This is Where I Belong

Final Evaluation

This was my first semester at Penn State and I was not sure what to expect. I came from a very small university to this massive State University. At first I was very worried about taking English 15 at 9:45 a.m. and I knew I would be doomed if I were to get a boring professor. I am not a morning person and I knew if I got one of those monotone prison warden type professors, I would struggle to pay attention in the class and as a result not do very well. Luckily, I was blessed to get you, Prof Squillante, as my professor. Your fun loving personality and funny stories was the reason I enjoyed waking up early each day for class each day and helped me to stay focused.

This semester I learned about many different styles of writing. I have become accustomed to writing research papers in high school, and I feel this semester I have definitely broadened my knowledge of new writing styles. I learned how to write a eulogy and a memoir which were my two favorite assignments of the semester. I know that I will one day have to write a eulogy, though hopefully not in the near future. The visual analysis paper taught how to analyze an advertisement, which is extremely helpful for me because I hope to one day major in marketing. I feel that I will be doing a lot of visual analysis in my future career, and this assignment introduced me to many of the techniques that will help me to succeed. I also learned how to blog and that it is not for me.

I feel I did not learn much about myself or who I am as a person this semester. Rather, I learned how to adjust to learning at an enormous University and that Penn State is the right place for me. I came to this school that has literally ten times the amount of students as the previous college I attended, Bentley University. At Bentley I could walk to all my classes in more than five minutes and I could walk from the one end of campus to the other in ten minutes. Here, it would take me 15-20 minutes to walk from east to your class. I learned to use the loop bus system to get to all my classes and ON TIME. I learned how to make friends at a school where you can meet someone and never see them again. I taught myself how to learn in a classroom with hundreds of students and succeed. And overall, I learned that I made the right decision to transfer to Penn State.

In the end, going to the arts events and learning about the arts really was not that bad. I learned that term art can be spread to a wide variety of things like comedy and even football, which I proved in my research paper. I never considered myself as a guy who enjoyed the arts, but if comedy acts and football documentaries can be considered art, than I guess that makes me a lover of the arts.

http://luketry.blogspot.com/2012/03/party-rocking.html#comment-form

http://pangbourneboathouse.blogspot.com/2012/04/5-god-of-war-3-review.html#comment-form

http://alexsaspects.blogspot.com/2012/04/stepbrothers-movie-analysis.html#comment-form

I have completed my SRTEs!

Cluck You!

No it is not a bad word, it is a restaurant located in Red Bank, New Jersey. I would describe Cluck-u as a sit down fast-food style restaurant whose specialty is chicken dishes. Their menu includes; chicken sandwiches, wings, boneless wings, fried chicken, breast bites, burgers, pulled pork sandwiches, wraps, desserts and much more. Cluck-u also has a variety of their original trademark wing sauces, which are all describe on their sauce-meter.

“Without the sauce, Cluck-U would be nothing”, Scott (cashier/waiter).

Cluck-u is a very small restaurant with seating for only about twenty people. The walls are painted a bright yellow color and are covered with pictures of the Cluck-u chicken mascot. The mascot is a big yellow chicken and in these pictures, he appears to be a high school student. There is one bathroom for customers only, which was actually very clean. The counter, at which you from, order has a black top and a thick glass base. Behind the counter you can see directly into the kitchen.

 Next to the soda machine at the end of the counter, is the “Wall of Flame”. To be inducted into the “Wall of Flame” you have to eat six wings smothered in their trademark 9-11 wing sauce. This is a sauce so hot that all participants must sign a release form before attempting to eat these unbearably hot wings. The other way to get on the wall is by dethroning the current wing-king! For this challenge, you are given as much time as you want to eat as many wings as you can in one sitting. To take this crown you need to eat ninety-one wings.

I arrived at around 1:00p.m with two of my friends to grab lunch. I ordered; a BBQ- chicken sandwich, fries, ten breast bites with atomic level sauce, and a drink. The three of us sat down and watched the flat screen TV while we waited for our food.

The food arrived fairly quickly, maybe fifteen minutes after we ordered. The cashier even came out from behind the counter and brought our food to us. My portions were very generous and I was allowed free re-fills for my root-beer.

After I finished I could not eat another bite. I was completely full and all the food was delicious. Though I felt that the bill was a just few dollars over priced, but I could not complain. And the only other critique I had would be that their dining space is very small. But if you don’t want to dine in house, Cluck-u has a great delivery service.

If you want to eat chicken like you have never eaten before, I strongly recommend coming to Cluck-u! You will not leave hungry. And if you are feeling lazy, just give them a call and you will have your food in less than an hour.

A Rare Musical Mix

On April 4^th, I went to see Anoushka Shankar at the Eisenhower Auditorium.  Shankar is a musician that mixes traditional Indian style music with Spanish flamenco music. I had never been to a musical event with such a unique musical style so I was not sure what to expect. Shankar sat in the center of the stage on top of a large platform with her sitar. When the show began there were two males seated on her right. One was playing a double sided drum that lay in his lap. The other male played a drum in the shape of a box on which he sat as he also played a foot drum. At first there was only one male on Shankar’s left who played a keyboard type instrument (not electric), but after the first song a female singer and male acoustic guitarist emerged from back stage and sat on Shankar’s left as well. The two musicians who entered after the first song were the Spanish twist to the performance. They were both dressed in Spanish style clothing while the rest of the band wore more typical Indian style attire. The female sang in Spanish throughout the performance. She had a great voice, but she would at times make this long whining outcry noise that I could not stand and I felt it took a lot away from the music.  

The two things I liked most about the performance was the lighting and the two male drummers. Throughout the performance the band used several different colors such as; blue, yellow, green, orange, and red to light up the stage. I felt that the lighting effectively set the mood for each song. I also thought the drummers were excellent at their craft. My favorite song happened to be the last one because each member of the band got to perform their own solo. I felt both drummers showed exceptional talent and coordination while performing their solos. And I was especially impressed with the drummer that not only used his hands to create these exciting beats, but he also used his foot to play another drum at the same time. Overall I did not enjoy the performance mostly because of the female’s signing style. I feel without her I would have enjoyed the performance much more but either way I do not see myself attending an event like this ever again.

Artisical/ Cultural Event 2

“Go home and study” Joe Pa

This podcast for the most part just made me angry. Once the speaker said that Penn State was ranked the number one party school through a poll that was voted on by college students, I felt the whole argument lost its validity. Obviously, Penn State students are going to vote for their school to be the number one party school in the nation so they can brag about it to all their friends back home. I did not think it was fair for the podcasters to criticize the students for drinking cheap horribly tasting alcohol. Maybe if it was not tens of thousands of dollars to go to this school we could afford to buy more expensive and better tasting alcohol. And then of course the speakers blamed much of the partying problem on the football program. At the time of the podcast, the man who was the head coach of the football team and the face of the school preached academic excellence. Joe Paterno donated a magnificent library to this University and did not tolerate poor grades amongst his players. I feel students party and drink just as much in the spring, as they do in the fall during the football season. Yes there is no tailgating in the spring, but each weekend there are huge day time parties that take place outside (Day Longs) preceding the night parties.

I do feel that the podcast did bring up some good points however. Though I do not believe it is only Penn State students, the vandalism here is a big problem. Also after listening to this podcast I did feel sympathetic toward the residence of State College who are living here and not attending PSU. These residences should not have to put up with students; urinating on their lawn, damaging their property, or even breaking into their home. I was surprised that the podcast did not focus on the completely made up drinking holiday, State Patty’s Day. I thought for sure the speaker was going to heavily criticize the student body for creating this holiday.

I also do think the report was accurate in some cases. I agreed with the parts about; the fratket, pre-gaming, the cheap alcohol students consume, and when they described the fraternity’s windows that were covered with garbage bags. I feel all these things are all completely true and are all a part of the party scene at Penn State.

What the podcast failed to mention is that Penn State is an extremely prestigious University in regards to academics. Penn State is very highly ranked amongst Public Universities and the Business School was recently rated number one by recruiters. Students do not just come here to party and get poor grades. Yes there are some who do, but the majority of students go on to graduate and that is what should define Penn State.

Not Your Average Shark Baby



For my first artistic event, I went to an art gallery in my local community college’s museum. The museum is located on the Brookdale Community College campus and is called The Monmouth Museum. The specific gallery that I went to was called “Art of Illusion” and is only open from March fourth until April twenty-ninth. I chose to go to this event because I enjoy optical illusions or things that trick the human eye. I have been to art galleries like this one and I had high expectations for this event.

This gallery featured sixty-two pieces which were both two and three-dimensional. I was a little disappointed that much of the exhibit did not feature pieces that would be considered optical illusions. But I did find some very interesting pieces. My two favorite pieces featured images that were drawn flat on a piece on paper. These pieces where not hung on the wall but instead laid down on a table. When looking directly down on the piece, the image on the paper is distorted. In the middle of both pieces was a chrome cylinder, and when you looked at the cylinder at eye level, it reflexed the image on the paper and made it clear.

The one piece that I would say confused or confounded me was titled “shark baby”, by Maria Lupo. I would describe it as a figurine. It was a toy baby doll, no different than one you could buy at any toy store. The entire face and body was painted blue. Than the artist cut off the long mouth of a shark toy and pasted it over the baby’s mouth. The baby’s body was covered in what looked like the straw my mom puts in my Easter baskets. And last the artist removed both of the baby’s legs and reattached just one leg under the center of the torso to represent a fin.

Overall I enjoyed my experience viewing this gallery. I felt that I may have set my expectations a little too high, but I did see some interesting pieces. I also did not have to pay the entrance fee, so that was a plus. The only thing I felt that would have made my experience more enjoyable would have been if there were more works of optical illusion.

Is this Art?

To me, many things can fall under the category of art such as; paintings, music, sculptures, drawings, fountains, plays, other performances, and etc. For something to be considered art in my eyes, it needs to fall under a few guidelines. The first is that the work was made with skill or with great talent. In other words if I can make it, it is not art. The work has to be detailed and may or may not have a message. I feel that a work that has a message behind it is a more powerful and impactful piece than one without a message. This message can be one the artist wants to express, but a message can also be interpreted by the audience, even it is different than the message in the artist’s mind. But then there are works that are just meant to attract the human eye with beauty. The work has appeal to the human eye, which does not necessarily mean it has to be “beautiful”. I enjoy the art of optical illusion, which is not always beautiful, but I find to be very skillful and interesting.

There are also a few things I feel a work does not have to fall under to be considered art. The first is that a piece can be created by someone who is not a “professional” artist to be considered art. My next-door neighbor who is twelve can draw some of the most amazing realistic pictures I have ever seen. She is not a professional artist, she is a seventh grader. Also, a work does not have to be worth a large sum of money to be considered art.

Below, are two examples of art that I have come across on the internet. The first on the top is a piece that I would consider to be art. For starters I myself could not paint such a realistic and detailed image. The artist clearly has great talent. I do not believe this piece has a message, so I would say it is just one of those pieces of sheer beauty. The second piece, on the bottom, is a piece that I would not consider to be art. There seems to be no pattern of any sort or image. It just seems to be paint randomly scattered on a canvas, with little or no skill involved. This looks like something that I am capable of producing. I do not take away any message from this piece.

Oh, the building with the Lion Paws

I found my trip to the Palmer Museum of Art to be a good change of pace from yet another class period.  I did enjoy my time walking around the museum, and I was interested in a few pieces like; the sun burst made of used shoes, and the “Cotton Choppers”.  However, I do not see myself ever going again, I am just not a museum-goer.  

“Cotton Choppers”, is an oil painting on a canvas. It was created in 1965 by an African American named Benny Andrews.  Andrews grew up in Georgia while segregation was still prominent (New Georgia Encyclopedia).  Benny was in the Air Force during the Korean War and later used the G.I Bill of Rights to attend The Art Institute in Chicago (New Georgia Encyclopedia). Andrews graduated with a bachelor of fine arts degree (New Georgia Encyclopedia).

The setting of this painting is a strip of farming land. The landscape looks dry and desolate. In the center of the piece is an African American man wearing a white shirt and blue overalls. He is carrying a hoe and appears to be exhausted. The land is mostly made up of light brown soil with rows of green crops sprouting from it. There is an African American woman wearing a purple dress walking toward the man in the center of the piece. She too is carrying a hoe in her arms and appears to barely be able to lift it. There is one more African American man in this painting, who is way off in the distance. He appears to be bending over and using his hoe to move the soil. There is also a tree in between two rows of crops. This very much stood out to me because at first I did not notice it all. It just does not seem like it should be in this piece because it does not fit the landscape.

The people in this piece are not very detailed. Their facial features are somewhat blurry and faded. I believe the setting in the painting is during slavery, even though it was painted after slavery was abolished. I feel that the faces’ of the figures in the painting are faded to show the dehumanization African Americans faced during slavery, which is Andrews’ message. To their owners, slaves were nothing but free labor. I feel when looking through the eyes a slave owner; they do not see the facial details of their workers. After doing a little research I found that it was in Andrews’ style to emphasize gesture and expression (New Georgia Encyclopedia). Which may explain the lack of detail in the figures’ faces, but that is not how I interpreted the painting at first.

The gestures of the figures in the painting I feel evoke emotion from the viewers. The man in the center of the piece appears to be absolutely exhausted. The landscape seems to go on forever, which this poor man has to work on. As the viewer I felt sorry for the man and just felt like there was no hope for him. Than you see this poor women walking toward the man in the center of the painting, who looks equally as exhausted. She is dragging her hoe in both arms, barely able to lift it.  I also feel sorry for this women and I feel that she is unjustly mistreated. The “random” tree in the painting also helped portray the figures’ feelings of hopelessness. A tree normally provides shade, which would be extremely comforting for these workers. But this tree is very slim with small thin branches, and does not create any shade.

http://www.georgiaencyclopedia.org/nge/Article.jsp?id=h-1042