Laura Ling

About a month ago I went to see Laura Ling, a prestigious journalist who was detained in North Korea in March of 2009. I had heard of ling before and how she was detained a few years back, and I was interested in hearing her story in full. She started off by talking about her job as a reporter. Ling talked about interviewing prisoners and collecting footage of crime scenes over the years. She showed a quick clip, which had a few of the interviews with the prisoners. The clip also showed the aftermath of a shootout and the family members reactions. These emotions on the screen were actually pretty hard to watch.

After the clip was over Ling began to talk about her capture in North Korea. Ling talked about how she was captured by Korean soldiers, knocked out with the butt of a rifle, and woke up in a dark prison cell. Ling spent five months in the prison, and all the while she told herself not to give up even when death was the most pleasing choice. Laura was finally returned to the United States when former president Bill Clinton went over to North Korea to meet with its leader.

Laura Ling’s tale of survival was really inspiring and terrifying at the same time. I don’t know if I could even keep strong in that situation and push forward. The things that Ling had to go through are unimaginable and it really makes me realize how real the dangers of this world are. But with the will to live, you can make it through the rough patches of life. That’s what I took away form Laura Ling.

Jeannette Walls

The auditorium was packed full of bustling people who were awaiting the arrival of just one person. The chorus of multiple voices meshed together making every conversation, apart from my own conversation, indiscernible. Seated in one of the front rows I patiently waited for Jeannette Walls to speak. I was anxious to put a face to Jeannette Walls after reading her book The Glass Castle. Then someone came out and gave Jeannette Walls an introduction, to be completely I didn’t catch a word they were saying, I was distracted by the woman doing sign language at the far end of the stage.

Then a sound of applause started up and Jeannette Walls walked on stage with a large smile. Everyone became quiet as Walls started to talk. The way Walls talked reminded me of her writing style, it had a certain flow to it that was unique. Walls began talking about how she came to tell her story and what brought her to so. She talked about how she was ashamed for the longest time, and that she was afraid everything good in her life would be undone. When Walls talked to her current husband about her story he told her that it needed to be told. Walls talked about starting to write the book and how she used the glass castle her dad wanted to make as the title for the book.

Walls then recounted a time when she was younger and she told her dad she saw a monster. Wall’s dad told her it was a demon that had been following him for a long time; the two went out searching for the demon calling out to it with threats. Walls used this illustration from her book to talk about how to face our own demons. Walls talked about how her past was her demon and no matter where she went it would always follow her, so the only thing she could do was face her past. Walls used her demon to her advantage and wrote her book.

Walls then talked about her brother Brian and his friend whose name escapes me, ended up so different even though they were very much alike. Walls humorously told the story of how her brother and his friend were inseparable during childhood and how they would get in trouble with the police in Welch. When Brian moved to New York City he became a police officer himself. Brian returned to Welch to visit his friend and told him that he was a cop to which his friend replied that he was a criminal.

I really enjoyed what Walls talked about next, the power of storytelling. I would love to become a writer one day, and hearing her talk about storytelling was very inspirational. Walls talked about how her first drafts and how she related many of her stories to people in her life. This was something that caught my attention because that’s what I would always do if I wanted to create a character in a story.

I really enjoyed Wall’s presentation; it really spoke to me about my own ambitions as a writer. That kind of inspiration is something that will stick with me for the rest of my life.

Chapter 6

Chapter 6 in Envision is most certainly my favorite chapter to date. This is due to the references of films that are used to talk about organizing and writing research arguments. The first movie mentioned is the science fiction film called Serenity. Storyboards from the film are used as an example to show how the structure and organization of the film are processed, and how this is similar to how many papers are structured. This is very interesting to me because that’s how I’ve always visualized the structure of a paper since I first started writing. The structure of a film has always been interesting to me.

If I could pick one job to have id have to pick screenplay writer, I love the structure of a plot and I enjoy thinking of my own story ideas. When I write essays I try to structure them in a way that is somewhat like a film. I also love movie trailers, which I mentioned in a previous post. I was very pleased when the chapter used movie trailers as an example for a good outline structure. Using the trailer for James Cameron’s 2009 film Avatar was also a nice example for the trailers. While I’m not usually one for outlines on an essay I did like how the chapter connected the dots between the trailer and the outline, showing that you should make more points than the three standard intro, body, and conclusion. This chapter actually felt like it was written for me. This is usually how I set up my structure for my essays, which made reading this chapter very entertaining.

Chapter 3

I’ll admit, I didn’t really feel like I learned all that much after reading chapter 3, but I did gain a better understanding on structure. The chapter further used pictures as a means to show how visual rhetoric shapes reality in particular ways. I originally thought this would just be a rehash of the first two chapters, in a way it was. There were a few new points that I did enjoy though, like how they talked about the arrangement of on argument. Something that I enjoy about writing is structure and the arrangement of paragraphs and sentences. I liked how the book talked about the importance of the flow of an essay, and how it should not go from one idea to the next. Each of the structures that the book presented was interesting and helpful ways for essay structure. I had heard of most of the structure suggestions given, but there were some that I had not heard of before. The block structure was one that I was not very familiar with; the example given was talking about individual James Bond films and relates the spy plot to the real-world political climates. I really liked that idea and I will probably use that structure in the future. The chapter went on to talk about crafting a position paper. This section talked about writing about the same thing with different styles like saying; “I believe that the war is bad” and “The current war can only lead to death and despair if it is to continue”. The example essay showed the differences between relying on “I” and “we”. Preferably, when writing essays I tend to stay away from the “I” style. But that’s all personal preference.

Envision Ch 2

After reading chapter 2 in Envision I felt like I had been fooled. Fooled in a sense that there were many ads and marketing strategies that I had fallen for over the years. I have always had a fascination with movie trailers and television spots (the condensed version of a movie trailer so it can fit in as a commercial). Watching these trailers made me want to see the movie that was being promoted. The vivid displays of action and suspense combined with the usual epic trailer music way always my undoing. I just can’t help but get excited as I see the quick snippets clip, most likely the most exhilarating scenes in the film, rush along the screen as the announcer promises the greatest movie experience ever. Unfortunately this is almost never the case and many times the trailer ends up being better than the movie, yet I keep falling for these movie trailers each time. After reading chapter two I felt like an idiot for falling for these ads.

I never thought that the methods behind my battle to see a movie based on a few clips could be dissected and analyzed, to be honest I never thought about analyzing a trailer. Movie trailers seem to fit under the Narration category, which uses the ad to tell a story. This is fairly important to trailers and TV spots, as they both require a small amount of story to get the viewer interested. While I am a sucker for movie trailers there are other ads I have fallen for in their pursuit to persuade me.

It was really amazing to me that ads could be analyzed and described through three simple words: logos, pathos, and ethos. I began to think about ads that fit under the logos category first. I figured that advertisements such as the Axe cologne ads fell under this category. The Axe ads usually consist of your average joe casually going about his day. Then the man puts on some Axe cologne, suddenly a swarm of women rush to get to the man. Usually one of the women will bust through a wall or something hard to get to the guy. The Axe commercial uses Logos to convince the target consumer that if they put on cologne women will literally chase after them.

I then started to think about pathos, which is usually used in ads used by the Humane Society. Images of injured or homeless animals are shown with saddening music accompanying the ad. These ads are usually played during Christmas time for a little more impact, seriously who wouldn’t be upset knowing there are helpless animals suffering, while you celebrate Christmas.

I then started to think about the ethos. This is one area that I usually fall for, I have so many apple products it’s sickening. That Apple logo is almost always the only thing I need to see to want the product. Unfortunately it’s not just Apple that gets me, anything with the words “Limited Edition” on the packaging and I instantly want it, knowing that ill have to pay extra for the product.

This was actually a good thing for me to read. I hated being tricked out my money and falling for all of those ads. But with this knowledge I can combat the evil ads and do away with their sneakiness forever!!