Positive Deviance

This weekend Emily and I decided to go positive pranking. Positive pranking is something I learned about on the internet, and in a nutshell, it's doing what people would consider pranks and making them beneficial to other people. I remember one I heard was TPing, when you would put tootsie pops on peoples' lawns instead of toilet paper. So, Emily and I decided to take food out of her pantry and give them to people with positive notes. My favorite was a piece of cheese, wrapped of course, that said, this may be cheesy, but I hope you have a great day! We ding dong ditched people and dropped them off at their doors. A few of the people were good friends, and I few were those kids we've never talked to in class but we happened to know where there houses were...not creepy of us at all. It felt really good to leave someone a message. It also felt really exhilarating to run away after we left the treat on someone's doorstep. At a few of the houses we watched to see the person's reaction, and they were typically very happy and smiley when they saw the gift. It feels good to make someone happy. One of my favorite quotes is, "In finding happiness for others we find it for ourselves", and it leaving treats at people's doors and making them happy, I felt happier.

Gender

After we watched the clips on gender in class, I thought a lot about America's Next Top Model. I watch the show a lot. I record it, and when there's an ANTM marathon on, I sit in front of the TV for hours even when I've already seen the entire season. From watching the clips in class and thinking about ANTM, I realize that modeling is a market, and that models pose and people choose picture in a way that they think will sell a product. Marketing is sometimes false. Now a days it seems like marketing is always false, but with the models we see in the magazines and on television, I think we as a society realize that this is not how everyone looks. Women realize that not everyone is stick thin with big boobs and mile long legs. Men realize that not everyone has an eight pack and looks like a laundry back filled with meat. Although we realize this as a society, we also realize that someone looks like that in the world, and if someone else can look like that, we can look like that too. We know that this body figure is unrealistic and rare, but when we see people that we could look like, we automatically feel bad about ourselves. We could look at pencil wearing a skirt, realize it's a pencil in a skirt, and still want to look like a pencil in the skirts we buy. Another trick of marketing is that we feel if we buy a certain product, we have the ability to look like the model in the picture. We say, hey that looks good on the model. I want it because it looks so good, and even though I don't look like the model, it doesn't mean I can't look like the model and make that outfit look great on me. I think it's a problem that we strive to look like these models when we know that we can't look like them. It makes us feel horrible about ourselves because we know that someone out there looks the way we wish we could look. If magazines start publishing pictures of people who look like us, we will realize that the way we are is good and right and socially acceptable, which is ultimately how we want to feel about ourselves.

Un-TV

I found it really hard to watch the TV with the sound off and counting the number of technical events that occurred over ten minutes, but what I found the most challenging was watching the TV when it wasn't even on. I got easily distracted. Staring at the blank screen did not satisfy my eyes or mind so I often looked around and then realized that I had to keep watching the TV. I thought that it meant that I don't like looking at things that are still. I like watching things that move and captivate my attention. I guess that also explains why I have such a hard time at Art Museums looking at things that don't move. I much rather prefer the Planetarium and watching revolving planets. I think as a society we like things that move because it gives us something to follow with our eyes. It also tells us how to feel and what to look at. When we look at things that are still we have to think about what it means and why it looks that way because it is still and the movement that we would see on a TV doesn't automatically tell us how to feel with motions and expressions and sound.

I also noticed that my TV was relatively small and not as high tech as other TV's I've seen. It could use a nice dusting as well.

What is Cool?

http://www.glogster.com/abby899/cool/g-6lklse2urt900fpip8fu8a0

I think this should work. This is our "What is Cool?" poster!