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You shouldn’t get caught in what I like to think of as an identity loop. The constant questioning of who you are. There are so many factors that play in to a persons identity today that its easy to forget who you are.
For me, identity has always been a tough issue. I never really had a role model or support system to help me develop that. I don’t blame people; I am a tough person to understand because I’m very introverted. I have always sort of felt like the elephant in the room. The kid no one really knew how to approach so they would rather just not. That angered me a lot as a kid.
Yep, that was and at the age of 23 still is me. I feel like I have only begun to scratch the surface of who I am. In younger years I would have defined my identity as the result of what others thought of me based on their first impression of me. The me that I wanted to be. At least I am finally past that stage. There is a lot still missing, a lot that I still want to discover about myself. For now I define identity in the simplest way I can, as the factors that have helped compose my being today i.e. cultural learned behaviors, values, and beliefs.
I think in terms of defining your own identity this is a great starting point. You have to be able to know where you are coming from in order to get somewhere new. Everyone’s goal should be to eventually be able to define themselves in a way other than what was expected by others; it’s called human progress. But I guess you just have to realize this really early on.
In other words, try not to be this guy.
I would like to apologize for some of the writing mistakes I made in an earlier blog about what to watch in theaters on Christmas Day. First off, the tone I took in the paragraph about The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo was completely off. I wrote it in the same light hearted “entertainmenty” tone of voice that you would a comedy. If I would have actually read the book or researched it I would have known that its content is very dark in nature. It deals with topics like homicide and rape. It’s main character Lisbeth is actually a rape victim herself. Also, I included the link to H&M’s line of clothing in a cynical light simply because I thought it was ridiculous that the retailer would do that. It’s even more ridiculous now that I know a little bit about Lisbeth’s story. The whole paragraph was poorly written and I apologize if it offended anyone.
The other big mistake that I made was in the paragraph about Pariah. The line “The irony of her name might help him along with that” was a little uncalled for. It was also completely inaccurate since I ended up watching it with my good friend last weekend and it is pronounced Ah-Lee- Kay.
I’m glad that I chose the movie as my first choice though. It portrays a time in a young girl’s life when her family is falling apart solely because of her sexual identity. The beauty comes in the line that she speaks out of one of her poems, “I am broken, I am broken open, breaking is freeing, broken is freedom, I am not broken, I am free.”
Lastly, the movie Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close barely opened in theaters today. The Iron Lady opened on January 13 and Pariah opened the week of January 1st.
Apple made an announcement today about a new way to get your textbooks for school. The company introduced iBooks 2 with interactive digital textbooks among other updated applications. These aren’t your average digital textbooks; they are fully interactive ones that provide content of all types at the touch of a fingertip. You can check out just how immersing these new textbooks are on the company’s demo clip. Digital textbooks give students the convenience of easy storage and portability among others. The use of digital textbooks may become more common given the new option to rent them digitally at a fraction of the regular cost.
Apple’s iBooks 2 application isn’t the only one that gives users the option to download textbooks straight to their tablet or computer. They can also be purchased through online retailers for Kindle, which allows the PC user the same option.
Students can get access online to certain textbooks at greatly discounted prices using Kindle. Textbooks that normally cost as much as $100 can be rented for $36 saving the user not only time spent waiting for used books in the mail or in bookstores but also having to return the books for a buyback price ridiculously lower than what they paid for.
The actual process of setting up Kindle on your computer is fairly simple. After you have installed Kindle software, you are all set. Using it on a PC allows you to do anything you would with a physical copy of a book and more. Taking notes, highlighting and adjusting the display settings are some of its most basic features. If you shop Amazon.com you can log in search for the textbook you are looking for and instead of adding it to your cart just hit the “get Kindle edition here” option.
Although it’s definitely not as hi-tech as iBooks 2, it is light years ahead of having to go through bookstores at the expense of your bank account. If you have access to a computer at home, try renting your books online instead of using websites like Chegg.com or others. That way you won’t have to skimp out on books you need for classes even if you may think you don’t need them.
Little Latin Boy 