Unpopular Opinions

[quartz]

Footloose is cheesy and cliched, and not really a fan of the music either, but it has a lot of similarities to my own upbringing so I like it.

 

[Jay42]

Dirty Dancing is dumb and the story seemed ridiculously serious and I never liked any music from Footloose.

But...but nobody puts Baby in a corner.

 

[quartz]

I'd put all of them in the corner for boring me to death.

 

[Jay42]

I'd put all of them in the corner for boring me to death.

I've never seen Footloose, all I really know is that I really hate the song. I never got Dirty Dancing. My best friend made me watch it several times when we were living together and I never really understood why people love it so much.

 

[KikiSashaFan]

I'm late to the party, but...

- Coldplay is an awful band that sounds like an angry cat fighting with bagpipes.

- Pride and Prejudice is the most boring book ever written.

- Game of Thrones and Walking Dead are both overrated.

- Giant music festivals sound like hell on earth.

- Weddings suck.

I think that's all for now

 

[jlai]

Dirty dancing - I love the dancing at the end. The rest I can skip

 

[Tinami Amori]

Well, here's what I've come up with. When it rains, I can't use an umbrella along with holding onto the walker. I usually have to wait until it stops raining before I can go to my mailbox or to town to a grocery store. By the time I get the walker unfolded out of the car, I'm drenched and totally wet. So I have to bring along a raincoat to keep the rain off of me. It still doesn't help with my walker getting soaked.

I tried all sorts for my grand-parents..

http://www.newdisability.com/wheelchairumbrella.htm

http://www.ebay.com/itm/1-Pc-Univer...hash=item1a03b7fa26:m:mwbBQo1NRr5uY9P8y5F_SjA

This cover for person in a wheel-chair, but it can cover the human's front and arms over the walker
http://g01.a.alicdn.com/kf/HTB1Uifm...-Wheel-Chair-Rainwear-for-Wheelchair-User.jpg

These work too, to an extent.... And you can take a piece of larger clear plastic and put it on top of the umbrella with longer piece over the front.

http://www.walmart.com/ip/Red-Umbre...bcfg=ac0b8717fe5748a5810729d03cc46519&veh=cse

http://www.ebay.com/itm/New-Portabl...095802?hash=item1ead18b27a:g:7K8AAOSwZ8ZW5-HE

http://g01.a.alicdn.com/kf/HTB1kuG1...-Flying-saucer-umbrella-font-b-hat-b-font.jpg

 

[quartz]

The flying saucer things are the best!
Angie, you so need to get one of those!

 

[Simone411]

These are great! Thank you so much, @Tinami Amori for taking the time post all these links. Now I can find what works for me. It's appreciated!

 

[Simone411]

The flying saucer things are the best!
Angie, you so need to get one of those!

Totally!!! I may get that one and a couple of others, too! LOL, I'll think of Star Trek when I use the flying saucer one!

 

[gkelly]

Who watches dance movies for the plot?

 

[meggonzo]

Angie, your new avatar!

 

[snowbird]

I hate Stonehenge. The first time I saw it was 1966. I was staying at a hotel in Salisbury,it was a snowy night at dusk and was only a few miles away so I thought I'd check it out. I was the only person there,it was before they put a fence around it, before they put in a tunnel to the other side of road, and before there was a visitors' center , I thought, "Well, this is a big nothing". I've passed it many times since
then but not by choice. My opinion is, "Don't waste your time".

 

[once_upon]

Will Farrell, Adam Sandler, Jim Carrey and similar level of humor are not funny.

 

[Simone411]

Angie, your new avatar!

Thank you! I thought of using Cortana but she never understands what I ask her. She also told me that she looks like a hula hoop, a donut or a halo. At least we know Clippy looks like a paper clip.

 

[Tinami Amori]

These are great! Thank you so much, @Tinami Amori for taking the time post all these links. Now I can find what works for me. It's appreciated!

There is an umbrella on one of the fotos, which you can affix to the walker, but if there is a strong wind, you will feel it... Same for the "Martian hats", when it's windy - you feel it...

If i was picking something for you, based on what you said, i would have you consider this stuff V V V V

I also bought a Cycling Rain Cape for one of the family members with a walker; she was a very stylish woman all her life and although the design worked very well for her purposes, she chose not to ware it because she thought it made her look like a walking Camping Tent. But it worked well for others and it is not a bad idea if it works for a particular person….. even if one looks slightly "expanded in plastic".

It is called “Cycling Rain Cape”. This is what they could look like

https://www.cyclechic.co.uk/sites/d...om/images/products/cycling-rain-cape-5742.jpg

http://33.media.tumblr.com/5eb49f5c64d4afa21aa442387ffc8c3a/tumblr_inline_neml72xshI1r2v92h.jpg

All bunch are sold on Amazon and ebay
The clear ones are the best because you can see where you’re steping..

http://www.amazon.com/My-Sky-Poncho...=1461214946&sr=1-9&keywords=cycling+rain+cape

http://www.amazon.com/Outdoor®-Women-Cycling-Bicycle-Raincoat/dp/B00AJGYIR6

http://www.amazon.com/Outdoor®-Women-Raincoat-Cycling-Bicycle/dp/B00AJS6MQY/ref=sr_1_16?s=sporting-goods&ie=UTF8&qid=1461214946&sr=1-16&keywords=cycling+rain+cape

http://www.amazon.com/Women-Dark-Cycling-Bicycle-Raincoat/dp/B005X2H152

 

[nyrak]

A few things off the top of my head....

I've never seen what's funny about Jay Leno.

I've never seen a Star Wars movie & I don't intend to.

I think tattoos look trashy on girls, but kinda like them on boys.

I can't stand Oprah.

I could care less about vampires, zombies, wizards, etc.

I hate nail coloured nail polish.

 

[Japanfan]

According to whom? Were these interpretations you found on the web or what professors required the students to say in papers? What did the students think?

What do they think? Well, they don't, really, because they are ESL and don't have the comprehension needed to understand the nuances and evocations of fiction. Nor the vocabulary - it is easier for ESL students to understand/contextualize vocabulary/concepts in non-fiction disciplines.

So, my job (which as stated, I do rarely - 1 student, two classes in one year) is to help the student understand the stories in order to (hopefully) help them organize ideas for their in-class essays/exams/quizzes, which is what usually leads me to the web, because the stories usually - but not always - elude me. There is a lot of reading out loud, a simplification of concepts, and a lot of referencing the Chinese/English dictionary.

Very often I don't have much insight into the deeper meanings of a story. So I reference ideas/analyses found on the web, then expand upon them, adjust them or integrate them into an outline for an analysis - in this case, it must have been what the professor wanted, since the student did well on her quizzes and exams. (All above board in in keeping with college policy, BTW). There were 13 stories in total for this class, and for about 10 of them, I felt I was totally making it up - and the on-line analyses seemed preposterous at times.

Most, but not all, of the questions are directed at what I would call deeper meanings. For example, please explain the significance of the fugu fish in Kazuo Ishiguro's 'The Family Supper'. For your edification

seas3.elte.hu/coursematerial/.../Ishiguro,_A_Family_Supper.rtf

Maybe the answer to this question would be obvious to you as a literature professor, but I didn't find any meaning - neither superficial or hidden - in this story.

This brings me bacl to the notion of students 'relating' to a work. I come from the perspective 'if I were a teacher' teaching 'the student I tutor' - what would I do to make the class meaningful to that student and actually teach her/him something? Especially in light of the fact that I am an instructor teaching ESL students, some of whom may have already failed literature twice. And many of whom are paying international student tuition fees - in which case, failing them is a good thing.

I had inspirational lit teachers in university, and would hope there are more of the same out theretoday

 

[Karina1974]

- Weddings suck.

I can't resist...

Gogol Bordello's "American Wedding"

Saw them play live 3 weeks ago. I normally stay away from punk music, but cross punk music with gypsy music (lead singer Eugene Hutz is part Roma) and I'm game! I ended up in the front row, with crowd surfers being passed over my head. It was CRAZY, and one of the most fun times I've had in a while.

 

[Prancer]

Most, but not all, of the questions are directed at what I would call deeper meanings. For example, please explain the significance of the fugu fish in Kazuo Ishiguro's 'The Family Supper'. For your edification

seas3.elte.hu/coursematerial/.../Ishiguro,_A_Family_Supper.rtf

Not sure what that link leads to. I found the story online somewhere, however. The narrator's mother died from eating fugu fish, a traditional Japanese dish, because she was so anxious not to offend someone she barely knew, and the distant, unloving, rather death-obsessed, traditional Japanese father who takes great pride in his samurai blood and whose business partner committed seppuku (and killed his family because he was principled) serves the narrator and his sister fish at the end--fish that may or may nor be fugu fish. And both children eat the fish in spite of being leery of it because their father tells them it's just ordinary fish, the implication being that they have taken in their father's traditional Japanese poison in spite of their attempts to avoid it and will likely die a painful death from it. I would take the story as a warning of sorts--that traditional Japanese culture has poisonous elements that can destroy individuals from within and that those elements need to be recognized for what they are and rejected.

I dunno. Is that too obvious? I did only a quick and shallow reading .

Maybe the answer to this question would be obvious to you as a literature professor

I am not a literature professor; I am a writing professor who sometimes teaches literature. That's not just hair splitting; I don't have nearly as much background in lit as I do in writing theory

This brings me bacl to the notion of students 'relating' to a work. I come from the perspective 'if I were a teacher' teaching 'the student I tutor' - what would I do to make the class meaningful to that student and actually teach her/him something? Especially in light of the fact that I am an instructor teaching ESL students, some of whom may have already failed literature twice. And many of whom are paying international student tuition fees - in which case, failing them is a good thing.

Is this an ESL class? Because otherwise, if I had only "the student I tutor" to consider, then I would also think about what is meaningful to that one student--assuming, of course, that i knew the student before drawing up the syllabus and the student's needs were both known and relevant to my course requirements. But as it stands, i generally have about 20 students per class and a page of course requirements that have to be met whether that one student likes it or not. As I have pointed out before, "relevance" is subjective; what is relevant for one is not relevant for another, so even if this were a primary concern of mine, how would I know?

If it is an ESL class, then that is something different and beyond my ken. But if it is not an ESL class, then the ESL issues some students have are explicitly not my concern, as we are told that the ESL students must conform to the same curriculum as all the other students and we are not to make changes for them (although most of us do, at least to some degree).

 

[GoldenLady]

I love dandelions, especially fields full of them. Those pretty yellow flowers make me happy, especially on a sunny day.

 

[Simone411]

All bunch are sold on Amazon and ebay
The clear ones are the best because you can see where you’re steping..

I'll take your suggestion about the clear ones. I do have to look down when I'm walking with the walker to watch for obstacles like rocks or pebbles especially on the driveway. Thanks for all the links.

 

[TheGirlCanSkate]

I am having flashback to being assigned to discuss the number 3 in The Brothers Karamazov. I'm a literal person and have a hard time analyzing literature. When I pulled the number three out of the teacher's box, I read the first couple of chapters expecting a giant three to pop up like in Sesame Street. After the first semester, I dropped AP Lit and took Speech and Debate.

 

[Cachoo]

I love dandelions, especially fields full of them. Those pretty yellow flowers make me happy, especially on a sunny day.

Yes, we have learned how to tame our lawns, labeling some things good as in some "grasses" and other plants become "weeds." Sometimes I like the "weeds."

 

[Artemis@BC]

I love dandelions, especially fields full of them. Those pretty yellow flowers make me happy, especially on a sunny day.

AND they're often the first source of pollen for the bees after they wake up. No one should kill dandelions in spring.

 

[MacMadame]

I was never graded on my ability to memorize Shakespeare lines. Not even in my English classes that were more drama classes. I think I got lucky.

I don't know anyone who was graded on their ability to memorize Shakespeare's lines.

 

[Sparks]

AND they're often the first source of pollen for the bees after they wake up. No one should kill dandelions in spring.

and they attract the prettiest little finches to my yard.

 

[Rob]

Big Bang Theory (US TV show) is not funny at all.

 

[skatesindreams]

I don't find many comedians; and most situation comedies, funny.

 

[Kultakissu]

My contribution:

I don't think that being snarky/catty is "refreshing". I think it's sad and immature. I like it when people are kind, which is not the same as never criticising ever. I just like it when people are respectful when they do criticise.

I sometimes wonder if the people who keep defending shitty behavior used to stand around watching someone being bullied in high school and just thought hey, that's refreshing!