Staj Günlükleri

Nasılsa ENG101 için açıldığından ve takipçiyi geçtim bloğumun varlığından bile kimsenin haberi olmadığı için bu mükemmel fırsatı değerlendirmek istedim. Bundan sonra Çağdaş Yaşamı Destekleme Derneği'ndeki 12 günlük stajımın her anlamsız ayrıntısıyla meşgul edeceğim bu satırları. İşte geliyor:
6 Eylül Salı stajımın 2. günü...
Kendime ait bir masam var çok cool öyle değil mi hem de daha ilk günden :D Karşı masa arkadaşım benim gibi 12 günlük dönemde staj yapacak bir ODTÜlü ve şansa bakın ki onun da adı Ezgi. Yani daha ilk günden dernektekilerin sabah şekerleri tadında esprilerine maruz kaldık Ezgiler aşağı Ezgiler yukarı. Böyle diyorsam sanmayın ki dernektekileri sevmedim hepsi şeker gibi insanlar baya sempatikler ve sürekli sigara ve kahve tüketerek beni buraya aitmişim gibi hissettiriyorlar. Sigara içmeme kararı almış olduğumdan -dün yarım sigara içerek bozmuş olsam bile kararımı- burada zaman geçirmek biraz zor olabiliyor tabii hatta şu anda herkes yemeğe gitse de bir sigara yaksam yanında sıcacık filtre kahve diye küçük planlar kurmuyor değilim. Ezgi az önce 'Guilty' şarkısını mırıldanıyordu sesi güzelmiş. Kısaca bu 2 gün yaptığımız işlerden de bahsedeyim Üniversite Burs Birimi stajyerleri olarak gelen mailleri cevapladık, kimisine başvuru tarihi yolladık onlar için hala bir şans var, kimisineyse başvuru yapma fırsatını bile veremedik yüksek lisans ya da özel üniversite öğrencisi olduklarından ötürü. Bugünse 96 senesinden başlayarak yapılan başvuruların dosyaları tozlu raflardan alınıp önümüze kondu. Zaten bilgisayara kaydedilmiş belgeleri hunharca yırtıyoruz :D kağıtlar kağıt çöpüne tabii...Kendimizi eğlendirmek içinse fotoğrafları ayırma gibi bir meşgale bulduk. Arkasında adı olmayanları da yazıyoruz daha sonra adını tahmin etmece gibi birşeyler zırvalayıp oyalanacağız şimdiden masam bana bakan nostaljik vesikalıklarla dolu. Az önce bir belgede 'Neptün' ismini de gördük daha neler göreceğiz bakalım?
Oda hala Seval hanımın yaptığı filtre kahvenin kokusuyla dolu, açık pencereden içeri güzel bir rüzgar esiyor ve tek gürültü klavye ve yırtılan kağıt sesi...

ENG101

That's my last post for you. This semester finished both slow and fast. I find freshmen very competitive and challenging period. While we tried to find the balance, I think this lesson support us very well. There aren't any burden of homework or difficulties for us and I think it facilitates our attendance in lessons. Honestly, I was not a type who feel relax while speaking English. Now I feel better about that, I'm more relief thanks to you. In my opinion, the discussion atmosphere in lessons are very benefial for students like me. I hope your next semester and new class would be better for you. Thanks for your wishes that you mailed, I wish you too a good and fruitful year :))

Beauty Myth

Gender based stratifications are everywhere and everytime. Just like we trapped in boundless labyrinth. The last weapon against women is beauty myth. It returns from the dead to punish women who breach the power structure and become successful in business. Males feel themselves be threaten by this rapid rise. As a result of that, feminity takes the mission of rebuffing this rise. During past decades with the advancement of women, the number of eating disorders and cosmetic surgeries also increase. Today, women feel older than their ancestors due to this myth. According to a research thirty-three thousand American women would choose to ten pounds instead of achieving their goals.The story beauty myth tells the existence of beauty. However is it possible to judge women with this subjective statement. It is neither changeless nor universal. Actually where this myth comes from is not about gender, evolution, sex or God, it bases on the male domination.  We're all forced to make a choice between career and family or husband etc. This choosing process existed before and if women do not termanite it could live forever. It is really bitter to see females that choose to lose weight. It may seem as little desire however it is an abdication of their development, their identity, their self.

Tough Guise, really?

As a girl, I generally think that being a girl offers less than being a boy. Girls are always surrounded with stereotypes, demands and oppression that force them stable in life. Of course, I admit life is sometimes harder for boys than us. In society, the role given to boys can be confusing in several times. The documentary, Tough Guise made me convince about this issue. After I'd watched this, I realized that boys also were concerned the 'male figure' that society refers. They share the same concerns such as being intelligent, strong, intepented, powerful and more common word tough. It is such a pity for boys that feels these kind of obligations. I find the tough image insisted by media, specially ads cruel and unreal. For instance, in video we can see how this image grow and became so popular even in fiction movies. 

If we remember Batman or Superman in 60s, we can find the heroes tiny, because in 21. century, muscles are everywhere. Here comes another similar example about G I Joe. His bicep is 12.2'' in 60s, then it is getting bigger 15.2'' to16.4''. In 1998 it lost its rationality with the number of 26.8 inches which is impossible for a human.

Another common image that ensures the masculinity is gun. While Humprey Bogard moved a small gun in movie,the gun got bigger for Sean Connery as James Bond. And later Clint Eastwood appeared on the scene with bigger one. Now, we can watch Rambo with huge machine guns.

There are lots of trap that draw a fake tough guise figure in media. I just emphasized two of them. It is clearly seen that these depictions have a great impact on males. Furthermore this tough image is becoming more harful day by day. The boys who believe and take the ads serious, transform more violent, more tough and unfortunately it becomes violence against women. I find this issue very serious about the growing of individuals who has good mental and physical health, not the guys that becomes muscular but fooler.

World in Your Eyes

I've just finished the story of Alice Walker, Beauty: When the Other Dancer is the Self. I think it is a bitter story, because it again reminds how people can be shallow. All of us are aware the importance of physical appearance in almost every area. People cannot leave this judgement, because it is always said or taught in this way. We are surrounded by the walls of norms that describe what beautiful is. Despite of its subjectivity, people try to fit in. We live in a world where different is ugly. I find the story bitter, because I am aware of this truth and I do not want to compromise with it. Alice is a little girl who lives the happiness to be found cute and adorable till an accident happened. After she is shot by her brothers' toy gun, she inevitably changes. The peace inside her replaces angry and disappointment due to her blind eye's appearance. She gives up her hopes 'accidently'. Her fight is not with blindness, not anything but being beautiful again. Then I read the words of Alice's daughters' words: 'There is a world in your eyes.' Alice is ready to brace her kid's terrifying reaction because she is familiar the cruelty of them in her childhood experiences. Then she suddenly feels very relief. It makes me think, if it is possible to preserve the purity of ourselves. When we were little, everything is so unique, so unusual and unpredictable. I wish for a world like that.

I don't know the reason but this story makes me remember the snow globes which I just shaked and felt so happy in my childhood...

The Man Who Almost A Man

The story written by Richard Wright reminds us an very well-known fact about young males who desperately need to prove their existence as a 'man'. Having a gun is one big necessity according to Dave  Saunders, a seventeen year-old teenager in the story, who is almost a man. It is more than a fiction, I think, in current age young males need gun to guarantee their status in the eyes of their peers, specially Afro-American boys who suffer from discrimination. Gun is just an object they use to express their anger and violence against society. In the story, we usually find Dave discovering the sense of power that gun gives him and witness his enthusiasm about this. He does not even know how to fire, however as long as he keeps the gun with him, he thinks that everyone would have to respect him, no matter black or white. In this part, it is clearly seen that teenagers like Dave, are confused where they belongs, what place they occupy in this world and what place they should be. In my opinion, these unanswered questions trigger illegal acts and stories of adolescents generally ends up in jails or even worse. The guns that are sold for 2 dollar, are just the beginning.