The task of keeping a blog...

Even though writing is one of the more complex skills, it helps a lot to express our ideas and become others aware of what our thoughts are by our writing style. The more we write, the more people can have an approach to our minds. This is why; the usage of blogs has been a very simple and useful tool for the ones who enjoy, or maybe, needed to express their thoughts in one way or another, because that is what they are for. People are able to write about whatever they want!

Since each one of us is the owner of one of this websites (or maybe more than one), we can choose if it is going to be turned into either an informal or formal style. It depends on us and what we are going to write about. In our case, our pieces of writing have been very different one from the other, which has been a great advantage. It has been easier to organise our ideas, and has let us write in a free and informal way, it does not mean that it has been a messed up way of writing.

For example, writing about our least favourite subject at school, allowed us to put all kinds of adjectives. It was a more relaxed writing. In contrast, when we wrote about the two books, especially about Rumble Fish, it demanded us more thinking in terms of the adjectives, these had to be more accurate according to the theme. However, we did not even notice how little by little our posts improved in terms of writing style, it became easier to come up with ideas and get the connection between them.

Every time a person uploads a post, their contacts have the opportunity to write comments about it. One of the “disadvantages” that this having-a-blog-process has, I mean, as a learning tool for our class, is that comments should be on the posts, in order to contrast ideas, and also we had to be more aware about our grammar. Nevertheless we enriched our vocabulary by the new words and expressions used by our classmates.

As a conclusion, since most young people have already gotten rid of this tech fear, it is good to encourage them to make use of these technological tools in order to improve their writing, and make the most of their learning process, by posting, making comments, therefore reflecting, and sharing their points of view with others.

What's in common between The Commitments and Rumble Fish?

In all the novels we have read up to now, the social class issue is included, although it might be not totally explicit, but the character’s stories always give us clues about how it is like. In this case, The Commitments as well as Rumble Fish show through their character`s life experiences, how social classes were represented. Topics like jobs, Education, and language are real examples that help us to develop that issue.

In The Commitments, the main character’s family background was supported by members who all of them had an occupation. The father worked, therefore earned some money to cover the main needs for their everyday living. The other characters; such as Declan Cuffe, Outspan, Derek; and Bernie; one of the chorists had also her own job in order to be able to make a living, although it did not seem to be good enough for her, In my opinion, she was not well paid. However, in Rumble Fish, since the mother had left both Rusty James and The Motorcycle Boy, and the father was an unemployed man, who devoted himself to be an alcoholic and spend most of his time being in the bar, drinking, being totally careless about their children, he was not able at all to provide what they need to grow up as they should.

In spite of the standard of living that the main character; Rusty James and his family had, the working class was represented by their surroundings. There was a school, which was the one where Rusty James and his friend Steve went to; and there were also a pub, where all the "buddies" met to throw pool. Both places were crucial for them. Rusty James hated school; he even was spelt from it because of his personality and actions, the opposite to his brother, who was spelt because he was too smart. Besides, all guys who lived near them, and went to the same school, were always involved in rumbles, as well as Rusty James. None of them was a positive leader.

The way the characters spoke in The Commitments, depicted a non satisfactory level of Education; they used lots of swear word. The vocabulary was very informal. Furthermore, the reading became a bit weird because many words were written the way they are spoken. Nevertheless, they knew what level they belonged to because they called themselves: “The hardest working band”.

All in all, both storied showed that it wasn’t that simple to handle making a living in the place and in the time where they took place. This was due not because of the cost of living but the working chances they had, and their interests and goals they wanted to achieve in life.

LIVE MARILYN

Since I couldn’t make my mind up about what album cover choose, and then write about, I finally got to painting, and chose one which belongs to the Pop Art trend, it is one of the Andy Warhol’s Marilyn prints (1962). As you may know, Pop Art came up in 1950’s in response to the mass media and all the boom of technology, capitalism, fashion, and consumerism. In 1960` s Warhol started painting several images of celebrities, in which he used the silkscreen painting technique.
I like so much the daffy way in which he used colours. It’s totally out of the way we use to see how they used to be combined in paintings. They really give life and light to the person that was shoot (with the camera, of course). Since I’d always seen Marilyn in black and white, I think she looks great here. Actually, I've got the main image as a magnet on my fridge.
I had the great chance of visiting the MoMA in NY, and I could appreciate some of these paintings. These are damn wicked!

H2SO4...What for?

I’ve always had trouble with numbers, that’s why scientific subjects such as math, physics, and chemistry, have always been a bad karma for me. If I had to talk about the worst, I’m sure it’s chemistry. It pissed me off for four years, it really did, I mean it! I always did awful at it. Since the teacher and I hated each other, because I always told her that what she taught was totally useless, it was a daily battle against formulas, rules and senseless stuff. However, as it never was a big concern for me in terms of understanding the lessons, or doing any better, because I was NEVER INTERESTED IN IT, I never studied extra time, nevertheless, I couldn’t help letting myself down when receiving low grades, but it lasted just for a while.