The OFFICIAL Unofficial Achewood Message Board
Trivial Pursuits => Sports & Leisure => Topic started by: side_show on March 08, 2007, 04:06:02 am
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Since there was a little talk of censorship, editing, etc. elsewhere it reminded me of this thing that happened to me. It is the story of the most post modern moment in my life.
On my way home from Bali to Canada I found myself with a 12 hr stop over at the Kuala Lumpur Airport (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kuala_Lumpur_International_Airport). I was basically not bothered by this 1) because it's the coolest airport in the world, 2) the people floating around were fascinating, and 3) I was wanting to get re-adjusted to the 13 hour time difference by staying awake, reading, etc. This was indeed the plan, but the Air Malaysia guy was insistant that I take a voucher and go to a pre-arranged hotel that I knew nothing about until I landed in Kuala Lumpur just then. I tried to explain to him that it was in fact the middle of the day in my home country, and that I had no desire to sleep, but he insisted that the hotel was lovely and that I could rest and watch some TV. He was very friendly about it mind you, and as I looked around at the airport from outer space it became clear to me that nearly everything was closing down for the night, so I agreed, he arranged a shuttle and I was quickly out of the airport in a van with a driver who spoke no English and on an empty highway surrounded by jungle. It occurred to me then that no one except the airport guy and the driver had any clue I was away from the airport, or even in Malaysia. My family and friends were expecting me to be in transit, with no indication that I would even set foot outside an airport, nevermind spend 12 hours in a country not even on the itinerary. I was suddenly terrified. And the 45 minute drive of jungle lined highway did nothing to ease my stress. Was I about to be sold into sexual slavery? What would I do if I needed to run in the jungle in the dark? Aren't there Tigers in the jungle here? Eventually a few hotels began to appear on the edges of the highway, and then I was at my hotel. I was relieved, but when I saw the hotel, I really wished I had stayed at the airport afterall. The hotel was... non-western in many ways that I wont go into. The guy at the desk copied info from my Canadian passport, but wrote "Australian" on the nationality section of my registration. I didn't want to ask him if this was an intentional change or an error, I was too tired and stressed out to deal with the possibility that he was doing this intentionally to protect me from... what? I had a tiny room with a tiny bed and an odd smell and a TV from the 80's that only got 4 stations, none of which were in English. I spent some time flipping from channel to channel, and realized that one channel appeared to be a mix of stock ticker info with the occasional Malaysian music video tossed in for good measure. I left it on for noise and pulled out my book, then fell asleep.
To my confusion I woke up to this (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EqlfPomWY80) a half hour later. There was a brief moment where I thought I was home actually. But here's the difference: X-tina's navel was the only bodily attribute blurred out - not the rest of her mid-riff, just her belly button. The language wasn't edited: bitch, whore, etc. but there was a tiny pixelated area just around her belly button. Then Lil'Kim appears, drops her cape or whatever covered her, and she's blurred out from neck to knees. Again, none of the language was edited, nor was the hand-job-the-mike deal, the guy massaging his balls or the part where X-tine humps the hose, but occasionally if she shifted just enough for her navel to be exposed, the pixels would also appear and disappear accordingly. And just as quickly, the song was over, and it was right back to Malaysian stock ticker. I waited hopefully but not another bit of English language was played. In many ways a third wave feminist music video, edited for belly button exposure, in a hotel where no one knew I was, was the defining moment of me being a stranger in a strange land - a girl alone in a big world.
Also, on my flight, both ways one of the inflight movies was Lost in Translation, which I must admit was a lovely choice for flights through Asia.
So what are the most memorable post modern moments you've had? I love this sort of stuff.
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Can for awesome thread. I need to think about this one for a bit before I post.
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I agree with Mof.
This is a great thread but also a topic that can't be replied to in a flip manner.
Spur-of-the-moment answers, rambling or terse, would not do it justice.
A dude shall meditate on the idea.
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Thank you for your stories, O Griot of TOUAMB.
The vast majority of my post-modern moments are 20 years old or so. I still have them every once in awhile, but not nearly so often as back in the day. I don't know whether I'm no longer encountering them or no longer noticing them.
I try to still be sensitive to them, but I can't really tell if I am or not. On the other hand, maybe I used up my quota 20 years ago.
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Whoa... someone's navel is too sexual so it gets blurred out but not the rest of the midriff... but rouged-up lips and handjobbing the mic are okay?
Jeez. That is just nuts.
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Whoa... someone's navel is too sexual so it gets blurred out but not the rest of the midriff... but rouged-up lips and handjobbing the mic are okay?
Let us not forget... it was not so long ago that on Television, an astronaut could totally have a magical live-in sex-slave lady and as long as that wasn't explicitly stated as such, it was completely fine... but when her ##### were above her ankles, Television demanded that they ride high enough to cover her navel.
Progress is as such now, of course, that if an astronaut lady puts on a completely navel-revealing diaper while trying to murder her sex rival, Television will pretty much not stop talking about it at all.
Even when you tell Television...
"Hey, man, yeah, that's great but... like... a dude's all going to jail to take the fall because the Vice-President committed treason to settle a score and... like, also, wounded veterans are shacking up with roaches and fifteen books of paperwork and... I've also heard that Iraq has pretty much Burned Down. Could you tell me a little bit about these things?"
And Television is all...
"Fuck you, you're gonna watch Diaper-Meth-Astronaut Lady and like it. That or Big-Titty-Corpse Trial."
Progress is as such now.
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hm. Um. I thought I had already posted this?
Basically, the whole Post-Modern concept is not one I am comfortable with. I read the wikipedia, and it only made things worse.
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Was I about to be sold into sexual slavery?
I'd like to read some more about this, please.
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Thank you for the story Melane. I have post modern moments, but I don't usually recall them later.
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my English Composition teacher just assigned us to write... a meta-paper. We will explain, in the paper, why we are making the stylistic choices we are.
I feel that this... is crossing a line?
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Wow, that paper will function like 'stad's alt text does sometimes. You know, stating the obvious?
Style is a way of infusing one's own voice into a piece of writing. See those italics back there? The author put them there to put emphasis on what she thought was important. Writing this paper is like talking to someone with a mental disability. The author used the simile "like talking to someone with a mental disability" just now to stress how stupid she thinks this is. Seriously, this is so stupid her heart's e'sploding. See that? She used exaggeration - that it's so dumb her heart might explode - to further stress her point. This paper is the kind of kitten that dies a few hours after it's born. See that? Check it out: she used a metaphor to further illustrate how useless this exercise is. Hey, did you notice that she keeps using the terms "see that/those?" She's using repetition both to make this piece of writing cohesive and to infuse the whole damn thing with a touch of sarcasm.
Basically, I could write like this all day, but, you know... no.
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Can'd on account of being made of awesome.
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my English Composition teacher just assigned us to write... a meta-paper. We will explain, in the paper, why we are making the stylistic choices we are.
I feel that this... is crossing a line?
This reminds me of when, in AP English Language my junior year of high school, my teacher handed back a paper where one of the comments praised the "Amanda-ness" of the paper -- as if all of my previous papers had been written by elfin slave labor only posing as me, and this time she was delighted to receive a paper that I had written myself. (Or, to use a more banal and nostalgia-filled analogy, like how when you were a kid you could always tell the difference between Goosebumps books written by R.L. Stine and those written by his army of ghostwriters, and how the "genuine" ones were always better in intangible ways.)
Then again, she was also one of those teachers who would hand out totally opaque essay topics and then leave comments on the finished papers to the extent of "did not complete the assignment appropriately, but B+ for style." I think that she was either aware of what a strange, hollow sham her class was, or she graded drunk. Or maybe both. Actually, probably both.
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my English Composition teacher just assigned us to write... a meta-paper. We will explain, in the paper, why we are making the stylistic choices we are.
I feel that this... is crossing a line?
You should write a 900 page paper that's a first person account of what goes into writing a 900 page paper. And put it in 3 binders, for the triology look.
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I just realized that I haven't had to write "An X page paper" in 9 years or so. Life is awesome.
Writing what is needed to convey the information, and then not worrying about stretching it or cutting it is totally the way to go. I think.
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my English Composition teacher just assigned us to write... a meta-paper. We will explain, in the paper, why we are making the stylistic choices we are.
I feel that this... is crossing a line?
Maybe this can provide inspiration. (http://consc.net/misc/moser.html) It is a story by David Moser called, "This Is the Title of This Story, Which Is Also Found Several Times in the Story Itself."
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Cort-- I will do this. But I might cap it off after the first book.
...I am trying to come up with a clever way to indicate the reference, but I am at a loss.
Also: to clarify, this is a secondary paper. I have to write the 15-page research paper, and then write a 1 or 2 page meta-paper explaining how I wrote it.
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Cort-- I will do this. But I might cap it off after the first book.
...I am trying to come up with a clever way to indicate the reference, but I am at a loss.
You would be guaranteed to win your bet with Marcus. Then the two of you could coax Quincy into chewing up Paige's new shoes.
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Maybe this can provide inspiration. (http://consc.net/misc/moser.html) It is a story by David Moser called, "This Is the Title of This Story, Which Is Also Found Several Times in the Story Itself."
Dang, I really need to link to a Da Vinci's Notebook song called "Title of the Song," but I can't find it on line.
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wait, what?
I feel like... now I am thinking of Foxtrot?
Wouldn't it be more like... I'd make Hobbes write the 2nd two books for me?
I am confused. I read too many comic strips as a kid.
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I just realized that I haven't had to write "An X page paper" in 9 years or so. Life is awesome.
Writing what is needed to convey the information, and then not worrying about stretching it or cutting it is totally the way to go. I think.
You know, I just got a job writing for actual money, and I can't go above 500 words per article. So, maybe those idiotic assignments at school that had to be a particular length were better training for real life than you realized.
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wait, what?
I feel like... now I am thinking of Foxtrot?
Wouldn't it be more like... I'd make Hobbes write the 2nd two books for me?
I am confused. I read too many comic strips as a kid.
It was FoxTrot. Jason bet Marcus who could write a longer paper for an assignment. Jason decided to write a 900 page essay that was a 1st-person account of what goes into writing a 900 page essay.
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Dang, I really need to link to a Da Vinci's Notebook song called "Title of the Song," but I can't find it on line.
Here is a fan-made video for it. (http://youtube.com/watch?v=Zc1Js9P3urw) I am a big fan of the song, and the video definately better than standard youtube fare.
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How did you find that? God, I hate YouTube. People ought to have to include the actual band name. And don't get me started on spelling... But thanks.
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hm. Um. I thought I had already posted this?
Basically, the whole Post-Modern concept is not one I am comfortable with. I read the wikipedia, and it only made things worse.
Yeah, I know. The Wikipedia article on postmodernism is kinda postmodern, which just makes everything worse.
Postmodernism 101: There is no answer. Have fun! as my friend Leslie used to say.
I don't really know what it means, though I frequently refer to myself as postmodernist. Actually, I think that might be the definition.
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I love youtube.
To bring this full-circle, the term paper in question is about how "Web 2.0," while being basically a fake concept, represents the fulfillment of the ideas Alvin Toffler expressed in The Third Wave vis-a-vi the "Prosumer" and decentralization of media creation. My prime example is Ze Frank and his various endeavors into user-generated content. I kind of lost the pseudo-intellectual jargon halfway through, sorry.
PS my favorite things I learned in this class:
-you can, technically, be accused of plagiarizing yourself. You can be punished for this under university rules.
-I hate intellectual property law. goddamn. I know it's hip to hate it and all, but I used to be ambivalent. Jeez, people!
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-you can, technically, be accused of plagiarizing yourself. You can be punished for this under university rules.
I think you just broke me. I can't wrap my mind around this concept.
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I think you just broke me. I can't wrap my mind around this concept.
I think I can explain it. Basically, in this context, "plagiarizing yourself" means doing what many college-age smartasses have done once or twice: getting a relatively open-ended essay prompt, saying "hey, I wrote something like this in high school/for 101/last semester!", and then copying big chunks out of that previous work for the "new" paper (or just handing in the old paper as new). While this is arguably a legal use of their intellectual property, it is also immensely academically dishonest and circumvents actually doing the work assigned to you, which is why colleges don't want you to do it.
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yeah. I mean, I can deal with being told that it's "cheating." But being told that it's plagiarism... made me want to bring on the Hate.
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I am trying to figure out if this would be plagiarism in real life. I don't think so. I published a dissertation, and then I published a journal article about the same exact stuff. I think more than one article, in fact - basically two different chunks of the dissertation. And this was a totally normal thing to do - no one would have said I was plagiarizing myself. How is this different from reusing parts of an old term paper if your professor is too lazy to come up with a specific enough topic that you are forced to do new work?
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I think you just broke me. I can't wrap my mind around this concept.
This is an issue in a lot of workshops - people turning in the same work to different workshops - and it's a cardinal no-no.
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I am trying to figure out if this would be plagiarism in real life. I don't think so. I published a dissertation, and then I published a journal article about the same exact stuff. I think more than one article, in fact - basically two different chunks of the dissertation. And this was a totally normal thing to do - no one would have said I was plagiarizing myself. How is this different from reusing parts of an old term paper if your professor is too lazy to come up with a specific enough topic that you are forced to do new work?
Because the point of academic assignments as a student is to do new work to represent new learning, while as a professional publishing old results in new formats is perfectly legitimate? Like I said, this isn't an intellectual-property issue, it's an academic dishonesty issue.
(Sorry -- I grew up in a household where it was taught that academic dishonesty is Simply Not Done. I think that my dad would take my getting addicted to heroin and convicted of grand theft auto with some sanguineness, but if I turned in an old paper for a new assignment, I would never be allowed to enter the house again.)
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But if the point of school is to teach you how to do life, in life, as my example shows, it's important to recognize when old work can be repurposed. In real life there's no point in reinventing the wheel all the time. Why isn't it just as legitimate for a student to actually use something they learned in a previous class? Don't we teach in the hope that what we teach is not immediately forgotten, but might actually be useful in the future?
You know I think part of the reason I don't get it is that I am unable to put myself in the place of a teacher who gets such work. I never assigned the kind of work where that kind of copying was possible. You couldn't get the answer to a novel problem set that I made up by looking through your previous term papers. The only class where I ever assigned a term paper, it actually would have been acceptable if part of that paper was essentially "Hey, I realized that this thing I wrote about in this previous class is relevant to this subject in this way."
I honestly still don't get why it's dishonesty. What I asked for was that a student's work was theirs and not someone else's. It never occurred to me to require that they'd never done anything like it before, but like I said, that pretty much went without saying in my classes so it's hard for me to judge.
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yeah. I mean... copying off someone else's paper is cheating. Copying off your own paper?
If you paraphrase, do you have to cite yourself? What?
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It's not intellectually dishonest to reuse a paper you've written previously. If the point of the class is to teach a concept and you've written a paper that demonstrates that you understand the concept you have lived up to your end of the bargain. It shouldn't matter when that paper was written, it's still your work. Maybe the student should have a beef with a university instructor who is teaching you shit you learned in high school.
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The problem is that many degrees don't teach concepts, only ways to think and how to write. Practicing writing is probably the best way to get better at it and you are not thinking if you are doing this. It is definitely not intellectual dishonest (imo, obviously), but it also isn't what the University wants you to do.
As wombat said, any decent history (in my case) professor will make their essays so specific that it is impossible to do. However, if you have a class like that, then have a shitty teacher that assigns a free pick topic or an overview type paper, you can basically use the previous paper.
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except, if they somehow figure you out, you are fucked.
we got into a big argument over this in my writing class... and then finally this bitchy but correct girl said "guys, shut the hell up. if you feel that strongly about it, reuse a paper. I don't really care if you get caught and get an F in the class."
Basically... I do not understand the composition of this class. The vast majority of people in my classes, on my floor, and basically in any situation at this school where I have met people have been nice, intelligent, wonderful individuals. And yet, I hate the people in my writing class so much that I can barely restrain myself sometimes.
ignore this rant, I just need to type this shit out:
[cast of characters: new york guy who thinks it is really cool to be a dick to the poor well-meaning grad student who is teaching this class, really pretty stuck-up israeli girl, spacey girl who maybe dropped the class, jock fratboy with a beard which he keeps trimming in ugly and hilarious ways, drama-major who has a black boyfriend and do you have a problem with that you probably do, oh my god my parents are so racist they hate that I'm dating a black man and you probably do too, did you know that i'm a double major in drama and african studies, and did you know that I'm a vegetarian... et al.]
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Just let it all out inev, let it all out and let the healing begin.
I'm torn on the self-plagiarism issue. On the one hand referring to previous work is logical and should be acceptable. On the other hand I've known people who have subtly altered a previous assignment so it is acceptable in a new context. There's no net benefit here since no new work is done and it's fairly debatable whether they actually do understand the new concept, they just understand that their previous work is close enough.
Wombat: I'd argue your dissertation example doesn't quite fit since a dissertation and a published article have different audiences. You wouldn't publish the same paper twice in different journals. Or at least I don't think you should, I've noticed some people have other views on this matter.
But as has already been said in a good assignment this shouldn't be possible.
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I'm torn on the self-plagiarism issue. On the one hand referring to previous work is logical and should be acceptable. On the other hand I've known people who have subtly altered a previous assignment so it is acceptable in a new context. There's no net benefit here since no new work is done and it's fairly debatable whether they actually do understand the new concept, they just understand that their previous work is close enough.
Yeah. Obviously there is a burden on the professor to make assignments that are specific and relevant, but every time I've seen this little trick pulled, it's always been on this sort of "I'll nudge the paper in a couple of ways even though I know it's not really adequate" half-assery. It's disrespectful in the same way that packaging up a part of your dissertation for a journal on an entirely unrelated topic would be -- that kind of "oh, you want work in X? Well, I've got something about Y which I could edit to contain two contextless references to X; is that okay?" way.
And yes, in the end, it kind of comes down to whether you want to turn in recycled work and run the risk of failing if you get caught. Whatever floats your boat, in the end.
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I had two classes that both included Sylvia Plath's Bell Jar. The essay topics were almost identical, and I barely changed the paper on the second go to include a few new reflections upon class content. I didn't even vaguely consider this to be a moral connundrum, or even really register it as being inappropriate. I just thought I was lucky to have the opportunity to write one less paper.