Seth's INTD 105 Blog Spot

Study Day

2005-12-13T09:13:00.000-08:00

Since I only have three finals I am not stressed at all for the next few days. Only one of my finals is actually cumulative, the other two are simply third exams. I have already studied for my theater exam and my anthropology exam. Now I have to focus on physical geography. Although, I have done really well in that course so far, so again, I am not too worried for that test. My last final is my geography exam. It is on Friday, from noon to three. This means that I am leaving on Saturday morning. I have to sort out my room and decide what I am leaving here and what I am taking home. At the same time I have one roomate moving out and another roomate moving in. A lot is going on right now! And right before the holidays...

My Secret Santa gift obviously came from Prof. Schacht. He gave me Toblerone chocolates, and a burned CD of the best Christmas songs that he played in class!!! It was so great!!! I have been listening to the CD while studying, and Jen wants me to save the songs on my computer and then burn her a CD too. It was such a good idea. He even put a CD label on it, with a picture of Nissenbaum's book and a list of all the songs on the CD. It was very enjoyable!

Forbes Fictional 15

2005-12-11T20:41:00.000-08:00

I just came upon this interesting article. It is the Forbes Fictional 15 (the richest 15 fictional characters). Guess who tops the list? But while Santa tops the list, there are two other characters that we studied this semester on the list. Interesting...

No. 1: Claus, SantaNet worth: measured in candy canesSource: Toys, CandyAge: 1,651Marital status: Married, no children.Hometown: North PoleNorth Pole's tubby toy titan remains fiction's richest character, despite ongoing strife with Elvish labor force. Elves bemoan low-wages, lack of health care coverage and union-busting tactics of "Claws." Factory operations also dogged by several documented instances of child-labor. Santa retorts that "immortal" Elves don't need health insurance, and says child-workers were being punished for being "naughty." Analysts expect impact on toy and candy production to be minimal. Claus' ultimate motivations for annual gift-giving orgy remain unclear. Speculated to be tormented by infinite wealth; embarks on annual around-the-world trip in a futile attempt to give it away. Others detect darker side, noting percentage of children receiving lumps of coal and ill-treatment of rare Finnish-bred flying reindeer. Claus himself plays it close to the vest, cryptically muttering "Ho! Ho! Ho!" Member since time immemorial.

#6 McDuck, ScroogeNet Worth: $8.2 billion Source: MiningAge: 80Marital Status: SingleHometown: Duckburg, U.S.A.Education: Cluck U dropout. Planet's wealthiest poultry in hiding due to fear of bird flu. Thought to be in "money bin," five-story tower in Duckburg that is world's largest repository of gold coins. As adolescent, moved to American West from native Scotland and amassed fortune in gold and copper. Keeps most of his money in bullion. Known to enjoy swimming in money. Literally. Likely heirs Huey, Dewey and Louie (grand-nephews) now living alone in Duckburg mansion. Absent Scrooge's supervision, Dewey spotted canoodling with Parrot Hilton. Reportedly wrote nephew Donald, a deckhand in U.S. Navy, back into his will. Member since 1947. -- Matthew Herper

#12 Scrooge, EbenezerNet Worth: $1.7 billion Source: Banking, InvestmentsAge: 63Marital Status: SingleHometown: London, EnglandEducation: University of Edinburgh Briefly distracted by philanthropic causes a few years back, Scrooge is all business again. Came out of late '90s tech bubble unscathed, refusing to invest in stocks with "Humbug valuations." Sizable gold horde appreciating rapidly; said to make $10 million every time price of gold goes up by $1. Lifelong bachelor with few close associates. Strong believer in the paranormal; insists home is haunted by ghosts. Scrooge remains focal point for anger over excessive executive compensation. Most recent proxy discloses salary to be 927 times that of Bob Crachit, his long-suffering number two. Member since 1843. -- Michael Noer

Party Tomorrow

2005-12-11T20:21:00.000-08:00

Tomorrow is our very last class, except for the mandatory literacy assessment, which I unfortunately cannot attend. In any event, as I have mentioned again and again I really enjoyed this class and I will truly miss it next semester.

It's too bad that I cannot make it to the literacy assessment, but I already planned on leaving on Saturday, and my parents would not be able to pick me up on Monday. I feel bad about not taking the quick exam while others are staying until Monday to take it, but my parents are both teachers and they would not be able to take the day off without extended notice. If I had known that the exam was going to be on Monday then I could have planned for it before.

I know that when I go home, and for the rest of winter break I will be connecting the holiday festivities with what I have learned in this class. Knowing me, I will be far too eager to enlighten others on my learning as well.

Last Class...

2005-12-08T22:46:00.000-08:00

I will really miss this class! It has been quite enjoyable actually. It was actually my favorite class this semester, despite the fact that it was also the one that I had the most work in. I am excited for our discussion in class today. Hopefully we will be able to bring some closure to all that has been discussed this semester. As we all know there have been many different topics that come under our study of Christmas. This may just be one of the most important lessons of this class. Holidays within a culture are a dynamic structure, that are interwoven within social structures, however they are also ritualistic and resistant to change.

Just some comments...

2005-12-07T19:25:00.000-08:00

After having taken this class, I look at anything related to the winter holidays with a more critical eye now. And I also seem to notice details of the holiday season more as well. Even when walking through Wegman's I notice all of the lovely Christmas paraphernalia that is avaliable for purchase. What are the meanings behind the giant blown-up snowman? These are the questions I ask myself. It's great. I love it.

What I have been most interested in throughout the semester is culture and holidays. I have found it very interesting that while certainly many different changes have occured to Christmas, and all of the seasonal holidays in general, many of the original themes of misrule and excess have remained. Looking at it from an anthropological point of view, it is interesting to see how the many different religions celebrate during the same time of year. And despite the fact that some people may say that they aren't religious, there truly are hundreds of rituals associated with the "religion of domesticity." The holiday season affects us all.

Semester is over?! What?!

2005-12-07T07:55:00.000-08:00

I know that I have keep saying this, but I really can't believe that the semester is almost over already! My had my last trumpet lesson of the semester today, and my last theater, anthropology, and geography lab classes are tomorrow. The Anthropology Department Christmas Party is tomorrow and on Friday I have a jazz concert. Then on Monday I have another jazz concert, this time at The Statesman.

The truth is, however, that my last few days here this semester are going to be very busy. Not so much in studying for my finals, but just random things that have to get done. My roommate is leaving, and another one is moving in. I also have to finish up my 6th Paper for this class and I am going to have to start packing up.

Which leads me to anther thing, I cannot pack lightly. I have gone home twice already (both breaks) and each time I brought like six bags with me, which is completely ridiculous. I didn't want to get behind in all of my schoolwork though, so I would bring almost all my books and my laptop, and a bag of clothes, etc. I think I am going to bring just about everything home for the Christmas break just so I don't have to decide what I am going to keep in my dorm and what I am going to bring with me.

Comments on Monday's Class

2005-12-06T15:37:00.000-08:00

The dialogue of Monday's class did a good job of tying together many different elements of the Christmas holiday that we have studied this semester. Ancient, medieval, nineteenth-century and even contemporary issues with the Christmas holiday were shown to be intertwined.

As far as alcohol, excessive revelry and social inversion is concerned, we all know that ancient times were a time when slaves were able to reverse their social roles. Medieval times, and the feudal society that existed within that realm, also had peasants who would show merriment and social inversion through rituals of feasting and drink. Slaves in the American South then were able to demand a "Christmas gift!" of their owners and were even permitted to dress as the white slave owners as well. Of course, today's office parties and New Year's festivities reflect these Christmas, or winter solstice traditions.

I was also very interested in the idea that Prof. Schacht proposed about our modern society and the holidays is concerned as far as our modern, industrial society is concerned. The fact that we are no longer an agriculturally based society certainly is crucial in the fact that we are not as concerned with "reaping the harvest" as much as our ancestors were. I would be very interested to see how Christmas or solstice celebrations are practiced in agricultural societies - substance farming, etc. They would not have the disconnect between their agricultural practices and holiday ritual that we do in the United States.

Just some more stuff...

2005-12-05T15:39:00.000-08:00

Progress has been made on paper 6, however there are certainly still many small issues to work out. For the most part, though, I am pleased with how that assignment is going.

I am actually quite excited about the Democratic Vista Blog that has been made and the comment I am going to post. It is certainly a very relevant issue at this time of the year and there many different dimensions to the topic that come into play as well: religion, commercialism, conservatism and liberalism, etc. I want to take my time on the comment though, and make it a very detailed one.

I can't believe how quickly this semester went by. Wow! There are only two more weeks left, and I am leaving next Saturday, so I have only one more weekend in my first semester at college. I feel prepared for my finals, so I am not worried about them. And that is a very good thing!

5th Paper Back

2005-12-04T21:24:00.000-08:00

I got my fifth paper back today. I guess I was overly ambitious with my thesis in this paper. By narrowing my thesis I could have greatly improved the essay, however I realized this only one day before it was due - far too soon to change the thesis of the paper. Therefore, even though I worked really hard on the paper and had multiple sources, I did not do very well. I am very disappointed.

Hopefully I can do much better on this final paper. I have been doing revisions all along, but as I have mentioned before, I am revising an "A" paper, so there is no need to change the basic thesis of my paper. Currently I am addressing organizational aspects of the paper. I am trying to break up some of the largest paragraphs into smaller, more manageable pieces.

Final Paper

2005-11-29T07:06:00.000-08:00

Seeing that the rough draft for the last paper is due Friday, I really need to get started on that. I am going w/ my fourth paper because I have not yet received my fifth paper back. It would simply be cutting it too close to try to revise my fifth paper - I don't know how long I will be waiting until I get it back from Prof. Schacht. So, even though my fourth paper was really good, I hope that by making changes to it the paper will become even stronger overall. My only hope is that I can still do very good on this last paper even though I got an "A" on my fourth paper.

So, I think I am going to start by looking at Prof. Schacht's example of the journal entry and such. Then I can get started on my own editing processes.

Epilogue

2005-11-27T06:16:00.000-08:00

Today I finally finished Nissenbaum. I'm glad that I finished it during Thanksgiving Break because I have so much that I have to do in the next three weeks before we leave for Christmas Break.

I enjoyed the epilogue as it touched on some subjects that I was thinking about while I read the book. He mentioned how New Year's has now taken the burden of becoming the time in which much misrule occurs and the First Night movement. There is a First Night celebration in Binghamton, although I have never attended it.

Additionally, the fact that African-American history was put into the equation in the last two chapters greatly pleased me. By adding facts from other social classes and groups throughout social history, a clear portrait of Christmas history can be created. This clear picture was painted by Nissenbaum and I am glad I had the opportunity to read the book!

Nissenbaum Chapter 7

2005-11-25T12:25:00.001-08:00

I just finished reading Nissenbaum's Chapter 7. It dealt w/ "wassailing Across the Color Line" (the color line of course referring to the term coined by W.E.B. DuBois).

Anyway, it dealt with the practices of slaves in the American South during Christmas. Essentially Nissenbaum painted a portrait of the classic wassailing practices amongst slaves and their owners. The practices included entering the Master's home and asking for gifts, often performing for the Master and his family in some way. These performances would even include the slaves dressing up as their white master.

The John Canoe ritual was also mentioned. This interesting practice involved a band of young black men, led by a man in an interesting disguise. This disguise was made to mock the white society who controlled their lives, and often involved the practice of whitefacing, similar to yellowface or blackface except now the tables were being turned (as is common in the Christmas tradition) and the whites were being mocked instead.

Last Paper

2005-11-20T10:03:00.000-08:00

For our last paper, (Paper 6), I am going to revise my fourth paper. Even though I got an "A," I know that any paper can be improved. I also think it would be much more difficult to try to revise my fifth paper seeing as we won't be getting those papers back for a while. I will edit it over Thanksgiving Break whenever I have free time. The online writing guide will be a very useful resource. I also have to finish up an anthropology paper over break.

It seems like everything is winding down very quickly. When we get back from break we will only have 12 more regular class days before finals begin! You can tell that professors are trying to bring everything to a close now as I have a bunch of assignments due in next few weeks.

2005-11-15T07:35:00.000-08:00

It's now time to read Chapter 6 of Nissenbaum! I had better get on to that...

2005-11-09T07:45:00.000-08:00

I am glad that we are going over the specifics of writing a paper, such as analyzing different introductory paragraphs. It is interesting to hear what Prof. Schacht has to say about them, and how his opinion compares to my previous teachers. I feel as though several of my high school English teachers preferred the long, verbose introductions. My AP English teacher last year would occasionally tell me that my sentences were too long or had too much "verbiage," but for the most part she was still fairly conservative as far as that is concerned. It is good to be able to shift your writing style to the preference of the individual professor. It gives one flexibility in their writing and I also feel that it makes one more well-rounded.

As far as Paper 5 goes, I found two new books in the library that pertained to children in the Victorian era, one which specifically mentions Tiny Tim. Hopefully by Friday I will have the bulk of the paper written. I also have an anthropology paper and a theatre critique to work on...

Paper 5

2005-11-06T16:55:00.000-08:00

For the fifth paper I am going to be focusing on Tiny Tim in Charles Dickens's piece. As of now, my thesis is that the character is used by Dickens to both examine the underlying social conditions of the times and effectively tie the many themes of the story into one entity. Now hopefully I can find some information to back this up! I think I am going to focus on the:

1. inspiration for the character.
2. characterization of Tiny Tim.
3. the social role that the character provides in the plot.

I shall see how this works!

Intro to A Christmas Carol

2005-10-31T12:19:00.000-08:00

The intro I felt was very extensive and certainly covered a lot of ground. I knew that Dickens lived out much of his youth in povery, and that his father was a debtor, but I never before really thought about how this would have affected his writings. Poverty and those living in it is continually referenced in A Christmas Carol. I was also aware of his immense popularity in his day, but knew nothing of his writings about American culture or practices - particularly that regarding slavery. The intro, I felt, also gave interesting information about the illustrations and such that were created for his writings. This, within itself, seemed to have been a tedious process. Very interesting...

2005-10-30T09:40:00.000-08:00

I'm already starting to get excited for Christmas. I can't wait to see all of my cousins and just hang-out. Plus, there will be no worries of homework at that point. HAHA. We always have such a good time despite the drama of family Christmas parties. It's just nice to catch up on what everyone is doing and so on. But it's so weird that I am already thinking about Christmas seeing that Thanksgiving hasn't even come yet! But, I feel that that holiday is going to go by very quickly seeing as I already have different things planned for that week. It will fly by. Actually, there are only three full weeks before we leave for Thanksgiving. Wow - this semester is going by so quickly...

On to the Weekend...

2005-10-28T15:51:00.000-07:00

Well it's definitely a good thing that the due date for the 4th paper has been moved back to Monday. I have been very busy this week. So, this weekend I will be able to finish my paper and study for my geography test that is Wednesday. I am also really excited to start reading "The Christmas Carol." The book is annotated, so it is really informative and it is full of historical/literary tidbits I never would have known about otherwise. Have a great weekend everyone!

Monday, Monday, Monday

2005-10-24T14:29:00.000-07:00

Okay - so I really shouldn't be writing a blog right now seeing how much work I have to do on my paper. It's very fun analyzing this fictional short story and seeing how the themes so closely match the zeitgeist described in Nissenbaum. The article is very personal, however, and seems to look at issues in the holiday from a different perspective. Of course, it is always awkward reading historical primary source documents seeing how the English language has evolved so much over time! I really enjoy it actually. Well, I had better get back to my paper!

Reactions to Friday's Class

2005-10-21T12:26:00.000-07:00

Thinking about the role of Santa Claus as a simple man who continued the "ancient" tradition of building toys by hand, I feel that this goes hand in hand with the advent of the Industrial Revolution. As tradespeople were no longer valued because new machines could make goods both faster and cheaper, it was no longer as common to find goods made by hand. Skilled craftsmen were out of jobs and new technology forged the creation of more and more technical machinery. Thus, Santa was seen as that old economic and social system - a time when things were "simpler." Certainly many people say that even today looking back on their personal past - great-grandparents, grandparents, even some parents will think back to when they were younger and see a time when the pace was slower and actions were more meaningful and sincere. In a way I feel that this things go together, and that Santa was a way for people to pretend that they had not lost that past in some way.

Chapter 4 - Affection's Gift: Toward a History of Christmas Presents and Paper 4

2005-10-18T14:56:00.000-07:00

After reading Chapter 4 and having had time to digest its material, I can see not only how the chapter adds to Nissenbaum's argument, but also how it can be incorporated with the 4th paper. I am using a primary source document to write my 4th paper. It is a short story that was taken out from a Harper's Weekly in the year 1865. The short story greatly mimicks that of Charles Dickens' "A Christmas Carol." The protagonist is a miserly old man who is woken in the night. He is shown various images by Santa Claus, who seems to act as the ghosts do in Dickens' poem. Nissenbaum's 4th chapter finally gets into the presents of the holiday. This topic is very relevant to my short story, as is the idea of charity within the context of Christmas. I feel that these acts of "charity" were a way that individuals could maintain the domesticity of the holiday while (a) applying christian morals to make the holiday more "religious" and (b) maintaining the history of the holiday as one in which the "haves" must provide for the "have-nots", aka switching everything upside-down. The theme of charity and the role of presents are very important in the short story I selected from Harper's Weekly.

Nothing Special

2005-10-17T09:06:00.000-07:00

I am really very excited to start the 4th paper. I hope that I can find these primary source documents, but I think I should have no problem since the librarian is coming in to the class today. Also, I am like half-way through the 4th chapter of Nissenbaum and so far I can see that he is beginning to transition his focus into the commercialism of the holiday by specifically analyzing "christmas boxes," or "christmas presents" as they are known today.

Reaction to Friday's Class

2005-10-15T11:59:00.000-07:00

Thinking back on our discussion of the article "The Miers Nomination: Words and Character", I have been trying to forge some sort of connection with Nissenbaum's argument in "The Parlor and the Street." Miers' use of language certainly over-generalizes in an attempt to sound esoteric. I have found that this language, the "language of officialdom" is generated in the upper-class, and sharply contrasts with the language use common of the (typically uneducated) lower classes. Her style of writing refuses to look at individuals and events. Instead it has taken away any sense of personalization. I feel that this corresponds with Nissenbaum's argument in how Christmas is no longer celebrated with the kind of "joie de vivre" that was once practiced before Christmas began to be celebrated in a domestic setting. In the same sense, Miers' writing lacks real energy and passion. Her writing, to me, is not believable. With her broad generalizations I cannot struly connect with anything that she writes. In the changing practice of celebrating Christmas, I feel that some individuals may have tried to continue to celebrate the holiday in a way that allowed them to more freely enjoy life. Alcohol, sex, dismissing social norms were all a way of liberating oneself from a constricted social setting. While it may not have been the Victorian era, it was still a considerably stifling set of social standards that one had to live under. And by creating a domestic Christmas, individuals were both gaining and losing. Like Miers' writing, I bet many felt that they were "losing" more than they were "gaining."

2005-10-14T09:40:00.000-07:00

This weekend I plan on working on the WIKI a lot. There still seems to be quite a bit of work left to refine the article. I can't believe that we're on the 4th paper already! I can't wait to analyze a primary source document - I love looking at old writings! Hopefully I will be able to find this in the library, though. I also am collecting resources for my anthropology paper right now, so I am learning quite a bit about how the library works, etc. I guess that means I will be spending time in the library this weekend as well.

2005-10-11T21:38:00.000-07:00

Hello everyone!

Well I told myself that I would work extra hard on the WIKI over the break, but it is really hard because I haven't seen my friends and family in such a long time. I had other homework to do too, but I did get as much done as I could. There has been some major progress done on the WIKI and I am very excited about that. We have soo much info on that page! It's also a good thing that we have until Monday to work on it because I have a lot more that I want to add to it. Just trying to get back into the swing of things right now. It's very late. Bye.

2005-10-07T09:15:00.000-07:00

Just to make it official, I have chosen to participate in the WIKI project. I am very excited to see the final product of our hard work! Feel free to e-mail, IM, facebook me, whatever, in regards to the assignment. I'll be working on the project over the break as well. Have a wonderful break everyone!

Reaction to Reading

2005-10-04T07:07:00.000-07:00

Chapter 3 of Nissenbaum's book seemed to focus on the transition of Christmas from a holiday of revelry in the streets to one of domesticity and social importance. I felt that this was a critical chapter in the fact that it showed the formation of several modern christmas traditions, such as "Christmas boxes," or Christmas presents. The chapter also discussed a Christmas holiday for children from school (resulting from physical force), which is still in place today. Children were quite possibly the greatest focus of this chapter. I agree with Nissenbaum's argument that children became lumped into their own social group as opposed to simply having lower status. Nissenbaum entitles one section "Creating Children," which I thought spoke quite truthfully to the historical process that was occuring at that time. The creation of "childhood" was taking place, a process which re-defined the purpose of the family. It now must provide for the happiness of its children as well as their basic instruction and up-bringing. Also very interesting to me was the connection between Christmas and the theatre, as I am taking the Intro to Theatre class right now. Far different from today, the audience make-up reminded me of one in Shakespeare's day, with a rowdy, loud group of individuals coming from all spectrums of the social ladder. This fits in perfectly with Nissenbaum's argument that the theatre supported the transition of Christmas from the low-class bawdy affair that it once was to the domestic, child-centered issue that it is today.

Reactions to Readings

2005-10-01T14:06:00.000-07:00

Well, this is quite the controversy! Who indeed wrote the famous American poem "'Twas the Night Before Christmas?" Well certainly both Nickell and Foster fight to defend their positions. As we were talking about in class, I felt that Foster really did rely very heavily on anecdotal evidence and looked to attach to the reader's emotions, whereas Nickell seemed to look at logic and practicality in his argument. Foster did have some good points when he looked at, for example, the use of the word "all," being either a pronoun or an adverb. Also, he found some times at which it at least seems that Moore took credit for other author's work (namely that one book that was mentioned.) While these pieces of evidence were very powerful, the fact is that the Livingston family cannot provide any hard evidence that it was their ancestor who wrote the famous poem. Therefore, I was led to believe Nickell over Foster. Nickell's hard evidence fought against Foster's argument. He was able to approach all of the hard pieces of evidence and continue to support the fact that Moore indeed was the true and rightful author. Although it would be interesting and I would like to think that Livingston may be the rightful author, there is simply not enough evidence for me to believe it.

Trip to Dollar Tree

2005-09-28T21:30:00.000-07:00

Hello everyone! Jen and I took a trip to Wegmans today, and then stopped over to the Dollar Tree where we encountered a store full of Christmas goods. It was very amusing. I love dollar stores and their tacky goods. For example, there were dozens of Santa Claus ceramic figurines, many of them depicting the fat, jolly Santa that we know and love today. This is not the same character that Nissenbaum describes in his book. The other random items we found included a collage of ceramic children dressed up in winter gear, from African-American ceramic figurines, to Christmas houses, to deathly pale little children smothered in snowflakes. Plastic poinsettias, and Christmas wreaths were already placed out by the Halloween candy (a little sketchy if you ask me). If this doesn't depict the materialistic "Christmas" that we as an American society have created, I don't know what does. Peace.

Reactions to Readings

2005-09-23T14:52:00.000-07:00

After reading Nissenbaum's Chapter 2, the "Account of a Visit from St. Nicholas" and "The Man Who Hitched the Reindeer to Santa Claus's Sleigh" I have become even more interested in the history of Christmas! I find it quite interesting how the character, Santa Claus, was made by the three men, Moore, Irving, and Pintard. Pintard was disturbed by the immoral revelry of the lower classes during the Christmas season, and assuming that Moore sincerely did write the poem "Account of a Visit from St. Nicholas," he gave the character Santa Claus "life." His work gave Santa Claus the immortal status that he enjoys to this day. As X. J. Kennedy comments, the poem has strong literary quality (alliteration and rhyme) to the point that it has become a part of what is termed "Americana." I am still wondering why Pintard decided to use St. Nicholas and start celebrating that Saint Day (maybe the Dutch influence in New York). Anyway, I was surprised to find that Washington Irving held a part in the creation of the character Santa Claus. I had not known that before. In fact I remember in the reading that Charles W. Jones (former U.S. Senator) said: "Without Irving there would be no Santa Claus...Santa Claus was made by Washington Irving." The same man who wrote Rip Van Winkle? Wow. Also surprising was the parallel between the "Day of Doom" and Moore's poem. The Christian religion was subversively implanted into the modern celebration of Christmas, it seems, through the implication of a small "judgment day" through the visit of St. Nick. This was certainly another clever way of making Christmas a celebration that people could enjoy without excess. This added factor makes it "religious" and thus individuals did not feel terrible sinners practicing the holiday. And of course there is the fact that Santa enters the family home - adding to the domesticity of the holiday. From this point on holidays, not just Christmas would be centered mainly around the home and the material goods that it provides....

Draft Paper 2

2005-09-21T07:51:00.000-07:00

So I am definitely using affirmative action as my topic, and now I am trying to figure out how to organize the paper. I am going to use the dialogue format, but I need to have a character that is arguing with me. I also am trying to figure out what type of diction is appropriate: the vernacular, formal, etc. I think I will use a more formal-word usage, and this should probably affect my decision as to what the other character will be. Back to work...

Topic for Paper 2

2005-09-19T20:09:00.000-07:00

I have decided to write about the issue of affirmative action for my second paper. I really need to get started so here I go...

Done with 1st Paper, On to the 2nd

2005-09-17T08:52:00.000-07:00

Well I finished my first college paper! That wasn't too bad. However I think this 2nd paper sounds much more difficult, personally. The dialogue format will actually be easier to write than in the paragraph format, but the topic is the hard part. I've been trying to think of what my issue, theme, etc. is going to be...

Blogging in the News

2005-09-13T16:06:00.000-07:00

Before I forget about it, I wanted to share about an interesting story that I saw on CNN a couple of days ago. It featured a man (unfortunately I have already forgotten his name) who is currently residing in the Superdome in wake of Hurricane Katrina. This man was blogging his experiences of living in the Superdome, allowing everyone to see an intimate portrait of what life is like in this environment. He was using computers that were provided in the Superdome itself. I thought this was yet another perspective on how the internet is changing the way we write. Here, this can be used in the future as a primary source historical document, and currently it is giving real vital information to those outside of the "know" as to what these people are going through. New technologies are allowing individuals to write not only to a greater audience but perhaps with unparalleled ease and efficiency.

Writing the Paper

2005-09-09T09:42:00.000-07:00

I have to say that I was very annoyed last night that I could not send my paper through the outbox function that we were shown in class. My computer would not let me log in and did not recognize my username or password. Oh well, it seems that others had the same problem. It is now time to start the editing process, this should be interesting...

Reaction to Nissenbaum

2005-09-05T11:21:00.000-07:00

After reading Ch. 1 of Nissenbaum I had several reactions:

Although I have had some background on the history of Christmas, I still find it interesting how the lower social class would enter into the homes of the wealthy New England elite. I really feel that I agreed with how Nissenbaum said some historians feel that this act created a balance, even for one just day, between the classes and helped ease tension between the two. It seems that the holiday of Christmas therefore very much involved the idea of social classes and how these classes interacted far more than it concerned the birth of Christ.

Also, I wonder how the holiday of Christmas was celebrated in other colonies of the United States at this time, as we know through our study of American history that the colonies differed greatly economically, socially, etc.

It also seems that the unorthodox early celebration of the holiday prevented it from being officially celebrated at an earlier date. Since the upperclass saw Christmas as a threat in some respects, and as they held positions of power (that includes religious influence) Christmas was continued to be frowned upon. Therefore, the emergence of Christmas as part of a "religion of domesticity" as Nissenbaum speaks was probably the one way for it to be celebrated universally.

2005-09-02T12:51:00.000-07:00

Hello everyone! I hope that everyone got through their first week of classes without too much stress. Before I begin to dive into our upcoming first paper I thought that I would share some of my Christmas experiences with you all. Coming from a Roman Catholic family in Upstate, New York I have practiced the holiday of Christmas for all of my life. We always go to Christmas Eve mass and awake the next morning to a huge Christmas breakfast. We spend the rest of the morning opening the presents under our Christmas trees. Yes, we have multiple Christmas trees. This stems from the fact that my family owns a small Christmas tree farm and thus have access to these trees. While both my parents are teachers, my father works in the Christmas trees in his free time and all throughout the summer. I also help in the winter selling the trees, chopping them down, bailing them, etc. This creates a unique setting in which to add only another dimension to an all ready frenzied season during the year. We also have the family Christmas get-togethers which (I am sure some of you know) can be dysfuntional to say the least. For me Christmas is both peaceful and hectic. While it is a busy time for my family and I, it also can be very spiritually and socially rewarding.