Harry Potter!

Cheerio all!
To start this off, we've gotta start with a classic: Hilarious!
Okay - I'm super sad that I missed Wednesday's class... I'm pretty much OBSESSED with Harry Potter (my future husband... kind of - except for the fact that he ends up marrying Ginny, and my name isn't Ginny).

OK. ANYWAYS. I really enjoyed reading the article written about Harry Potter and seeing the good that it's doing in the world (not just my own). Children should be provided where they are allowed to act/write out their fantasies and build on each other's fantasies, like the Daily Prophet provides for them. Especially in the day and age that we live in today - every minute of a child's free time is scheduled with something - sports, ballet, music lessons - all to become better rounded for entering college. Kids as young as 5 years old are subjected to a highly structure life where free-time is looked upon harshly. Every minute must be scheduled, otherwise, "idle time is the devil's worship." C'mon parents, don't you remember when you were kids? How often did you fantasize about the world - how often did you just get to go out and play FOR FUN a game of soccer or tag or just pass the ball around? Today, it's all about the organized sports and everything is ORGANIZED, COMPARTMENTALIZED. But that's getting off topic - point of the matter is, what Heather is accomplishing is the return of imagination and creativity. Creativity is defined here as building your own idea off of some pre-existing idea. The fact that she is so incredibly young and writes as if she were a professional speaks volumes about what Harry Potter has done for her and her literacy. She was HOME SCHOOLED and away from all the competitiveness that unfortunately exists in public schools (even middle school). [Interesting side note - I'm currently sitting at the library and the table next to me spontaneously started talking about Harry Potter].

However, I think it is extremely unfortunate that there are such negative religious publicity regarding Harry Potter from Religious FANATICS. We always hear about the crazies in the Middle East who are allegedly going to attack us at any moment, yet we fail to realize the crazies that exist here already - the OTHER religious fanatics. [I apologize if i am coming off anti-muslim, or anti-christian or anti-anything... that is NOT my intention. I have the deepest and utmost respect for all religions and pathways to God. As a Sikh, especially, I cannot judge others or criticize others' religions - for they are all just different paths towards the same creator. There is no such thing as a MUSLIM GOD or a JEWISH GOD or a CHRISTIAN GOD or a SIKH GOD. ONE GOD - many different names.] What about the religious institutions who condemn CHILDREN'S BOOKS, like harry potter, because it contains the word sorcerer or wizard?! Is this NOT crazy talk? Surely JK ROWLING isn't advocating Devil-worship! If she were, wouldn't voldemort be the one we all look up to and idolize for killing harry's parents? Clearly, something is wrong when a simple story gets warped into something that it is CLEARLY not - dangerous. I refuse to believe that people who read Harry Potter will eventually be the next School shooters - like Columbine - that is just plain ABSURD! If this were the case, we'd all be dead RIGHT NOW. Sometimes, i wonder how much logical sense people have when they make such broad and sweeping proclamations. This is analogous to "ALL MUSLIMS ARE TERRORISTS" or "ALL BLACK MEN ARE RAPISTS" [which, i hope by now, we all know is false]. I mean, c'mon SOCIETY. When are we going to learn to laugh and enjoy the world and stop being so narrow minded and insecure?

WHAT WOULD JESUS DO WITH HARRY POTTER? Probably congratulate him on being a good person. Additionally, i don't know if the radicals caught on - but HARRY POTTER CELEBRATES CHRISTMAS.

HARRY POTTER CHRISTMAS SONG

and with that, i bid you adieu.

Mix it ALL Up (but according to this Recipe)!

Hey ALL!
I absolutely loved this assignment. Granted it was difficult to put together (well, it wasn't too bad, but the positioning of the songs, and the fact that i have such a limited music selection, made it difficult - I'm one of those people who LOVES music, and listens to pretty much everything, but never knows who's singing or what song it is). So, that always makes things difficult. However, I'm extremely happy with my product! It ROCKED! Everything flowed seamlessly - this really surprised me. Especially since there's SO many different types of music in there and music in 4 different languages! But, it all just flowed! :)

My theme was the different levels of being in a relationship/the relationship cycle (sometimes these can be synonymous - but sometimes these are VERY different things - for example, when I gave this to my friend, she was like - HEY NOW, I'm STILL A VIRGIN! However, track #2 says that the next step from dancing/grinding in the bar is going to "instant pleasure"=sex. So, i guess i "lied" in class, saying that she goes through these cycles - she really doesn't. She just goes through various relationships... quickly). So yeah. I guess I'm "correcting" my theme: different levels of being in a relationship. HAPPY!?

My track list (and the order is):
Track # Track Name
1 Lo Que Paso, Paso
2 Instant Pleasure
3 Caught up
4 Save Tonight
5 The Way I Feel
6 Yeh ladka hai allah
7 Suga Suga
8 Whats Goin' On
9 Save Room
10 My Boo
11 03 Bonnie & Clyde
12 Banana Pancakes
13 Dice
14 Call the Law
15 Mil De Yaar
16 Burn
17 Comfortable
18 I Will Survive


As you can see - i've got quite the eclectic mix.

This project also showed me a lot about my particular writing style - how i like to mix it up. Additionally, it showed me my thought process. I was very cognizant of the decisions i was making while putting this together. I know that sounds VERY oxymoronic. So, let me try to humbly explain this the best i can. When i write papers, everything just flows - the words that form in my mind, if they sound somewhat decent, go down on the paper - no real second thoughts about it. Then, i just revise and revise based on the flow.

However, this time, i really had to think about the order, and WHY i was putting everything together this way. I dont know if that just happens naturally and 2nd nature when composing essays or maybe my essays just make no coherent sense (and everyone's failed to mention this thus far). Or maybe i was never cognizant of the thought process that actually do occur?

But THIS time, i was very intrigued at my own mind, and the different processes it went through and the rationales that it came up with to justify certain song selections and their placement.

if you have any questions about what the HECK i just wrote - ask. FOR EXAMPLE, this BLOG, is totally from my mind-flow. No real editing except for spellcheck, and it's posted.

OH MAN!

Wow, so I've been SO absent from this place, and I sincerely apologize! During Thanksgiving, I was a camp counselor at a Sikh Camp - and it was PURE AMAZINGNESS! The best time of my life by FAR! No, it wasn't your traditional thanksgiving extravaganza, but it was fun! The kids were SOOOOOO CUTE! AHH!!!!

Alas, I lost my voice from all the joyful yelling with the kids and the craziness, and averaged about 3 hours of sleep a night, because after us counselors put these kids to sleep, we had camp counselor meetings (which were a whole other type of fun) and we planned for the next day - granted MOST of the planning was already done, we had to evaluate the day before, and then go over the next day plan and make sure we were all on the same page. However, this SEVERE sleep deprivation wasn't the best for me, especially health-wise. So, in addition to losing my voice, when I woke up on Monday morning, I was beginning to get sick (i could just feel it coming, and I just couldn't do ANYTHING about it). Tuesday and Wednesday were the WORST! GAH! SO gross!! Such a horrible feeling when you wake up sick, in the dorms, and your mommy&daddy aren't there to comfort you and make you soup or make you tea and bring it to you. You've got to take care of yourself. =(

Anyways, sleeping has aided majorly in returning to normal. ADDITIONALLY, HOW COOL IS IT OUTSIDE? STARTED SNOWING TODAY! FIRST DAY OF DECEMBER and mother nature gave us a FRESH COAT OF SNOW! :)

FREAKING AWESOME... YEAH!

So, now i feel ready to blog on what I'm actually supposed to blog about this past week (i missed Friday because i wasn't feeling the greatest, thus, i figured i should probably still write one, so here it is):

The activity of Cut-ups was interesting - especially since it was weird taking different parts of the newspaper and putting it all together, and getting some coherent sentences - granted it was very artsy and whatnot, but weird stuff! Some cool sentences/fragments went like so:
1) "Nobody like a bitch. Every aspect of the consumers from all walks of communities across the state have that strong culture."
2)"People suck like that - truths concerning their health will still be like that."
3) "Giving women more rights the drug at hand is how they intend to use the funds."

Those are the funniest of the group. But for the most part, the sentences didn't make much sense. I tried to match up the ones that would form sentences, but it didn't quite worked the way I wanted it to. I think it would have been better had I used newspaper articles from all the same topic or just 2 drastically different pieces. Perhaps it would've flowed more or made a little bit more sense or it would have been easier to form sentences.

MIXTAKE. I Mean MIXTAPE!:
So, currently I'm trying to put together a mixtape. It's much more difficult than i expected. The order is really getting to me, and what songs i should use, and especially the arrangement - I'm doing all different types of songs about the different aspects of being "In Love" but i might just scrap this idea. But i was thinking of telling a story from the beginnings of infatuation to love to the difficult points in one's love life to the infamous BREAK UP.

so with that aspect, it's easy to "know the order." HOWEVER finding which infatuation song to kick-off this mixtape is really HARD! It's gotta be catchy, so... yeah. And most of the songs about breaking up are really sad - do i really want to end on such a negative note? Should i end it the way i started? Back to the "looking" stage? like... infatuation/lust at first sight type of song, so it's like a never ending cycle?!

decisions, decisions, decisions. :)

Anybody want a Sample?

I was looking at all the projects under the content section at learn@UW and it looked like all the projects took such a long time and they were all (dare I say) creative! I thought the project was somewhat difficult (the coming up with the idea of what I wanted to state in my cartoon, and how exactly to go about doing it). At first, I thought the assignment was to create a visual argument (in general) and the same one using our own stuff - but it had to be about copyright/creativity/ownership, etc. So, I scrapped my first idea of telling parents not to let their kids play with matches (lest they wanted to start another San Diego Fire). However, then I was really forced to think.

HOW ON EARTH was I going to make an argument about copyright and creativity with art? First off, I'm not very art-sy to begin with, and secondly, what?! So, i brainstormed and thought about this for about three good days (admittedly it was intermittedly), and then it was weird - on saturday i was about to take a nap - and then the idea STRUCK me - Good ole' Uncle Sam vs. Creativity and Innovation (Uncle Sam, with a larger sphere of influence definately kicked BUTT). Unfortunately for us all, Uncle Sam is a bit too protective of a paternal figure, so I made the argument that Uncle Sam is too powerful, kick's innovation's/creativity's butt and PERHAPS, he should cool down.

yeah - I know, not as IMPRESSIVE as the others, but i thought it was a good idea! :)

How Original.

First of all, I would like to say that save technological advances, I really don't believe that we've got any more originality. Sure - yes, we do have people writing "new material"- new books, and whatnot, but its all "piggy-backing" off of someone else's idea or they were inspired by an idea that someone else had. For instance, to think that Disney's Mickey Mouse is completely NOT original - it may make some fans extremely upset. However, if we examine most of Disney's Material it is pretty much ALL not original (especially when it comes to the story lines).

With that said, I'm having a spot of trouble coming up with something, you know, original for my sampling project, due Monday - Any suggestions? ;)

Politicians.

This past Monday, I had the pleasure of hearing Barrack Obama speak at the Monona Terrace - he was eloquent, handled himself well, and delivered a well-prepared argument to the people present: he gave a speech. It was extremely well laid out in terms of its infrastructure; transitions between thoughts were relatively seamless, he present an idea and proceeded to provide supporting evidence, and he opened and closed with similar messages - "help me with this campaign by volunteering and voting, and I'll be sure to help you!"

All of this of course, whilst delivered by Barrack Obama, was not (speculation, but the statics of this statement have been proven time and time again) of his own writing. He was exceptionally charismatic and really involved the audience. He touched on the points specific to his particular audience - by mentioning/tailoring his speech to those living in Wisconsin and the students. But knowing that the probability of the fact that he probably did not write his own material for the speech he is currently giving me made me extremely skeptical. I was essentially analyzing his argument the entire time he was speaking. Thus, I paid particular attention to his rhetoric (which the Ghost writer did an amazing job in incorporating and addressing the main points of weakness in his argument and "debasing/qualifying" them).

It was very interesting seeing my reaction to the speech that was at the time, being delivered to me. I was wondering if others went to the speech and whether they reacted in a similar fashion..?

It's Illegal for a Reason

Plagiarism is ILLEGAL - and that's because you're using someone else's words - hard work - and calling it your own. I don't know how some people can plagiarize a paper, and fall asleep at night before it's due (thinking that they won't get caught). Like someone said in class yesterday, I probably wouldn't a) Be able to do that, b) sleep that night, c) get any sort of sleep for the next few weeks until I received my paper back (and EVEN THEN, I would feel SO guilty). When I finish with a paper or project and it has MY NAME on it, I have this sense of pride: I accomplished this! I did this!

After partially plagiarizing the paper, especially after having ghost-written for someone else, it just reinforces the idea that this is SO wrong on SO many levels. Claiming ownership and the sense of accomplishment for something you didn't even do! How could anyone feel good about that? I think this is where the line is drawn for me: for presidential candidates/presidents/anyone else in politics, it's OK to have a ghostwriter. Here's my rationale: the president is the one who ultimately delivers the speech - puts his own twist on it, elaborates on certain areas, emphasizes certain phrases that personally tug at his own strings (or he knows sound EXTRA good). I'm okay with people who ghostwrite for politicians, and people who ghostwrite for those who aren't as articulate (but need to get their story published - example off the top of my head - a Mexican immigrant conveying his side of the story - about how he/she has mouths to feed, how the Mexican Government is so corrupt, and how the economy sucks in Mexico. How is he different than any other immigrant in the US pursuing the "American Dream"? Yet he is the one who is protested against - CONSTANTLY). If he is illiterate but wants to educate those bigoted Americans who are ignorant and/or racist, sure - get someone to ghostwrite for you. But I still think that the ghostwriter should still be listed as an author. EX/It says the author is Miguel Higareda as told by/in collaboration with blah-blah (insert name here).

I mean, seriously people, it's not THAT hard to give credit where credit is due... is it?

Ghost Writing Reflection

My ghostwriting experience wasn't all too bad, but that doesn't mean that I condone the idea of it! I still think it's a horrible practice that shouldn't be done (in certain circumstances) in today's society. I GUESS the president of the United States is allowed to have a ghostwriter, as long as it is a collaborative effort!

The person I ghostwrote for was extremely pleased with the outcome. She congratulated me on my ability to "emulate" her style (however, she had no idea what her style was). She pointed out to me that i did a good job listing things in three's (which she does in her writing quite frequently) and the subject matter was good too.

I wrote about the making of the baptismal water (Amrit) in Sikhism. The paper is heavily cited, and very formal (more formal than I usually write), but it was not a bad experience. I think the fact that it was heavily cited, and I used the book as a constant reference for quotes/paraphrasing (as my writer does, so she doesn't plagiarize), made the paper easier to write. The writer was pleased, and I was too.

However the feeling of writing something for someone else, but they get the credit for it is very unsettling. There's just something that bothers me about the whole ownership of it. Maybe for the name/essay, it can be like (written by Sukhmani for So-and-So). That way people know it was me.

YOU STOLE MY WORDS! NO... you stole MY words... nooo... you stole HIS words... but he stole too?

Plagiarism. So many feelings, so little words to express them. Actually, I'm very confused with plagiarism and what exactly constitutes plagiarism. Because if we use the UW academic policy as the BIBLE in regards to plagiarism, we'll find that many people these days plagiarize in the form of ghostwriting or otherwise. I WISH I could see just ONE of the essays I turned into turnitin.com and see how much of it actually came back as having been plagiarized (especially, as of yet in my academic career - no telling what the future holds - I have not plagiarized). Yes, I am currently using the same words as everyone else to express feeling, emotion, and to write on this blog; however in that case, before people started even speaking this language, we've plagiarized/not cited our "sources" of where we get these particular vowel sounds, etc.

There's no clear-cut defined border of where plagiarism begins and thinking you're original and really smart (even though someone already came up with that idea/metaphor) when you're really not! And I firmly believe that as time progresses, we will have people expressing similar views in surprisingly similar terms (ie - things that would constitute plagiarism, even though the individual came up with the ideas "originally").

I wonder how my kids will cope.

The Ghostwriting Blues

Okay. So pretty much ghostwriting, after reading the article by Gregory Baruch (actually written by him, might I add), I definitely think that ghostwriting, in today's society, is unethical. There was a time when ghostwriters were included in the titles of books - at least given a little credit. However, writing for a celebrity (or anyone else for that matter), without receiving proper accreditation is VERY UNETHICAL. There were many instances in this piece where I simply wanted to gag (well, not really, I was just more shocked than anything that people would actually do this).

For example, when people die when writing ghostwritten books or are in collaboration with ghostwriters - that's usually when the most serious "offenses" occur. Specifically - when Stephen Humphrey Bogart's ghostwriter, Gary Provost, died, his name was not included in the authors section - nor was he even given any credit, except in the "dedication page" - who the HECK knows who these things are "dedicated" to? I usually read that page and think to myself, "Wow - I WONDER WHO THESE PEOPLE ARE! I WONDER IF THE WERE INFLUENTIAL IN THIS PERSON'S LIFE - LIKE A MENTOR OR SOMETHING... NOT A GHOSTWRITER!" I guess I should be more careful in my thought process from now on, especially with this ghostwriting thing becoming an pandemic Pandora's box of perpetual ethical problems!

It just blows my mind that publishers are SO ruthless and can justify themselves - as in the case of Gary Provost stating that " '[I]t is our belief that the book stands a much better chance if it doesn't appear ghostwritten. Oddly enough, under the circumstances, from what I know of Gary, I believe this is something he would have wanted us to do." What BS! I'm not claiming to know Gary Provost or even anything about him, but if I had spent the last days of my life writing a freaking book - literally - for someone, I think I would want my name included on the cover - AND maybe a page dedicated to me in the book "Dedicated to Gary Provost - who DIED trying to write this book!"


*This post was not ghostwritten. Nor will any post here unless my PUBLISHER so deems. But that'll be discussed later in Article 564, section C of my contract with said publisher. And if it is, you'll NEVER KNOW*

Wiki - Wiki - Whaaat?

Wikipedia - a very interesting yet sore subject for some. First, I'd like to start off saying that it's super interesting that we've decided to "study" Wikipedia this week because in another class, we also discussed the controversial nature of this amazing/horrible encyclopedia (depending on your vantage point) of this reference.

Personally, I love wikipedia. It IS such a great reference and it is always a great starting page to being research on a certain topic. Wikipedia has many embedded links and cross-references in its articles, and that can for sure significantly aid in conducting research of writing an English paper. It is interesting to see how many people actually use Wikipedia and how it was first created (an article that I read in my other class). Some interesting ideas to ponder is that this is the ultimate layman's reference - there's no "pompous" writing involved; very democratic! However, who is to say that everything written in Wikipedia's articles are at least semi-correct?! Well, the answer to that question, is very simple: YOU! There are over a million entries in Wikipedia whereas Enclyclopedia Britannica only has its entries in the thousands! There are approximately 1,600 new members to Wikipedia every month (if I remember my information correctly). That's a whole lot of people reading/cross checking Wikipedia! It is up to the public to decided what is "right" (which kind of goes along with the "author function" or Bartes' idea of the author's death - although Wikipedia does not name its authors for the articles).

Addionally, high profile articles on Wikipedia are constantly being watched for vandals. Example: George W. Bush's article - VERY VERY VERY VERY heavily "guarded" by Wikipedia. Similarly, Wikipedia now allows no article corrections to go unseen by the public - the previous "deletions" are also shown, but just in a seperate box saying that they were omitted.

Lastly - a Polish Wikipedian stated that Wikipedia is just like the internet. But Wikipedia is better because people are constantly adding and revising articles to have the most up-to-date database in the world that is AT LEAST kept in check!

Creativity and Origionality

CREATIVITY. It's a fickle fiend for some. For others, it comes innately. Creativity is defined as "the use of the imagination or original ideas" in Oxford Dictionary. While this is a successful, working definition for some, others might have a difficult time conceptualizing the idea of originality. What happens when the dictionary uses a word that for some people is indefinable?

What does it mean to be original? Some scholars would argue that there is no such thing as originality, because everything that will ever be stated has been stated already - but again, that depends on the definition of "Original." Which may lead to an even more interesting question; who decides what the definitions of words are? I realize this is all very helical in thought, but I guess after class on Wednesday, I really began to think and question the language I had always taken for granted. Of course, it's SO obvious that "tree" means "tree" - however, WHAT type of tree are we REALLY talking about? Elm? Fir? Weeping Willow? PALM? (However, I can't imagine someone thinking of tree in its general form as a palm tree - to ME that's bizarre, but then again, everyone interprets/understands language in a different way).

I guess it's a really cynical way of looking at the world: No matter how articulate or how much into detail one writes in, it will never give the reader the perfect picture, for everyone has different life experiences that shape their mind/the way they think. NO MATTER WHAT, the author will always FAIL?!

wow. that sucks.

Why the Cheshire Cat?

So, this semester in English 201, we need to create a blog. The theme that this class is centered around is "Problems of Authorship: Autonomy, Ownership, and Creativity." Accordingly, I chose my blog name and my "name."

I chose the Cheshire Cat from Alice in Wonderland because I smile a lot (although not insincerely or with any ulterior motive). And, I think it would be interesting/really cool name.

Anyways, I look forward to doing the ghostwriting, because I think it'll be really fun trying to write in someone else's style (fun, however very challenging).

Yup - that's all I got for now!