My Plans

My plans for the rest of the year are not completely clear yet. Cambria and myself are trying to look into the global causes thing and somehow connect with that musically. Other than that I am sort of interested in the big question library thing but I have not looked into it yet.

My AP Study Process

Today I was actually humbled while studying with my group. I realized that I didn't know the literary terms as thoroughly as I had previously thought. As we all yelled out terms expecting to hear their definitions repeated, everyone was silent yet my silence was the loudest to me. I thought I had all these terms down. Well I guess I was mistaken and am definitely taking another few looks down that list tonight. With everything else I still feel pretty comfortable but after today I am having second thoughts in those areas too.

My AP Plan

My plans for this class and my future in it are simple. I'm going to collaborate with a few close friends to get a little bit better at what I need to work on in my essays. Other than that I feel confident that there isn't much that I need to work on.

My Favorite 3

http://kmrhsenglitcomp.blogspot.com/#!/2012/03/la-video.html

http://sfrhsenglitcomp.blogspot.com/2012/03/analysis-remix-of-lord-of-flies.html

http://jprrhsenglitcomp.blogspot.com/2012/03/help-by-kathryn-stockett-remix-video.html

Socratic Notes

The information that I picked up from our socratic seminar today that I can use in my life is plentiful. The main realization that I myself came to today is that I need to do a little more introspection on my life and how this class can help prepare me for the real world and what I can accomplish once I'm thrust into it. These discussions have shown me that every person must make these choices for themselves and no one can make them for them. I have flourished in this class to an extent, but not as much as I'd like to see myself do. I have all of these tools to utilize right in front of me, yet I've only scratched the surface. This is a valuable lesson for anyone in life. You can't just sit back and let someone tell you what to do as much as they'd like to. You need to be active in making what you want to happen, actually happen.

Lit Analysis 4: Lord of the Flies

1.  Lord of the Flies by William Golding is a novel written about a plane full of young school boys that goes down on a lost island which causes them to attempt to survive on their own with no adult supervision. Their wills to survive and even their humanity is tested. At first, the boys see a use for an attempt at civillized democracy, however this soon begins to crumble. The boys' adolescense comes into play as their rules break down and fear of a beast on the island destroys what little control they have left. At this point some of the children are injured and ostracized. However it still gets worse. Humanity is completely abandoned when the one boy still hlding onto civillized views is killed. After this tragic event they are rescued and forced to come to terms with what they have done. But did they leave one world of animosity to another?

2.) The theme of the book is how we are all animals inside, and as much as we think that we are civillized, really we aren't. It is showing us that human nature itself is flawed, and no matter how much one person tries to fight this (Piggy), nothing will change until we all fight our inner animosity.

3.) Golding's tone was one of pessimistic apathy. He simply stated things as if he were an uninvolved observer who ended up being disgusted in what he saw. For example:

• "Ralph did not take the hint so the fat boy was forced to continue." (Page 11). Instead of feeling bad for the "fat boy", the author simply stated the obvious with no remorse. 
• "For now the littluns were no longer silent... They begun to cry in sympathy, two of them almost as loud as Percival." (Page 87).
• "He used all the bad words he could think of in a fit of temper that passed into yawning. How long could you go without sleep?..." (Page 190)

4.) Six techniques very critical to the novel were personification, imagery, foreshadowing, motif, dialogue, and irony.

Poem Analysis: Dovahkiin

From analyzing this poem, I can tell that the dramatic situation is the rebirth of Alduin, and the hope of mankind resting in the arms of the Dragonborn. The structure of the poem is that of a chant almost, or a song. The poem's purpose is a call to arms to the Dragonborn, to stop Alduin's conquest. The speaker writes in rhyming couplets. Many very vivid images are conjured from the poem, such as the horrors that await mankind upon Alduin's conquest. This conveys the importance of the Dragonborn's existence and destiny.  

Mini AP essays

Today's essay exams were kind of exactly like I had expected them to be. They were what I expected them to be about as well. I feel like I was very prepared for these essays I just wish we had more time to complete them more fully because I don't feel as if I got most of the message that I was trying to get across, actually across. I worked pretty well under pressure but I wish I had more time to actually express the ideas I had thought up. This has made me focus more on getting my thoughts organized more quickly.

Tale of Two Cities Lecture Notes

-"level of personal intensity." Dickens really wrote realistically.
-His friend's play The Frozen Deep influenced writing heavily.
-Ellen inspired Lucie.
-Influenced by terrible things he saw when he was a young child in London.
-He grew up in a labyrinth of wretchedness and darkness and fascination.
-Visited Paris in 1844 and he was fascinated by it.
-Admired the elegance of Paris.
-He was drawn to the morgue and morbid aspects.
-He drew many parallels to London.
-Dickens wasn't a revolutionary he was against riots and bloodshed.
-Victorian Fear: Revolution

Dickens' Reason

I believe that Charles Dickens wrote Great Expectations to show that money is the root of all evil. Pip is a benevolent and innocent person while he is poverty-stricken. He only becomes a rude and mean person when he comes into monetary wealth. This is a prime example of irony.

Great Beginnings.

So far in the first fifteen pages of Great Expectations, I have drawn several key similarities between the protagonist, young Pip, and Charles Dickens himself. They are both poor orphans abandoned on their own. Dickens' childhood abandonment led to much of his inspirations. It's almost as if Pip is designed after Dickens' true childhood, and this novel will chronicle key events from that.

BQ Intro.

Dreaming is one bodily process with which everyone is fascinated in it, yet it is one process which we know almost nothing about. Where do we go when we dream? What does our body do whilst dreaming? Is there anyway in which we can gain control of our unconscious bodies? This last question is one example of just why this requires more research. If there was some way we could control our dreams and access larger amounts of our brains, what power, knowledge or abilities would we end up unlocking. Among the vast arrays of information on this subject, I started with the theories of popular psychologists.
Sigmund Freud, one of the most well-known psychologists, believed that dreams were all reflections of a strong, subconscious desire, maybe even dating back into our early childhoods. We dream about these secret, often sexual, desires every night and they combine with our past experiences to produce our jumbled up dreams that we seldom derive meaning from. He believed that every dream we have is driven by a long lost childhood wish. Freud also believed that no one could interpret a dream except for a trained psychologist. This theory runs opposite to the theory of another well known and respected psychologist, Jung.
Jung believed that anyone can interpret their own dreams by correlating dreams we have with other similar dreams. By combining similar dreams that we have, we push together all of the reoccurring details which we then analyze. He however, never really looked into why we dream what we dream.
Another psychologist who did study the purpose for dreams however is Cayce. He believed that sleeping and dreaming built up our minds, bodies, and souls and dreams were a way of telling or showing us how to become better people. Cayce was determined that if you knew yourself well enough, such as your fears, goals, desires and limits, that you would be ready and able to start interpreting your dreams, and becoming the best person you can be. This theory goes along with how we learn subconsciously all of the time, however we can only tap into this knowledge and understand it if we know ourselves and can learn it subconsciously while we sleep. He believed we pulled back into our subconscious completely when we slept.
Evans’ theory is yet another one completely on what we are doing while sleeping. He believed that during sleep, especially REM sleep, our brains pulls back into itself so to speak, and organizes and modifies all of the information that it has required throughout the day. While part of our brain is focused on this, the rest of our brain catches glimpses of these memories or flashes of knowledge and plays these glimpses back in what we call dreams. They really have no meaning. They are just random, shuffled up clips of what our brain is processing.
Nearly every notable psychologist in history has had at least some vague interest in dreaming and sleep. It is proven that everyone alive dreams, yet no one is for sure about why or what happens while we do. That is need enough for a field of study. There is so little known about why we dream, that this deserves our attention.

Charles Dickens: Great Expectations

I believe that this novel is titled this because of its protagonist Pip, who has all of these great expectations for how he thinks his life will be. He has great expectations about the woman he loves and the man he wants to be. Although things do not work out as smoothly as he plans or expects them to, Pip ultimately achieves his goal of becoming a good man.

On second thought...

This is my new favorite poem: Dovahkiin


DRAGONBORN DRAGONBORN / BY HIS HONOR IS SWORN / TO KEEP EVIL FOREVER AT BAY / AND THE FIERCEST ROUT / WHEN THEY HEAR TRIUMPH’S SHOUT / DRAGONBORN FOR YOUR BLESSING WE PRAY

AND THE SCROLLS HAVE FORETOLD / OF BLACK WINGS IN THE COLD / THAT WHEN BROTHERS WAGE WAR COME UNFURLED / ALDUIN BANE OF KINGS / ANCIENT SHADOW UNBOUND / WITH A HUNGER TO SWALLOW THE WORLD

Favorite Poem

Here is a list of fearful things:
The jaws of sharks, a vulture's wings,
The rabid bite of the dogs at war,
The voice of one who went before.
But most of all the mirror's gaze,
Which counts us out our numbered days.
-Untitled by Clive Barker (Under the pseudonym Righteous Bandy)