A Self Evaluation

As I look back on the writing I have done this semester, I find there are some assignments which I did moderately well and some which I did extremely poor in. Perhaps it is something in my mind which views everything at two extremes, either really good or really bad. A real problem with my writing is that I write well only when I’m in the “mood” to write. It is like a wave in the sea, rising and falling and the timings of this rise and fall are not under my control most of the time. The only time I can make this wave rise is perhaps when I write on something with my own imagination or perhaps on some general topic of the world which would be on my mind during that period of time.

Although I am not qualified enough to make a judgment on my writing (I say this because my judgment has been somewhat contrary to that of my Professor – for example, in my first paper, he gave me a ‘B’ grade whereas I thought I did not deserve more than a ‘C’. Again this may be due to my extreme mind) yet I will try my level best. Another reason why I find it difficult to reflect upon my writing is that only the papers have been graded and as there were only two papers, there is only a vague idea of what kind of writing will fetch an ‘A’ grade. Perhaps that is why I never got an ‘A’ in either of my assignments.

When I look back at my writing, the first thing which points itself to me is the problem I face in understanding the term ethos or credibility of the author. Perhaps even now, I have not figured out how the ethos of an author is established. It is said that ethos is something that is outside the writing, the credibility of the author. Well, my question is that if a person does not know who the author is, then where can the ethos come from? I never asked this question out loud and this maybe the reason why I always used statements from the writing as reasons for ethos. One example of this is in my first paper on the second last paragraph. I mentioned that some of the claims being outrageous dampened the ethos of the author but actually, it would dampen the logos.

Another thing which I struggled with was and still is causal arguments. In this entry, I found a suitable editorial on which to write the entry but I could not identify the causal argument at all. I have yet to understand causal arguments, how to understand them and how to analyze them.

The one entry which I think I did pretty well on was the blogs by Riverbend. In this entry I felt that I effectively identified the main argument of the blog entry or rather entries. I may have been over emphatic about that blog (I say this because many of the students pointed out that Riverbend had no evidential support for her arguments) but if this is true, then I feel that even blogs by people like Salam Pax (which is not even his real name as in the case of Riverbend) cannot be trusted either. I say this because even though some people have met the man doesn’t mean that whatever Salam says is the truth or the whole truth for that matter. Here, I would like to point out the story of the seven men and the elephant. It goes like this that six of these men had ever seen the elephant and the seventh was the owner or mahout of the elephant. Five of the men were blindfolded and made to touch various parts of the elephant like the tusks, the legs, the tail, the trunk and the ears. Each of the five men gave different answers as to what the elephant maybe like. One said it was like a cylinder (the one who touched the leg), one said it was long and tapering at one end (the one who touched the trunk) and so on. The sixth man was shown the entire elephant and he was the one who gave the most accurate description of how it looked like. However, it was only the mahout of the elephant who could tell exactly what the elephant felt, how it behaved and so on. What I’m trying to get at with this small story is that the people who read these blogs know only the part of the person from what they make of the writing. The person who has actually seen the person can give a better idea about that blogger than most of us. However, it is only the person that knows the blogger that can give us a reason as to why the blogger writes in a particular way and what might be going on in that blogger’s mind when a particular entry is published. It is only that person who knows more or less what the blogger’s feelings are and how true they are about a particular entry.

The other blog entries I feel I wrote well were the entry on technologies of memory, the Gallery Assignment, the American Memory Project entry and the one on Mitchell’s essay. I felt each of these entries was successful because they appealed to me in some way or the other and this resulted in a better output from me in each of the cases. All of the above, except the gallery assignment, were discussed in class and the points brought up in these discussions tallied with the points I made on these entries which is another reason why I feel they were successful in general.

The entry on technologies of memory specially and the American Memory Project appealed to me because I like to preserve my past so I can look back at it during my leisure time. However, I do not agree with the author’s (in technologies of memory) method of prominently displaying his personal life on a place like the internet where it is accessible to all of the public. Memories are special to me and I feel that they should only be shared with special people or perhaps people related to that memory. On the other hand, the American Memory Project I felt was an important undertaking as it helps analyze our society and the changes it has undergone along with providing film student to study audiences in various time frames.

The gallery assignment was special to me because I was really impressed with the museum that I visited or rather the location and surrounding of the museum. I felt that though it was a sort of narration of my experience at the museum, at the same time, I felt that I effectively conveyed the importance of such a museum or any museum in general.

Finally, the entry on Mitchell’s essay was a sort of outlet I was looking for to discuss about the perfect world. I feel that people like Mitchell look only at “the good things” in life which is to say that they have a really vague idea about the truth. What I mean to say is that when Mitchell says that E-topia is here, I disagree on that point because there cannot be an E-topia with two extremes as in one part of the world with advanced internet technology and the other where people struggle to get even one square meal a day. I felt that I emphasized this well in my entry and thus I felt that I analyzed his essay fairly well by saying that we should not be overwhelmed by what we have achieved, rather we should focus on what we can make better.

Upon reflecting back to the assignments for this class, I find that I could have done much better and there is a lot of scope for improvement. The thing that is required is practice and a lot of it. There is still the need for me to remember and understand the “technical” aspects of analyzing arguments (like identifying ethos and causal arguments) and also effectively making claims by providing evidence in support of it. I feel that these two aspects need the most work on. Besides this, I feel that I am attuned to a style of writing which would convince a particular person. Thus, I look for things that my “single person” audience looks for in an argument. This is a very dangerous thing as most of the arguments I will make in future will cater to a large audience. Besides these, there is the problem with my introductions and conclusions. Sometimes I feel that my introductions are too general (as in the case of my second paper). Again, for conclusions, my conclusions seem to be like a summary of my arguments which sounds too general and monotonous. Thus I feel that working on these things will definitely help me evolve as a writer and make my arguments more plausible.

  ¶ 6:39 PM

  The presentations of the group blogs were really well done. The first group was the luckiest as they got the maximum time (about forty minutes). The other groups did well to present themselves within the time limit. The presentation that interested me the most was the gaming one as I myself am a game freak. However, I am going to write about the "naughty athletes" presentation. The group did well to present their material. However, I feel that there was a lack of practice and coordination between them. The material was definitely good, but the presentation felt a bit informal. Not that our group did any better with ours. The overall best presentations I felt were of the first and last groups. Perhaps, the "naughty athletes" presentation could have been better if there were a few video clips of athletes misbehaving on the field caught on camera (like Mike Tyson). Another aspect according to me was that the group concentrated only on "American" sports and sports figures (there was a little mention about the Olympics but that was it). There was no mention of Maradona and his drug abuse even though soccer is probably the most popular sport around the world as a whole.
The points made about the Kobie Bryant case, were informative and well presented. There was a lot of research work involved in getting the facts about this case as well as about the drugs used in sports. Thus the effort put in was apparent.
Though my criticism maybe harsh and maybe even baseless in some instances, I hope that this will help the group in future presentations; that is my only intention.  ¶ 2:09 PM

  Mitchell's essay speaks more of the idyllic than the facts and thus it is hard to swallow what he is saying. He speaks of E-topia and feels that this ideal world can be achieved or rather has been achieved due to the revolution in internet technology. This is far from the truth. Agreed that internet technology has revolutionized the way we work, but it is still not time that we can put our work life at stake on it. The lack of security on the internet is a growing concern for a lot of firms and companies. Combined with system crashes and power losses, the internet can be one of the biggest threats to privacy and data. Another thing that Mitchell takes for granted is the availability of internet technology to everyone around the world. At preset, there are people living in this world who do not get even one square meal per day. Then how are they supposed to have access to a computer, let alone the internet.

It has been said that beauty can only be appreciated if it is not everlasting. Thus, when Mitchell says that the rich people would prefer to live in scenic locations and manage their work form there using internet technologies, these people are bound to be tired of all the scenic beauty at some time or the other. It is perhaps human nature to be at fault. Thus the idea of an E-topia seems more theoretical than practical. Workplaces and homes would be merged into a single establishment says Mitchell, but he forgets that for work to be done, people are required and a job like manufacturing cars requires the combined effort of all the workers and machines together. It is not practically viable to just contract out jobs to individuals working from their homes. People have to meet and work together. Thus I feel that his idea of the ideal live/work place is a bit too far – fetched.

Overall, his essay provides us with guidelines with which to improve our lives using technology, but E-topia is something we can never achieve in reality. However, that doesn’t mean we stop trying. We should always strive for perfection.
  ¶ 9:49 PM

  Tara McPherson's essay about the comparison between the internet and television is something obvious. She feels that the internet is revolutionizing today’s world and it would slowly edge out television. One of the reasons why this seems obvious is that we (the students who are writing these blogs) were born in the mid 1980's and internet is probably about half our age. Thus my point is that we have "grown" together with the internet and thus its capabilities and usefulness seem obvious to us. Another reason why this may seem obvious is the fact that today, most of the world has been "computerized". Thus it is hard to imagine a world without computers and since computers have so many uses (specifically, the internet), this thing seemed inevitable.

The author has a sense of "being in the moment" while she is surfing because she can actively participate. In fact, the choice is hers, whether to surf through a web site or not. Thus she feels that the internet offers tremendous choice, though options may be limited. She feels that the web is "a mediator between man and machine". That it is a "technology of experience". Although she praises the internet and web, she mentions that she is not biased and does not want to imply that one is superior to the other. Rather, she is more specifically interested in exploring the "technologies" of the web. She also feels that television and the web reference each other in some way and thus wishes to explore the capabilities of the web further and how it can complement television.
  ¶ 1:19 AM

  Roland Barthe's Camera Lucidia was difficult to evaluate because of the words he used and also because he went deep into a subject, sometimes contradicting himself. He feels that photography is an incomplete picture of someone and that it is a vague term. A photograph represents nothing but the object which is being photographed and thus, the photograph has no identity of its own. Another point he makes about them is that photographs do not offer a "whole" memory of someone. It is successful only as far as capturing the outer expression and features of a person goes. It cannot go into the mind of the person or reveal his thoughts. Thus he says that by looking at a photograph, one cannot say that he/she knows the object (or rather person) being photographed. Even if the photograph manages to capture some emotion on the face of the person being photographed, most of the time, the expression is fabricated because the subject becomes aware and conscious that he is being photographed. Thus he feels that they are a bad way to remember people.

Another notable feature of his writing deals with time and death. He feels that whatever has been there before him is history. Thus, his mother's death would be history to him. When he looks at her pictures, he remembers only parts of her (like her perfume, her clothes etc), but the photographs never give him a true and complete picture of his mother. He remembers her death and remembers how in her last days he had nursed and cared for her. Since he was approaching the same age as his mother when she passed away, he feels that the whole world is empty and hollow and that there is nothing left for him to do but await his own demise. Thus he gets melancholic and nostalgic, speaking about one of the last photographs taken of his mother before her death and tells the readers how tired and worn out she looked.
  ¶ 10:42 PM

  The article about American Memory Project is interesting to me simply because of the fact that I love preserving things. I think it is an important insight into the world of film in its childhood days. The fact that these films (most of them) are preserved so well even now is a wonder because films are prone to fungus and are affected by sunlight too. The interesting thing about these films was their length, the silence, the acting and the audience who came to view them. These films are short (about five minutes at the most) and this makes it interesting because it is really difficult to draw the audience's attention in such a short span of time. However, the Execution of Czolgosz is a very good example of such a film which captivates the audience. Although the acting seems too outwardly and unnatural (perhaps to make up for the silence), the gestures do try to put emphasis on explaining the actions. Another interesting aspect related to these films is the audience. The silence in the film was made up for by the audience and it would be an altogether different experience if the same were to happen in today's world. Also, the clever way that the film about the ghost and the grandfather clock (I forget the name) was shot shows us that people in that era too were clever at making their audience wonder as to how someone could paint such a beautiful portrait just by swiping at the canvas with a brush and black paint.  ¶ 1:50 AM

  Museums are supposed to be a place where "history" is preserved. Its not just a place where artifacts are kept so that they are not forgotten, but if a museum is well organized, in an orderly fashion, one can enter a museum and re-live one's past. The old varnished wooden cases (in case of an art museum, the frames) where the artifact is kept, the whole atmosphere of a museum can take someone to an age which one can only imagine. However, for this blog entry, I have chosen to write about the Jimmy Carter Library's museum. The whole location is like a huge estate and is very scenic. The main building consists of two theatres and the museum itself. The long vacant corridor is more welcome than one filled with a large crowd, shouting and shoving. Each artifact can be concentrated upon. This museum holds artifacts related to former president James (Jimmy) Carter. The museum as a whole is very well organized, starting with a list of all the predecessors to Jimmy Carter in the nineteenth century. Further on, it goes on to describe the former president's life in a chronological order. Starting from his parent's, when he was a child, the museum has artifacts like his sixth grade report. Further ahead, it describes his young adulthood and how he rose to fame; senator, governor and finally, president. Then it highlights his achievements as a president and critical success where his predecessors had failed. Between all this chronological sequencing, there are small showcases of artifacts he received from world leaders when he was president. The museum is not monotonic in this fashion; it has a special room full of articles used for the presidential campaign. There is also a special room which is a replica of his office with his voice being played on the recorder. The whole atmosphere seems "rich in his memories". Blinds all over the exits make sure that the sunlight play the spoilsport. There are also about thirty million archives which are orders, bills, discussions he wrote as president. Thus overall, the museum is quite well organized and has a pattern which is easy to follow. This makes our understanding of the former president better and more effective. Although sprawling gallery spaces are considered a waste of space, they are very essential in order to concentrate on the object of our enquiry. These spaces help us grasp better, what an artifact is trying to say.  ¶ 10:15 PM