Final Overview

Well, it's finals week and I am definitely feeling the pressures to be done and the exhaustion from the recent school year. I have been maintaining this blog, working on a feminist zine and have learned a lot about how be actively involved in changing something you feel strongly about. For example, my feminist theory class is doing an activism project about bringing the truth of what the Pregnancy Resource Center offers to its clients. It claims to be a medical center but it is not licensed as such. The PRC says they offer medical care but they only have a physician's assistant come once a week. They do not advertise that they are a Christian-based organization, that all of the employees who work for them follow Christian beliefs but when you get there to talk about ALL of your options pertaining to pregnancy, they tell you to turn to God and that abortion should be out of the question and they will not make referrals for abortion nor will they even discuss it as an option. If you go in there thinking that you are going to be discussing STDs and your options there, this is true, but they will then start asking you questions about your personal life and try to push their moral/religious views on you by making you feel guilty about the choices you have made. This right here should be obvious that they are not a medical clinic as they claim to be as it well-known that medical clinics do not involve religion nor do they impose moral views on their patients.

The point here is obviously not to criticize Christians or affiliated organizations, the point is to bring awareness to the facts and the real services that this center offers people so that they know going in that they will not be going to a medically licensed facility or seeing licensed staff. It is important for people to know these things because then they don't go in there thinking they are going to get specific services or advice and then come out worse than before.

I have enjoyed working on this zine and acquiring the various skills from my women and computers class and being able to apply those skills to this activism project. I am also excited to graduate this coming Sunday.

danah boyd

I recently had to do an assignment for my Women and Computers class regarding the research of a woman who has contributed to new media. I chose danah boyd as she seemed interesting in that the only information I had about her before my research was that she worked for Microsoft doing research. When I started to read about her through her blog and through her Web site, I was hooked. She is simply fascinating. She is very cut and dry and seems to be of the "no bullshit" type, which is hard to find these days in the time of ass-kissing to get up in the world. I did my multi-media presentation on her which does her no justice, I realize, but gives a brief background about her life, and some of the research she has conducted.

End of the Semester Blues

Now I am not saying that I have the hardest schedule by any means but I am just about exhausted with undergraduate school. I graduate in less than three weeks and still have so much yet to do. Do you ever feel like no matter what you do, you are all caught up on everything and yet still so far behind? It's a never-ending vishish cycle of work but luckily it is almost over. I think what makes it the hardest to deal with is that I have had so much happen to me healthwise this year that one would think that I had to have made it up because it seems like way too much to be happening to one person in such a short period of time. But it's what happened and so I am trying to pull everything back together by trying to make sure that I remain at the very least all caught up on things.

Learning How to Place Videos into Blog from YouTube

I had discussed getting my wisdom teeth out in an earlier post and this is how I felt after I woke up.





I thought this was really cute of the little boy as well. Here is the URL for the video on Youtube as well. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=txqiwrbYGrs

Low-Income Urban High School Students and Financial Aid on the Internet

(http://images.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://www.jenkinscomputers.com/jenkins%2520computers%2520logo.jpg&imgrefurl=http://www.jenkinscomputers.com/&usg=__Dzy5lZf0D88DPNiXghfbCuOftTI=&h=480&w=517&sz=62&hl=en&start=6&tbnid=WDWqU2q9SInRUM:&tbnh=122&tbnw=131&prev=/images%3Fq%3Dcomputers%26gbv%3D2%26hl%3Den)

In summary, the article, "Low-income High School Students' Use of the Internet to Access Financial Aid," by Kristen Venegas, discusses the sturggles and lack of opportunities that prevent students from filling out financial aid forms online which is becoming a much more general common practice. The importance of being able to both access these forms online as well as understanding how to complete them online lies in the fact that, "FAFSA applications completed online receive faster decisions about student aid packages than those that are completed on paper." (http://www.nasfaa.org/Annualpubs/Journal/Vol36N3/KristanVenegas.PDF) The problem does not only lie within the access to Web-linked computers, despite their decreasing numbers in schools with high levels of low-income students, but also in the ability to properly use the Internet, access the proper Web sites, etc. According to the article, "Increased number of computers in low-income schools does not guarantee use: if the students are not given time to use them, if students as well as teachers are not properly trained on how to use them," and end up being considered, "engines of inequality" because of these reasons."

Another reason why it is important for these low-income students to be taught about the financial aid online application process is because the financial aid programs are increasingly choosing to use the Internet more and more for reasons such as: to decrease application mistakes, expidite the review and processing of Web-based forms, save materials, postage and processing costs for government and postsecondary institutions, allowing for more money to be dispersed into the aid. While this is all very good, if not given the same opportunitites, the author argues that this process perpetuates the cycle of lack of access for some people and creates advantages for others. She states that "culture plays a role in the acquisition of financial aid knowledge," and labels such culture as, "influences, resources, and expectations affect students' ability and drive to acquire financial aid."

The author discusses the "cultural framework" that families, home environments, peers, school envrionments, and communities have on students' decisions to enroll in or seek funding for higher education. (For my own personal opinion, those who are around parents who have either been college-educated or educated themselves on the process for their children create environments that encourage such applications to be done. Envrionments play a large role in general on almost everything we do.)

6 Barriers these students face in trying to complete online financial aid applications:

1. "low income" status renders the possibility for not owning a computer or having Internet access at home, and thus only relying purely on school resources.

2. Access to Web-linked computers in general for low-income schools.

3. Cultural frameworks such as school, family, peers, etc.

4. Slow Internet Access/problems with freezing computers.

5. Inability to understand the Web sites when they access them.

6. Not being properly trained to use computers and the Internet, if they are given access to use them.

Blood Clot

I just wanted to say thank you to everyone for being so understanding about my recent condition. It has been a long week and a frustrating struggle with multiple doctor's giving multiple opinions and offering differing advice on treatment. I am trying to stay as caught up as I can from my parent's house down in the cities and I am allowed to return to school with some restrictions for walking on Monday. I hope everyone is doing well and thank you again for your kind words and expressions of concern and understanding. I greatly appreciate it. :-) Just to keep people up to date, I have a DVT which is a clot in my leg and it is in the right femoral vein. I was also just recently scanned for a pulmonary embolism which is a clot in the lung. I am waiting for the results of that testing. I am taking two forms of blood thinning medication right now and will need to be getting my blood checked every few days as the dosages of those medications will need to be adjusted accordingly to my INR. That is all the information that I have right now, if you have any questions about my return or need something from me that I am late on or an idea of when I will be getting back on track, please feel free to contact me at any time.

BLog #2 Analysis

In summary, the blog entitled, "Reappropriate: a personal and political blog written by an angry Asian American woman," is very advanced, in my opinion. She offers a variety of topics that are discussed through her blog posts and those contributing authors. She has a tab bar consisting of, "home, About, Ads, Policy, Contact." There is high-quality imagery of animee on the site. ONe can click on links to the most recent posts and see recent comments of those posts. There are ads on the site. For each post she has a link to a printer-friendly version of the post. She offers an "Archives" section as well as a "blogged ratings" section in which her rating as of now is "8.0" and a link to where you can place your own rating. The author also offers a list with links of some of the blogs that she follows and a "directory" of various blogs. She offers lists of blogs that are broken into such categories as: "Random Amusement," "Vagina Revolution," and, "Yellow and Brown." I would say that of the content of the posts, they mostly focus on topics covering issues revolving around women. She also offers a place for people to search for specific posts, a link to her Facebook page and what her current status is, and a section with a topic that is headlined "Spotlight."

Review:

In reference to the content of the blog postings, one of the major strengths of both of the blogs that I have looked at, is that they cover a range of topics and analyze the content differently than what is being done in mainstream media. This means that they are looking at the questions that are not being asked and analyzing why that is and offering suggestions about what should be being asked. I think that a strength of the posts on this site in particular is that each post is clearly authored by the main author and then there is a link to the comments from contributing authors. This helps to clearly strucutre the site and its posts and everyone is given credit whether it is anonymous or not. I like this. I also like that each post is printer-friendly capable and that she has labeled them into categories which can be found under each posting title. For example, a post entitled, "Bobby Jindal Defend Criticism of Obama," has a category label of, "U.S. Politics and Politicians." This can make your searching easier if you are searching for posts that could be found under a certain category. And this same example also shows how she is looking at not only issues of women of color but also men of color, namely, the President of the U.S. and the racial intolerance of our counrty.

In terms of the site's organization and ease of use, I think that it is immaculate. Everything is very clearly organized in to categories as I have mentioned a few times in the above information. I think that another strength of the site is that under the "About" tab, she offers some specific background information about herself such as, "My name is Jenn. I am female. I was born in August of 1982." The reader at least now gets some sort of an idea of the basics about the author. She goes on to offer information about where she's from, where her parents are from, etc., in the form of a question and answer interview, making it easier to see her answers and the questions being asked. I think that the reader also gets an idea about the reasoning for this site's beginning.

Finally, in reference to the site's weaknesses, I honestly did not see any. I liked that there were various topics represented and that the analysis offered questioned what was being said in the mainstream media and voices. I liked the printer-friendly posts. I thought the site was very well organized and offered places for people to contribute their thoughts. If you wanted to contact her directly she offered you information to do so. I really enjoyed this site and the postings that I read. I have no weaknesses to offer.

Blog #1 Analysis

In summary, the blog entitled, "The Angry Black Woman: Politics, Race, Gender, Sexuality, Anger," is very organized and offers critiques that are insightful and question the larger picture of various topics being discussed by multiple women. One example of this would be the "Ongoing Conversations" section with links to various topics that have been discussed multiple times and by multiple people. There is then the main section which offers a scroll-down menu of all of the blog submissions and their content. Then on the right hand side there is a section with links to the latest submissions, simply a quicker way to get to them instead of having to scroll down and then go to the next page of submissions, names and links to "guest bloggers" who regularly participate on this woman's site, a list of links to her "Blogroll" which is the blogs that she is following, and some photos that you can upload from flickr. I think that this site offers a way for people who may feel that their voices are otherwise unheard, to speak about topics that they share within their community and then express issues that may be occurring in some communities and not others and then offers an opportunity to discuss why that is.

Review:

In reference to the content of the material that is discussed on the site, I would have to say that the issues and topics revolve mainly around those that would affect Black men and women, mostly women. For example, one article that nojojojo discusses (which I believe is the main author of the site), is that of new law being passed in Italy after three rapes occurred in one weekend which were believed to have been committed by "foreingers." This law, nojojojo quotes, will include automatic life sentences in the cases of the rapes of minors and those rapes that ended in death. Trials for rape victims will be sped up as well. Nojojojo offers her opinion that these aspects are great, but the last one she mentions, about citizen street patrols by unamed and unpaid volunteers, could be problematic in terms of racism and oppression of certain groups of people. That is merely one example, topics of discussion range anywhere from analysis on why people are so angry at the octuplet mom, to Chris Brown and his domestic violence against Rihanna, to discussion on a racist cartoon found within the Post. I think that this shows that they are talking not only about issues revolving around Black men and women but also women and men of color in general which I find to be a very positive attribute. The writers are also offering different insight than that of what is being offered within the mainstream media which is good since such opinions are rarely heard.

In terms of the way the site is set up and its organization of content; I think that this site is extremely organized and very accessible for its readers and participants. I mentioned this set-up in the summary of the site. I like that links are offered to other sites that the main author follows, as well as to those of the contributing authors. I like that the most recent submissions can be easily accessed through the links and also just by scrolling down. There is also a "category cloud" which we have discussed in class and is useful for people who might searching for a specific topic through keyword search.

Finally, in reference to the author's tabs in her navigation bar. These are helpful if you want to know a little more about the author herself. Under the "About" tab, the reader gets a bold statement about how one can contribute their opinions and stories of interest. The author discusses how, "just because I am angry does not mean I hate everything." The author's opinion about the main reason behind the site is for purposes of anti-racism and anti-sexism, as these are the main reasons behind her anger. She goes on to say that this is a safe space for expression of opinions, even those that oppose what is being discussed but she, "will not tolerate abuse here." Finally, the author refers to her other tabs by stating, "Before you go commenting on this blog, I suggest you refer to the 'Required Readings.' It's required for a reason. I also suggest you check out the 'Rules,' because whether you break them in ignorance or not, you'll still be treated the same way." Thus another example of her bold statements. Some of the readings that the author, "requires," include titles such as, "Anger Does Not Equal Hate," and, "A Concise history of race relations in the USA." Some of the rules that the author states under her "Rules" tab include moderated publishing of blogs on her site because of problems due to racist and sexist publishers, and the ability to remain anonymous because there is no need to register or sign up for the site. I find all of these attributes about this site to be very helpful and keep things organized and shows a sign of respect and creates a safe envrionement for people to have discussions about controversial topics.

Wisdom Teeth

I got my wisdom teeth out last Wednesday and I really want to emphasize that the worst thing about it, is not being able to eat normal food!!! I was worried about how the actual procedure would go, never going under anasthesia before, and the whole process was pretty easy and for the most part pain free. I just hate not being able to eat normal food. I pretty much live on pudding, jello, plain vanilla ice cream, and now I have added scrambled eggs and mac and cheese. I would do almost anything I feel, for a hamburger, chips, and pizza. But what can you do. I also hate that I cannot work out like I normally do. I can walk but I can't do any heavy lifting or overly exerting exercise which I am used to doing about 4 times a week. But I figure there is light at the end of the tunnel and that by friday I should be able to eat a sandwich and maybe possibly some pizza. I am absolutely positive that I do not want to get dry-sockets.

If anyone wants advice here is all that I can give:
*Make sure that you have someone to help you out afterwards, I was really loopy from the medicine for a while.
*If you can avoid taking the prescription meds, I would, because it can make you sick or prevent you from sleeping and believe me you do not want to get sick with stitches in your mouth and you for sure want to sleep.
*Do not worry about the procedure itself, it usually goes better than you think.
*Make sure you ask plenty of questions pertaining to the procedure, the possible problems that can occur, the types of food you can eat, etc. It's better to know more than less and be surprised with a tremendous amount of pain.

These are just my experiences, from everything I heard, it is very different from person to person. This was also my spring break so not exactly the most fun I've had during a break but productive none the less.

Gary

Next week my chihuahua, Gary, is getting a tooth pulled and his teeth cleaned next week and this always makes me nervous because he has to go under anaesthesia. I hate that because there is always a chance that something could go wrong and he is only six pounds. He's basically my baby and now my mom's baby as well because he is scared of everyone but her and I. He was abused when he was a little puppy and then I adopted him. He doesn't hardly ever bark unless he's playing and he doesn't bite, he's basically perfect. I love him with all my heart and I hope he makes it through next week alright. Oh and if you're wondering why his name is Gary, he was named after the snail from Sponge Bob Square Pants. Again, yes, I am a dork.

Twilight Mania

So I will admit that I am one of many fans of the film Twilight. I saw the film before I had a chance to read the books but I must say I still loved the movie, enough to see it multiple times in the theatre, as much as I did after I read all of the books.

I must say that I thought each person who was cast for the film fit perfectly in to my mind as I read each of the books. It is a countdown for me until it is finally released on DVD and I can watch the film as many times as I want. :) I am allowing people to see an extremely nerdy side of me but this is how I get through life and how I deal with things. I watch films, immerse myself into books and the characters when I really enjoy them and associate them to how I am feeling at the time. I think that one of the main reasons why I found these books so intense was because I, as I'm sure many other girls feel, can relate to the main character of Bella. Clumsy, independent, and keeps to herself yet makes friends easily, considers herself average. I think that also because she does not come from a very wealthy family and she never imagines she would be good enough for someone like Edward, she is more relatable than some characters who lead extravagant lives.

I can't wait for the release of New Moon, the film version of the second book which is due out in November. I am also awaiting the release of the books by Stephenie Meyer that are in Edward's perspective.

Enough about this because as I much as I love to talk about this subject, it needs to end and quickly. The picture was taken from www.sizzlingpopcorn.com/.../

April brings Sexual Assault Awareness Month

I am doing my senior project for my Women's Studies major on the effects of sexual assault and rape on college women and how the use of new media has assissted in their recovery process by reclaiming what and when they discuss what they have been through.

If anyone comes across this blog that has experienced any of the above and is willing to discuss this either through contact with this blog or by personal email I would greatly appreciate any information that one would be willing to share. I am trying to come up with a way to share this project with my school campus in order to better address these issues on campuses and include more safety precaustions into the curriculum. If not I hope anyone who has suffered sexual assault and/or rape has a safety net and ways to realize that they are not alone.

Angela Davis

Both of the Angela Davis videos that i viewed on YouTube were very interesting in the sense that she tends to take an issue that society has created in to somewhat of a "backburner" issue throughout the years in order to continue the marginalization of oppressed groups by trying to encourage the idea that it has been overcome. Her main issue that I speak of is racism.
In the video, Inside USA - Angela Davis (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HU-PNWxhjr8), she focuses mainly on the racism and its involvement in Civil Rights and the overwhelming population of indigenous and minority communities found incarcerated within the U.S prison system. The first piece of information fromt he video that stood out to me about Angela Davis herself was the fact that at age 26, she was on the FBI's 10 Most Wanted List, which is tended to be reserved for serial killers, rapists, and thieves. This fact alone is interesting as she was simply fighting for the rights of marginalized people which at that time, stood in the way of governmental agendas.
The main points that stood out to me within the Inside USA video include:
*The media have forgotten how to speak about racial issues - need to remind the public that the issue of racism is not, in fact, over.
*The Civil Rights movement actually enabled the government to fill prisons with people of color because they are unable to understand the nature of the situation. I found this most interesting as this would be very controversial to say about the governmental system but I found this to be quite true as i stepped back. By simply dismissing the fact that racism exists, the U.S. system can legitimize the unequal amount of minorities within its prisons.
*The nature of capitalism in this country: privatization of healthcare, privatization of prisons, and privatization of various institutions. (This portrays the theory of Marxist Feminism in which capitalism is the root of oppression)
*The amount of poeple actually not even included in the conversation of racism and Civil Rights (The Projects)
-The Projects of New Orleans, for example, could have been renovated but the new plans have no place for poor people.
*Finally, the last piece of information offered by Davis in the video about the U.S. prison system:
- U.S. has 1/4 of the total worldly prisoners
- structural ways of hiding poverty and racism
- depository for all the problems of the world
- being used for something very different than crime (such as validating racism)
- crime rate has fallen, incarceration has actually gone up (contradictory)

*In the video on YouTube of Angela Davis discussing the 40th Anniversary of Martin Luther King's death, Davis goes further in depth with the idea of institutionalized racism. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g45mEgIdxZs) Here are some of the main points that I pulled out from her speech:
- While she was out performing non-violent demostrations pertaining to the murder of Martin Luther King, the LAPD had placed high-powered machine guns on top of their main police station in an effort to prepare for any sorts of riots. (This tells me that everyone knew that the death of Martin Luther King would create a stir, almost as though it was planned as a way to dull their spirits)
-On April 5th the police broke in to her offices while she was out demostrating and placed tacks and nails in to the spaghetti they had made for later that evening. (I found this to be not only a way of displaying the negative attitude displayed against African Americans at this time but also just immature)
-Davis spoke a lot of how people focus so much on the civil rights aspect of what she refers to as the Freedom Movement, as well as only on Martin Luther King as its main leader but in fact this movement covered a variety of issues and had many prominent leaders that assisted in not always traditional ways. One example of this is Rosa Parks by her simple yet prominent demonstration on the bus.
-She also speaks more about the prison system in the U.S. and how we are number one in the world for incarcerations at approximately 2.1 million with China in second at I believe she had stated 1.5 million.

*These are just some of the issues she covered in these videos but they are the ones that stood out to me.

Gender and the Internet

The extent of the Digital Divide Gap between men and women?

Url: http://www.pewinternet.org/PPF/r/171/report_display.asp

Pew Internet and American Life Project; “How Women and Men Use the Internet: Women are catching Up to Men in Most Measures of Online Life. Men like the internet for the experiences it offers, while women like it for the human connections, it promotes.” Reports: Demographics, by Deborah Fallows, published on 12/28/2005.

*Women under 30 and Black women use Internet more often and widely than men.

*Men use Internet, in general, more often (log on), spend longer time period on the Internet, and are more likely to be broadband users. (access)

*Men more than women prefer online transactions. Pay bills, trade stocks/bonds.

*Men look for more variety of information.


Url: http://www.emarketer.com/Article.aspx?id=1004775

eMarketer.com; “More Women Online;” April 9, 2007.

*In 2007, women were 51.7% of the users which has risen 12.4% since 2000.

Url: http://ldsmediatalk.com/2008/12/23/how-men-and-women-use-the-internet/

LDS Media Talk; “How Men and Women Use the Internet;” Jimmy Smith; December, 23, 2008.

*Activities where women lead on the Internet: sending email; getting maps/directions; looking for health and medical information; getting support for a medical issue or personal problem; getting religious/spiritual information.

Personal Biography

I can't really think of anything that would be interesting for someone else to read right now so i think that I will do my own little post about myself.

1. I am obsessed with the Twilight series of books. I read all four of them over this last Christmas break in the span of about two weeks and must say they are by far my favorite books to date that I have actually read.
2. I am even more obsessed with the movie and feel like a school girl when I say that I am a fan of Robert Pattinson. I love his British accent, it reminds me of my study abroad experience in Alnwick, England. I thought the cast portrayed exactly the characters I saw in my mind as I read the books.
3. I am in to being able to interpret my dreams and reading literature about such as I have very interesting dreams.
4. I am graduating in May of 2009 and I am very excited.
5. I hope to work in Public Relations for either a PR firm or for a venue doing event planning.
6. I would like to live in New York or L.A for a few years before I figure out what and where I would like to "settle down" for lack of better words.
7. As I come up with more items I will add them to this post.

What I Have Learned So Far

I have learned a lot already in the three or four short weeks that we have had class in WS 445. Here are some examples of what I have learned:

Microsoft Word:

1. How to use the Headings tool bar in order to easily organize different types of information within our assignments.
2. How to change the color, font type, etc., of the Headings we chose.
3. What the paragraph indicator is used for and how to use it.

Online:

1. Free online Web services that are similar to Microsoft Word for those that do not have the resources for Word. (Zoho offices, free and online - saves directly to the Web)
2. Portable applications: portable software that can downloaded to a flash drive.
3. How to use Permalinks: the bookmarking of certain Web sites, content, and articles in order to keep them easily accessible and obtainable by people interested.
4. How to create and use a blog.
5. How to use "Delicious" bookmarks.
6. Different ways to search through various Web sites such as non-profit organization sites.
7. What a Wiki is and how to use one.

Some examples of what I still hope to learn:

1. How to create an online video and post it.
2. How to create a Web site and make it accessible.
3. As much as I can possibly cram in to my head in the next three months before I graduate.