Final Reflection

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When I look back at my writing process and the topic that I focused on I was mostly happy with what I accomplished in this semester. Alice in Wonderland was a great topic to write about and not only did I learn a lot but it was something I really enjoyed writing about along the way. The novel was a great inspiration to why I wanted to write about it, but I mainly focused on the movie because that was more child orientated and I was mainly focusing on the effect that it had on children.

As I go back and look at my previous blog posts it is interesting to see what my views about the topic were before and after the research paper. After writing the research paper I found I gained more knowledge about that topic and could write about it in a scholarly attitude without sounding too biased and being able to support everything with evidence. The one thing that was hard for me to do with my blogs was find TED talks that related to Alice in Wonderland or drugs and alcohol. If I could do that over again I would have asked for your help and approval of the TED talks before I had blogged about them.

The blogging process really wasn’t something that helped me with my writing process at all, nothing that I blogged about were things I was going to add to my paper except for one thing, which I didn’t end up including. In the future if this blog is something you chose to do again the students should be asked to blog about scholarly articles, which is something I wish I had thought about in the beginning. I think writing about things like that could have helped me with my final paper.

All in all I did not like the blogging activity, I felt that what we did in class was much more helpful to the actual writing process and I felt this was a somewhat tedious activity. I think the majority of my blogs were good and it was fun to have a real blog, but in reality I would have felt much more comfortable turning in homework or doing class work. Also I never checked other people’s blogs and really just focused on getting done what I needed to in order to get the points.

Even though the blog didn’t help me as a writer I am proud of what I have accomplished and think that my final product at the end of the semester will really show how well I have improved as a writer this semester.

Alice in Wonderland Syndrome

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I was absolutely shocked to find out that there is a serious syndrome that is named after the novel and movie of Alice in Wonderland. One of the main things that is recognized by the syndrome is the migraine, which Lewis Carroll was well known for suffering from. Abbreviated as AIWS, it is a hallucination of your perceptions, especially including your own perceptions of yourself. For those who experience this syndrome it is supposed to feel like you are going mad, just like the Mad Hatter in the story of Alice in Wonderland. These hallucinations are to be most unpleasant and disturbing to a large extent.

When I actually think about this syndrome, it is brilliantly named after a movie who is indeed about people going insane.

Alice in Wonderland-Fantasyland

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There has been a new ride made in Disneyland that features Alice in Wonderland and shows you her way through Wonderland and what she experienced. When Alice goes down the rabbit hole she experiences a dream land that can now be brought right to you. It includes many of the main characters including the Mad Hatter, the Cheshire Cat, and the garden of singing flowers. This magic ride is has become a huge hit within Disneyland, and I personally cannot wait to experience this ride first hand.

Sexual References

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Disney movies are full of sexual innuendos that are extremely inappropriate for the intended audience that is viewing them on a regular basis. Drugs and alcohol go hand in hand with other disturbing references like sex. There are many movies that I can think of off the top of my head, especially made by Disney, that include these references.

One of these examples is The Little Mermaid, which is the story of a mermaid, Ariel, living undersea that is urging for the opportunity to escape the control of her dad and live on land in order to find love with a prince. One example of a sexual reference is during a scene later on in the movie, it looks as though a male has an erection while directing a wedding. There has been much debate whether or not it is his knee or not, but in the newer versions that have come out they have edited it so it no longer appears.

Another movie is The Lion King in which the main character, Simba runs away from home because he believes he was the one who had killed his father, which happens to be untrue. In one scene when he is stressed and doesn’t know what to do about his dilemma and falls to the ground. As he falls dust clears from underneath him which then form into stars that clearly spell out the word “sex” while they are rising. The Disney Corporation has said that this is just a coincidence and that it was never meant to show that word.

If these two examples are so clearly stated in front of children then it’s interesting to think what else is in these movies that we are missing. These two movies are only two movies by Disney that contain sexual references, but in reality there are many more.

Walt Disney

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“I only hope we don’t lose sight of one thing-that it was all started by a mouse.” -Walk Disney

I chose to blog about this quote because I’m considering using it in my research paper. I think it’s a very powerful quote that shows how and where the Disney corporation started. I know that there is a lot of information about Disney that I want to include in my paper. One thing I might want to mention in my paper is “the lost film”. The last film that Walt Disney created before he died is said to be one of the most disturbed films that has ever been created. Although when looked at now a lot of people don’t understand why it was so controversial; the main reason is because Walt Disney had accomplished many things in this film that at the time were not even possible to do in film. After he passed there were directions for his assistant to watch the video and take notes. After the video was over he left the room, took the guard on duty’s gun, and shot himself in the head. No one has been able to watch the whole video since, but it has since been a huge debate. I want to somehow include that Walt Disney was not a sane person and possibly should not have been making children’s movies. I know there some research on these pieces of evidence that I would like to explore and possibly include in my paper.

TED talk #2

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After searching and searching all the TED talks there wasn’t much I could find on recreational drugs or alcohol that could relate to what I was going to write about. That’s when I came across this video and I just had to watch it. It’s by David Gallo and he talks about underwater creatures that are absolutely amazing. The first section is about deep sea creatures that have a lot to do with light, like fireflies. He makes a comment that we have only discovered three percent of the ocean, which leaves ninety-seven percent to the unknown. That fact alone astonished me and I just had to keep watching. It then went into shallow water creatures and showed a lot about the skin color changing for camouflage, attracting a mate, or fighting with others of the same species. I wish it had been a longer video but I thought it was really amazing.

http://www.ted.com/playlists/59/animals_that_amaze.html

Alice in Wonderland Drug References

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Because I have decided to write my research paper on the drugs and alcohol involved in Alice in Wonderland I wanted to search the drug references on YouTube. When I did I found about a four minute clip that is basically a montage of all the drug and alcohol references. For example it starts with her being “curious” and shows her going through and down the rabbit hole. After that it shows little snippets of clips that show the hookah, the cigar, her drinking out of a bottle, the flowers talking about weed, and many more references.. Whoever made this video really focused on all the small pieces, and there were even a few that I had not noticed previously. I’ve seen the movie several times but never thought of the time when they had to “smoke the monster out” of the house as a drug reference. After seeing this video I think watching the movie I will notice many more references.

TED talk #1

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For my first TED talk I decided to write about was with Chip Kidd, who designs book cover. The reason he does this is because he was tired of covers not really grasping the book, he wants to cover to embody the book thoroughly. He wants to do this in a creative way and he wants the audience to understand why the cover is what it is without making the audience feel stupid. Kidd gives the example of an apple, he says you can either draw an apple or write apple but you cannot do both. He was the one who did the cover for Jarassic Park and explains how he came up with the cover for the book. His image became the mail illustration for the book and movies, which made him extremely happy and successful. He says his responsibility is to the reader, publisher, and most of all to the author. His main goal is for someone to see the cover and want to really read the book. It’s really fascinating on how he comes up with the ideas for a book cover and really lets you into the mind of who created the cover and why it relates to the book. Everyone who enjoys reading should watch this, not only is Chip Kidd hilarious but he is also amazing at what he does and a great speaker.

Multimodal Autobiography

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Hannah Lee

My multimodal autobiography represents me because this is what has influenced me in pop culture. This was kind of hard because I felt like I was being somewhat repetitive throughout the presentation. It’s pretty interesting to do this because it makes you go back and thing about what has influenced you throughout your life so far. I will explain in more depth about why I chose things in my paper.