Blog Post 10 (Hauntings)

      It is crazy how in the previous blog post, I mentioned "The Fall of the House of Usher"by Edgar Allan Poe. I didn't realize that it was our reading for this week (I guess I'm just cool in that sense or I know what the Professor is thinking- I prefer the former). Well this is my second time reading "The Fall of the House of Usher" and again, it scared the socks off of me, and I'm most likely am going to have to sleep with a nightlight (not that I own any or anything). So a quick synopsis of the story is: narrator gets invited by his sickly (mentally ill- super sensitive senses), superstitious, friend Roderick to Roderick's house. Long story short, Roderick's sister is also sick, she has a seizure, dies (so they thought), and Roderick and the narrator entombs her. One night, the narrator wakes up unable to sleep; Roderick joins him. The narrator tries reading a book aloud to calm Roderick's nerves; and as this happened, they heard noises from below the room, Roderick jumps and announces that his sister is returning (which she did). When she opened the door she collapses into Roderick and he dies also. The narrator (freaked out) fled the scene; and as he was leaving, the house split into two and crumbled. Everything about this story was creepy. The house was creepy; Roderick was creepy; the sister (Madeline) was creepy. I guess I'm just overly sensitive to anything remotely scary or hinting towards something scary. But I was able to prove myself not a coward (in my twisted defense). I was going to add a photo to be nifty and cool, but when I Google searched images of "The Fall of the House of Usher," it was awful. Hence, no picture.
          "Afterward" by Edith Wharton was five times scarier than "The Fall of the House of Usher." Remember in my introduction blog post when I said ghost, demons and paranormal things are a no-no? Well, this story went well past my no-no zone. I was so creeped out by it. When Mary came to the realization that the ghost took her husband and she remembered what her sister said (mentioning that she wont realize that there is a  ghost in the house until afterwards). Boy did Mary find out too late, and she came to the realization that she will probably never see her husband again. This story just rang with an ending of tension. I can't even deal right now to right a proper analysis.

Update:

The show "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" was pretty interesting. It was so old and there was a few scary parts that gave a me anxiety. However, the part when that random girl found the dead body in the locker and she screamed...it was hilarious! Anyhow, I think I saw this show when I was younger but I don't remember seeing it but it seems fairly familiar. 

Viewing Blog 2

          All in all I think I watched about the semester's worth of viewing hours in one viewing blog post but that's fine because I'm and anime junkie and plus the incorporation of movies we have to watch in class also helps as well.
Code Geass              This anime is amazing. I watched about 4 hours' worth of this anime (which is approximately 9 episodes). This story is about a kingdom named Britannia took over the country of Japan and left it in shambles. Japan is now called Area 11 and the citizens of Japan lost their right to self-govern and the people are called Elevens. In order to keep power of Area 11, Britannia enforces their rules through its deployment of new mobile robotic humanoid armor vehicles that are super destructive and large called Knightmares. This kid named Lelouch is super smart and an exiled Imperial Prince of Britannia posing as a student. He ends mingling in the middle of this war and conflict between Area 11 and Britannia. When Lelouch meets this girl named C.C., he gains his geass (the power of the King) and has the authority to have complete dominance of any person he choose. He then is inspired that in order to defeat Britannia, it as to be defeated from within. These few episodes that I saw was just showing the background information, character development for Lelouch and explains how he got his powers. It hasn't revealed what his powers are specifically but only certain aspects of his powers. That he could only use it once on the same person and etc. The story has yet to explain who C.C. is and how she got where she is but I'm pretty sure they'll explain that later. So far, Lelouch is leading a rebellion group to fight against the Britannian army under the alias Zero.
      This story works perfectly into the science-fiction because it entails the aspect of war and conflict, and robots for human advantage. It's a great story and I can't wait to watch more of it.The Hobbit: The Fellowship of the RingSince everyone watched the Hobbit as a required movie in class, I will spare the plot summary and just immediately start on my rant. I thought was a fantasy, so why did this movie scare the socks off of me? The Shadow Kings  scared me so much  and I practically hated seeing when they come up because they give me so much anxiety. There was this one part when Frodo was talking to his successor (I can't remember his name) and for a second his face flashed into a monster. I couldn't take this movie. I guess I'm just a scary cat but someone should have told me that this wasn't a movie to watch alone. 

Blog Post 9

          When I looked at the syllabus and saw that we were moving on to the Horror section of our readings, I was terrified. In my introduction blog post I mentioned that I am terrified of horror and try my best to avoid and stay away from it, and I expressed my dislike for the entire genre itself (however, there are some exceptions to how scary things are).Although in my introduction blog Ms. Geerling reassured me that the horror  reading we'd be doing in this class weren't going to be that scary, just creepy, I was still anxious about reading these stories. However, it was to a pleasant surprise that we were reading "The Raven" and "Annabel Lee" by Edgar Allan Poe.
         Nothing can express my admiration for Mr. Poe. He's a writer of much controversy and brilliance. For example, it is well known that Edgar Allan Poe was an alcoholic; however, writing scholars debate whether or not he was a drug addict as well because in his story "Fall of the House of Usher" he well expounded on the usage of opium. Or his other controversy of him losing his manuscript (the lost manuscript of Poe) that in actuality was never lost because he had a copy of it. Edgar Allan Poe by far was an interesting character,  and his life (for lack of better words) pretty much sucked. However, his brilliance, eeriness, and dreariness shone through his works, that are very depressing, Going back to his story "Fall of the House of Usher"  most writing scholars marvel at how his story perfectly reflects. The first half of the book reflect the other half, the house reflects the family. It was just so precisely and amazingly structured, Poe get major recognition for his writing abilities.
         Okay that's enough of my rant about how I love Edgar Allan Poe. I was excited to read "The Raven." The plot is very simplistic a man was half awake, half asleep was awoken by a knocking not by his door but by his window. When he opened, his window, in came a bird who only uttered the words "Nevermore." The protagonist takes a little while to become aware of the raven's capability to only say one word and continues to ask the bird questions that increasingly get more personal-- eventually going insane. "The Raven" is one of Edgar's most famous works  and he coined the term "forevermore" once this poem went viral,
          The poem "Annabel Lee" was one of Edgar  Allan Poe's last works. At the time, it was a mainstream concept of a beautiful woman dying. I've read this poem a few times in my life when I'd get bored and go on poetry splurges, stumbling across "Annabel Lee." Every time I read it, I'm always left with questions I'm way too lazy to Google. Does Annabel Lee and the speaker speak and communicate on a supernatural basis or did the speaker kill himself to be with Annabel Lee?

Update:

Well it was cool having the author for The Culling. I learned a lot of what went on in the processing of the book and it gave me a new insight which was interesting, Also,  that mini trials we had in class gave me so much anxiety! I literally forgot who The Lady was and the entire last trial was based on The Lady. I couldn't deal with this conflict of emotions in my chest. Surprisingly, I ended up winning the trials and winning his second book. I was super shocked and that trials made me way more nervous than I should have been.

Gender and Sexuality (Blog Post 8)

      In the story "Day Million" by Frederick Pohl is a very short and interesting story. I find it almost crazy how he practically predicted our near future and how spot on he was about almost everything. First of the gender role and representation has been starting to mesh and blend lately (although are meshing and blending of the sexes aren't as severe and seemingly normal as in the story Pohl creates); however, the LGBTQ community rising up and working its way into pop culture is happening in our world. While sexual transformations (and people-who aren't completely people but technologically infused- not caring) are there in this story. Also, how Dora and Don casually falls in love gets married, split up, and go on with their normal lives as if nothing has ever happened kind of reminds me of today's celebrities. Today celebrities such as Kate Winslet (divorced twice), Jim Carry (divorced twice), and Angelina Jolie (divorced twice) are getting married and divorced faster than you can even blink. However, despite these things, Pohl's story concentrated little on the simplistic love story between Dora and Don but focused his attention more towards the reader simply because of the fact he writes in second person (rare in writing because it is the least used writing point of view). The central idea of his writing was to question the sensibility and rationality of the reader. For example, on page 383 he states "...if I try to tell you any of that you will simply stare. Or glare; and grumble, what the hell kind of love-making is this?" Pohl is directly challenging the reader's small-minded world view and our prejudices because we "glare," "grumble,"  and "stare" at the things we don't understand or cannot relate to like the idea of Dora getting sexually aroused and stimulated by herself through an analog of memories and characteristics. 

          When I think of the story "When It Changed" by Joanna Russ, I immediately think of feminism in all of its glory. In Whileaway (a world with only women) they established their own political system, defense mechanisms, social structure and reproduction processes without a feeling of lack while also being fulfilled in reproduction, sexually, and in relational matters. The Whileaway women view men (in a more extreme) way that most feminists today probably view men, the direct chasms that separate the two genders.

Blog Post 7

"We Can Remember It for You Wholesale" by Philip K. Dick was a befitting name for this short story considering the protagonist, Douglas Quail, in retrospect paid the Rekal Incorporation to ultimately remember the erased part of his life when he was just supposed to implant a fake memory that wasn't actually so imaginary. I just thought that the irony of it was funny (I literally laughed out loud reading the title of the book again after I finished the story; it still makes me chuckle actually). The adaptation, the movie Total Recall had a lot of similarities (as it should be expected because it's an adaptation), and it had it differences. The first main difference, despite the evident name change of Doug Quaid (from Total Recall) to Douglas Quail (from "We Can Remember It for You Wholesale"), the book wasn't as gruesome as the movie, and had less complexity and action scenes as the movie. For example, though in both stories the two officers tried to kill Quaid/Quail, the book only depicted Quail injuring the officer, while the movie depicted Quaid killing the cops and their troops practically immediate. Also, another difference was the moment of realization that Quaid/Quail realized that was an assassin who went Mars. When he was in the cab, in the story, he found the ReKal Incorporated card in his coat pocket which him to his questioning and propelled the story to keep going. In the movie, he was randomly attacked by the officers for spilling the beans about his mission on mars. This brings the adaptation to another difference. The wife's reaction in the story was completely different. I really don't know if Kirsten was a part of the Interplan set up; however, maybe she was just in denial at the accusations Quail made that he went to Mars and ended up leaving him because of his preposterous allegations or maybe she was in on it the entire time.  In the movie, Quaid's wife, Lori, was a part of the gimmick the entire time and once she realized that Quaid's memories came back and she attacked him, she was forced to tell Quaid what was actually going on. So in this sense, the movie was more personal and deceitful and action-packed extra drama while the book lacked as much action and tension within the marriage. I am not negating the idea that the book had no tension at all within the marriage at all; it was just minimized while the movie maximized the traumatic experience. Although the book and the movie did have their differences, and the book  left out some aspects of the movie decided to juice up (or filler out), the adaptation remained similar in the fact that a man finds out that his reality was never a reality and his dream ultimately was his reality. 

Update:

Oh my goodness. I watched this movie so much that everything I said was almost true except the fact that fact that the movie wasn't the original.(I fixed it though) I am mortified and kind of embarrassed by my silly mistake but hey, you live and you learn.Usually the movie is the adaptation of the book, like always so I don't know where my mind was for that. I guess since I watched that movie so many times and didn't even think twice to look and see when the book was published I made the mistake. Anyhow, the story remain pretty consistent in both the book and the movie adaptation with some differences of course. 

Computers and Virtual Reality (Blog Post 6)

In the story "Burning Chrome" by William Gibson, it was really difficult to into the story (at least for me)  and because of that I probably missed some grave details within the story to help give me that establishment of everything going on. I didn't start getting into the groove of the story until about the last five pages, and each and every time I read it, I just couldn't seem to develop that imaginary world for this story, not because the story wasn't descriptive, but because Mr. Gibson was able to make his story very realistic-a little too realistic. Realistic in the sense of long banters of computer and technological processes that took more effort for me to understand and process- in order build it into my imagination. For example, “A freezer. A fermenter. An incubator. An electrophoresis system with integrated agarose cell and transilluminator. A tissue embedder. A high-performance liquid chromatograph…” Ultimately, the over description and listing of technological processes killed me in the end. However, the way the story is set up, the protagonist working toward their goal and is usually the hero, Gibson did this-yes- however, in a twisted way. The characters, You get attached to the characters and root for them, hoping for their success and lament in their failures. However, he did this in an anti-heroic manner. It primarily two guys (Bobby and Jack) in the slums just trying to get rich, and most definitely not in the most legal manner. However, the future Gibson displays for us seems to mirror a perfect, complicated reflection of modern-day life. Also, this story to me, though the characters may be in slums and aren’t living it up, doesn’t seem dystopian nor does it seem utopian. However what really stood out to me within this story, were the people’s need and almost-like addiction to, what I’d call, “plastic surgery, despite the possible negative  results overall. For example, when Rikki wanted to get the cheaper set of eyes ( at least until she has the money to get the expensive Iris) as a quick fix for her problem. For some reason, this just reminded me of the hot story of when  Tiny (T.I.’s wife, well ex-wife---who knows anymore?)  changed her eye colour with laser eye surgery to like a greyish colour despite the negative possible outcomes. This story just reflects our need to constantly fix ourselves. Overall, this story is a story I appreciate, not so much like. However, I can say Gibson stylistically and skillfully wrote this story like no other I’ve seen yet.

"Computer Friendly" by Eileen Gunn, I could most definitely say, was interesting and very like-able. First of all the fact that the story was written in the perspective of a seven year old girl which makes you questions even more how well will this story turn over because a child's mind is more simplistic. However, this story is amazing. The perfect system of technological system reminded me of the book The Giver where they would euthanize children who do meet the the requirements they have set. Same goes for this story where they are going to put Sheena to sleep because she doesn't reach the social standards they have set to become a part of the system. It is really scary thinking about the brainwash that occurs in this story because it reminds me the brainwash of culture. There's no escape and the more you try to revolt against cultural norms, or what they consider normal, the more shunned you are. Also, as a culture, there is an attempt to keep these revolts ts and abnormalities to a minimum because then there is a fear that people will convert and join the "timebombs" of society just as Elizabeth did when she became a "timebomb" in her technological system. 

Update:

So last week I did my update on the blog post. I updated my blog post seven instead of this blog post. I just not on top of my game this week. Anyhow, I did like the fact that we sat in a circle in class it made the atmosphere different and open. It was like either a therapy session or a book reading club; I couldn't decide which one seemed more suiting.  I also liked the exercise we did in class where we a had to pick a sentence to analyze. It made me develop a new appreciation for "Burning Chrome" by Gibson and his poetic language. It also lead to like "Computer Friendly" more than I already do.

Atificial/Posthuman Life-form (Blog Post 5)

          When reading the story "Reason," so many religious aspects jumped out to me; I immediately did research on the author Isaac Asimov. Isaac has a plethora of works and is highly recognized for his ranges of titles across the library Dewey Decimal System (DDS). His works  range from hard sciences (such as: chemistry, biology, physics, anatomy, geology, etc.) to  more abstract ideas and faiths (such as; humor, Greek mythology, and the Bible). He is famous for his science fiction works and is a proudly acclaimed atheist. So it doesn't strike me as surprising when I saw so many religious connections between this story and Christians versus atheists. In the story "Reason," I believe Mr. Asimov is trying to dictate the superiority of the atheist as the Robot assumed his superiority over the humans because of his (and the robot's) hard reliance on reason and nothing else more. The robot, Cutie,  rest his belief in the prospect of all things that remain in the realm of logic and reason. For example, when Cutie questioned his creation he states "I accept nothing on authority. A hypothesis must be backed by reason or else it is worthless..."(165) It is undeniable that atheists have this method of thinking due to the fact of their disbelief of a God. So they leave their faith in logic and reason (such as science) to explain questions that every human wonders: origin of life. Also when Donovan and Powell were leaving to return to Earth (parallel to how Christians believe when they die, they'll return to Heaven), Cutie pitied them because he had no belief in the existence of the Earth. So ultimately all he could reason is that they'll just be going to the void of nothingness in space. But what baffles me is the fact that he would use the Earth to represent Heaven. We all know that the Earth exists, Donovan and Powell proved that they created Cutie. Is  Asimov trying to convey that he is in denial that a God does exist? Or is he just simply using the Robot as a representation of his pity for the "Earthmen's" (Christians) "pointless" faith? Or is he really just trying to screw us all over by  my over-thinking everything?
        Reading the story "Super-Toys Last All Summer Long," by  Brian W. Aldiss really reflected (to me) about the relationship between adopted children and their "mothers." For example, the feelings David and Mrs. Swinton couldn't express the love they felt for one another because David felt as if Mummy (Mrs. Swinton) didn't love him due to the fact that he isn't really her child (but a robot), and Mrs. Swinton believes David is afraid her. I find it crazy how Mrs. Swinton at the end is willing to dispose of David because he is now an inconvenience to her  now that she thinks he isn't properly working (and is about to get her "real" child)--  parallel to how shelter mothers are welcome to kick their children out of their homes when they become 18 (and the government stop funding them grant), and their children become am inconvenience to them.
         "The Culling" is very....interesting...and dystopic. One aspect of the book that I find crazy is when Lucian's old friend Cussian becomes the prefect and is living against the morals he vowed to keep, killing people he said he'd protect never do, and following a government he wants to overthrow. The fact that he wants to overthrow the government by following their rules is literally brainwash!For some reason it reminds me of the book "Animal Farm" when the pigs take power and become the leader (dictators) they affirmed they'd never be.