Sally Mann's photos

Acutally, I think Mann's photographs of her children are interesting to me. In these photos, I like the facial expressioin of her children; they are very natural and not weird. Mann combine her children and the background in a natural way. Besides, although her children are naked in these photos, her photos are always presented as black-and-white photos. Therefore, I think they do not give us any sexualized and sensual feeling. She expresses her emotions to her children and records their childhood by these images. Moreover, I don't think she tries to provoke audiences because I believe that she just takes these pictures to show her art attitude in a different view.

However, some people might not accept her photos with naked children. In my opinion, it is not fair for her. There are a lot of artists in the world, and they use all kinds of angles to express their ideas to invent their works of art. Maybe, some of them violate the normal boundaries of social taboos. I think that is their freedom. We should try to accept and not critcize for them.

The feeling of my first seminar presentation

I am glad to have such a nice experience to do my first presentation. First of all, I think beginning is always the hardest part in our presentation. In fact, we could not decide everything quickly, so we need to discuss our idea repeatedly. However, communication is very important way to learn and share opinion each other. Moreover, we can practice our English in our process!

By the way, I was a little worried about finishing our all papers when we talked about "like a prayer" on time because we only discussed and not begin to assign every work to do in our group. Finally, we summarized most ideas, then, I started to design the powerpoint. I really like it! Therefore, I found some picture in the Internet, and I used photoshop7 to modify and design the background. I hope everyone like the picture.

In the presentation, I am still a little nervous, so I am going to try relaxing in the next presentation.

Therefore, I like Jamie's singing in the class, it is very brave and funny. That indeed need the courage, haha.

Our topic is about Madonna. When I meet Madonna, I would prefer to ask her how she has so many ideas to invet in her music? That is very cool and interesting.

Madonna-The Fashionable Queen

In my opinion, Madonna is a controversial superstar. Her special behavior,dating some well-known people or kissing women, always attract eyes of the public. Some parents believe that she has a bad influence on their children, but others people still think she is a cool woman now. Although she has a controversial behavior, I think that she wants to show her real ideas and life. Moreover, she haven't cared about any impression in the public, and she just do herself. She is also smart, and she has a shrewd sensitivity in the fashion field. Therefor, we could see that she alwasy wears gorgeous, special , and fasionable clothes. Besides, in the past disco are very popular in the age of 60s and 70s, so we can find some electronic elements and strong disco style in her music. Different ages reflect different music from beginning to end. That is why she could keep people fascinated all the time. In fact, she is the queen of pop songs, and we all know about it. Her life has already become a part of music!

Madonna - Vogue, live

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=inBMxTa9qeQ

Blues must be blue?

Son House

Robert Johnson

5.

In my opinion, different age always has styles of song in proportion to it. Black men were treated as slaves. They wanted to release their pressure psychologically and reduced the pain, so they tried to song these music when they are in leisure time. Blues are developed from these songs. Blues has a special mode, I mean, its style include calling and responsing. As a result, when I heard blues, I would feel sad and helpless. However, blues could give me another feeing later, so blues seemed to soothe my mood in the same time. Therefore, I think blues can reflect with the background of history. Moreover, the melody and the lyrics always tell some sad stories, but they also want people to have a dream or hope in the future.

6.

The blues are usually sad. These contents of lyrics have a relation with the darkness for people in life. For example, these lyrics tell that peole are hard in their life, people lose their love, and so on. When we hear some of them, we will feel sad. However, some melody are not so blue to make us feel unhappy, they sometimes are very brisk. I think they just hope people never to give up.

My Boston life

My name is Joe from Taiwan. I have come to Boston about two weeks. In my opinion, everything is interesting to me in America, especially I like snow. As a result, I am curious why people don't play snowball in Boston. It is the first time that I go to America, and I would like to go everywhere. I usually go to some places near my appartment besides studying Englsih. For instance, I usually go to some shopping malls to find food, clothes, slippers and so on.

I like to play basketball with friends, but I don't find any basketball courts near my appartment, so who can tell me where I could play basketball with other persons in Allston? By the way, I think that Boston is a beautiful city, but it is a little cold. I prefer to stay in a warm weather with breeze. Besides, I like to make friends, and I have met some interesting friends here. That is wonderful.

What are my goals for the future? At present, I want to finish my ESL program in UMASS, and I will apply for my graduate school program in marketing. I prefer to major Fashion Merchandising in AAU in San Francisco. Therefore, I really hope all of us could learn a lot in UMASS Boston.