Week 3 Reading Response

Anne Lamont's essay, "Shitty First Drafts", was very helpful with easing the fears of needing the first draft to be perfect. Knowing that everyone has drafts that are not good in the beginning of a project is great, because it lets us know that everyone is human. People assume that best selling authors can just sit down at their computer and type out a Top Seller's List book like they had just brushed their teeth, and that's all there was to it. Everyone has trouble in the beginning, and Lamont's essay is simply written for easy reading and understanding.

Week 2 Response

Regarding the article, Advertising Sets Double Standard for the Male Gender, written by William Sea, he seems to say that advertising stereotypes the male gender. A Milwaukee's Best Light beer commercial has men doing things that most people would look at as feminine actions, and when the men do them, a giant beer can squashes them for not doing "manly" things. As he quotes from the commercial, "men should act like men", but how do men really act? He argues that if the commercial was switched to a woman who was squashed with a detergent bottle every time she did a "manly" thing, that would create havoc with the feminists. Women want to not be shown as nothing but sex objects who take care of the man, but the commercials highlighting men are portraying them as idiots who only know how to be tough and try to fix things. Women today don't want to be dominated by the man, but advertising shows that the man only knows how to dominate. If women don't want to be portrayed a certain way, but continue to portray men the way they do, then men will just retaliate with nothing changing. It seems that each gender looks at the other the way the commercials portray them, but they will become tired of being portrayed in that manner. The author doesn't really give any support to his claims in the article. They are just kind of his opinion. The way they make since is that everyone can relate in some way to what he is describing, from what they have seen throughout their years, without needing documented facts.

Writing Assignment #1-Adding to My Craziness

I'm sure I am not the only one who will go through the craziness that I will experience this semester. Being a single parent of two children is a full time job in itself. Add into that equation out of home full time employment, and the free time that is available for oneself has pretty much disintegrated. Top that off with taking 9 credits worth of classes at a university to earn a degree, and the results are a sleep deprived, overworked, stressed out, crazy lady who could at any moment rip someone's head from their shoulders for asking the wrong type of question at the wrong time. So the solution to hopefully help to not decapitate someone is to try to balance out all the priorities.
My name is Mariya Rover. I live in Fairbanks with my 10 year old son, Sean, and my 7 year old daughter, Tahlia. I was born in Fairbanks, and have lived here over half of my life. I work 40+ hours a week, and am working towards an associates degree in accounting. I hope to make that my career. Last semester I was with my children two weekday nights. The other three were spent sitting in a classroom. I didn't want to spend that much time away from them this semester so I chose to take one in-room class while the other two are on-line. I figured that would take up a good amount of time still, but at least I would be home in case they need me. With that in mind, it is quite apparent that I will need to divide up my time wisely, or I will not pass my classes. I work from 8 am to 5 pm, go pick the kids up from day care about 5:30 pm, and then seem to have to go to the store a few times a week. That gets us home between 7:00-7:30 pm. Getting dinner ready as well as helping the kids with their homework and getting them ready for bed ends up leaving me not being able to do what I need until about 9 o'clock. So, I will be awake until about midnight, then I will get up at 6:30 am and do it all over again. It is obvious that my schedule is overflowing. I just have to make sure I stay on track or I could derail and have a tremendous accident. On the off chance that I do have free time I like to watch movies, go bowling, play games with my kids, cook, and hang out with my family and friends. It can be a hectic life, but I just make the best of it whenever I can.