Create A Journal entry that describes your initial reaction to geeks
Examples:
MY REACTION TO GEEKS
Journal #1
I have just begun reading Geeks by Jon Katz. In the first two chapters the author introduces the reader to Jesse and Eric. Jesse and Eric are two outcasts who society as totally forgotten. They now live in a world of computers. There lives are lived on the net. For the two of them growing up in a small town setting in Caldwell, Idaho has been rather difficult. Nobody in their town is different, no one dares to break away from the mainstream. Then Jesse, Eric, and two of their friends decide to go out on one limb and form the “Geek Club”. The club saves their lives. It gives them a sanctuary where they can be themselves. They credit this to Mr. Brown “whom they both credited having changed their lives” (Katz 23). Brown gave them a place to belong, but he did more then that, he inspired them to use their intellectual gifts. In my life I have never experienced they isolation that Jesse and Eric felt while growing up. In every ones life they at one point experience being isolated, this is how Jesse and Eric felt during their childhood and young adulthood.
Journal #2
Chapters three and four of Geeks by Jon Katz helped me to understand Jesse and Eric a little better. Jesse and Eric are both young and skeptic about the world around them. Growing up in a Mormon dominated community they rejected the ideas of Mormonism. The two constantly start debates amongst their classmates. “And Jesse Dailey was the school’s official Mormon baiter, no insignificant role in these parts” (Katz 29). Jesse and Eric are both rebelling against their surroundings through there own technological revolution. They use the technology they have to fight back against everything they dislike. Toward the end of this section of the book the two Geeks decide that thy will move to Chicago because it is a tough city unlike San Francisco and Seattle. They decide they will be able to find work relatively easily, however the two are strapped for cash and one unforeseen problem will put an end to the journey.
I have just begun reading Geeks by Jon Katz. In the first two chapters the author introduces the reader to Jesse and Eric. Jesse and Eric are two outcasts who society as totally forgotten. They now live in a world of computers. There lives are lived on the net. For the two of them growing up in a small town setting in Caldwell, Idaho has been rather difficult. Nobody in their town is different, no one dares to break away from the mainstream. Then Jesse, Eric, and two of their friends decide to go out on one limb and form the “Geek Club”. The club saves their lives. It gives them a sanctuary where they can be themselves. They credit this to Mr. Brown “whom they both credited having changed their lives” (Katz 23). Brown gave them a place to belong, but he did more then that, he inspired them to use their intellectual gifts. In my life I have never experienced they isolation that Jesse and Eric felt while growing up. In every ones life they at one point experience being isolated, this is how Jesse and Eric felt during their childhood and young adulthood.
Journal #2
Chapters three and four of Geeks by Jon Katz helped me to understand Jesse and Eric a little better. Jesse and Eric are both young and skeptic about the world around them. Growing up in a Mormon dominated community they rejected the ideas of Mormonism. The two constantly start debates amongst their classmates. “And Jesse Dailey was the school’s official Mormon baiter, no insignificant role in these parts” (Katz 29). Jesse and Eric are both rebelling against their surroundings through there own technological revolution. They use the technology they have to fight back against everything they dislike. Toward the end of this section of the book the two Geeks decide that thy will move to Chicago because it is a tough city unlike San Francisco and Seattle. They decide they will be able to find work relatively easily, however the two are strapped for cash and one unforeseen problem will put an end to the journey.
Austin Hammond
ReplyDeleteJournal #1
“Geeks” is a novel by Jon Katz about two teenagers who spend their life on the Internet. They spend their free time building the ultimate computer or talking over the Internet. Geeks have become and increasing position in the job market. Jon Katz talks about how it is the only type of job that can’t be fired and replaced so easily and how they run the show from the sidelines. “Geeks, then, are literally building the new global economy, constructing and expanding the Internet and the World Wide Web as well as maintaining it” (Katz XXIV). Here, Katz talks about how they are growing to be a necessity in the global economy. Geeks can’t be replaced because they are becoming tremendously important to businesses. My initial reaction to this novel is undefined. I understand how the story came about and the concept of the story however, and perhaps it is my personal experiences, but I find it somewhat uninteresting. I can, however, appreciate the novel. I like the way Jon describes the concept of the Geeks and how they are so important. Eric and Jesse are very interesting characters. They are pretty antisocial and confine themselves to their house where they spend their time on the computer. Jon describes a table in the center of the room in which they do everything. They have their computers centered on the table and they do their homework, and they eat off of it. This is an interesting book indeed and I myself as a “geek” per says, cannot get into this novel. It is not that I don’t like the book it doesn’t have an alluring concept about it, and this is likely to be true because I am already so familiar with the concept of technology and geeks.
Yasmine Gonzalez
ReplyDeleteJournal #1
By reading Geeks by Jon Katz we find out the true meaning behind the stereotype,” Geek. “ Throughout the introduction, especially on page 26, Katz focus’s on the definition of a Geek. A Geek is basically the engine behind every big business such as radio studios or even news stations. Katz goes beyond to explain to you that the term Geek shouldn’t give you a visual of a guy with high overalls and a nasally laugh. A Geek can be anyone. According to Jon Katz there are sub genres of the word Geek. Geeks can be into computers, hacking, video games, movies, etc. I affiliate myself with Eric and Jesse because I to am a Geek and I love how they embrace who they are. It took me all of elementary and 7th grade to finally find who I am. I eventually did and love it. Geeks are actually very important to our society nowadays. The boy that was once getting “atomic wedgies” in the halls will be the next Bill Gates. In are ages of improving technologies, Geeks especially ones that dabble in computer arts, are most important in our economy. Jon Katz book made me realize that Geeks aren’t a symbol for the weak or a source of monetary flow. They are humble and courageous for embracing who they are and going against the system to benefit them by doing what they love. So far by reading Geeks I’ve been more interested in computers and the story of how such a small town of potatoes and Mormon religion can create two great minds and have them take a journey to Chicago to fulfill their dream by working with computers. Hopefully the rest of the story holds more knowledge of the true meaning of Geek.
Tyshay Bradshaw
ReplyDeleteJournal #1
In chapter four, Jon Katz explains how Jesse and Eric basically gave up everything to move to Chicago. At the bottom of page #36, Jon states, “They’d given notice at work, told their landlord they were history, and reserved a Ryder truck.” This saying, explains how Jesse and Eric put all their hopes and dreams into Katz, which surprised me. They didn’t even know this man. They heard of him of course because of his fame but they didn’t know him personally. It was just shocking when they made that big decision to move away from their hometown.
Jesse and Eric gave up their apartment not knowing how life was going to be in Chicago. What if they couldn’t find a new apartment or a place to live in Chicago? They’d be out of luck and probably regret telling their landlord they were history.
They also gave up their jobs hoping that they’d find better ones in Chicago that paid good money. What if they couldn’t find a decent job? They’d have no money to survive in a big city like Chicago. Why leave, not knowing what could happen?
Chicago is a big place and they would be lost there. Believing in Jon Katz could have destroyed their life. Jon Katz could have been telling them thousands of lies about how they could get better jobs doing the things they love to do.
What if Jon Katz was lying about how they could even find a better job than what they have in now? Jesse and Eric would be devastated and would probably want to move back to their hometown. Giving up on their shattered dreams all because they put their faith into one man they didn’t know anything about other than what they found out about him in his work.
Tyshon White
ReplyDeleteJournal entry one
In the novel Geeks John Katz has a distinguish way to describe geeks. Instead of making geeks be portrayed as nerdy and sophisticated poindexters he explains their own views of life. If I were to be interested in Skyrim (videogame) I would be labeled as a geek even though I played on the football team I will be considered a geek for having a deep interest. What is a geek? Someone who has a deep interest in a certain thing that keeps them involved or interested in that specific thing. So isn’t every one a geek? Yes! In fact geeks are more eligible for the technological jobs or jobs of their interest since they are well educated on their interest. John first stared in a rural area where there were very few people but every citizen had a car in their possession. John unfortunately did not and resorted riding a bicycle in a sweltering area (Idaho) to work at a local computer repair shop named Emco.
(GEEK VOICES) “Years ago they would never have been tolerated in the corporation. You played by the rules of the bureaucracy or you didn’t play at all. Several things have conspired though to make them more palatable. The bureaucracy is less entrenched and the workplace is more diverse.”
This quote says that earlier geeks were outcast because of their own thought and insertion of ideas but now since geeks are literally in charge of everything the working environment has became more open and plausible to a diverse work population.
Aleah Adams
ReplyDeleteJournal #1
I just started reading the novel Geeks by Jon Katz. It is written in Jon Katz point of view and he is on the search to find what it means to be a true geek. He is attracted to two young males, Jesse and Eric who were two “geeks” in Idaho. He met them through emails, and found them to be very intriguing. The two boys felt secluded in Idaho because they didn’t have the same interests as anyone else, and their love for computers and programming seemed to come before everything else (Katz xxviii). Their isolation from society is the difference between them and me. While in some ways I do relate to them because I like being on social networks and I get good grades and focus on school. Also I have met a lot of friends on Facebook and instagram, which relates back to computers and technology. Another aspect we relate in is the fact that sometimes I feel alone. I have a support system and people I can talk too but everyone at times feels alone. But on the other hand we are completely different. I have a lot of friends and a boyfriend, and a very strong relationship with my family. Computers don’t overrule any of my relationships with people, but technology does play a big role in them. It makes communication easier, and access to them easier, as well as meeting new people easier.
The novel is okay, but I don’t really understand it all that much. I get confused at times with all the different computer names and types, and all the different software’s. I think if I read more then I might enjoy it more but for right now I’m not eager to read it or interested in it.
Mitchell Duncan
ReplyDeleteJournal Entry #1
The novel Geeks is about two young men, Jesse and Eric, and their struggles with being a self described geeks. They live in the state of Idaho, in the small town of Caldwell, and are considered social outcasts by the rest of their community. While other people are out playing baseball or football, Jesse and Eric stay indoors and play on their computers. Their several friends started a geek club with them just so they could feel accepted somewhere. Jesse even says, “ The Net is my safety. It’s my community. It’s not a substitute for life for me. It is life.” (Katz 11) This interested me because some people literally do not leave their computers or even their homes. They intertwine the fantasy found in the depths of the screen and machinery and the reality found outside the realm of technology. They begin to make a habit of antisocial tendencies and choose to use their computers instead of interacting with real live people. Another incident that I found interesting in the novel was when Jesse and Eric were driving along the highway in Eric’s truck and the engine quit on them. Instead of calling a mechanic or fixing the truck themselves, they decide to just leave on the side of the road. They grabbed their bicycles out of the back of the truck and just kept going down the road. This was interesting because it shows how the two of them felt so out casted from the rest of society that they were afraid to call a mechanic and keep their car.
Jacob Gilbert-Mahoney
ReplyDeleteJournal #1
Geeks is a novel centered on Jesse and Eric, two individuals who self-identify as Geeks, or people with an immense knowledge of computers, but also believe this makes them social outcasts. These two are unpopular in school, as they are unfamiliar with sports and more popular students. As socially troubled teens, they find solace in the realm of the Internet, which almost becomes a second world to them, where they can escape the fears and troubles of reality. Jesse expressed his love for the Internet by saying “The Net is my safety. It’s my community. It’s not a substitute for life for me. It is life.” (Katz 11). Upon learning that being a Geek is almost guaranteed to earn them a job, they quickly set out to seek opportunities where their use intelligence can be of use.
I support the novel’s view of geeks in everyday life, as geeks can be very determined and self-motivated to do well in everyday life. Though they can be considered social outcasts, they can be increasingly motivated to aid others. This comfort they find within the Internet can act almost as a safeguard to the reality that faces them in the outside world. The work they obtain from the school can aid in heir in increasing knowledge, and their antisocial instincts can keep them away from daily distractions. I understand the personal experiences that the characters go through, as I myself am a “geek”, and understand the freedom of those computers, the Internet, and video games can provide for individuals struggling in real life. However, I do not possess the large amounts of knowledge on computers that these geeks do, so using their knowledge to aid in their future is almost admirable. While not everyone is a geek, they are uncommon individuals that are shining examples of what individuals can accomplish when pushed to their edge.
Saisha Delvalle
ReplyDeleteJournal Entry #1
Geeks by Jon Katz introduces two guys who are considered “geeks”, Jesse and Eric. They live in a small town in Idaho, and are obsessed with computers. There’s not really anything fascinating about their lives, they just seem different from other people in their town. Jesse and Eric are roommates, Jon Katz describes their apartment as if it was just for computes. “The apartment itself was dominated by two computers that sat across from the front door like twin shrines” (Katz, 17). He also says how the rest was just a mess. Jesse and Eric belongs in a “Geek Club”, which helps them embrace their geek-hood. It’s a very small club but they love it. In the book, Jon Katz explains how Jesse and Eric had tough childhoods, and it affected how they are now. It seemed to have made them better people, in my opinion. In chapter three, Katz tells how Jesse and Eric were planning to leave cross-country to live their lives in a better way. They were separating from their regular life in Idaho. “… two unattached, semidestitute kids were planning to head cross-country, to leave their dreary lives behind and make their fortunes in a strange, huge, vastly more complex place than either had ever seen” (Katz, 26). I don’t think I’d ever think about leaving where I was raised to improve my life, I would just try to change what I can there. But what Jesse and Eric do is perfectly fine, they think it would give them a better chance in life. You can do whatever is possible to be happy, and that is what Jesse and Eric have been doing for their lives. Geeks by Jon Katz, so far, is slow but an interesting read.
Isaiah Knox
ReplyDelete12-2-13
Journalism #1
The introduction for the novel Geeks written by Jon Katz is basically introducing the life of geeks. It gives you a blueprint to the minds of geeks. As I read the first few pages of this novel, something stood out to me. The thing that stood out to me was the second paragraph of the first page. It states, “or maybe you find yourself on the outside looking in, getting jostled in the halls, watching TV on weekends while everyone else goes to parties.” This stood out to me because the writer described himself as a “nobody”. As I read more, he discusses how he “came out”. Basically he was saying that he has finally accepted the fact the he is a geek. He was proud of it as well. I have a feeling that Geeks might be a good book because the introduction starts off good. The introduction tells you how geeks think and it also gives inside information on how they branched out and became better than what they thought they were.
Karlamarie Perez
ReplyDeleteJournal Entry #1
I started reading the novel Geeks, by Jon Katz. In the first two chapters I read the author just introduces the main characters. Their names are Eric and Jesse, they are two geeks that have no social life. Now their lives are revolved around the computers and they live of the Internet. For them growing up in a small town is kind of hard, mostly because everyone in their town is the same they are all afraid to stand out. But then Eric, Jesse, and two of their friends make a “Geek Club.” The club ends up saving them, it gives them a place where they can be themselves. It gives them a place where they can just be geeks, and not get picked on. Mr. Brown inspires them and gives them a place where they no longer feel isolated.
This book made me think about geeks, and what it takes to be a geek a lot. The part that made me think a lot was the first page of the introduction where it says, “Where does it begin, this sense of being the Other? It can come early on, when you find yourself alone in your childhood bedroom, raising tropical fish, composing a poem, writing code, meeting friends mostly online, playing by yourself. Or in middle school, when the jocks turn on you and you pray you will get through gym class alive. Or maybe it comes in high school, where you find yourself on the outside looking in, getting jostled in the halls, watching TV on weekends while everyone else goes to parties. After some, there’s an accumulation of slights, hurts, realizations: You don’t have a lot of friends; other kids avoid you; you’re not good at sports or interested in shopping; the teachers seem to like their other students a lot more, There are few school activities you want to be part of, even if you could. The things you like aren’t the same things most other people like.” This made me think because a lot of these things are me, but I’m not a geek.
Jaymee Pride
ReplyDeleteJournal Entry #1
Our class has just begun the novel Geeks by Jon Katz. It has an interesting point of view, as Katz, the author, narrates it. The book takes a journalist approach, but soon Katz begins to form a kind of friendship with the main characters Jesse and Eric. “Despite the obvious differences between us, there were also some connections. He was a lost boy. I’d had been too, for most of my life” (Katz 49). The two teenage boys felt isolated and alone I the small town of Cadwell in Idaho, which is something most teens can identify with, whether they are geeks or not. Being a teenager is a tumultuous time because one is stuck in-between being a child and an adult. Teens are also left to make crucial choices about what they want to do with the rest of their lives and who they want to become. Those are already hard things to do, but being scrutinized and out-casted by peers makes it even more difficult because no one wants to be treated differently.
I can identify with the main characters, Jesse and Eric, in this way. In elementary and middle school, I too was bullied by my classmates for being different. I was not considered a geek, but I was looked at differently because I am biracial. There was a lot of the light-skin dark-skin stigma within the environment and the African American girls treated me harshly because I was white. I was considered too black for the white kids or too white for the black kids. The girls threw things at me and called me rude names, some even tried to pick fights with me. It went on like this for quite a while, until I found acceptance within a different of people who were all sorts of races and had many different styles and interests.
Mr. brown was the teacher who brought Jesse, Sam, Erick and Joe together. He was different from the other teachers and he wasn’t afraid to show it. He noticed that these four teens needed some, and somewhere, to go to. They didn’t fit in a social group so Mr. brown decided to make one for them with his classroom as their clubhouse. He attracted and liked the geeks. He was so fundamental to the geeks and the geek club because of the fact that he listened, he made them think, and in general he was there for them. Mr. brown gave them a place they belonged, in a school and a town that didn’t care if they had them.
ReplyDeleteWithout the geek club it is quite possible these boys would have never met. This club brought them together and gave them a place they could think, talk, discuss and debate. They where outcasts in a school of jocks and preps, geeks didn’t really exist there. Even more then giving them a place to be he joined them- he talked, debated, made them think. Even in the book it mention Mr. browns class and says: “ most teachers avoided controversial subjects, but Mr. browns classroom reverberated with them. ” on page twenty- eight.