The honest truth is that I am writing this blog late at night. It was something I thought I could hold off to do until the night before. I guess the long text kind of suprised me. I didn’t read the whole thing. These are things that caught my eye and my attention.

• The recognition that there is a problem in speaking for others has followed from the widespread acceptance of two claims. First, there has been a growing awareness that where one speaks from affects both the meaning and truth of what one says, and thus that one cannot assume an ability to transcend her location.
• It is interesting to think that from where we speak changes how one can take what we say.
• The second claim holds that not only is location epistemically salient, but certain privileged locations are discursively dangerous.⁵ In particular, the practice of privileged persons speaking for or on behalf of less privileged persons has actually resulted (in many cases) in increasing or reenforcing the oppression of the group spoken for.
• This made me think of this question: Some are not able to speak for themselves for whatever reasons, is it not better to have someone speak rather than no one?
• In particular, is it ever valid to speak for others who are unlike me or who are less privileged than me?
• We might try to delimit this problem as only arising when a more privileged person speaks for a less privileged one. In this case, we might say that I should only speak for groups of which I am a member. But this does not tell us how groups themselves should be delimited. For example, can a white woman speak for all women simply by virtue of being a woman? If not, how narrowly should we draw the categories?
• Adopting the position that one should only speak for oneself raises similarly difficult questions. If I don’t speak for those less privileged than myself, am I abandoning my political responsibility to speak out against oppression, a responsibility incurred by the very fact of my privilege? If I should not speak for others, should I restrict myself to following their lead uncritically? Is my greatest contribution to move over and get out of the way? And if so, what is the best way to do this—to keep silent or to deconstruct my own discourse?

This made me think. Service is like speaking for others…Its a question of should we speak, should we serve, and no matter what we do what are the costs of us speaking for others or serving others. What cost are there if no one speaks for the unspoken for. It seems like these two subjects have such a wide spectrum of doing good on the far side and yet on the other side their is harm. Many wouldn’t think that we could harm someone from helping. Helping has a positive connotation. But in service cases it can have a negative connotation that is rather unrealized or unknown to those who serve.

This ties into our service learning i believe mostly at the end when we have projects like PSA. Who are we to speak for them when we are just outsiders. Her article I find useful if not just that it opens you mind up, it makes you think. I am thinking more about the connection between speech and service. How to two go hand in hand. Also its made me think more just about the effects of speaking for others. is it good, is it bad, should we or should we not?

Colleen, Lynn Leigh, and Casey

Service: to supply a person with something.

“I want us to talk about why, in the context of conflicting interests and the historical dominance of one racial or gender group over another, it is possible that ’service,’ in and of itself, can have racist or sexist outcomes despite good intentions. For example, I resist the notion of service learning for U.S. students in the Philippines, my country of origin, because I think it perpetuates a ‘colonial mentality’ among Filipinos and a kind of ‘manifest destiny’ amoung U.S. students. To my way of thinking, the results of the history of U.S. dominance in the Philippines is so overwhelming that it is almost impossible for a U.S. student doing what is regarded on both sides as ’service’ not to deliver a message of superiority.”

How does the notion of modern Americans supplying less wealthy countries with goods and services effect the people being serviced; what are the racial and cultural ramifications?

Americans often do without thinking causing harm to others unintentionally. It is important for Americans to be more aware of what effect they have on the people they are “serving” and how these people view them as a result of their actions.

Another question we could be asking is “do the people Americans provide services to really want our ‘help?”‘ It is hard as Americans to really know the impact we have on others. As Americans we seem to have a mindset that since we have a more developed country (often viewed by Americans as the best country), that it is our duty to help those we percieve to be less fortunate, regardless of whether our help has been asked for or not.

Hopefully our question will lead American service learners in foreign countries, or in any cultural setting different from their own, to stop and think about the effects of their service, and whether it is really needed/desired, and possibly even humble them a little.

Service: to supply a person with something.

“I want us to talk about why, in the context of conflicting interests and the historical dominance of one racial or gender group over another, it is possible that ‘service,’ in and of itself, can have racist or sexist outcomes despite good intentions.  For example, I resist the notion of service learning for U.S. students in the Philippines, my country of origin, because I think it perpetuates a ‘colonial mentality’ among Filipinos and a kind of ‘manifest destiny’ amoung U.S. students.  To my way of thinking, the results of the history of U.S. dominance in the Philippines is so overwhelming that it is almost impossible for a U.S. student doing what is regarded on both sides as ‘service’ not to deliver a message of superiority.”

This quote is taken out of A Challenge to the Notion of Service by Nadinne Cruz.  It occurs in the middle of her three page article.  It funtions her to show how one persons thought of service and doing good can really have a negative effect then the intended one.  One may go into service with the thought of having a positive influence or doing something that makes them feel good and as if they’ve done something for someone.  Yet through the ripple effect their so called good intentions can create a bad and negative effect on the people or service they have done.  Is service really that benefical in this case?  Can someone service someone without any negative effects?

In Sarah Kozloff’s text she explains the details, thought, and process of voiceover narration. Exactly how voiceover works and how it is more of an art in cinema than just a narration. The other text disagrees. It considers voiceover the least cinematic thing in movies. It states anyone can do voiceover. It’s really nothing. I think Sarah feels the need to support voiceover because she is adimate about how it adds to movies. She kind of explains it first and builds up to explain its importance and help in cinema. I have heard voice over but like she mentioned in the text we often don’t think of it. I’ve listened to seabiscuit, christmas story, the war and i can’t think of anyone else. Those are about the only ones and I really dont pay attention to it in movies.

At first when reading acoustic cyberspace I find myself extremely confused and bored.  My mind seems to wander.  I guess it is because I don’t understand what he is saying.  The wording and the overall point of the text is uncomprehendable to me and hard to read and finish the point of what he is trying to get across.  I feel that if he had written it in laymens(dont know how to spell that) terms I would at least get the point of what he was saying.  Through all that I picked this quote from his text.  “Through resonance in a physical system, a small activity or event can gain a great deal of energy; for example, if I belted out a pitch that resonated with the unique acoustic characteristics of this room, the energy of my voice would be amplified by the environment. That’s why some singers can shatter a glass with their voice: they hit the resonant frequency of the glass (which is a space and contains a space), making it vibrate to the point of shattering. Resonance is a very powerful analogy for understanding how various types of energies and spaces operate.” I chose this quote because it’s really the only thing I really understood and could relate to in the text I managed to read.  It seems to be saying that even small things can have a broader and greater effect.  His word choice is definately understandable to me.  This relates to how sound can be magnified even in a room.  Also how sound at a certin resonant frequency can shatter a glass simply through singing.

Ahoy, Mateys!! My name is Megan Nordstrom and welcome to the tropical oasis of my EnglishI2I Portfolio at the University of Washington. Climb aboard with the crew at our pirate EnglishI2ISLAND and feel free to browse the extraordinary cabin features you find on the port side of the page. “  I chose this quote because I think it’s a great hook, grabber, to pull you into the text that may otherwise be boring and dull.  Who wants to hear about the class in a boring way…like this is what you will be doing….and this……and this…..funstuff….I think not.  Her intro to the class just grabs you and it keeps you long enough to get to the less boring stuff and eventually the end.  The tone is upbeat and excited.  She used a cool comparison with the pirate island and the ship to introduce us.  This can relate to how sounds and the way we preceive words can change how we feel based on the tone and the words used.  Like in this quote it made me feel upbeat and happy.

I participated in the Santa Claus breakfast through school.  It took place at our local park called “Carrie Blake Park.”  It is an annual event and I participated in it two years.  I believe it was during my sophomore and junior year in high school but I maybe mistaken.  We could do several different things that ranged from holding the door open, placing people at tables to eat, serving juice and coffee, and what I did was taking peoples tickets, ordering their food, and picking it up and taking it to them. 

I actually really liked doing this.  It was fun for me because of the hussle and bussle.  You were constantly working, trying to get peoples coupons as soon as possible and making sure they received their food once it was done.  I guess the part I enjoyed the most was the work, being a waitress for a day, and of course we got free breakfast and honor society hours which we all need 10 of per semester.

I don’t think that service will really help me very much in this coming service.  The two services are so broad and different from eachother.  You are serving in both but in different ways.  In my first one it was more of a fast pace service.  It wasn’t really important that you talked or got to know the people you were serving but rather to get them their food so that they had a pleasent experience.  In this upcoming service it’s more about quality rather than quanity like in the other case.  You are to be more focused on the people you are working with.  Rather than serving them food your serving them with your time.

After reading this audiography, I cannot fully understand how they ordered their playlist, rather I can conclude these sounds occur over their lifetime thus far. Maybe at first this person wasn’t living where they are now and during their lifetime they travelled to where they are now. I can’t get the rationale but I do like how the audiography starts and ends in the same sound, “waves washing up onto rocks.”
This person seems to have a lot of sounds from all over the spectrum. They go from traditional chinese music to Linkin Park. They talk about a car’s engine and billard balls hitting eachother. I really can’t think of any other sounds to throw into the mix because this person seems to have such a broad spectrum of sounds.
I will assume that this person maybe of chinese disent. They are into outdoors activites. Music is a reoccuring theme in this persons life. Something about the waves has to do with them, maybe where they live, but it seems a reoccuring theme for their life…