14. Going into the darkroom!

"welcome to the darkroom" by galo/* licensed under Creative Commons 2.0 Generic.


Just 3 hours ago, I was in the darkroom of our school, which is located in the university center. It was my first developing of my own negatives! I’m still very excited about that, I was waiting a long time for making that, especially in the high school. We wanted (as the photography club) to convert a room into the darkroom, but it was really expensive and our school could not afford it. Elif was also there this evening with me and with a couple of people. I think she’s lucky because she had chance to go into the darkroom of her high school. At first we practiced a little bit what we were going to do. After having told a lot of things by our guide (who also is a student) we really took out our film from its hard cover, yes in the dark! Then we put it into a little box that keeps the film safe from the daylight. Turning the lights on, we put into this box several chemicals (first one called the developer, second called the fixer..). 20-25 min later we took the film out of the box and washed it carefully. Then we pinned up them and waited for it to become dry.

We’re going to print them next week! I can’t wait for it and want immediately to see my experimental photographs. =)

13. WHAT DID I LEARN IN ENG 101?

This is the most frequently asked question by the course evaluations and by the instructors recently. Bringing together all the things we made and refreshing our memory would be useful in order to be being aware of what we did actually, at the end of the semester.

Here I’m going to mention ones that I remember:
- APA Referencing was the main theme for me this semester. I’ve learnt it for the first time and at first got difficulties I have to admit. (I still find it hard to use it properly)
- Writing a process essay: again it was the first time for me to write a process essay. The difficulty here is the higher expectations because you have a certain time for working on it and it really needs a hard work on and on. Keeping on the writing, never giving up. (One of my teachers said in the primary school, you should hold your pen in your hand even if you’re not writing, because it provides you to concentrate more.)
- Making research for an academic writing: I did not hear Google scholar before. But it is a nice search engine to keep in mind. (you can see also which essays are available on the IC)
- The main course themes: “Gender and Media” were also interesting topics to talk about.
- And of course I learnt how I should pronounce PARENTHESİS! (not parenthesus : D )

12. THE LAST LAST LECTURE

Hey, here we were talking with Ayse about our last lecture today. She brought a home made cake, which came from Antalya. It is really delicious (mmmm!) Ayse says that Sonja’s brownie was more delicious –I couldn’t taste it unfortunately. Since we have been here in the dormitory for 3 months I miss my mother’s cake with chocolate pieces and cherry. We had our cup of coffee as well.
Who believes that this whole semester has really ended? I can’t believe, actually. I’m not saying that I didn’t realize a thing. I really realized it while our sleepless nights trying to catch up the lecture, trying to read SPS essays, Civilization in the West is another issue by the way…I’m almost asking everyone I see who lives in the dorm : Do you suffer from staying up so late? And the answer is mostly: YES! Then I think again, WHY? Here people have the idea that if you go to sleep early you would miss a lot happening around you. A simple example: My roommate Ceren is a Hazirlik and she receives sometimes e-mail at 11 p.m. from her instructor that she has to do that homework for the next day. It’s really really weird. I couldn’t understand why we became like that.

At the end of today’s lecture I could see the sadness in Sonja’s eyes =) It’s going to a little bit hard for us to get used to the university system, which has 2 semesters in one year. For us, since the kindergarten, it was like you are together with your teacher and friends for a whole year. But here things are different. You get used to your class and the instructor and puff! You have to rearrange your schedule in the middle of the year. It’s boring but fun at the same time. Anyway, I’m happy for having known each of you and also want to thank Sonja for all the lectures that she tried to make them more fun.

11. V for Vendetta : the last presentation

"V for Vendetta" by brimfulofsasha licensed under Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic.


Today it was our last day of English 101. (Anyway that’s not the point now.=) What I want to talk about is the presentation that is made by Burak, Meltem and Yavuzalp. They presented us the movie called “V for Vendetta”.

When I watched this film 3 years ago, I was shocked somehow. The scenes made me confuse. It’s kind of a confusing film actually. If you don’t have general knowledge about the history or the utopias that were idealized by some philosophers and thinkers, then it may be a good idea to make a little research about it. Without the knowledge, watching the film would not lead you to a proper conclusion. Another thing that was discussed in the class after the presentation was why people liked it so much and adored the character V. For Emir, they never got the main point, they just find the character cool and that’s all. And I’ve begun to questioning and suddenly realize that we are sometimes not thinking the background at all. Maybe it is because we’re students and not used to think much because of our education system. It is sad, but also the truth. So what are we going to do with that? The answer is the university I suppose. Here’s the place we describe, discuss and extend our vision. (I intended to make comments about the presentation but we hit a world matter sorry :)

I realized that a lot of group suffers from the lack of proper time for preparing the presentations. For me, the slides were good prepared and it fits with the topic of the film, that black background I mean. But it’s a pity that the historical context was a little bit forgotten.

All in all it is a good experience what we do and I hope it would help to improve our English more in Eng 102. (if we’re going to do it I have no clue)

10. TV on New Year's Eve

“Victoria’s Secret” by CJ Sorg licensed under Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic.


It’s a classic. People who stay at home on the New Year’s Eve got used to it. What am I talking about? Of course about Victoria’s Secret fashion show. I can see your smile from here. In this evening I was at my friend’s house, making a house party. Even if you make a house party there’s no way to avoid watching it! Because most of the boys want to watch it and it is so as if they could die for it! You could think that I’m overreacting, but actually I’m not. If you are alone at home or really got bored I can understand the purpose behind it. Anyway what if you’re having fun with your friends and everyone is dancing and drinking? At the midnight after the countdown it’s time for the show. (I know that you know this.) So everybody has to sit down and be quiet and watch it. If you don’t watch it then you have to be excluded. After the show is ended (for me it is like 2 hours have passed), everyone starts to behave normally. And I couldn’t help but wonder, why? Me and a friend of mine(a girl)are in thoughts: what was gonna like if there was a men version of it? (It reminded me the Full Monty) And I’ve asked to my boyfriend. (no no, I did not shouted!) What makes this show so special? I know there are lots of girls too, who wait for it impatiently. In general they are waiting for the glamorous underwear. (Different aims, again) Anyway he said that the show is made once a year and it causes an excitement. Also they are known for being best angels of the world. Having all thoughts from Killing us softly in my head, I laughed and shook his hand.

I’m curious about your night, with or without the show?

9. Our final presentation

On the 30th of December, just before the New Year’s Eve, we had our final presentation. As Ayse also have said on her post, we were a little bit concerned because we couldn’t manage our time properly as we did in the practice presentation. It is still hard to talk in front of an audience, but I realize that I’ve started to improve myself in that field. Another hard thing to achieve for a group is making a presentation without boring the audience. I think it’s a sensitive point to be careful about. When a person from an audience gets bored and looks at his watch and presenter sees that, his/her concentration breaks down immediately. At least for me it was nearly like that. In order to find a common way, presenters should not keep their voice down and presentation slides should be more colorful. The empathy is something has to be thought about for both sides.

Thanks all for listening.

8. Tough Guise

"Face lift" by 7-how-7 licensed under Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic.
"Masculinity Crisis"
Jason Katz describes Tough Guise as a front so many men put up.
-emphasize toughness, physical strength,gaining respect through violence
-"real men": strong,tough, respected,independent..
-"Latino boys" usually criminals,boxers..
-"a survival mechanism"
-size of men bodies got bigger
-gun images got bigger from 1930s to 1960s-70s and 80s(stallone)
-Schwarzeneger: killing machine
- Indian movie: " You've got to look mean if you want people to respect you!"
-the social& economic structures of the society denied them to access the opportunities that middle class have.
-domestic violence
-homicide
-vulnerability
-assault
-What to do? --Redefinig the manhood in order to reduce violence (90% of violence commited by boys and men)
-not just the video games are guilty--a much larger context-a cultural thing-from childhood-violence through guns, sports culture
"You gain respect by disrespecting another person."
"We need to define courage; it is more than a physical courage."

7. Few notes about Killing us softly 3

Here are some keywords&concepts:
-3 years of life watching TV commercials
-Advertisements sell product+images+concept of love&sexuality
-seeing a woman's body as an object: violence against women
-a culture: in which women are seen as things
-turning a woman in to a thing--first step of justification violence against that person
-objectification
-dehumanizing
-active boys& passive girls in ads
- insulting
-innocence&sexiness at the same time
- hyposexualized teenagers
- pornography as a mainstream
- masculinity linked with violence

6. Few notes about Tannen's Marked Women

Hi all, I want to share my notes, some key words with you, just before the final exam. I hope this helps. =)

Tannen's thesis : The unmarked forms of most English words convey "male".
- ummarked tense ~ present tense
- being male ~ unmarked case
- Unlike women, men have chance of being unmarked.
- "There's no unmarked woman."
-If a woman does not have a stylish haircut, then she would be considered as "not caring about how she looks".
- in marriages: keeping her own name & taking the husbands name - both marked for women
-But for man: using his own name unmarked
-on the other hand using both name : stands out in a list
-according to Fasold:
biologically men are marked, "men have modified female bodies"
"For grammarians female is the marked case."
-According to some ideas: writing this article makes Tannen a feminist.