Close of Business

Graduation is tomorrow.  It's a bit surreal, to be honest.  This blog has been fairly quiet for the past month or so, and for good reason.  I've been keeping busy with the 2013 Peer Assessment (to a degree of both success and failure) and our senior project.  Last night I pulled one final all-nighter to close out high school.  This year has been a crazy mess of ups and downs.  Fortunately, for the past few weeks the ups have definitely outnumbered the downs.  For all that's happened, I'll look back on these past four years in a positive light.

So what now?  For me, this blog has rarely transcended its origins as a "simple" course blog.  Because of that, it would be odd to continue it after the year has ended.  Ultimately, the best use of this blog has been as a portfolio of sorts for my work.  That said, I'm not done with blogging altogether.  I intend to continue posting on my second blog, Stilawip now that summer has all but begun.

One last thing:
For my fellow classmates in the graduating class of 2013, thanks for the memories!

writingas5pectatorsport

 I found a bunch of these on Christa Weston's blog (good job getting so many people to write!).  Take a look at her blog if you've got a shortage of essays.

Conor McNamara
Conor has an extremely..."intense" writing style.  From the occasionally coarse language to the scathingly caustic pop-culture references, it's pretty easy to pick out Conor's writing from a group.  With that in mind, I would advise keeping the audience in mind.  Practicing a little more moderation would probably be wise for something like the AP exam (I have no idea if he typically does).  That said, Conor's violent style is also one of his strengths -- the essay certainly has character.  It would be a shame to lose that to an AP grading rubric.

Hayden Robel
I'll be honest, I couldn't really read all of the essay.  By that I mean I could really only see the pre-write structure.  Regardless, the structure looks fine for the restricted amount of time it was done in.  It's certainly more elaborate than my "two word phrases and arrows" strategy.  Also, it seems like Hayden got a lot of writing done in such a short amount of time.  I personally find the time constraints to be the hardest part of essay exams, so being a quick thinker is certainly beneficial.

Alex Lane (blog)
Call of the Wild was an unexpected but extremely appropriate choice for the prompt.  I like the ideas that Alex got down onto paper, and there's plenty of depth in the novel he chose to support a full length essay.  The pre-write leaves a bit to be desired, but it's not like mine was any more extensive.

Bernardo Gonzalez (blog)
I can see pretty clearly where Bernardo was going with his ideas, but unfortunately the essay never really got started.  I'm guessing this can be attributed mostly to the pre-write taking too long.  In that case, simply keeping an eye on the clock would do wonders.  It seems like Bernardo had all the right ideas, but just didn't have enough time to get them onto paper.

William Boerger (blog)
Given the time limit, Will got a lot of content down on the paper, both in terms of pre-writing and the essay itself.  The introduction sets up a clear stance, and I like where the essay was headed.  There were a few nit-picky grammar errors, but I'm pretty sure everybody makes those with so little time to write.

"Sphinx Says Write"

Actually, when I was essay ambushed (by Kris and Justin), they didn't even say "Sphinx Says Write."  I did it anyway.  Because of the time restraint, I essentially just rehashed my A Tale of Two Cities essay.  Also, I wrote this before finding out we would be reading Brave New World in class.  Happy coincidence, I guess.  I left all my bizarre grammatical errors in for your enjoyment.

I was filmed writing this, but Kris and Justin haven't gotten around to editing it or doing commentary.  I'll make sure to post a link once they do.

Edit (4/18/13):  So, they never got around to it.  Oh well.

Prompt:

(1971) The significance of a title such as The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn is easy to discover.  However, in other works the full significance of the title becomes apparent to the reader only gradually.  Choose two works and show how the significance of their respective titles is developed through the author's use of devices such as contrast, repetition, allusion, and point of view.

Pre-write:

Para 1 --> Brave New World --> Sarcastic, ironic/satirical look at future

Para 2 --> A Tale of Two Cities --> duality themes, etc.

Essay:

Sometimes, despite what is always taught, people judge books by their cover.  Before the reader knows anything of a story, there is an initial impression given by the title.  Often the title provides a surprisingly in depth look at the novel's theme.  Both A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens, and Brave New World by Aldous Huxley have titles applicable in this way.

A huge theme of A Tale of Two Cities is duality -- the concept of disparate pairings existing alongside of each other, and through their contrast, elevate each others.  In its most fundamental form, this theme can be boiled down into the title.  There are two cities, each one contains a different type of people.  Similarly, there are foils strewn throughout the novel that expand on this (Darnay and Carton, for example).

In the dystopian classic Brave New World, the title has a completely opposite m

First Quarter Review

The main focus of this quarter for me has been the senior project.  Once in a while, I get "assigned" projects and ideas instantly start flowing.  This is one of them.  A number of different concepts (both from me and my friends) have been flying around for the past few weeks.  Already, we are more organized and more prepared than for any other group project we've done together.  If we don't burn out by the end (which is actually very likely) I have tentatively high hopes for what we can do.  As far as required assignments go, I'm pretty sure I have them all done.  I have been essay ambushed already, we just need to put the video together.

Next quarter, I hope to start putting the pieces together on our project.  We're at a tentative stage right now between concept and production.  Once we take the plunge and start getting content done, I'll feel more confident in our ability to follow through.  My goal, more succinctly, is to finish the senior project with quality -- not a last minute rush job edited at 4:00 AM.  It'll be the last big endeavor of high school for me, and I want to make it count.

I have a small suggestion for the course:

Take away "close of business" as a due date.  I very rarely actually get my assignments posted at a reasonable time, but it is almost always before class the next day.  I feel like COB adds unneeded stress.  There's a bizarre sort of security in knowing that if worse comes to worse, I can always pull an all-nighter.

Also, I like seeing my classmate's blogs featured on the main course blog.  I don't regularly check up on everybody's blogs, so it's cool to see the highlights.

I Am Here

I haven't actually progressed with my specific senior goal, but I have done things in a similar light.  Although we haven't made much progress on the Project Greymatter game, I have started work on our Senior Project, which fulfills the "big project" that I wanted to do.  Whenever we do video projects for school, it always ends up being haphazard improvisation.  For the final one of the high school, we wanted to change that.  We're starting a couple months early and actually planning out the scenes, for once.  So far, the project has sated my appetite for a large collaborative endeavor.

Regarding the course as a whole, I still feel like I'm pulling off some high-wire balancing act.  There's a lot of facets to the class.  All of these, plus responsibilities from other classes and recreational activities have me constantly switching modes.  However, the pace has been more relaxed overall, and I think I've recovered enough from last semester's stumbling to move on full-force.

The Time of My Life

I wrote on Friday's journal topic (which I forgot to turn in, again...) that I planned to pursue discussion of my SMART goal during the class "Free Play".  Predictably, my plans got hijacked.  Luckily, it was still a somewhat productive discussion.  We ended up discussing Justin Thompson's nature blog, which I am a co-author and sorta-editor for (I just do superficial grammar checks at my discretion).  The bulk of what we talked about was publicity.  What direction did Justin want to take the blog?  He expressed a desire to make the blog more professional before sharing it.

A couple ideas were thrown around regarding publicity, from Facebook sharing to Reddit posts.  As far as content goes, we also mulled on the idea of theme weeks.  Early in the year Justin covered a number of snails over the course of the week, included the scaly foot gastropod, a personal favorite of mine.  From this spawned a running joke of the blog's "Snail Week", analogous to Discovery Channel's Shark Week.  Given that one of the difficulties of writing for the blog is deciding on a research topic, we figured that themed weeks would be doubly useful.

We also considered branching out the blog to cover other topics, such as biology and genetics, rather than just unique lifeforms.

Saint Crispin's Day Sonnet: Video

Here's our "performance" of the sonnet/dialogue we wrote, complete with realistic props and professional acting.

Making a Case for Memorization Alternatives

When Kris and I pitched our idea to Dr. Preston (admittedly, it was on the day of presentations, after we had gone through with it...) his main concern was that although it adhered to the idea designing our own course, our method could potentially set a dangerous precedent for short-cutting.  This post is an attempt to alleviate some of those concerns, as well as explain how we came up with our solution.

Yesterday afternoon, Kris Green and I came up with an alternative to memorizing the Saint Crispin's day speech.  This was the result of a conversation we were having about whether memorizing poems was an effective learning strategy.  It started out as us complaining about it, but it eventually turned into a legitimate assessment.

Before going any further, I'll be frank.  Time saving was definitely the primary motivation for our decision to seek an alternative.  However, it was not a matter of laziness or an unwillingness to do work.  By the time we came up with the idea, I had memorized almost half of the speech.  Granted, having half of the poem memorized the day before is not an ideal spot to be, but rest assured that I would have pulled the late-night memorization spree if I thought it was necessary (this is what I did for To Be or Not To Be, after all).

What's In This For Me?

With the new year and the new semester, it is time to set some goals.  In the few years that I have made a New Year's resolution, I have been notoriously bad at following through for more than a few weeks.  The problem, I found, was associating the goal with New Year's day.  After that holiday spirit wore off and I was back at school, I was back into my daily schedule and quickly lost interest in the resolution.  So, I'll be writing goals for the year of 2013, even after it's not exactly a "new" year anymore.

I've said on other occasions that I particularly enjoyed the collaborative working groups in this course. Consequently, I have "joined" a small handful of them.  Unfortunately, I have not been nearly as active in them as I would like (which is entirely my fault).  This is not for lack of interest.  My problem is that there is a fairly wide variety of things I am interested in, so when I am confronted with the opportunity to join a relevant group, I am quick to accept.  Because of this, I can't devote as much time as I would like to them.  I am sure other members of the groups have become irked with my deadline issues.

This can be solved in two ways.  The first is to simply cut down the number of groups I participate in.  Theoretically, this should free up more time.  However, my time management (or rather, my lack of it) is probably a more significant issue.  The more responsible solution would be to stop procrastinating on things.

I'm pretty sure this has been my New Year's resolution for the past couple years, which is incredibly ironic.  Also, the fact that I am posting this at 10:00 PM on the last day of break does not bode well (but it could be worse!).  Regardless, I'll do my best to get out of such bad habits, as they are clearly detrimental.

Fall Semester Reflection

This is in response to this post.

1.  Yes, I read my colleagues' work online.  I would say I do it at least once a week, but it varies.  Generally, the more open-ended an assignment is, the more likely I am to check other blogs.  It's interesting seeing what other people think of the same topic, especially if it's a creative work like the Allegory of the Cave sonnets.  There is a huge variety of styles, and it's a good way of seeing what a good approach to the assignment is.  Reading peoples' literature analysis has helped me decide on what books I want to read myself.  That said, I don't typically check my classmates' blogs before doing my own post, unless I am totally stumped on what to write.  I like to get my ideas down as the occur "naturally".  Working together is important, but so is individualism.  The merit of collaboration comes from the summation of many individuals' own thoughts.

Allegory of the Cave Sonnet

The world dances in a shadowy sway
And I know nothing but this wall's dark face
Freedom is simply a few steps away
But I will not break the shackle's embrace
Suddenly I am dragged into the light
It burns and it blinds but after some time
My vision resolves and I see my plight:
Our complacency; the prisoner's crime
I rush back to that decrepit cavern
My mind filled with wondrous enlightenment
But despite my joy they could not discern
What the words that they heard truthfully meant
The comfort of ignorance is a curse
Those who dwell in it are all for the worse

(I attempted iambic pentameter, but could not really figure out the stressed/unstressed structure, so I simply did 10-syllable lines.  Any tips on iambic pentameter would be much appreciated!)

Hamlet Essay: Performative Utterance

Despite Hamlet being the namesake of the play, as well as the perspective through which the audience views the story, he remains a remarkably cryptic character.  At times, it may seem that he is indecisive, but at others, he is evidently ready to kill at a moment’s notice.  This has sometimes been attributed to madness, or even inconsistency on Shakespeare’s part.  In truth, it is simply a matter of performative utterance, a theory developed by J. L. Austin, and applied directly to Hamlet by Fredrik deBoer in his paper “The Performative Utterance in William Shakespeare’s Hamlet”.  On a very basic level, performative utterance is the antithesis of the classic playground chant, “sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me.”  It holds that words have a physical effect on people, circumstances, and intention.  This theory has a profound impact not only on Hamlet, but also on virtually anybody’s life.

Big Question

My big question(s):
What causes preferences?  Is it genetically inherent, or acquired?  Do they serve a practical purpose?

I've always found preferences fascinating.  More than anything else, they are what separates people from one another (or brings them together, in some cases).  I suppose in the end it really boils down to a nature versus nurture type of discussion, but there are a lot of sides to the question.  I'm interested to see if there is any factual answer to be found.

Growing My Personal Learning Network: Follow Up

I contacted Dr. Delahoyde from Washington State University (found through this resource).  To my pleasant surprise, I got a prompt response.  I took the opportunity to ask about some of the oddities surrounding Ophelia's death, which was a source of contention within our small group discussions.  You can check out the full conversation below:

Growing My Personal Learning Network

I ran into an awkward problem while attempting to contact the learning communities I listed.  I could not find a way to get into contact with any of them.  Granted, most of them are old, so getting a reply was doubtful any way.  I had stupidly forgotten that a learning network would actually require communication.  I had a pretty good set of Hamlet resources, but an actual network was nonexistent.

So, to solve the problem, I went with what has been a classic solution for this class -- collaboration.  I went through several of my peers' blogs.  While many had the same problem I did, I eventually found a contactable and current resource on Ubi Kim's blog.  He gave me permission to use his resource (thanks!) and I sent out my email:

I blurred out the name for good measure.  If I get a reply, I'll make sure to ask if I can post the entire conversation.  Updates will come in the future!

Update: I got a response; you can see it here.

AP Hamlet Personal Learning Network

Here's the top five courses with online presence that I found studying Hamlet.  The top five are in no particular order.  I had trouble finding communities that were still active, so I chose based on the assumption that I could still contact these courses.

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)

To Facebook or Not to Facebook?

I can still remember pretty clearly when I was introduced to Facebook; it was just a few years ago, after all.  My friends had been trying to convince me to join for a while, but their arguments weren't very strong.  Their description of it came down to something like "you have a wall, and people can write on it or post pictures and stuff", to which I made a sarcastic (and unoriginal) joke about graffiti.  At the time, I found it pretty pointless.  If somebody really wanted to talk to me, why couldn't they just call or text?  Or even better, actually talk in person?

However, once I finally gave into the friendly peer pressure, I found it amazing.  The idea of having a singular hub to connect to my peers easily was pretty cool.  Throughout the end of junior high and early high school, I used Facebook moderately.  I wrote a status update from time to time, and made an effort to like and comment when I felt another status was worthy.  I wasn't on it nearly as much as some people, but I definitely checked at least once a day.

Vocab Midterm Autopsy

The vocab midterm went well for me.  I got 81/81, so I definitely did as well as I hoped.  I expected to do fairly well, as I typically don't have a lot of trouble with vocabulary.  The outcome can't be rightfully attributed to any one thing.  My study strategy was extremely rudimentary, essentially boiling down to reading over the words on this blog.  The fact that the midterm was matching made it much easier.  There were only a handful of words that I was not completely comfortable with going into the test, and I was able to figure them out through process of elimination.

That said, there is still room for improvement.  Ideally I would be comfortable with all the words and be able to score well even if the test was in a harder format.  Given that my study strategy was so simplistic in the first place, improving upon it will be equally easy.  Simply spending more time with the words should do the trick.  Additionally, since the word number should theoretically double for the final, I'll need to step up my use of mnemonics, particularly regarding similar words.

The Right to Your Opinion Socratic Seminar: Thoughts

After today's Socratic seminar, I was thinking about some topics that warranted further discussion.  One was regarding the nature of an opinion.  Since defining words and phrases was so popular during the discussion, it seems odd in hindsight that nobody broached the topic.  The most memorable example of not having a right to your opinion was stopping a friend from crossing the road who was "of the opinion" that there were no cars coming.  That seems like less of an opinion and more of a perspective.  Should an opinion be purely subjective?  But then again, what is really subjective?

For example, imagine a discussion between friends about whether chocolate or vanilla is the superior ice cream flavor.  Assuming the ultimate goal of ice cream is to provide enjoyment, it's impossible to come to an accurate conclusion.  To one friend, chocolate is the best flavor, and to him that is an undeniable truth.  In a side by side comparison of chocolate vs vanilla of equal caliber, chocolate provides him more enjoyment.  Nobody can know this but him, so nobody can deny it.  I don't think this necessarily gives him a right to the opinion (in the sense that he is entitled to it), but it certainly doesn't excuse the other friend imposing his vanilla-favoring opinion on others.

I'm sure there's some faults in my points, but it would have at least made for interesting discussion.