The Abomidable J-A-Z.....Z

Sooo...

I'm about to finish my 2nd semester of college. It's been A LOT of fun and I LOVE my art class!

In Art 201 (DRAWING), our first mid-term project was a pencil drawing. I drew a woman standing in a cemetary and the teacher liked it so much she chose it to go in her class' display. How cool is that?!! Now, when you walk down the DaVinci Hall at LACC, you see my picture! w00t!

Our second project was an ink cross-hatching portrait and I did my friend, Emerald's, portrait. It came out so cool! I'm going to give it to her as a gift when I get it back from my teacher. I hope she displays it...just because I think it's awesome and feel particularly prideful when I think about it.

The only class I'm not doing too great in is Economics001 because it's A LOT harder than I thought... No matter how much I study, I always get all those stupid little terms mixed up AND the class is SOOOO boring, I keep dozing off.

Oh, well... Maybe I'll get lucky and pass with a C-...when hell freezes over.

NE-Wayz..

I know I have posted pictures of my hair in awhile (I beleive, the last colors you saw were the Christmas ones...), so here they are (because you know they're NIFTY)!!!


*After my X-MAS colors I got Pink, Black, and White. Originally, I wanted Black and Magenta or Black and Turquoise, but the place I went to get braiding hair barely had ANY colorful synthetic hair... The chic helping me was showing me all this CRAP, so eventually I got tired of being there and just took what was lying on the counter.



It didn't come out that bad, but I was glad when I finally took them out because the white was getting ugly and the pink was getting on my nerves. (Also, I had them in for almost 3 months because I didn't have the money to get them redone, and when I did, I spent the $$$ on concert tickets..... I regret nothing!)



*NOW they are black, red, and grey. These are THE COOLEST colors I've EVER put in my hair (other than purple)! The BEST part about it, is that the braids now match ALL of my clothes (becuase a vast majority of them are balck and/or red), so everytime I walk out of the room, I'm UBER color-coordinated!!!

Stoopid Inglish EssAye!

So, today my teacher is going to give me my essay back... I'm worried about what he'll have to say because I wasn't happy with what I gave him.

For the essay, I had to pick between and exerpt from Noam Chomsky's book, Failed States, and Boot's (I don't know his first name) article Are we the Mongols of the Information Age? and argue AGAINST it. Since I agreed with a lot of what Noam Chomsky said in his book, I figured it would be easier to argue with Boot...but, it wasn't.

The hardest part was finding the proof I needed to "discredit" what Boot said... I would find something and write it out, but I would later find MORE proof that he was actually RIGHT... It was REALLY, REALLY FRUSTRATING, especially since I couldn't just say in my essay, "You know, this Boot guy has a point!" *Sigh* HOW AM I SUPPOSED TO ARGUE WITH SOMETHING I DON'T DISAGREE WITH?!!

My end result was an essay that I'm not AT ALL happy with... I know for a fact that if it were anything BUT politics I would have owned it, but fate was not so kind... Even now (as I skim through it) I see faults in my statements and it's frustrating.

I'm going to post it here, so I can get your opinions on it. It has to do with Military , so Dave's input would be especially appreciated... I'll let Adrian tear it appart, too, 'cause God knows he pays more attention t politics and worls issues than I do... GAH!

I JUST WANT TO STUDY SHAKESPEARE!!!!!

Jazzmin Wilson
English 101/JH 107
Essay #1
Jan. 3rd, 2007

In paragraph 2 of his article “Are we the Mongols of the information age?” Boot stated, “Over the last 500 years, the fate of nations has been increasingly tied to their success, or lack thereof, in harnessing revolutions in military affairs.” From there, Boot goes on to describe how the Mongols once had the strongest military until the “Gunpowder Revolution” and Europe became the strongest, until the second Industrial Revolution, etc. The fact that Boot believes a nation’s success depends on their military power and technology seems childish to me. It’s like he’s saying; “Only the biggest, toughest kid can rule the playground.” However, I believe that the fate of nations’ is not solely dependent on “harnessing revolutions in military affairs” because there have been victories and revolutions of many kinds and military technology rarely had anything to do with it.

In paragraph 3, Boot states that, “Until the 15th century, the mightiest military forces belonged to the Mongols. But strong as they were in the days of bows and arrows, the Mongols could not keep pace with the spread of gunpowder weapons and the centralized governments that used them.” Though the Mongols were a strong military force, the “Gunpowder Revolution” is not entirely what led to them being conquered. Genghis Khan’s death is a known to be a main cause in dividing the Mongolian tribes, and there were many other actions that lessened their power. Some of the Mongolians converted to Buddhism in the 17th century and other tribes became power hungry and fought amongst each other. Then in paragraph 13, when Boot speaks of “previous superpowers” (meaning countries, governments, etc.), Boot says that, “Their dominance lasted only until they missed a revolutionary turn in technology and tactics.” In the cases of the French Revolution and Russia’s February Revolution, government was overthrown by the people because they were unhappy with the way they were being treated. Therefore, it wasn’t a lack of technology and tactics that lead to the downfall of the Tsars of Russia (Nicholas II and Alexandra Fyodorovna). When Napoleon was in power in France, his army invaded Russia, and though Russia’s army was not as advanced, they had terrain advantage and, under the command of Mikhail Kutuzov, were able to gain the advantage and eventually defeat Napoleon and his army.

Throughout the article Boot gives examples and reasons as to why the “fate of nations” depends on updated military technology, but Boot contradicts himself in paragraph 10. He states, “…we spend more on the development and testing of new weapons than any other country spends on its entire defense. But all that spending produces weapons systems that aren’t much good for pacifying Baghdad or Kandahar. Technology isn’t irrelevant … But our enemies can stymie multi-billion dollar spy platforms by using couriers instead of satellite phones…” Boot has just admitted that enemies (or “terrorists”, because he was speaking of Osama) have been able to get past Americas oh-so advanced and expensive technology. He then goes on to talk about, in paragraph 11, how other forms of terrorist weapons can go by unnoticed. Boot explains, “Our scientific sophistication gives us a reasonable chance of shooting down a nuclear-tipped missile, but a nuclear suitcase smuggled into the U.S is harder to detect.” He, again, admits that these types of weapons are able to get passed ours. Once again, I believe that Boot’s idea of advanced weapons technology being the key to a country’s success is narrow-minded. Even in war, the armies with the bigger, badder weapons don’t always win. There are tactics to consider…not to mention, your communications (or, people you can ally yourself with) outside of the country. Boot even said in his article (paragraph 11), “To stop such stealthy threats, we need to get much better at human intelligence.” Although there are moments in time when weapons technology was crucial to a country’s survival, it has not and will not always be so. It all boils down to the intelligence of the people wielding those weapons. After all, what use is a gun if you don’t know how to use it?

Back From The Grave!!! WoOoOoOoOoOo!!!!!

HIZZAH!!! I'M BACK!!!!! (Don't pretend you're not happy about it!)

I'm even gonna put new pictures up later today because I forgot to show you my new braids! (I got Christmas colors at the beginning of December!!!)

Now that I've started college, my time at AFOC is limited... I just found out that Mrs. Brodie is out sick until February, so I have to wait 'til she gets back so she can teach me Quark...DAMNIT! That means I'm gonna be at AFOC longer than I planned... Oh well, I'll just have to set my goal for being done by March.

As for LACC, things are going pretty good so far! I've had my first essay and my first quiz already. I'm not so cinfident about my essay because it's a debate on politics (which I don't know or care anything about), but I know I did good on my Art History quiz. I also got the book for it yesturday... It's really cool! It's got all kinds of pictures and talks about the mythology that inspired the art 'n' stuff...

my plan for LACC is to accumulate (Ooooh! BIG word!) enough college credits, so that I can transfer to UCLA (or some other college...somewhere) and work on getting my BA in Graphic design. Currenlty, I'm taking English and Art History 101. When Spring semester starts, I'll be taking Art 201 & 501, Economics 1, and Theater 100.

The first few days of applying were a little hectic because I was trying to get the hang of things, but now it's all easy! I've even gone as far as to plan for my Fall semester...and since I'll be needing a foreign language (and they DON'T have German...or any other European language I WANT to take for that matter), I'll be taking Japanese...

Who knows, maybe I'll love, get GREAT at it, and MAKE EMERALD (my friend) JEALOUS!!! AR! HAR! HAR! HAR! HAR!!!!!