Thinking Outside the Box

      Plato's philosophy illustrates man's struggle for enlightenment, being shackled by the false perceptions of society that inhibit us from seeing things in their true form. He has a simple dialogue where he explains his allegory of "the cave" and very neutral responses take the reader through his extended metaphor. On the other hand, Sartre believes that every man's worst enemy is himself, not society's standards, beliefs or perceptions but by their own flaws they are individually restricted in understanding. He uses detailed conversation to create a sense of separate struggle and perception for each character as if to give a taste of a few small puzzle pieces that when put together, have created their own hell. You come to slowly get a picture of how personalized Sartre's hell is, breaking the stereotypical idea of a burning cavern with a river of lava and unimaginable torture used to create only the most horrific experience for all of eternity. This hell is defined by the people you are trapped with, the ones that drive you crazy, you can't find peace and there is no way to get around the unpleasant contrasting feelings that clash constantly as your trapped in a room with no exits, maddeningly reflective of a circumstance that could easily be experienced on earth, but here it last forever. Could Sartre be implying that in life we place ourselves in hell, in situations that we would like nothing more than to get away from, but what do we do to avoid it? the monotonous job, unhappy marriage, leaky house. Our state of mind remains in this neutral state taking it all in, no physical situation should be an excuse for not receiving enlightenment. However, in Sartre's existential analysis of the individual, we see them faced with the choice to define themselves, or be defined by those around them. Plato's allegory parallels this in the aspect where once the individual is enlightened and attempts to share this knowledge and clarity of thought with others, he can either rise above their disbelief and close-minded perceptions, or fall to their blind words and let go of what he now knows and conform to their ideals allowing them to define him.

AP term

Mood- the predominating atmosphere evoked by a literary piece. Essentially the overall feel that the writer's story has, whether it is happy, sad, dramatic, peaceful there is a "mood" that brings the reader into the situation. Imagine a mood ring, it supposedly changes color due to the mood your in, blue= happy, green= a little stressed, black=anxious etc. this can remind you that the mood of the story reflects the "vibe" if you will. For example, as soon as this song comes on what colors come to mind? :) The song has a classic mood that reflects the artist and reminds the listener of colors that represent the mood

The Big Question

If we only use around 10% of our brain, is it plausible the "final frontier" is the vast reaches of our mind? We have so much discovery, new corners in the depths of the ocean, an uncharted planet outside the borders of our solar system. But with all these dots slowly being connected with lines maybe the picture is our comprehension of the dots and lines. What if our ability to understand and capture the limitless reaches our imagination would completely redefine everything we've previously known.
How much of our brain's potential are we using?
How can we optimize our brain's capabilities?

AP Exam-worthy essay

    

     One of the most prominent archetypes in literature is the epic hero. This strong seemingly flawless character possessing extraordinary strength or mental capacity is viewed overcoming obstacles, forging through the most dire situations and carrying the hopes of many on his shoulders. We see this hero with few inner struggles, and from what we know of his sense of self and morals is generally just a conviction to do good. However, when we look at Shakespeare’s work we see an intense depth and attention to detail as he molded Hamlet into a dramatically transparent man. This transparency allowed the audience to see a hero that had not yet been revealed, a hero with overwhelming emotion ranging from his sickening feelings of loss and hate, to his fits of rage against injustice.

     Shakespeare was able to depict these strong emotions and inner turmoil so eloquently through his flowery and often cryptic language that can just as easily confuse as it can reveal the essence of a character. For example, when Hamlet says “For in that sleep of death what dreams may come, when we have shuffled off this mortal coil, Must give us pause. There's the respect That makes calamity of so long life.” In this small portion of the passage we see Hamlet debating the benefits of death and how they can outweigh life. No classic hero ever struggled with these contemplations brought about by extreme hopelessness, they were hardened men who were only concerned with fight, kill, win mindset never touched by feelings of inadequacy or hate.

     In addition, another important part of Shakespeare’s language is his use of “self-over hearing.” Hamlet’s character is constantly in a state of self discovery, finding himself along with the audience as he makes indecisive declarations that voice his true desires and eventually guide his actions. Hamlet must rely on himself for these revelations, he doesn’t have the classic mentor to show him the way in his journey, his journey is within and his guide must be his own will drawn forth by his ability to search his thoughts. A textual example is,” Thus conscience does make cowards of us all, thus the native hue of resolution, Is sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought, And enterprise of great pitch and moment, With this regard their currents turn awry, And lose the name of action.”Hamlet can acknowledge that our mind can be our greatest weakness in itself, and that once confident decisions can lose their drive and movement in a sea of uncertainty.

     Lastly , a definitive aspect of the language that Shakespeare uses is “performative utterance.” Hamlet isn’t some mighty warrior capable of vengeance and destruction, he lacks the confidence so commonly seen with the hero, and instead must voice out these feelings he has in order to give them life and reality, to create a passing thought into a determined action. This can be seen in “Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer, The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune, Or to take arms against a sea of troubles, And by opposing end them.” We can see Hamlet questioning his own mental torture, at first weighing out the two options, and then needing to have some sort of action whether it be to fight back or end the sorrow and pain he is feeling.

     In conclusion, Hamlet’s use of language gives him a completely different image, breaking free from the “fight to the death” hero stereotype and being the transparent self tortured man. Shakespeare gives Hamlet this desperation not only to search for answers to his undecided questions, but to act upon those feelings within himself that cannot be brought about accept through extreme self analysis.

Not as complicated as we thought

A Major Concept

     One major concept I have learned this year is how to break down the most confusing pieces of literature so that they make sense. If I had read Hamlet in a different class I would have tried to understand it at first, relied completely on sparksnotes, given up out of hopelessness and disregarded that section of learning as a whole. However, we were taught to read it as a class, toss around ideas and analyze chunk after chunk of dialogue until we could come to a general agreement about the meaning of the passage. We watched a variety of movies made reflecting the play so that we could see how others had seen Shakespeare's work, had group meetings to discuss intents and character motives, and through careful dissection I was able to understand one of the most hated pieces of literature in schools. Unlike my parents or their friends who at the mention of Hamlet roll their eyes, laugh and say "yeah all I remember is I hated it and didn't read it at all" I on the other hand, can recite Hamlet's soliloquy, interpret dialog, remember act summaries, and understand the key themes and motives reflected in Shakespeare's play. Now, I can say I have made it through one of the greatest trials of high school English and found it only a fraction of what it once was in my eyes.

Roy Christopher Video Conference

- Roy reflected that her thought hip hop culture's essence and creation of remix, mash-up, rebellion really shaped 21st century culture as a whole.
- indicators of a generational acknowledgement that a new technology is defining us our sense of loss and looking back. For example,Vinyl records suddenly became popular again, it shows a cultural sense of remembrance and fondness that takes hold when we realize we've moved on leaving a piece of us behind.
- Roy said there is a generational gap in understanding where the older generation is distrusting of technology they don't comprehend, and are wary of the younger generation with this technology.
- (point by Shanno) Due to the economy, online classes are going to need these technological improvements in order for higher education to still be available.

Of Mice and Men

1. The two main characters are Lennie and and George who are ranch hands that travel often from job to job. They have the classic yin yang relationship where Lennie the large kind-hearted, simple-minded man who doesn't know his own strength relies on George the clever and much shorter guide who looks out for Lennie and himself. At their new job in California they work under Candy a one handed handy-man (author obviously has some humor) who really likes the boys and offers his life savings to be a part of their dream of owning a small ranch someday. Slim, is a well respected ranch hand who seems to be in charge if not officially, a little harsh but also appreciates the way George looks out for Lennie. He gives Lennie one of his dog's pups from its recent litter that makes him very happy. As a foil for Lennie is the owner's ill- spirited son Curly who is in charge of everything. Curly has an ill disposition and enjoys giving Lennie a hard time seemingly because of his own insecurities. Such as a new bride who is very flirtatious, and with him being a jealous man she is a symbol of no good and bodes trouble when she comes around the workers. Curley suspicious of Slim being in the barn with his wife goes out to check and upon being wrong, goes and takes out his anger on Lennie who breaks his hand easily in self-defense. One evening when everyone is gone Lennie spends time with Crooks, a black ranch hand and doesn't understand how racially they aren't supposed to socialize, Candy joins them and they enjoy each other's company until Curley's wife comes and ruins it. Later on, Lennie is alone frustrated that his puppy died because of his inability to be gentle when Curley's wife comes and comforts him and tells him about her lost dreams and disgust with her current life and marriage. She tells Lennie he can stroke her hair because of his loev of soft things, but he gets too excited and makes her cry out and to silence her her covers her mouth and accidentally breaks her neck. Lennie runs away to him and George's "safe place" and when George and Candy find her body they suspect what happened and realize their dream farm cannot come to be now. George goes to Lennie in the riverbank and they go through their usual dialogue after Lennie messes up except this time George shoots him and Curley's lynching party finds them there and George says he wrestled the gun away, Slim leads George away understand what had just happened.
2. One theme is friendship, Lennie and George are constantly having their bond tested through Lennie's incidents and lack of understanding of his actions. Hope, is also a constant theme. George, Lennie and also Candy's hope for a place of their own and land that can be theirs keeps them working, saving and striving to see this dream come true. Lastly i think Strength is a definite theme. Lennie's strength is his weakness, he cant control in or use it to his own good and doesn't understand its full harm. This keeps him from enjoying the small delicate life he appreciates most. Then there is George's mental strength, it guide him and Lennie and generally keeps them from harm as much as it can steer Lennie from trouble.
3.
- this quote shows a tone of hope "Guys like us, that work on ranches, are the loneliest guys in the world. They got no family. They don't belong no place...with us it ain't like that. We got a future. We got somebody to talk to that gives a damn about us. 
-Candy and George have tone of hope again for their future away from the ranch: 
“We wouldn't ask nobody if we could. Jus’ say, ‘We’ll go to her,’ an’ we would.
 - This quote has a wary tone where you can feel the foreboding in this unneccesary observation of a water snake:           " A silent head and beak lanced down and plucked it out by the head, and the beak swallowed the little snake while its tail waved frantically." 
4.
- Their uneducated ranch-hand dialect was very prominent: "an’ he got nothing to tell him what’s so an’ what ain’t so. Maybe if he sees somethin’"
-hyperbole to get his point across: "I seen hundreds of men come by on the road an’ on the ranches."

"Tools That Change the Way We Think."

"Back in 2004, I asked [Google founders] Page and Brin what they saw as the future of Google search. 'It will be included in people's brains,' said Page. 'When you think about something and don't really know much about it, you will automatically get information.'

'That's true,' said Brin. 'Ultimately I view Google as a way to augment your brain with the knowledge of the world. Right now you go into your computer and type a phrase, but you can imagine that it could be easier in the future, that you can have just devices you talk into, or you can have computers that pay attention to what's going on around them and suggest useful information.'

'Somebody introduces themselves to you, and your watch goes to your web page,' said Page. 'Or if you met this person two years ago, this is what they said to you... Eventually you'll have the implant, where if you think about a fact, it will just tell you the answer."

-From In the Plex by Steven Levy (p.67)

     I think that extensive internet/technology use has lessened our ability to think. The need to be innovative and figure things out for ourselves has been replaced by searching a "how to..." site that tells us exactly what we need. There is definitely a fulfillment in discovering or solving something for ourselves and at the click of a button it has become rather rare.

      I remember when I was 12 and I had no cell phone, laptop, gamecube or tv of my own and my memories from that time were the happiest of my life. I would spend almost all day outside creating identities, worlds, building tree houses, hiding in fields, running through vineyards it was amazing. I feel like at that time I discovered more for myself than all the facts I've gathered from browsing the web.

     It seems at this point in time where all this information on history, languages, art, places etc. is available the hunger to learn and search for knowledge has been lost. Men and woman in the past dedicated their lives to the solving of problems and questions that drove them to greatness in their insatiable craving for truth, now with all this opportunity at our finger tips we do nothing even fractionally as important with it.

      We should be at the height of human intelligence rather than communication through technology. That is not to say that people today do not possess extreme intelligence, I simply feel that communication and our personal "digital print" has become the priority. Its like the internet has gone from being this unending source of information, to the morning news and chat site everyone uses.

"Who Was Shakespeare?"

-Generally accepted that: Shakespeare was born in 1564, the third child and first son of John Shakespeare and his wife Mary Arden, in Stratford-upon-Avon, Warwickshire, England. John Shakespeare was a landowner, a merchant, a glovemaker, and a man on a political track. At eighteen, he married Anne Hathaway and had 3 kids  Susanna, and then twins, Hamnet and Judith. Shakespeare then moved to London and within a few years he had achieved some success as an actor, a poet and a playwright. The Sonnets especially established his reputation as a gifted and popular poet. Shakespeare became a charter member of a theatrical company, the Lord Chamberlain's Me, His plays were performed at the courts of Queen Elizabeth I and King James I. (info found http://www.pbs.org)
-We currently do not know his birthday and we have no idea what he actually looked like. I feel that the moment we hear the name "Shakespeare" a sense of dread and exhaustion comes over students. Even parents remembering shake their heads and say "yup i hated it...just like math."
-When we started reading Hamlet i got none of it...at all...in any way. But after discussing it, analyzing what he is saying, and translating it into modern language i can actually understand whats going on and appreciate the story line. Which is more than my parents and many people who have been forced to study Shakespeare in high school can say.
- My only current struggle is still putting the text into modern understanding and untangling the cryptic metaphors, words, and phrasing so that I can process in the simplest form what is happening.

"To Facebook or Not to Facebook?"

     When Ryan Cecil first made me a Facebook I refused to log into my account. I already had a myspace and really didn't want another because as far as I was concerned social networking was a slow waste of time that just didn't appeal to me. But one day I finally logged on and figured out how to post my first status and was amazed when I got a notification 12 seconds later saying someone had commented! I commented back and suddenly I had 2 notifications about people commenting, I could not believe how fast it was working, I kept trying to end the conversation and log off but between comments and posts it felt almost impossible. This was so much better than myspace and after getting home from school I would spend hours at the computer posting, liking, checking my happy aquarium fish, it was ridiculous. The whole site design in itself was inviting, rather than the dark cluttered profiles of myspace with names like ***cR@ZZyGurll98***, you had a clean white wall, with blue trim with your full name all neat and tidy like an Ikea display.
     I don't think Facebook users always see the risks involved, sure we acknowledge the occasional fight, laugh at the drunk picture uploaded of our friend and try to minimize the cussing because most of us are friends with family members. But none of us consider how we are researched by companies, how our younger siblings are saying far too much and adding people they don't know or how we can be viewed by vague connections we don't know at all. the fact alone that "7.5 million kids age 12 and younger are on Facebook" was something completely new to me and also the aspect of them being far too young to understand proper communication to an audience of hundreds of different individuals makes social networking seem like a pretty dangerous technological playground.

"(Don't) Be Hamlet"

     Hamlet is such a self-tortured individual, the only thing keeping him from taking the easy way out is his fear of the unknown and the consequences of going against his faith and having to face an eternity worse than the life he is living.  His life is a series of passionate outbursts and emotionally driven scenes where he is so trapped between his longing to be right and fear his own madness that he looses control of his thoughts and must talk himself through his mental episode.
    
   One part of Hamlet desires an instant calm to all the raging storms of his life: his love for Ophelia, hatred for his Uncle and his pain as he saw his mother move on so quickly from his father. He wants to put to rest the turmoil inside him, "no more- and by sleep to say we end The heartache, and the thousand  natural shocks that flesh is heir to." In his eyes death has to be better than all the pain that life carries with it.

     However, in his cry for an escape from this drama he analyzes the possible negative endings that death could bring. The fear of the unknown takes hold, as he considers his beliefs; perhaps there is something greater to fear after death that would be eternally more terrible than life. Hamlet needs to look beyond his imediate focuses on revenge and hatred and see beyond it all there is hope and chance for wrong to be made right. To expose his uncle for the murderer that he is, and see the look of guilt and shame cross his face as he watches his very murder on stage. So he can also see the pain that has kept Hamlet in agony for too long, and so Hamlet can have the closure of knowing that the ghost was right.

Never Let Me Go literature analysis

1. In a nutshell, there are 3 main characters: Kathy, Ruth and Tommy. The story starts with Kathy as the narrator telling how she is 31 and has been a "carer" for 12 years. The three of them are students at an English boarding school called Hailsham where they are taught alot about how to stay fit and healthy. There are "doners" who after 3 donations reach completion and there are "carers" who give the doners emotional support and in essense care for them during their donations.Now the three of them and all the other students at Hailsham are clones and their sole purpose in life is supply humans with organ donations and they are told this from a very young age. They are supposed to be copies of "originals" who look just like them but older.  Tommy has a hard time being creative and struggles with his art, Kathy is very observant and watches those around her and Ruth is extremely social and involved. At the boarding school they have guardians who care for them and they are encouraged to be artistic, a woman refer to as madame collects their best pieces and they think keeps them in a secret gallery. Tommy and Kathy kind of have a thing, but then Tommy and Ruth start having a sexual relationship now as early to mid teens and Kathy stays close friends with them both. Then they move into cottages and are slowly brought into the real world by older students who teach them to be "normal". They begin to hear rumors of deferal or being able to avoid donations for 3 years of you can prove your in love, Tommy begins attempting to create art to prove he is in love with Ruth to show madame. Then 10 years later Kathy is a carer, and Tommy and Ruth have begun donations. Kathy cares for Ruth after her 1st donation that did not go well, she feels her 2nd will be her last. They decided to go find Tommy and hear that Hailsham has been closed. Ruth reveals that her relationship with Tommy was to come between he and Kathy and to make things right gives them madame's address to try and receive a deferal. Kathy becomes Tommy's carer beginning their romantic relationship and they go to find madame. She is with the headmistress and they find that Hailsham was a failed attempt to prove that clones had souls and that was why art was encouraged, she also tells them that clones cannot gain deferal through being in love. Tommy is upset and confused by this news, Kathy simply accepts it, the story ends with Tommy reaching "completion" and Kathy beginning her donations that will lead to completion as well.
2. I feel like the theme is "what makes us human?" Is it love? The ability to create something that reveals the soul? 
3." I've developed a kind of instinct around donors. I know when to hang around and comfort them, when to leave them to themselves; when to listen to everything they have to say, and when just to shrug and tell them to snap out of it." ...

there and back again: a student's tale

This post has no depth to it other than to acknowledge my love for middle earth. "It's a dangerous business, going out your door. You step onto the road, and if you don't keep your feet, there's no knowing where you might be swept off to.”- here's to you Bilbo!