Gin, Television, and Cognitive Surplus

1. When people do something using their spare time, cognitive surplus is created and something good happens.
2. The author defines the literacy as an ability to understand certain information. The definition differs from the former two articles which defined literacy as an ability to catch the deep meaning of a writing.
3. Cognitive surplus is free time people have and use to do 'something'. It doesn't matter what they do. They just helps.
4. Unlike the authors of the two articles, the author argues that it is not bad to do seemingly worthless things such as web surfing or watching television and they actually help in some way, because doing such stuff is always better than doing nothing.
5. The Method
Patterns of Repetitions- Looking for the mouse, cognitive surplus, At least they are doing something

Strands of Similarities- taking advantage of the surplus/ better to do something

Binaries- not something that society grows out of, it is something that society grows into

Anomalies- information society knows without really knowing it

6. 

The repetitions of the sentence 'at least they are doing something' is the most important in understanding the text. The author is explaining how cognitive surplus, which basically means 'doing something' can contribute to the other people. Since the whole text is about how 'doing something' helps eventually, the repetition of 'at least they are doing something' helps to understand the text and makes the text more persuasive.

Google

1. The way of thinking and reading changes as one gets used to read online. Net now makes the people lose the ability to think deep and concentrate.
2. Net lets the author to immediately find what he wants to find. As he gets used to using web, he lost his ability to read long writings and concentrate on reading.
3. The ability to read deeply and understand beyond the sentences.
4. Socrates Nightmare and Google.. article both define literacy as more than an ability to read, but to understand the deep meaning of the writing.
5. As Internet lets people to get information immediately, people began to stop think and analyze deeply when they read. As the result, the Internet changed the way people think from traditional thinking-thinking deeply, analyzing, concentrating-to browsing and skimming. It leads the people to lose the ability to think deeply and concentrate.
6. Providing anecdotes of the author himself and other acquaintances, listing the opinions of experts, and showing the research results.
7. The evidence is effective because it leads people to agree with him by recalling their experience and gives more credibility.
8. This article explains how Internet changes the way people think. So it warns the people that they can lose their ability to think deeply. So the article leads people to think about how they should keep their ability to think deeply.

Unit 3 Brainstorming: Identity and Social Media

 I chose Stephen Hawking to analyze. Even though he's very famous for his genius accomplishments in the field of Universe and the Black Holes, he's personality is relatively not well-known, partly because of his physical handicap. Now as he uses twitter, his twitter would be a good source to look closer to his personality, as well as his intelligence. It will be a good chance to analyze a genius's usual life and personality. Also, since he's not aiming for popularity, his tweets are usually casual. So it'll help me to analyze him better.

Social Media: What does your tattoo say?

Actually, I try not to post anything that can damage myself. I don’t blame anybody, and I don’t post anything that can show my personal life. However, I frequently upload posts, usually something not at all important or serious, so I guess somebody can analyze my personality quite accurately by looking at my posts, if the one can understand Korean. If analyzed, I would be a humorous/weird math/science person.

My posts are usually a quote that I agree, a question something that I think it’s worth to think about.

One post I wrote:

“If you are born rich, you may lose your money, but if you are born lucky, you will always get what you need or want just by chance.”

If analyzed, the person who wrote this post can be analyzed as a amateur gambler, who believes in luck and loves money. But actually, I was interested in the force of ‘coincidence’ or ‘luck’ affecting my life.

Days later I posted:

Under what percent of possibility can a good happening be called ‘luck’

This person would be analyzed as a mathematical thinker. This shows that now I’m interested in the exact meaning of ‘luck’.

Some other posts I wrote are:

‘I will never drink iced mocha again’ – this shows that I’m a coffee drinker, who hates sweet ones.

‘I can’t wait to visit Korea this summer’ – this shows that I’m a Korean who lives out of Korea, which is ‘fob’.

Also I uploaded several photos of my origami. I can be analyzed as a typical Asian who’s good at Asian stuffs.

So overall, according to my facebook, I’m a typical Asian fob who’s interested in math and origami. So it is quite accurate, and my facebook personality and my real personality is exactly same, as I’m really an Asian fob who’s interested in math and origami. So hopefully my job interview won’t be damaged by my facebook posts.

Interpretive Leap

I chose Gene Kelly’s song ‘Singing in the Rain’ to analyze. The song is originally in the movie of the same title. This happy love song is also very famous for being in the movie ‘A Clockwork Orange’, a movie that is very far from being happy. In the movie ‘Singing in the Rain’, Gene Kelly sings the song after he meets ‘Kathy Shelden’, a woman who he loves. Since it is a love song sung by a man in love, the song is really straightforward. The lyrics repeatedly say how happy he is. It says ‘I’m singing in the rain’, ‘I’m happy again’, ‘I’m ready for love’, etc. In the movie ‘Singing in the Rain’, the song and the scene beautifully matches and makes perfect harmony. So, just like the movie which is filmed right after the World War 2, the song tries to make people happy. In the movie ‘A Clockwork Orange’, the main character ‘Alex’ sings ‘Singing in the Rain’ when he beats up Mr. Alexander and rapes Mrs. Alexander. So, the song is not really fit for the scene. By putting a happy song in a terribly violent scene, the song emphasizes the violence of the scene and the insanity of the main character, Alex.

From Flappers to Rappers

The movie “The Great Gatsby” successfully mixes 1920’s jazz and modern hip hop. It seems to be radical to put off-the-time music in a movie, but the sound tracks are perfectly fit to the music. Some might say the sound tracks used are awkward, but the blend of classical jazz music and modern music makes the movie more dynamic and modern. By balanced use of 1920s music and modern day hip hop, the movie becomes classical in some scenes and modern in other scenes. Actually, when Fitzgerald wrote the novel, jazz music had been treated just as the modern-day hip hop is treated nowadays. It was considered as ‘new’ and a lot of people were not used to such kind of music. Now, just like Fitzgerald featured the new music in his novel to make it more dynamic, the movie puts the modern-day hip hop to make the movie more dynamic and the hip hop music perfectly matches the time period in the movie, when the gangsters were wild and illegal moves are widespread.

The hip-hop music perfectly matches with the movie. The beat makes the scenes more thrilling, and the music makes the party more exciting. The modern-jazz such as ‘Back to Black’ fits in the 1920s mood, however it also sounds modern. Although the movie is based on 1920s, the party scenes and the flappers are completely different from those in the black-and-white photo. They look really modern, just like they were in that time period, and lively.

The mood of movie is quite critically affected by the modern music. 1920s jazz sounded really radical, adventurous and racy at that time, however, it sounds really old-fashioned or even boring today. Putting those music in the movie would have make the movie more realistic, however, it wouldn’t really sound dynamic and adventurous to nowadays’ audience. So the modern-day hip hop is a really successful rhetoric choice, because, it makes the movie a little bit anachronistic but ironically restores the mood of 1920s more realistically. 

Process and Product

The various methods of essay-writing I learned in Unit 1 helped me a lot to be a better writer. One of the best lessons I have learned was writing quick-and dirty rough draft. Before learning this, I used to try to write a completed essay at one time. Since English is not my first language, correcting grammar errors in my essay is always one of the biggest concerns in my writing process. I tended to focus on writing sentences that are grammatically correct, so it took relatively long time to write each sentences and it often caused me to forget what I was trying to write. As I began to write a rough-draft, I could ignore the grammatical errors first and focus on my ideas. Also, by putting every one of my ideas in paper first and then organizing it, I could write more smoothly and think of more ideas. Also, the advice ‘Put your unconscious on the job’ helped me a lot. When I write essays, I often lose track of my ideas. Now when I feel I’m lost, I do other things instead of desperately thinking of ideas.

                Required tasks of rough drafts and workshop helped me a lot. When I get an assignment, I tend to procrastinate as long as I can manage finishing it. The regularly-assigned drafts helped me not to postpone drafts and thus helped me to write a better essay. The workshops and peer reviews helped me to see the things I didn’t see and find new ways to make my essay better. Without those mandatory tasks, I would begin writing essays probably like one week before the due date. So I think the draft assignments and workshops helped me to keep track of writing and helped me to write a better paper.