I’m a horrible dancer but listening to swing music makes me want to try and dance. The melody is so infectious and catchy that you just cant help but move your body. I don’t listen to it on my own but if I hear it being played I don’t mind it. which doesn’t really matter because its not like people are blasting swing music in their cars while driving. I did enjoy learning the history and origins of swing music. I also never noticed the quite differences in the swing beat and the whole clapping on 1 and 3 or 2 and 4. I did enjoy hear sweet child of mine as a swing song it was pretty cool.

One of my favorite things that we talked about in class was the idea of whiteness, that sounds bad I know. My dad’s side of my family is from Morocco in North Africa, while my mom’s family is from Mexico and Spain but yet I look white. I don’t want to identify as a white male because my linage does not support that, but to most people my race is simply about the color of my skin not my history. This sounds really ungrateful for me to complain about when racism is still an issue for many people today. My friends always tell me that I’m the only person who has white privilege but doesn’t want it and would rather be seen as a minority or a foreigner. Even then its difficult because I don’t know what Morocco is seen as, because in reality I could said that I am African-American because my linage comes from Africa and they migrate here to America but if I identity as such people would be very angry and disagree with me. The whole idea of race being only black and white is incredibility infuriating to me but I enjoyed talking about it in class.

I never knew or learned about minstrel shows and after learning about I almost wished that I never did. Minstrel shows are so strange and gross. It is so incredibly racist and disgusting but at the same time it all most seems as if they are envying African American culture. I just don’t understand why they were so popular. I was so uncomfortable watching them in class because I can’t believe that it was widely accepted and popular but then again I’m not racist so I cant relate to racism. I was also surprised that cartoon shared similarities with minstrel shows with there white gloves and overly foolish facial features. America is really strange with its past and where influences come from, and this makes me want to look into the history of other American traditions.

It’s so hard for me to enjoy music old popular American music. Its’ not entirely bad but I just cant get behind it and enjoy it. Like I said before lyrical quality means a lot to me and if I cant relate to a song then it’s hard for me to enjoy it. so with American popular music I cant relate to the lyrics because I don’t understand the context of the time period and I wasn’t around to experience it the music has no impact on me. My music time era cut off is really anything before the 80’s thanks to my mom of course.

While I thought this was cool to learn, I didn’t really want to learn it. I’d rather just believe that its just magic. while I am fascinated by the internet and how it came to be, I just glad that its around and that it does work. I have never really been a tech person, I know how to fix and work technology on a base level but I have never been interested on going to a deeper level. I’m much more fascinated by humans and how we work and why we do the things we do. That’s why I’m a Criminology major because criminals are extremely interesting and finding why they do things is more important that learning how the internet works at least to me.

I’m always on my computer either playing games or watching Netflix but I knew very little about the history of the computer past like Aol dial up and messenger. This was really interesting to learn about especially when I watched the videos how they used them for the war. Computers have come really far from huge bulky computers to small computers that we can literally fit in the palm of our hands. Which on a side note scares me because if the public has access to such powerful computers then the government or military must have double what we have and that could lead to many issues but I guess we’ll see fingers crossed.

I was not a fan of this book at all. I’m so tired of hearing previous generations complain and blame Millennials for current world problems. It’s always someone else’s fault for something changing instead of it just being normal human progression. Music is not ruined just because you don’t like the way it sounds. while I agree the attention spans are shorter its because of the amount stimulations that we have access to, with constant availability to information and entertainment its hard to focus on. There are many things that demand our attention whether it be classes, friends or family. We are always changing but change is not always explicitly bad.

Technology has had a insane impact and influence on our past and our future. It has impacted all aspects of life not only humanity. We have the ability to listen to peoples voices and see the in movies when in reality they have been dead for years. when you think about that it becomes a version of immorality, the artists live forever through their music as long as they are remembered. I feel like people only truly die is when they are completely forgotten. The same goes for literature. As long as new generations can learn from previous generations stories and information then humanity will be okay. History is about learning from the past so that we are not doomed to make the same mistakes as our forefathers did.

I’ve never thought about the compression of pop music, but now that I have noticed it it’s weird. The music is always loud at almost any volume, the beat of the song drowns out the lyrics and purpose of the song. For me music has always been about its lyrical quality and purpose behind the words being spoken. The rhythm is important but good rhythm without lyrical quality leads to mundane and repetitive songs like Havana. This class might ruin my sense of music or enhance It depending on perspective but we will see. I’m definitely enjoying this class so far and I look forward to the following classes.