Posted by Jared Lawandales on August 14, 2010 at 11:25 pm
Fullsail University English Composition Assignment: Persepolis Excerpt Discussion
The words and images in this graphic novel work together to provide the reader with a negative impression of Satrapi’s situation. The use of black and white imagery speaks of the time frame and probable resources available to a poor family during this revolution. It also helps to provide the basis for this negative impression, as the predominantly black images create a gloomy undertone. While the words in the narrative may have broken sentence structure and not include great detail, the images help to portray these missing descriptions.
The perspective of a child is commonly considered innocent and unbiased. The use of a child’s perspective gives the piece a more genuine and authentic feel. I believe that it puts the reader into the same mindset as the child, therefore eliminating any preconceived political bias. Had the story been told from the perspective of an adult, it may have included some of Satrapi’s grown political views, and therefore incited the reader to compare these to their own political views. This could convolute the meaning of the narrative by distracting from its purpose, which I believe is that at the time this revolution was contagious.
Her choice of subtle yet powerful imagery added to the level of seriousness in this narrative. I think that telling the story from the perspective of a child, as well as the decision to write it as a graphic novel, allows the reader to adopt a simpler point of view while reading the piece. She explains these important and stressful times from this innocent, questioning perspective of a young child. You will also notice that she remains the embodiment of optimism throughout this excerpt.
In the writing from Sedaris there was an obvious aggressor, the teacher, directly in conflict with the author. While in the excerpt from Persepolis, the Shah, was not in direct conflict with the author, but her mother and grandmother. Another contrast between these two readings is, in Satrapi’s excerpt the difficulties were caused by a political situation, whereas the difficulties were caused by a language barrier and in a school setting for Sedaris.
A graphic novel of my life, I don’t think it could be done. I am a very poor artist and am by no means a visual learner. My best drawling of a stick figure is mediocre at best. While I admit that I would likely need a proofreader and an editor, my capabilities with the written word are significantly more powerful than my capabilities with images. The honest truth is that I couldn’t name three different art styles if my life depended on it. This piece was extremely difficult to read, as well as understand and I had to read it numerous times in an effort to write this response. Ask anyone who knows, I am not at all interested in art, nor art philosophy. While I am a partner in a web design and marketing firm, my business partner will happily attest to the fact that he is the graphic designer and I stay as far away from the design aspect of my company as humanly possible.
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Posted by Jared Lawandales on August 11, 2010 at 5:09 pm
Fullsail University English Composition Assignment: Me Talk Pretty One Day Discussion
Two descriptions stood out to me from the Sedaris story Me Talk Pretty One Day. The first came from “the billboard for the amusement park” where the author would receive discounted admission with his student id. The second relates to how his teacher left him with such a great feeling of insecurity that he began to seclude himself from their society.
I can see the billboard for this amusement park. Similar to the canoe riding stegosaurus described by Sedaris, I see several of the signs from the annual family vacations of my childhood. Most of these signs depicted some theme park mascot committed to a seemingly silly and erroneous task. The second description was significant for no particular reason other than the fact that he did an amazing job at painting the visual image of a gentleman walking through a town square, contemplating and questioning himself before walking up to each store, only to turn away, ashamed of his own perceived shortcomings.
The use of English, broken English, and scrambled characters was hardly comic, in my opinion. The humor completely eluded me, as I was left wondering why this confusion was necessary. The first sentence containing randomly jumbled characters required several examinations before I finally realized the author’s intent. I believe that there are several different ways Sedaris could have conveyed his confusion in a less “confusing”, more concise and understandable fashion.
The failures were well represented by the teacher’s snide comments to the student’s minor imperfections. In addition to this were feelings of insufficiency, felt by the author due to these rude comments. The triumphs also seem to have eluded me, because, although I can tell there is some sort of success or personal triumph described at the end of this story, no matter how many times I read it, I do not understand whatever message he is trying to convey. I feel as if this essay carries a negative tone because, while there seemed to be this personal victory in the conclusion, the story’s main focus was the several negative aspects of this situation.
The attitude in the classroom is one of fear and discomfort. This process begins with his early feelings of “nerve-racking” uncertainty about the “everybody into the language pool, sink or swim” expectations of the school. It then builds with the constant dialogue between the teacher and students who were belittled, little by little by the teacher. Finally, this process concludes with Sedaris’ heightened discomfort explored later when he says, “My fear and discomfort crept beyond the borders of the classroom.” His classmates were presented one at a time, from a cornucopia of ethnic and language backgrounds.
I cannot really relate to this story at all. As I have never traveled abroad, I have never experienced anything like this. I have also had few difficulties with learning subjects in the past. As far as making a personal association with the feelings described in this story, my only relation is that of the discomfort and possibly fear of uncertainty associated with a lack of understanding.
~ Jared Lawandales
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Posted by Jared Lawandales on August 9, 2010 at 2:55 pm
Fullsail University Internet Consumer Behavior Assignment: Influences on Decision-Making
Instructions: Consider a recent purchase you made and describe how your purchase decision was impacted.
The most recent purchase that comes to mind was my recent commitment to make a major new purchase, and attend Full Sail for 54,000 dollars. Not only was this a two-year commitment but also, upon graduation, it will represent about 54,000 dollars of debt. I have signed the largest loan documents thus far in my life, and consequently made the largest commitment thus far in my life. All in all, this decision should represent about ten years of debt and at least twenty-five months of late nights and virtually no sleep. This is a decision that, in reality, has taken me ten years to make. Since the graduation of high school, I have been tossing around the idea of attending college, although, the idea has only been in my constant thought processes for about two years now. This decision involved input from many people, websites, reviews, and other such informational resources. I would definitely consider this a major new decision.
For an external influence, situation was the most pervasive. The situation I’m in currently is one where I am supposed to be responsible for the operations and marketing when concerning my company, Down By The River, llc. The problem with that is, while I have years of food and retail management, I know nothing about marketing. So, my situation demands that something be done. We have done some advertising on Google, Facebook, and Craigslist, as well as, tried the “door to door” approach with the local businesses. While we have done well enough to stay alive and grow, we could do much better. I had a previous company that went out of business due to the fact that we opened with no overhead, and relied entirely on word of mouth for business. While the service provided was one of the best in the county, I had no idea how to let my potential clients know this. For Down By The River, our efforts have paid off for now, but it will not be enough to take us into the future.
The most significant internal influence would be knowledge, or a lack thereof. I consider life a quest for knowledge. Knowledge is power, and therefore one with knowledge has the power to do whatever they put their mind to. As such, the opportunity to gain new knowledge from a reputable school has played a big part in my decision to attend Full Sail. I also believe that my current shortcomings are due directly to a lack of understanding. As I mentioned above, marketing is something that is completely foreign to me. My experience has always been with clients who walk into my establishment, they may not know exactly what they want, but generally they came in with the intent to buy. I have never commercially promoted anything in my life, nor have I been responsible for how those clients actually got to my store. From this lack of knowledge, grows the necessity to gain said knowledge.
My biggest marketing influence was the product. Being a native Central Floridian, I have heard the praises of Full Sail for several years. I know a few people who have attended, as well as graduated from Full Sail, and all were very happy. I was first interested in the Web Design degree, but after speaking with the people in admissions, I decided the Internet Marketing degree suited my needs much better. With courses like Fundamentals of Web Design and Principles of Flash, as well as, Search Engine Optimization and Social Media Optimization, I was sure to get the basis for web design, in addition to a plethora of new marketing techniques. This appeared to be the best of both worlds, and with my business partner enrolling in the Web Design degree we will be able to intelligently attack both sides of our industry.
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