Category: ELP

Banning only one type of religious items can cause opposing views as it seems like prejudice against that religion. The situation becomes different when the ban of all religious wear is imposed. Personally, even though like France “treasures the principle of secularism”, I do not understand why a country would do this because it doesn’t harm anyone to wear these items, and they are not imposing their religion to other people. There is no harm done so I see no need for a ban to take place. It can imply a discrimination and even limit people to go to some places and make them feel unwelcomed, that maybe it is wrong to wear a clothing item or jewellery. I understand that a country may want to feel united and stand as one however that can be done with different religions, i.e in France, you can still be french and have a different religion that other french people, that doesn’t make you not french. I think in a way it is removing basic human rights, one right, “Your human rights are protected by law” will not be true if we take away something as small as religious clothing items and jewellery. 

Poetry does not play a big role in my life simply because I don’t really invest my time into reading poetry, however listening to music does have an impact on me as I listen to music everyday. When a song resonates with me, I usually listen to it a lot as I either like the tune of the song, the message and or lyrics of the song. I have different playlists that I listen to when I have different emotions and sometimes it helps me relate to someone as I may be going through the same thing, or it distracts me from what is happening by telling a story about something random. The lyrics of songs can be important as the audience can see why the artist chose a word or said something instead of something else and gives us something to relate to or something we can understand. However, with music I think that it’s important to have a good tune and rhythm because it can play a role on whether a person likes the song or not. I really first listen to the lyrics after I listen to the tune of the song.

I think the biggest thing that we can all do is to stay safe and not put others at risk, by staying at home or social distancing when going out for essentials. We can all try to motivate each other however it is important to stay safe and not put a risk on spreading the virus since it is getting worse and people are losing so much because of it. We are social animals and we need human interaction once in a while for us to feel happy. The lack of human interaction can be made up by calling each other online but it’s not the same as real life interaction and they are limited. I think we could also feel left out from experiences as we can’t do anything and feel lonely since we stay in the same place every day. So anything that is positive or something that makes us smile for even a second it will make us feel better.

My favourite band since G10 has been Tame Impala mainly as the vibe is different to other artists and I found it interesting, so I started listening to more of their songs. On spotify the most listened song was Borderline by Tame Impala, Kevin Parker deals with themes of a relationship on its last legs while questioning the nature of love. Although I have no experience with love but the way the song flows makes it easier for me to listen to it. The song can be described as “‘borderline’ as a personal metaphor for the rocky in-between spaces of a turbulent relationship. “Borderline” further carries, as an adjective, connotations of uncertainty and risk”. There is a line in the song which refers to his old album; “Shout out to what is done, R.I.P, here comes the sun”, it may also be a reference to “Here Comes the Sun,” one of the most famous Beatles songs of all time. The Beatles are one of the largest influences on Parker. Recently I have also been listening to Beatles songs, my favourite songs right now being “Being for the benefit of Mr. Kite!”, the song is based off of a poster that John Lennon bought in an antique shop in January of 1967. The song distracts me from what is going on as it doesn’t have a very significant meaning behind it as it’s about a poster that John Lennon has. Another favourite song of mine is “Run for your life”,  Its lyrics deal with an abusive relationship, where the narrator implies that he is threatening to kill his girlfriend if she cheats on him. I’m not sure why I listen to songs about relationships, perhaps because sometimes these songs could reflect the reality of some relationships, and this song is interesting as the lyrics don’t match the tune of the song. I find those songs really interesting and it brings me to another alternate universe where I don’t have to think about the stress I have especially in a time like this.

The decisions Isma made is what she believed was right and what she wanted to do, she was thinking of the consequences, the ethical name for it being, teleological, where one thinks about the consequences of the actions. Isma perhaps was thinking about what would’ve happened to their family if she didn’t inform the police which could influence her decisions as a whole. The situation is complex where it is hard to say what the ‘right’ thing to do is, anyone can disagree with her. There is no ‘wrong’ decision as it depends on the person on what is good and bad however many could disagree with her, saying that she was selfish and not thinking about her brother while Isma can argue it was for the better as her family would have to suffer from the society’s opinions as well. Isma had a choice between family loyalty and her duty to society and it is impossible to say which one is ‘correct’ because it varies from person to person. In contrast to Aneeka who was thinking of her family and who she cares about, Isma believes that she should fulfill her duty to society. Relating to Antigone, Antigone resembles Aneeka, where they both believe that family loyalty lies first rather than what society believes. Creon who resembles Karamat, has strong views that lead to consequences he did not think about, ending up with his son killing himself for the woman he loves, having a deontological view where one does not think of the consequences of an action but rather if the action is right or wrong. It is hard to say whether these decisions are moral as each person has a different view on ethics and what they believe to be good and bad and even how one can decide if something is good or bad.

Explain how Churchill uses language to establish a particular character’s identity, class, or social status. 

Top Girls by Caryl Churchill follows Marlene, a woman who works at top girl’s employment agency and is celebrating her recent promotion with 5 historical figures. She also later visits her sister Joyce and the relationship between them is revealed. Churchill’s uses language to establish Joyce’s character’s class. She uses simplistic sentence structures for Joyce’s character as well as the use of slangs and grammar mistakes.

The sentence structure compared to the sentences that Marlene says, is juxtaposed as Joyce speaks with grammar mistakes and slang. I think it can show their education level as well as their class. Compared to Marlene, her speech seems like she’s less educated, when they are talking about Kit and Angie, Joyce says, “She hasn’t an idea in her head what she wants to do”, the use of “hasn’t” can show the audience of her social class with the use of slang as Marlene does not speak like that, and we know that Marlene is in the upper class and that she is educated. When Joyce is talking to Angie, she also uses an informal tone with almost, shortcuts, to her speech such as “You’ve no money, have you?”, which can contribute to the idea of Joyce’s social class. Joyce also says, “You was in America or somewhere”, the use of “was” is grammatically incorrect showing the level of education she has compared to Marlene.

It is clear with the difference of class between Joyce and Marlene with their dialogue between each other. The things they say to each other can indicate their class status as perhaps Joyce is mad that Marlene left her family to go to a job as Joyce even mentions, “Don’t come back”, and after that point all the secrets are revealed about the two sisters. I think that the clear contrast between the two sisters enhances the text as it shows the audience the reality of the time (1980s) and the differences between lower and upper class.  Joyce also tells Marlene, “For someone so clever, you was the most stupid” to perhaps illustrate the difficulties of a working woman, how they couldn’t do both, and that’s why Joyce had to look after Angie and stay in that lower class.

I think this book tries to emphasize the difficulties of a woman, a working woman, and showcases it with the relationship between the two sisters. It does a good job on showing which character is in the upper class and which is in the lower class with the specific language used.

UFO sighting

Navy spokesman Joseph Gradisher has confirmed that three videos posted to the To the Stars Academy of Arts and Sciences (TTSA)— the organization founded by Blink 182 rocker Tom DeLonge in 2015 to pursue research into UFOs and extraterrestrial life — do indeed show “unidentified aerial phenomena.”

I am empathic towards this, even though it seems as if there is nothing to care about, there is. The article was very interesting to me as there has been a lot of supposed UFO sightings than always has a reason to not be a UFO such as, “it’s a government plane”. I think that it’s arrogant to think that we are the only living things in the universe, as it is very big, bigger than we can comprehend, it is almost impossible, in my mind, that we are the only ones out there. I think there are a lot of people that would disagree with the Blink 182 band member, as that is their belief and not try to understand where he’s coming from, as they might have a different explanation to the videos posted even if a higher authority says that it is unidentified. There are a lot of things that can’t be explained and aliens isn’t something that is confirmed, but it hasn’t been debunked which I understand.

Applying the notion of outrospection to it, a lot of people must be disagreeing with Tom DeLonge’s views as they might not see where he is coming from and the evidence that supports him. They might think it’s silly that a band member has an organization, Stars Academy of Arts and Sciences (TTSA), and might not believe him since he is a band member. However I understand that a lot of things haven’t been discovered, but I think that anyone could discover it but people would only trust others that have an authority or have power and have been proven to be right by other things they have done, such as scientists. But I am able to see why people believe in things such as UFOs as there is something that we don’t know about, and are curious to find out more.