lovely girl, we were watching her and we were doing our hair just like her. Why did they mentioned her in this book?" I described her Shirley's function in The Bluest Eye. It was very different from her thoughts :)
Pictures retrived from, 28 April,2010:
http://www.rankopedia.com/CandidatePix/33237.gif
http://www.ferris.edu/JIMCROW/sapphire/
http://www.ferris.edu/JIMCROW/jezebel/
http://www.ferris.edu/JIMCROW/mammies/

16. Our Presentation

On 29th March, we met at the University Center, and made our last checkings as a Black Team.
Than we went to Fasshane and waited for the lecture hour. When we got into class, Sonja was waiting for us. She was little bit sad because the other lecture's presentation group didn't appeared. And than we started to do our presentation. I think it was OK. But by the feedbacks we understood that we must improve some points of our presentation. For example everybody finds our historical context very long. And most of the people liked our graphs. Here is my feedback from audience. Is it ok to share my feedbacks at here?
Please notice me if it is disturbing.

Sonja's comments:
Positive points

• Team introduced and roles indicated on outline
• Images referenced
• Very nice interactive plot summary
  
• Questions in red; good, relevant, thought-provoking questions throughout
  
• Historical context provided: Freud, Sophocles
• Lots of audience interaction throughout: e.g. gap fills for audience to guess
• Very good teamwork
• Enthusiastic
• Extras, such as "Use of language"
• Brain diagram, Larry's "equation", Mother mind map, all very visual and very nice
  
• Lots of analysis of the text throughout

Points to improve

• Try not to read from cards, make eye contact and always use your own words
• Perhaps the thesis should have referred to the Oedipus Complex?
• Pronunciation of "Oedipus"... :)
  
• The summary of the Sophocles play was far longer than the summary for your story...and affected overall timing
  
• Make sure you follow up on audience responses with body language, facial expressions, words...
• Did your audience know what "ego" and "libido" meant?
  
• Check grammar and spelling on slides very carefully
• No need to read out final summary to us after eliciting it; we can read this silently
  
• Make sure your references are in proper APA format
• Remember the outline I gave you? Themes should be central, and you can examine character, etc. through the themes of identity

Positive points from students:
-Plot was well prepared . (Blank filling)
-Tables
-Coloured questions
-Attention catching activities
-Image referencing
-Funny Plot
-"Tender Words" :)
-Left-right brain
-The equation
-Use of language bölümünde karakterleri incelemek güzel.
-Left-right graphics were good.
-Adjective finding is fun.
-Connection with media is cool.
Points to improve from students:
-Questions must be showed on their time.
-Plot must be more short and blanks can be more well-knowned words.
-Historical Context: a little too much information
-Question before the summary of the text
-Thesis statement was too late
-Oedipus Complex Question was too hard and maybe unnecessary.
-No need to repeat(reread) the whole plot.

15. I was hiding =)

Photo by Shahram Sharif licensed under Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic.

During the holiday i wasn't able to post because we were moving to another house and our internet connection was absent.

My holiday was lovely. I have finished my readings and cleaned this week for PROJ 102's "scary" progressive report. Although i missed my parents, when i was in Antalya i missed my friends and the atmosphere of Sabancı. Today i saw them and relaxed little bit and tomorrow by diving to lectures, it will be completed :)

At one day i decided to write my posts on a Word file, and i thought then i can post them when i went to campus. I wrote 3 posts, one for our presentation, one for my research paper and one for autumn section. But guess what? I shut down the computer without saving them although i saw the window's "Are you sure?" warnings because i couldn't recognize that i didn't save them. :( But i would write them more qualificated, i promise :)

I have read Bluest Eye, except the summer section, and i am looking forward to our class discussions. I will post about every section after the lectures which we will have our discussion.

I hope everything has gone well in your holiday,

By the way, the last post that Sonja wrote was very affective and i also wanted to highlight that we have only 5 week to end freshman year, well... :(

See you...

14. Thanks to Bibliography and Quiz

Photo by Juliana Coutinho licensed under Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic.

While we were writing bibliographies we have to read our sources to describe in which ways we are going to use them in our research project. And thanks to the Quiz, we have to read Race Chapter to be prepared for terminology of stereotyping etc.

Maybe you are curious about why i am saying "Thank you" all to this things. Because unlike the ENG 101 my time-planning is very bad and i have to write my essay in 10 hours.

I was very stressed but i realised i have read my sources , now i must order them properly and do my best. And it is very big lesson for me i will finish my final-essay before 1 week from the deadline.

13. The Lottery

To be ready for next presentation i have read the Lottery by Shirley Jackson,

It was very different and impressive.

It was different because author created very peaceful atmosphere until we learn the real definition of the lottery. Everybody was exitement and waiting like there will be a happy event.

I was reading the story like "Hmm, who is going to win the fridge or the car, lets see..." while i was listening a happy music to increase my motivation :)

And then, i realised that the lottery is not that kind of lottery.

Two things in the story was very impressive, first was Mrs. Hutchinson's situation, second was children's...

Mrs. Hutchinson was describing one of "evil" parts of human beings.
When something is not directly related with us, we don't care it.

And childrens were representing that society imposes us this things as they are normal since we are child.

Like in the story, childrens are very happy about the situation and they are collecting stones and electing some of them because they are not suitable for throw. Because they didn't know what is wrong or what is true, just acting like the society which encircle them...

12. Practise Presentation

We finished our presentation after tons of e-mails and panics and slides which are waiting for being prepared, coloured, arranged.

Isn't that mail-traffic is lovely :D I laughed a lot. Everbody is speaking half-english and trying to improve the presentation :)



While we were doing it we suffered from our time-management caused from pressure of NS 102 Exam.

First we were squeezed to only two days (weekend) for preparing our presentation.

And than exam lay over to wednesday. Okey ,it is no problem we have already studied but you know, the stress... :D

So here is my diagram: (bad effects of preparing powerpoint slides for hours ;))


But finally we made it.

It was fun for me because i really liked the story, "My Oedipus Complex". Isn't that story was very sincere?

I would write about it on my next post.

And here is one snapshot from our presentation! I hope you will enjoy and we will do our best!

11. Meet with the "other" Bloggers!

Retrived March 25,2010 from: http://www.mitadmissions.org/blogs.shtml

For three years i am following MIT's undergraduate-admissions blogs.

And i can't count things which i learnt from them.

The ambition is to give clues to students who wants to come MIT. But it is not just this, they are writing about everything . About life, about their travels.

My favorite is Jess K. '10. Because she is writing in a very funny and sincere way.

Nowadays, i can't follow them because of my time-problem as i mentioned on previous post.

And i have an idea,

Wouldn't it be nice, if Sabancı has got blogs like this?

Is it good idea? Actually i was thinking about it...

Please share your opinions with me in this subject.

How would it be?

I think they are getting salary from this job. Isn't it the coolest job amog the working-scholarships =)

Here is the link, Enjoy: http://www.mitadmissions.org/blogs.shtml

And if it would be in Sabancı one day, i can't think anybody out of Sonja, to organize it. =)

10. IC-24/7 nights

Retrieved March 25,2010 from: http://myweb.sabanciuniv.edu/bm/wp-content/blogs.dir/127/files/bilgi-merkezi/06.jpg

The common motto of SU students is "There is no time for anything in this university."

Last day one of our teacher said that the most effective learning is to allow time to lectures in this way:

For example , ENG 102 is 3 credit. So to do homeworks(blogging,reading article,bibliography stuff) in flawless way and for repeating the lectures, we need 3X3 times per week.

For example for HIST 192, because of its credit, we need 2X3 times.

So with a little calculation,
I have got 20 credit.
20X3= 60 .
I need clear 60 hour.
60/6 = 10(saturday and sunday is not for 8 hours studying, so i counted them as a one day ;)
It means i must study 10 hours per day. (It is including the lecture-hours too).
So if i sleep 8 hours a day.
There is 6 hours in a day which i would be free.
2.5 hour for eating.
3.5 is for me.

Actually it is too easy to make calculation like this in the paper. Life is not simple like this, for example your friend is crying and you must cheer her up. It can take 2 hours. I can't say that " Sorry , this hour is for my Math 102 studying."

So, that is why we are feeling like, "There is no time for anything in SU."

And when i thought it in the Midterm weeks. I am being "bat" for one day, and not sleeping.

I am at IC's 7/24 Reading Room with lots of "bat" students who has midterm in this week. And it is 03:46 now . Ehhm ... No comment :D

I hope we will do our best on NS 102 exam.

Good Luck!

9. Stereotyping Students

Although i really love Sabancı's approach to students and i am sure that is one of the best atmosphere between instructors and students , there is little-tiny-not very disturbing thing i want to highlight.

As we know, Sabancı is maybe most diffucult university for getting scholarship. So people who get scholarship are really succesful in lessons.

But how about interest and inspiration? Can't be other students too very desire to improve theirselves?

Stereotyping students with scholarships is unavoidable for teachers i agree but generaling others is not healthy.

I don't know if i had a scholarship maybe i wouldn't think like this but i don't know , i just wanted to share my emotions with you...

I think every person is ore. And enthusiasm is not related with our ÖSS degree.

Photo by dcjohn licensed under Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic.

8.Black team! Hurray!!

Our presentation group has formed !

Previous term, my group members were Onur, Bahar and Elif.
I think we were great!

This term, Bahar is with Serra and Onur is in another section.

But Bahar promised us to help in historical context! ( she is arranging them very succesfully ;))

Black team's members are Berk, Can and Elif. Berk is getting attention with his fluent english and Can was strong rival of us we know this from last section :P And there is no need to describe Elif, "dostum" , i am very glad to be with her again. Especially she is giving sincere athmosphere to presentations with her happy face.

I know i present it like football team is having new players in new session but i just wanted to give the "spirit". :)

And this "seminar presentation issue" sounds more interesting !

I am excited!!

I hope we will do our best...

7. pre-quiz draft :)

I have read the Chapter on Race and Ethnicity from Sucourse for our reading-quiz. (Unfortunately i have read only from 313 to 320). And i have written some brief notes( i don't know it was inherently, i think i enjoyed a lot from article, and was trying to not forget some definitions). If i got the points wrong please let me know.
Race:
Race is a group that eliminated because of their bases of certain chracteristics.
Racial formation:
Is a process that a group of people is starting to called as a race.
For example, in Germany at Hitler's time, Jews have became to known as a race. This is racial formation.
Ethnic groups:
Who shares common culture, common norms, common history...
Here is a good example for formation of ethnic groups:
Italian Americans, before they immigrated to U.S.A, they were not together, and not formed a ethnic group. Because they were coming from different parts of Italia. From different families. But when they got together at U.S.A , they lived similar problems and saw same prejudices from others ,they formed a ethnic group because they were basically faced with the similar problems. This thing made them to come together.
Minority group: It is not related with amount. For example in South Africa until Nelson Mandela's election, although blacks were majority according to cencus ratios , they were accepted as a minority. Maybe this minority is related with not being clear at society, it carries abstract meaning.
There is 5 typical specialities of minorities:
1) They have certain alteration from the majority group and they have been seen like the "different"
2)It suffers prejudice and discrimination by majority group.
3)They have strong relationships with each-other.
4)Membership to this group is often ascribed not achieved.
5)They are not opened to others. They are marrying with theirselves etc.
Stereotypes:
It is more narrowed than, minorities, race, ethnic groups.
It is some system used to categorize people who take place in certain group.
Racial-ethnic stereotypes:
If some stereotype is belong to only one race, there becomes this concept.
For example , Polish people are represented as idiot in soap operas , jokes...
Salience Principle:
This is a judgement of humans by the initial prominents like nose shape, skin colour etc.
Stereotype interchangeability:
It can change place between some categorizations.
***Society is trying to make relationship between the group and its stereotype to explain their situation in public sphere.
Like African-Americans are lazy because of this ratio of employement is high among them.
***Do you know that Irish people used to known as a race in early twentieth century. They were accepted as a black-negros , even they were calling to African-Americans "smoked-irish" . So we can say it is not only something about skin-color ;)

6. This "feeling" !

From last week to this week, nothing has changed. However i feel "awful".
Nothing giving me pleasure although everything is going perfect. Here i am in the one of the best universities in Turkey. Everything is flawless but i have that "feeling". I feel guilty about it because in the world there are lots of people with "real" problems. I don't want to study, i don't want to eat , i don't want to laugh... Why i wrote this post here is i feel like Benjamin, my future is cloudily, i don't know where i am going and something inside me pushing me to treat my closests coldly. These are very stupid feelings i want to get rid of them, i hope i will write more lovely posts as soon as possible.

5. My Research Paper

As we were discussing in the class , i realised that Stereotype is the most interesting topic for me and i have ideas and observations about this , so i am going to choose "stereotyping". But do i have to narrow my subject only one kind of race or type? Or can i write about only the causes and effects of "stereotypying everything" and it is amount in our Culture? And why it is bad or good?

(I am late i know, sorry :( )

Have a nice day,

4. Stereotypes

I have read the article which we are going to have class discussion 8 hours later ( i have to sleep). And here is my post:

I must confess i have stereotypes. I am from Antalya. Antalya's population is 600.000 , but in summer it is being 2.000.000 . So we are living with lots of people, from lots of different nationalities. Especially me, because of my father's job, living with them very closely for 18 years.

Everybody is special and nobody can be same but the common specialities occurs when you live in same country, share the common history, journal, events, culture.

I think it is not related with skin colour or eye-type. It is related with country's specialities. For example Turkey is not very-well organized country, have very different nations inside and still improving very fast. That brings to people some kind of behaviors like trickiness, wakefulness , sometimes unfortunately laziness...

Of course not all Asian students are smart, or good at maths like in the text, but i think in the that part of world people's common speciality is having self-discipline. This is creating the prejudgement about them.

This subject become very interesting to me , i don't know i am very confused about my research paper subject. Anyway i will decide it yesterday.

3. in some cases, Seduction = Abuse

I hesitate about writing this post but this is my clear opinion which comes from very very inside in other words i believe it by instict.

It is open to debate, comment whatever you want.

Well, while we are talking about Mrs. Robinson. I talked about my thought.

Remember, Benjamin was adrift and aimless adolescent. And Mrs. Anderson was trying to seduce him,

In our lecture we said something like

"Mrs. Anderson tried to seduce him okey, but Benjamin can say no to Anderson."

I think no. In this situation, while women is naked in front of man which is not very strong in this life, it is equal to abuse because this man will be move with his instincts.

By saying "Not very strong in this life" i want to mean he haven't form his personality yet and haven't got plan in his mind about his future.

Lets look at this adrift women, i think for them is to be liked and interested by men is the shortest way for seduction. Like Connie in the story, "Where are you going? Where have you been?" . She likes the good words and and glances from mens. Because she feels like she is being wanted by them. And it gives her courage. Some men which has got evil aims like Arnold's are trying to use this weakness of girls and talk with them in that way, for seduce.

I don't know maybe absurd but this are my observations.

What do you think about it?

2. ENG 102- Extra Topic :D

I realised that our debates about "The Graduate" and "Where are you going and where have you been?" were not completed because minutes were like seconds while we are discussing.

You know that there is NS-Extra Topics which is for subjects which are not squeezed to normal lesson-hours. If you want to listen more , you can join to that lessons.

Maybe this system can be also form for in ENG 102 ha? :D

1. The X-files

Hi All! This is my first post of ENG 102 blog. I decided to continue writing blog because this task was both enjoyable and beneficial and the gift of this in this term is extra credit =)

This term, my blog will be more personal and i will pay attention for my way of writing.

Lets come to my subject of post,

Maybe you are wondering , what i try to mention with my topic : The X-files. This is name of tv-series. And i put this name because i am going to write about the X symbol of the story: “Where are you going , where have you been?”

Second week, we read a short-story called “Where are you going, where have you been?” by Joyce Carol Oates. First, i couldn’t understand the story. It seems like there was teenage girl and trying to be popular but some day bad guys appeared and tried to kidnap her.

But then i find out lots of symbols and cleverly located details. Some was by myself and some was the things which i find from internet.

The most interesting thing which i read from Internet was little comment about the X symbol in the story which is drawed by Arnold to the air. I will try to paraphase this little comment which is written by appletrees in the webside: http://www.enotes.com/where-are/q-and-a/what-could-arnolds-drawing-an-x-air-symbolize-44837

Here are the possibilities:
Remember Arnold Friend (An old Fiend ;)) from the story. At the class discussion we decided that he might represent devil. The first possibility of meaning for this symbol is Satanism.

Other is Arnold sees Claire like some valuable “thing” like if he have this “thing” , he will have more power. Like a treasure. Remember the treasure maps , it has got X on the place where the treasure hid.

Other is like sign in your shopping list. Arnold have a list of girls and putting X next ,if he had seduced them.

And this sign might represent to destroy her . We know that if something is true (positive) we put tick to it and if it false (negative) we put X. Arnold putting X to Claire because he wants to eliminate her.

I like this situtaion it was only a sentence in the story but look at the deeper meanings! Where are you going , where have you been? is that kind of story.