Little Fanny is not her name

Paper dolls, those simple old school objects of childhood games, cling to my memory like their dresses on their delicate cardboard bodies attached by a fragile paper link. They make me think about outgrowing our own childhood and how remembrance becomes vintage as storage years accumulate. Maybe what I am trying to express is what paper dolls would say about themselves; maybe they think their entertaining purpose was replaced by old memories and collector's bids.

Little Fanny stands on a shelf, uncut, undressed, unused, making her existence futile to her own cause. I want to see them molded around their own frames, change outfits and play.

(This is a short stop motion video I made)

What I learned in English 3?

At first I thought I was going to waste my time by taking an English course, and I was pretty much cursing (no pun intended) that since I'm absentminded I missed the date of the sufficiency test.
But once again I conclude that "waste of time" is an overrated phrase, apparently there is no such thing.

I discovered that there is a new technological and efficient way of teaching and learning, and it is called distance education, and it is basically how teachers take advantage of the potential of computers and internet for academic purposes.

What I liked the most was writing an essay about Guy Ritchie's prime opera "Lock, Stock, and Two Smocking Barrels": a heist film that tells the story of different groups of people involved in illegal activities that intertwine in what may seem as an extraordinary coincidence or ordinary luck.

I also learned about the origin of Halloween, cognates and false cognates, about topic sentences and paragraph structures, and about conjugations and verb tenses and the different types of writing techniques. My time was well invested.

Howard Roark vs. Ellsworth Toohey

I just finished reading The Fountainhead a novel written by Ayn Rand, apart from the beauty of the story and the philosophical and human ideals that are presented in it, I believe the most amazing accomplishment of the author is the depiction and development of the characters, they seem to summarize what is right and wrong in the world.

Triumph and defeat are presented in the most peculiar manner, since it is not obvious nor direct. Howard Roark is a struggling architect who is not willing to compromise his ideals for fame nor recognitions because he is concerned only with what he does, he believes his art can't be a copy of anything else, he does not suffer and he is not defiant about his utter selfishness. However, he is rejected by society, a sheep society. This is the story of his triumph over them.

On the other hand, there is Ellsworth Toohey, a "second-hand" man that molds public opinion and destroys originality or anything that is not mainstream. He has an inferiority complex and a manipulative personality that leads him to bring everthing down to inferiority. He blinds people with hipocrite speechs and leads them to believe that his intentions are noble. Moved by his overwhelming desire to control people's minds he is defeated by the impossibility to control briliant minds, such as Roark's.

Clara's Moskiwitz Explains how Sand Dollar Larvae Clone Themselves

Creatures Clone Selves in face of Danger is an article written by Clara Moskowitz that is useful to the understanding of the characteristic writing techniques of expository text. In an exposition the writer is setting forth a meaning or an intent in the form of a statement to give information or an explanation to a difficult material. Therefore, the article provides information to allow the reader to understand how sand dollar larvae clone themselves when they sense danger.

The author´s purpose is strictly academic since it provides scientific information about the topic. She uses expository techniques such as cause-effect: for example the articles states that sand dollar larvae copy themselves when they sense a predator near. Additionally, there are other techniques such as problem solution; "The scientist think cloning may provide double benefit to larvae facing danger. By doubling themselves, they have a second chance to ensure their genetic information survives even if one larva gets eaten".

Clara Moskowitz also explains what sand dollar larvae are. They are "tiny globs that float along with plankton in the sea". The writer's approach to the topic is objective, she uses technical language, but at the same time it is explained in a simple manner in order to ensure a proper understanding from the reader.

Ceci n'est pas Magritte

Images are not real. This is not Magritte standing in front of his painting looking straight at me. His eyes are not compelling. He does not feel peaceful. He is not wearing a black suit. His siluette does not blend with his own surrealism work. There is no juxtaposition of ordinary objects. There is not a headless man in a black suit standing behind him, trapped inside a frame. The colors are not black and white.

This is the treachery of images.

The photograph is not the artist and his painting but rather a depiction of the artist and his painting. I cannot stretch my arm and touch his black tie, his white hair, the wrinkles in his face. My fingers will not be able to feel the texture of the canvas nor the roughness of the wooden frame. Like an image of a pipe that I cannot smoke, or an apple I cannot eat, this is a man who I will not meet.

The value of time

My sister has been living in Barcelona, Spain, for the past four years, she was getting her degree in Visual Communication. So this holiday my family and I went to her graduation ceremony. To my surprise the ceremony was not the usual enduring lament of melancholic student, it was fast and direct, straight to the point. There were no three hour speeches, no personal stage photographs, no jugging with professors, no internal jokes, nothing of that sort. Just a hasty name-calling-paper-giving act.

At first I thought these people were really beyond our traditions, they respected time in a way we could never understand. We are a three-hours-a-day-traffic tolerant culture. We mock appointments, dates, rendezvous’, and anything which implies meeting with someone at a certain hour. We endure six hours of political nonsense in national television. Just to mention a few situations in which disrespect for time becomes a tradition.

There I was thinking how incredible it felt to witness an express graduation ceremony that allowed both my time and my patience to remain undisturbed, but then it stroke me how impersonal and bitter it felt as they simply called out names and forgot what it actually means to be there: the accomplishment. Being in the last year of college and with my graduation day hopefully approaching I realized, aghast with my contradicting conclusions, that there are certain moment in which time can be spent and wasted free of charge.

Why am I writting this?

This is a blog that belongs to an english assigment. My name is Alexandra Zerpa and I study in Andrés Bello Catholic University.