Anthology 2

I thought that the second part of the class anthology had a lot of similarities between the essays. It seemed as though some of the essays were either over the purpose and meaning of life or the topic of aesthetics. This is interesting because there were a few essays that reminded me of some of the topics that I have written about. For instance in my final paper I chose the topic of why we purchase curtain things. And in the anthology there were a few essays in there that were very similar to this. So I thought that it was interesting to see how these essays were set up and how they got there point across.
Stephanie Ogden said “Today, there are people who don’t fall into the trap of having to
buy the best products out there; but for the most part, the whole idea of “looking better” has
become everyone’s main concern, from the way he/she dresses, to the products and structures we
create”. This was kind of the same thesis that I use in my final paper. I think that people desire the best products or homes to feel if they do not have these then they will no longer be able to keep up with everyone else. Because humans are so competitive we are always striving to be the best and to do this we sometimes need the best gear to accomplish this. So by having the latest and greatest cloths, toys, cars, ect. We think that we will be the best and this is not always true.
She also said “For a lot of individuals, materialistic products have become the object of their affection. Pricey goods aren’t even necessarily better than cheaper ones, but more attractive. Picture yourself on a busy street corner of New York City; whether or not you’ve been there, you know that this
city is one of the most upgraded in the world. The lady standing in front of you has a Louis
Vuitton purse in one hand and an iPhone in the other, while wearing her Diane von Furstenberg
suit and Manolo Blahnik stilettos. You have just a regular purse and suit from JC Penney, a flip
phone, and loafers from Payless, but do these “best of the best” items make her better than you?
No, you are both equal.” I thought that this statement was very good in getting a mental image of what she was trying to say. And it was just about the same idea as I used in my final paper.
So for the most part I thought that all the essays in the second part of the anthology were close to the same ideas where as the first part didn’t quite seem as close. They helped me get a better grasp on the topic that I was going to talk about in the final essay.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Keeping_up_with_the_Joneses

Anthology part 1

I thought that the first part of the anthology was very interesting because you could see how other people in the class write and how they came up with their topic for the papers. It was interesting that we all read the same essays and when we decided what topic to write about they were all different from each other but in some since they had a few of the same points. They essays also showed how the ideas of the topic were organized to get the main point of the paper across. There were a few essays had similar ideas but for the most part they all had different main focuses that were used to get the point of the essays across.
One of the essays that I thought had a good point was Cally’s Individuality essay. She said” humans are by definition competitive. Keeping up with the Joneses is the American dream.
We have dream jobs, dream houses, dream cars, and dream mates.” This is so true because we always want the latest and greatest technologies to make us seem like we are the most popular or to get another person’s attention. And as our society keeps advancing without end and we want the coolest things. An example of this was when Apple first came out with the iPod. I remember I purchased the first kind that Apple made. I thought it was the best kind of mp3 player ever with its one gigabyte of memory, I had it filled up in two seconds. At first I was the one who had the best music player and this made me feel like I was the coolest person on the planet. Then a week later they came out with another nano that could hold 4 gigabytes. And all of my friends went out and purchased one. So I then wanted it because it could hold more songs and my iPod was the older version so I no longer had the best mp3 player. Then Apple took off with the idea by making all kinds of styles and colors with different sizes of memory. So after awhile I purchased the latest and greatest 16 gigabyte iPod. Again I thought I had the best and I would never need to buy another one because it was the newest style. But a few weeks after I had my new iPod, Apple made a newer and cooler iPod with a touch screen. I was a little made because the iPod I got wasn’t ever close to being as fancy as the newer IPod. And the cycle will probably keep going. So this shows that we do want the newer technologies because our friends get the more technologically advanced things and this makes us jealous.
Anyways I thought that the essays were interesting because it gave me an idea if I have been writing the same style as everyone else or not. I think that it is interesting how we develop different ways of getting our topics and what style we use to get our point across.