Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind

"Meet me in Montauk"

Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind is a movie directed by Michel Gondry, written by Charlie Kaufman. This movie is, in my opinion, was well written and not structured like movies normally produced. When watching this movie it is the kind of movie that requires you to pay attention to small details and actually think and remember what happen in past scenes.
The first thing that may grab others attention, as it did mine, is how the movie first starts out. It starts with a scene where the protagonist, Joel Barish, wakes up and narrates the setting of the day. He states how the time period is Valentine's day of 2004 and how instead of going to work he has the urge to go to Montauk. He meets a woman on the train and they begin talking although he is a bit puzzled, much as I was being the viewer of a movie that begins so oddly.
A literary technique that is greatly appreciated in this movie is the narration in the beginning. It is important because if you watch the movie on mute it would be like watching the movie without the narration, which would make the opening scene even more confusing then it already is.
It then jumps to the middle of the story where he speaks of how the girl does not remember who he is when she sees him. He then sees how she has erased him from her mind and he decides to erase her as well.
It is hard to tell who the villain, antagonist, in the story is. It may be the doctor who erases the minds or it could be the two lovers who are also the victims. Either way this movie is unique in the sense that It is structured in the following order: end, middle, beginning. This structure worked well for the movie because I believe that as your watching it it makes you think "wait, why did that happen?" and it makes you WANT to continue to watch, just to answer the question in your head. The structure works like a "grabber" in a way which is creative.
Another unique characteristic would be the plot and the characters. In stories and movies there are characters who are usually put into a situation (the plot) and it is the plot that will end the story. In this movie however, it seems that the characters are the plot. If you take away the character there would be no plot. It is the characters that end the story not the situation. The characters decided to continue on although the story ends in a way that will keep you wondering. Even after the movie is over and the credits are rolling the story leaves you with room to decide for yourself what could happen, will the characters decide the future or will fate?

Watch the trailer!

Examples of My Best

In the beginning of the year we were assigned a project called "American Icon". The objective of this project was to pick someone who in our eyes can be considered an icon, that person had to have helped, been part of, or come to America in some way. I am particularly proud of this project because I worked hard on it and I put a lot of thought into it. For the writing portion, I made several drafts and had other critique my paper. One significant thing I added to the writing that I thought made the paper a lot better was a short story to start my paper off. I made a small paragraph that explained what inspired me to look up to the icon of my choosing. I got this idea from an in class critique session, when Randy pointed out that Ariannah had started her paper in this way and I thought it was a creative way to begin the writing, especially since I was struggling to figure out how I should start my piece. As for my picture, I felt that that portion of the project was by far easier to complete then my writing.I first had someone take the picture for me then photoshopped it. Overall, I completed this project on time and used my time well. I also find that utilizing all my resources helped my project be great.Another example of my best work can be found here on this blog. Throughout the semester we were assigned a blog to update with our ideas about class discussions and events going on in out society today. These blog assignments are given every Tuesday and Thursday. So far, I have kept up with all my blog entries and each blog entry is well thought out and expresses my ideas throughly. How I achieved this is by making sure that I do my blog when it is assigned and by checking Randy's blog every night when I'm about to do homework to make sure that if there is a blog assigned that I get it done. When I write my blogs I try my best to write them so they sound professional and at the same time try to make them informative and interesting to read. Because of this, I feel I have established a blog worth reading.

Whale Hunts

After reading this article written by Rafi Khatchadourian about Paul Watson and how he goes on these crazy trips to save whales from being hunted I am some what thrown on to which side is actually "right" here. There is Watson who is trying to protect the whales by trying to stop the hunters and then there are the hunters, such as the Japanese, who are hunting the whales. It seems that the obvious choice who is in the wrong would be the whale hunters but that isn't necessarily true when you consider the fact that the whale savers ram their boat into the hunters boat in order to save the whales. This conflict makes you think "who is the good guy in the story?"

Paul Watson is known for protecting the marine life, whales are what he is known for, with a crew of 52 volunteers. They sail out to sea and ram whale hunters boats. In the text it states:

"When Watson is separated from land, he tends to behave like Captain Nemo, which is to say the he does what he thinks is right, even if it involves a violation of custom or the destruction of property."

He feels strongly about the whales and even in the text states that the whales are to be more intelligent then humans. This interested me when I read it so I decided to research that statement little bit further. I read an article on the Scientific American site, it talked about how whales do have larger brains then us humans. It is 8 times larger and has more surface area. The question was then, are they actually smarter then us? It stated

"You need to take into account brain-to-body size. When this is done, the winner is .. well, the tree shrew, followed by humans and then porpoises."

I guess this makes Watson's opinion untrue.
Aside from that subject he believes in saving whales so much that he disregards rules when they "interfere with his agenda". The article talks about different scenarios where he hunts down Japanese whale hunters. As for the whale hunters, although the are wrong for hunting whales, that does not justify Watson attacking their ship.
In the text it states

"The Japanese fleet is run by the government-subsidized Institute for Cetacean Research in Tokyo but the institue has produced virtually no research of any regard, and all the whales that are purported to be under study are also butchered for the purpose of selling whale meat to the Japanese public."

The whale hunters are suppose to be studying the whales to see when they will be enough to harvest for profit but so far that has not been what the whales are being used for. Even though they are not being used for study I don't feel it gives Watson the right to ram their boat. My opinion on this is is that not only is he putting other human lives at stake but also how does he know that the two boats fighting wont effect the whales? Is it possible that the whales can be harmed while the two boats collide? Is saving the whales so important that you put other humans lives on the line?
To me, I don't think Watson is right for attacking other boats. I think that even though the whale hunters are harming whales, since there are no laws saying you can't hunt them then there not doing anything legally wrong. Killing the whales is sad but to me, harming humans is even more sad. Plus, the Japanese do have good food.

He's Not Black

"He's Not Black" is a short article written by Marie Arana on being bicultural/biracial. It mostly

discusses the issues that are at hand in our society involving race and how we assume a person is a certain race by looking at the color of the skin(or physical features) or by knowing that someone is part of a specific race and just categorizing them as that one race only.
The article starts off with an example of Obama and how he is part black but not full black and yet people see him as only black. The article starts off with a strong statement by saying bluntly

"He is also half wife. Unless the one-drop rule still applies, our president-elect is not black"

The article then transitions into the authors own experience of finding out what she actual is by taking a DNA test. She starts by giving her knowledge before she too the DNA test then her new found knowledge after she takes the DNA test. She uses her own experience and the Latino race to prove that not everyone is just one race.
She goes on to talk about different writers who have written or said things about being biracial. One quote she uses his Langston Hughes where he states:

"I am not black. There are lots of different kinds of blood in our family. But here in the United States, the word 'Negro' is used to mean anyone who has any Negro blood at all in his veins....I am brown"

I believe that by using not just her own experience but also those of others is a good way to incorporate evidence to validate her opinion.
She then ends the article by talking about Obama again. Her very last sentence is

"Isn't it time for the language to move on?"

I think the reason she ended the article with this sentence is because she has a vision that maybe one day America will be able to not just assume that a person is just one race, but rather mulitple making them not just black, or just asian, or just white, but actually biracial. I feel this was a good way to end the article because even if you didn't agree with her article it still makes you think. It makes you think about, do you agree with her the language should move on or is the language fine the way it is.
I noticed that when I read it the first time I myself even thought about that last question. I thought of answers in my own head on why I disagree the language shouldn't move on. My reason being if there is not a significant amount of that race in you (like your 1/700 of that race) then what's the point in even addressing it. To me, that is what this paper sounds like. The author sounds like she wants people to address every single race that is within you and if her point is that everyone has a whole bunch of different races in them then why even mention it? Although I don't agree with the paper itself, I do find that the way it was written was good because it got me to think and ask myself questions.