Sam Werner

Surrealist Video

2009-12-11T14:14:00.000-08:00

We finished up the last of our presentations today. The one that caught my attention the most was the surrealist video. I didn't know if it was based on an actual dream that the student had or if she just made it up. I can't take surrealism too seriously because there are so many different ways that people can interpret things. Im sure if you asked every student in the class what they thought the video meant they would come up with many different answers. Because of this I think it would be hard to base any real research about the human mind off surrealism.

Humanities

2009-12-11T12:29:00.000-08:00

Humanities was an interesting class. I didn't really know what the class was about when I signed up for it. I don't think the class will apply to my career that much but it still was good to learn from the different philosophies that were brought up throughout the semester. My favorite section that we did was realism because I enjoyed reading the communist manifesto. Marx was wrong about some things but it was still interesting to read his thoughts on economics and compare them to the how the economy is today.

Yellow Wallpaper

2009-12-10T06:18:00.000-08:00

I was going back through some old material to get ready for the final last night and ended up reading the yellow wallpaper again. That was easily the weirdest story we read all year. At the same time it was funny how her husband was being so controlling and portective and thought he knew what was best for her when actually the conditions he forced her into were making her more crazy. At the end he finally faints when he sees how messed up she has gotten. The point of the story was that she wouldn't have gone completely crazy if her husband hadn't been so overbearing. However I don't see a situation like this ever playing out nowadays because women these days have too much attitude.

Entertainment

2009-12-08T06:22:00.000-08:00

Yesterday in class a student gave a presentation where he rewrote a chapter in the book Frankenstein. He wrote it as if the book were written in modern times. The new version of the chapter had Frankensteins wife having sex with the creature while Frankenstein was downstairs. When he came back up to the bedroom and caught them in the act it was decided that they would settle this on Jerry Springer. While the presentation was pretty funny I thought it made a good point about how entertainment has gotten to be. As time passes, movies and shows seem to get more ridiculous. Producers have to keep pushing the envelope to get peoples' attention. Who knows what crazy shit they're going to come up with in the next fifty years.

More Freud

2009-12-07T06:39:00.000-08:00

I've been finishing up my essay for my humanities class which I chose to write about a Freud quote. The quote basically says that primitave people had it better off than people nowadays because they acted on instinct and did not have to by the rules of a society. I'm not completely sure if this is true because I think that society developed for a reason. It provides safety and a sense of security and justice for people.

End of Run Lola Run

2009-12-03T06:38:00.000-08:00

Yesterday we finished watching the film Run Lola Run. Lola Tries three times to complete a task. The first attempt she is killed and the second attempt her boyfriend is killed. On the third attempt they get it right and not only are but also end up making a hundred grand. My professor pointed out something obvious but that I had not thought about until he mentioned it. The movie was much like a video game. If you fail the task and die you just restart and try again, but this time with more knowledge about what needs to be done to be successful. Since video games are huge these days I'm guessing that is an easy metaphor for people to understand.

Carl Marx

2009-12-02T06:40:00.000-08:00

A while ago in class we learned about Carl Marx and the Communist Manifesto. The main point that I got from the book is that he thought it was best to have a socialist economy. Although this is understandable at the time it was written due to the horrible lifestyle of many workers who were under paid and over worked, I think that he is wrong. Not only does a socialist economy take away some amount of freedom but it also takes away competition in the economy. I think that without competition it takes away people's will to work hard and to improve because that is no longer as necessary. Competition is what drives people to do a better job. The government does need some involvement such as minimum wage and child labor laws but it should not have too much control over the economy.

Run lola run

2009-12-01T21:32:00.000-08:00

We saw the first half of Run Lola Run in class yesterday. The film shows that very small differences in actions can cause completely different effects, and these effects can completely change the outcome of Lola's life. Although this might be exaggerated in the movie it does make a good point. It is interesting to think that many times you will come across situations where slight differences could have a huge impact on your life. How often do these situations occur? Will I be able to tell when I come across them? Would my life be completely different now had I handled certain situations in my past just a little bit differently? Shit I don't know.

2009-11-30T06:31:00.000-08:00

We recently read the stranger in class. In the first part of the book the main character doesn't seem like he cares much about anything but then his whole life changes after he shoots a guy and goes to prison. The second part of the book is about his trial and conviction. He is sentenced to have his head cut off. That night a preacher comes to his jail sell to talk to him which finally provokes some emotion from the character for the first time the whole story. I think a lot of people are like the stranger. Although normally they would care more than him to begin with, they still might take they're life for granted and not realize how good they have it until it's all taken away from them.

Freud

2009-10-27T09:45:00.000-07:00

We have been learning about Freud's thoughts on why people are unhappy. From what I can tell he says there are two things that people do in life: pursue things that will make them happy, or just try to avoid things which will make them unhappy. Either way he says you will spend most of your time chasing this happiness and when you actually achieve it, that feeling will not last long and you will be back to chasing it again. If this is true than according to him most of your life is spent in suffering, trying to get that happiness. I'm not sure whether or not he is right but it is sure a depressing way to look at things. Before I learned about this I considered myself to be a pretty happy person, but the thought of it actually made me more depressed. I think that the only thing that can make a person more unhappy than suffering most their life is the realization that they are suffering most their life. So after the final I will attempt to clear Freud's theories from my mind. In this case ignorance really is bliss.

2009-10-15T14:02:00.000-07:00

We are watching the movie A Dolls House in class. It's based on a book from the realism episteme. The story is supposed to make a statement about how women are sometimes still treated like children by their husbands and also by the rest of society even when they are adults. I find it interesting that someone decided to remake this story (in the form of a movie) during a big time for the civil rights movement. Maybe they felt like that statement needed to be made again. On a seperate note I would just like to say that the actress who plays Nora is pretty good looking, especially for the sixties.

2009-10-06T06:29:00.000-07:00

We have been learning about women's rights and the way they were treated in the nineteenth century. People who have researched the reasons for the subjection of women say that it is just a custom that started from the very beginning of the human race when strength was the most important attribute for survival. Obviously sense women were weaker they were looked at as the lesser beings. They became basically the property of men. As time wore on and society advanced strength became less of an important attribute and women should have been equal with men but weren't because of the tradition of the way things have been. Although it has come a long way, some women still feel that they are treated unfairly today. However, this does not effect me much because I am not a woman.

2009-08-30T21:59:00.000-07:00

I have never heard of the romanticism era until last week. Apparently people began moving away from learning from books and more towards learning through spending time in, and observing nature. I don't whether or not this is the more effective way to learn. On one hand you can learn things a lot quicker through just reading about in a book, however some things might be better learned if they're experienced first hand. Also, nothing new would ever be discovered if people only read what other people know and never went out and made their own observations.