Finals on Lit. of Horror, Fantasy and Sci-Fi

I enjoy this class a lot, not only being of what the course was about, but being of the professor teaching it and his ways of teaching. This semester of being apart of this interesting class has helped me better understand the realms of the three specific genres.
Not being a big fan of Horror I definitely learned a lot about the background of the genre and what makes a story fall under the horror genre. It's not very hard to figure out what's horror and what isn't, but I think the strategy of giving us movie and book examples really help me better understand what goes where on the horror chart. I'm still not a big fan of horror, but I do really enjoy those jump scares.
Fantasy was something I was really looking forward to, because I saw on the schedule what we were going to be talking about. Lets just say I'm a huge Harry Potter and Lord of the Rings nerd and when I talk about them, I talk about them. I love the whole fantasy outlook that people have, because you have such a free range of stuff you can create with your mind. Which is why Fantasy was my personal favorite genre to discuss during this course. However, away from Harry Potter and The Hobbit I also learned a lot of different types of fantasy that's out there and how very different they are in what they discuss and characteristics about them.
Sci-Fi was my second favorite topic to discuss because who doesn't like talking about cool future stuff and Star Wars? However, away from that I, as like the rest of the genres, learned a lot about this genre. Besides Star Wars I don't really watch a lot of Sci-Fi movies, unless there of the SyFy channel then I'll watch them. I did learn a lot thought about this specific genre and what different people consider Sci-Fi and how they put their own little twist on certain stuff.
David taught this course very well and I'm very glad I took it and didn't skip past it. I learned a lot about genres I thought I already knew quite a bit about. I also enjoyed David's way of teaching, I discussed it with him and I thought it was such as great and interesting way to teach a class and keep them engaged with what you're teaching.

The Future

When I was younger I wanted to be a veterinarian (as kids normally do), that's it, that's what I wanted to be. I loved animals of all kinds, but tolerated the bugs, amphibians and such so what better thing to do than to help them myself! Great idea huh? Well later on I realized what veterinarians actually did, other that being around animals, loving them and caring for them. The caring part it where I didn't imagine as much, by that I mean I didn't think they had to cut them to see inside or deal with their blood or any kinds of that matter. Being the last one on earth to want to open up a dog regardless of if I'd help them or not I retreated back to the drawing board on what I wanted to do for the rest of my life. Eventually transitioning from middle school to high school I realized that I enjoy taking photos, I loved cameras as well. After shooting some interesting photos with my low quality phone camera I came to a conclusion on what I wanted to do for a life to come. Photography was dead bolted in my mind as a career and there was no stopping it no matter how many people said I should just do it as a hobby because there's no money for it. My senior year of high school I applied to in my opinion the greatest art school ever, Ringling College of Art and Design. After what seemed like forever of waiting, I finally got an acceptance letter. A couple year forward and I am currently a Sophomore at the greatest art school ever.

So my dreams for the future are pretty high taken Ringling has a very high rate of students getting jobs when they graduate. I'm not sure what I want to do specifically for a career, but I know photography will be apart of it. I'm nervous for the near near future of being an almost college graduate. Not only because that means I have to start paying my student loans, but because I know that being a true true adult is near for me. I hope to accomplish a lot in terms of my photography these next couple years of college I have. Ringling will make sure I get some job in the end of my years of being at this school and I'm semi ready for that. Excited, nervous and wanting to cry a bit is how I feel about my future of being a photographer.

Satire and Sci-Fi Response

Without even reading about it, I watched Idiocracy for this theme before class. I think it hit the nail right on the head on where we as a state are coming to in the now near future. The whole thought of having food that's given to you by a machine and in the end gives you nothing, having a toilet as your sitting chair, being completely oblivious to the obvious and so much more is what we have to look forward to in this future of ours. We're getting stupider by the second with little things here and there that come into trend now. I noticed that during the movie there was one thing that they still didn't have that we've been wanting since Back to the Future came out. That one thing was flying vehicles and boards, which is pretty sad considering all this time has gone by and there's absolutely nothing that's happened in terms of technology growth. Technology is what people today have been wanting to improve for a long time now, so it's kind of a thought to look upon. Will we ever create the things we've wanted since the beginning into a reality, and improve our living situations so we don't end up like this movie or will we just continue to drive in a circle and do nothing about it? I truly believe that if we keep up this nonsense we call "improving our living", we're going to be a bunch of idiots just like in Idiocracy.

Literary Speculation Response

I ended up reading all of the  Cosmicomics readings instead of just reading the one that was requested. However, I believe these stories are all bizarre in a very interesting way. There is this whole idea of something we wouldn't think of being possible to live in and then they make it a reality in these stories. It's a sense of just accepting a sense of story telling that we just kind of accept? I do think that these stories are very out of the zone of story telling as well. By that I mean it's something that way out there that is awesome! Now I'm not speaking of just one specific story in Cosmiconics, I'm talking about all of them from "The Distance to the Moon" to "The Spiral". They're all a sense of where you have to think that "is this possible" and "if it did happen would that actually happen?".
I think it's cool and fascinating to not have a specific genre to your story or stories. A sense of imagination and "suspense" is what they leave you with. Also I think there's a hit of "rebelion" in this no genre thing, because it's like a new era of stories to not have a genre.

Diverse Position Science Fiction Response (BloodChild Response)

1.) What is your reaction to the text we just read?

I think the whole story was both interesting and odd, interesting because of the context and the subject matter and odd because of the way it was written. Talking about the idea of human and a type of other being which is alway interesting in stories. I think that is why I was interested in this story, because of the other being ideas. Also I got a sense of diversity or "racism" (probably too harsh of a word), but it shows different sides and the "battles" of them as well.

2.) What connections did you make with the story? Discuss the elements of the story with which you were able to connect.

Something I enjoy about stories is being able to connect to it, but I think that's what makes a good story as well. Connection wise with this story, I think the sense of emotion that the main character feels I suppose is what I connect to. I think Octavia Butler did a very good job at building up the emotion and getting the reader to connect and grow with it as well. Which is kind of where I connect to it, I feel like my emotions grew with the story as I kept reading.

3.) What changes would you make to adapt this story into another medium? What medium would you use? What changes would you make?

Since I'm very bias about photography, since I am a photography major. I this that making this story into a series of photographs would be really cool. Possibly not using all of the elements used, but using a lot of them, just ones that go with the specific subject. I'd probably want to use the existing characters, for example Gan and T'Gatoi for one of them. I want to focus on both side of the story, now just one of them. However, I'd want a consistent subject matter as well so it doesn't look like a bunch of mixed up images. 

Cyberpunk and Steampunk Response

I never really knew what Cyberpunk actually was until we really discussed it in class. However, now I understand the term and genre a lot better now. I think the whole Cyberpunk is some type of reality for the world today in a way. This type of genre reminds me of what our world it going into for the future. For example in Cyberpunk movies, shows or books there's always a sense of dirty or gritty atmosphere. The streets always seem dirty with trash or muck which is how our world is today and seems to be getting worse over time. Another example is the technology used by people in the area. It all seems so futuristic and new such like our technology and what we are designing for the future. When looking and reading this type of genre you notice the setting takes place in a very rural area such as cities like New York City. There are big neon electronic billboards everywhere that light up the city so much there is no need for street lights. So there's a lot of reality for us today in these Cyberpunk movies and books.

I believe the older Cyberpunk movies and books had the same characteristics, but the audience was very different that today's Cyberpunk audience. In older Cyberpunk everyone was so amazed with the technology used and setting, so everyone wanted and couldn't wait for the future. Now we look at them and it's almost a sense of reality for us, not everything seen of course, but most of it. Which if you ask me is pretty sad, because some of the Cyberpunk settings aren't very nice.

The Fiction of Ideas Response

This weeks readings and subject was really interesting in many different ways. I really enjoy reading books and looking videos/movies that deal with mind experiments and outcomes to those experiments. A lot of what I've read and seen deal with things such like the movie we saw "A Scanner Darkly" by Richard Linklater. The subject of drugs and what drugs can do, following some type of law that is involved. However that is not what Accelerando by Charles Stross, the reading I read for this week  was about, it was something I'm not really interested in, but still fascinated me at the same time. 

Now Accelerando was very interesting, not only because I'm not interested in this subject and it again interested me in the end. But because of the fact that it was something people have discussed, but this was discussed differently. The world basically ended, humanity had been wiped out and there is this virus. Here I think is something everyone's always wondered when talking about an apocalypse. Whether did man make this end of the world or is the world just done with our shit? I too have these thought every once in a while. And this is where the thought of what IF man actually made this happen? Which is what the mind experiment come into play with this reading and topic. People and I believe that somewhere in this hidden underground cave government scientists are creating this virus or have created a virus where these "zombie" like people come to life and now they're trying to fix everything, but somehow can't and all hell breaks loose. 

Either way, I don't think man is smart enough to experiment our own ideas, especially with drugs or viruses. I understand that they're trying to help us, but there's just a point where you just need to think of what could happen long term. For example if we make this killing virus what if it explodes or escapes and gets into the air and everyone dies? Whatever it may be I don't think we think before anything. Which is why the topic of mind experiments come into play.