Marinda's reading

I'm posting Marinda's reading here:

The Handmaids Tale

The Handmaid's Tale: 

The world of the handmaids tale is a post apocoltic world kind of if it was set back to the 18th century. In the begging you can see the world is similar to the one we have today as the 21century.The World is one where they silence anyone with out power and the ones with the most power being white males and women who are on the right hand, but as the story continues you learn the women are silenced no matter what rank they stand on compared to a man in the world. 

What the shows say about the world we live in is that people don't have remorse and we only live in the small bubble of the world where it's in our perspective.
The protestors across the world in and in the us have showed us with the handmaids costumes is the influence of the media in todays society. It also shoes how power full the main character is in the show the costumes represents their role and Offred goes against this in order to get her freedom.

Reflection

This was my first semester as a college student. I came to QCC bright eyed and bushy tailed, eager to do better being that my grades in high school were very hot and cold. I am the type of person that needs to "play the part" depending on what environment I am in, making it easier and funner for me to learn while I am in a class room, rather than my home. Corona virus completely and utterly destroyed my first semester of college; my grades and mental health have been the last thing on my mind being locked in my house all day, its definitely hard for me and I know its hard for my peers as well being that none of us expected this to happen. I have made the best of this situation trying to prioritize my most important classes out of the six I have, and even just keeping up with the 'more important' classes is a lot of stress for me being that I am struggling because online classes are not my cup of tea. I just hope by the fall everything is okay so I can get my head back into the game.

 Well !! this semester was challenging ,I' am surprising ,Doing very well so far , though a couple classes have me a little worried because I failed some of my the test . I don't feel good at all about this semester. In fact 2020 is one of those years you'll never forget , A year that is going down history.

Heavenly father please be with us.

Reflection

This semester has been chaotic to say the least. I find relish to be one of my most engaging subjects and from the beginning of the semester everything was going fine and I believed I was getting somewhere with it writing. with the transition to corona virus and having to do the rest of the semester online has made my mental health and work ethic go down. Doing the assignments online felt like a chore and there were days where I didn't want to go on my computer . already in the environment of being home it was so easy to slip into bed and school through the never ending pages of social media. The work I created I didn't feel happy with. Now that the semester is over all I can say is that I gave it my all and tired my best to keep up with assignments that I could be proud of.

Common Read

Hi all:
A reminder: If you have not already completed the Common Read survey, then please do so by tomorrow.
best,
jt

Reflection

I would say that this semester was challenging for me and the reason why I say this is because I noticed that at the beginning of the semester my writing wasn't all that. I knew that I struggled with trying to get my point across in my essays. But being in this english class opens my eyes to the way I write and that is because i am receiving feedback from my professor and also my classmates. This showed me what I need to improve on my essay and how to do it to make it better. Also reading the Pushcart textbook and looking at how other people write essays really helped me out alot. This experience will affect my reading and writing in the future because now I'm not as afraid to allow other people to view my writing because I know that they are just trying to help and it also affects my reading by understanding essays more better.

“Hi Ho Cherry O”

 This game is related to the story because in the story the robot discovers what the game is and by looking up information about the game and watching a commercial that advertises the game. I also think that he tries to play the game with the wife but doesn’t know until she actually figures out what he’s trying to do. (I’m not sure about that part)(so correct me if I’m wrong).An S&M relationship (sadism and masochism) is described in the story when the wife notices that the robot is always sad and  the only time that it’s happy is when it is abused by the wife. I think the significance of the ending is to show that it relates  back to the game “Hi Ho Cherry O” and the wife wants to make sure that the robot knows that she won, not him. I think that the author is writing a dissertation on lost children board games because the essay discusses different types of board games that the kids would  play and in the story the robot was trying to play “Hi Ho Cherry O” with the wife. Based on the story I think in their world they rely on robots to do the housework for them just like maids.

Collections

For those of you who have turned in collections, I am starting to write you with grades. My comments at the end of the term are briefer than throughout. So if you want further feedback or would like to know how I arrived at your grade, then just write and ask. Also, the grades that I'm sending are just for the final collection, not the blog. I won't figure out your blog grades until next week when I will also calculate your final grades.

"Hi Ho Cherry-O" and etc.

This story, like "Nosedive," like The Handmaid's Tale, is sci-fi. How is it similar to those other texts? How different? What is its tone?

Here is Hi Ho Cherry-O the game:

How is this game related to the story? The narrator seems to be engaged in an S&M relationship with her robot. What is the significance of this? How is this relationship related to the relationship w/ her husband? What is the significance of the ending? Why is the narrator writing a dissertation on lost children's board games? (Did you recognize the other games that she mentions?) What is the home for the disembodied? Finally, based on the story, what is this world like? And like I've asked w/ the previous two sci-fi texts, what is this story saying about our world now that we live in?

Also for this week on the blog, I'd be interested in knowing what you learned this semester about yourself as a writer/reader/thinker. How do you think this experience will affect the writing and reading you do as you move forward in your college career and beyond?

Other announcements:

Only one of you posted to the blog this past week. This is not ideal for your final grade. I would make every effort to post this week at least four times.

I originally planned to have class readings on Thursday, our last class period. I still plan to do this in the virtual classroom from 2:10-3:30. Please do not be late as I will only hang around until 2:30 in an empty classroom. If you would prefer not to come to this class period, you can meet the requirement of the reading by recording yourself reading a selection of your work and posting it to the blog (you can insert a video by clicking on the clacker icon on the ruler to the left of the smiley face).

Reminder: The final collection is due this Thursday at 4 pm. If you cannot meet this deadline, then I urge you to drop the class by the end of the day on Thursday so that you don't get an F on your GPA. Since the collection is worth 60% of your final grade, it is impossible to receive a passing grade if you don't turn it in. If you neglect to drop the course by the deadline and you receive a failing grade, you can still transfer a class to C/NC up until 6/25. You can make either of these changes on CUNY First. If you decide to take either option, esp. if you receive financial aid, I would confer w/ your advisor before doing so.

Let me know if you have any questions.

"The Handmaids Tale" TV Show

• The world of "The Handmaids Tale" is a world where women are put into slavery and taken away from their children and are put through rape, violence which no women should be put through and also wear uniform to show that they are slaves 
• I think that the tv show has a say in the world we live in today because some women are still being treated like this and it hard for them to escape.
• I think that this silent protest actions represent the fact that some women are still wearing handmaids costumes because people protest for them to wear it and are still getting treated as salves.

"An Open Letter to White Women Concerning The Handmaid's Tale and America's Cultural Amnesia"

• The letter is addressed to Dakota, Jezebel, etc because they are the white women from The Handmaids Tale and was the ones who were called as White Feminist.

• The Indian Maiden's Tale is based on children that are being taken away from mothers and are put into boarding schools and are being treated just like in the tv show The Handmaids Tale.
• Yes i was surprised at how the women was treated during the The Indian Maiden's Tale because the Indigenous women suffered through violence and rape and also how they were treated in the boarding schools.
• The "America cultural Amnesia"is when their is a culture with bad memories and forgetting those specific things.
• i kind of understand the point of view because she is talking about both "The Handmaids Tale" and "The Indian Maiden's Tale" and how they both show the women getting taken away and deals with the suffer of violence and rape.
• the role of Samira Wiley, who is black, as the character Moira on The Handmaid's Tale does complicate this critique at all because she is black when in the show they based on White Feminist.

"An Open Letter to White Women..." and The Handmaid's Tale

Tomorrow, 5/05, during our class time, we will screen the first episode, Season 1, of The Handmaid's Tale. If you have Hulu, you can watch it on your own. If not, it will be important to show up in our virtual classroom tomorrow at 2:10 pm to view it. (Note: No one showed up last week. That's fine, but I won't screen the show to an empty room. If no one arrives by 2:30 pm tomorrow, then again, I won't show it. You'll have to watch it on your own.)

1. "An Open Letter to White Women Concerning The Handmaid's Tale and America's Cultural Amnesia":

• Why is this "letter" addressed to Dakota, Jezebel, etc.? Who are these women?
• What is The Indian Maiden's Tale?
• Why is Tiffany Midge "resisting the urge to cram [her] face into the couch pillows to keep from screaming"?
• Were you surprised by any information reported in this brief essay? 
• What is "America's Cultural Amnesia"? 
• Do you understand her point of view? Explain.
• Does the role of Samira Wiley, who is black, as the character Moira on The Handmaid's Tale complicate this critique at all? 

 2.  The Handmaid's Tale:

• What is the world of The Handmaid's Tale like?
• Like I said last week, most sci-fi is commenting on our world now. What does the show seem to say about the world we live in? 
•  Protestors in the US and across the world have donned handmaids costumes. What do these silent protest actions represent?

What questions do you have about the essay and/or TV show?

This week:

• Although there is no group critique this week, you still have to make four entries on the blog, at least two in response to your classmates. Many of you aren't doing this. You can't make this requirement up. 
• Reminder: Next Thursday, 5/14, at 4 pm is the last day that I'll take collections. Upload these to Blackboard. If you can't make this deadline, you should drop the class before then.

 Let me know if you have any questions.

Nosedive

- connections I can make about the episode and General unskilled is both using the number system on people and it both affecting the main character in the long run.

- The episode Nosedive  is a direct correlation of the world today and the connections we have towards our phones, Rather than people we seek validation from one another through numbers. we are hidden by this falls reality / persona not who we really are but the perfect life we want others to see online.Most of the black mirror episodes go over the idea of social media and the use of technology  I believe as time progresses we incorporate more ways to let it in our life, And technology will be used as a way to make life easier for us but can be seen as a way to stay connection it will disconnect us from genuine connection.

- I interpreted the ending as a way the main character is being set free. In the Last scene the main character is placed into a jail with no cell phone to check her score , through out the story you see her points and the events that lead to her losing them. You can see how the environment and people change around her all based on the points which don't value her as a person or herself but that is shown by numbers.

Nosedive

For this week’s classes, we had to watch an episode of Black Mirror called “Nosedive”. It takes place in a technologically advanced world, where people are “ranked” by others. Your rank gives you certain privileges and opportunities. The higher your rank, the better. The episode follows Lacie, a woman with an average of 4.2. She’s generally well liked, and she has big plans. She wants to buy a house, and she wants to move to a new place. It’s expensive for her, but if she gets her rank up to a 4.5, she can definitely move in. One of her childhood friends, Naomi, invites her to speak at her wedding as maid of honor. Lacie agrees and she tries to get there as soon as she can. She misses her flight, and her rank goes down continuously over people giving her bad ratings. She hitched a ride and she meets this trucker who’s ranked as 1.4. They get along, and the trucker opens up about herself. She wasn’t always allow ranked, but she stopped caring about rank once her husband died. The woman said that it felt great to just let everything out. In the end, Lacie crashes Naomi’s wedding and gets her rank all the way down to zero. She gets arrested and she meets someone in jail. They insult each other but they look like they’re having fun doing it.

I think this episode can be seen as metaphorical. Lacie tried so hard to become popular and high ranked. It was very draining for her, and she looked like she was faking a lot of her emotions. I think it could apply to real life, too. I think a lot of people hide their feelings and emotions for the sake of popularity and pleasing others. Living genuinely, and staying true to yourself is a lot more important than popularity to me.