Semester Loving

Much fun happened this semester. We went over the heroes journey, satire, and humanities faults. My favorite was the unit that we spent entirely on satire. Satire is just so funny and it really is a wonder that people don't realize they are being satirized. I mean, I'm sure I've been satirized before and didn't realize it, but it's still pretty amazing how satire works. When we did the satire video chunk of class, I really learned a lot on what satire is and how it is used (I recommend doing that same video project for years to come). Anyways, I really did love this semester; it was challenging, exiting, and most of all engaging. I'm not normally a very talkative person, but in this class there was much debating. I may not have talked much, but by forcing the debates forth caused others to talk, making my questions answered. I also learned different ways to organize my thoughts for essays, because as you can see from this blog, my ideas aren't exactly "neat". All around it was a solid time spent learning.

I really loved the hero's journey group project a ton too. As you know, my group did a Scooby-Doo movie for that. I think that was a lot of fun, and really helped me see how everything got sown into the real world. Now when people say "the real world" they don't really mean "when you are older". They mean "when you have to fend for yourself". These are completely different things considering the time we all live in. Let's face it; hundreds of people decide each day that they are going to live with their parents, making them still unaware and arrogant of "the real world" because they are still under the wing of an adult. This has to do with literature because we, as students and learners are getting let out into the world sooner and younger then years past because of our education standards. Literature is helping our young men and women into the real world with more and more gusto as teaching standards get higher as well. Now that I'm done with this rant, I would like to take a second to thank all the great people educating us young people into the world.

Thanks for all you have and will do for us.

Simon and all His glory

In chapter 8 of William Golding's Lord of the Flies, there is a short introduction to the actual Lord of the Flies while he talks to Simon. Simon is sitting in his meditation spot, when Jack and his pose come and murder a pig right in-front of him. This causes a mass swarm of flies to come to the carcass' head they left behind as an offering to the Beast. The swarm then is named "Lord of the Flies" but is not given a pronounced shape or form, other than a mass. At first it tries to scare Simon into going back to the other boys and playing peacefully, but sense he doesn't move, it starts to get angry and threatens him. Simon only says one thing- "Pigs head on a stick". This is the picture Simon cannot get out of his head no matter how hard he is trying, and this devil isn't helping obviously. The Lord of the Flies says some things that don't really make sense, one of which being; "This is ridiculous. You know perfectly well you'll only meet me down there-so don't try to escape!"

Symbols That Seem To Be Emerging

In "Lord of the Flies" by William Golding, many symbols are presenting themselves. The most prominent symbol I notice is Piggy and his way of thinking. He thinks very logically and very much to the point. His way of thinking is quite different from the rest of the boys because he is always looking for the truth and never what he actually wants to see. At the beginning of the book, Piggy was very straight forward and new exactly what happened to Ralph's dad (died to an atom bomb), even if Ralph didn't want to admit it. Piggy is still seeing things through "an eye of wisdom" because everything he sees through his glasses seems to be very truthful and realistic. I think that Piggy is a metaphor for scientists in our world because of his attitude towards bad things; he sees them and relates, then thinks of some way to fix them. Ralph and the other boys are less mature, and don't see that things are going to turn bad unless they get some work done, and stop playing around like this island is a vacation. Piggy is all around the most intelligent human on this island.

Biology Rant

So. I'm in biology. I love science, but this year it's been a little overwhelmingly annoying. We literally have a lab every day, due the following week, making us forget about them and have to cram them in the night before. I normally do amazing in science because I like it so much, but sense I can't do my best on the vast number of labs we have, I am falling behind. I'm not literally "falling behind", it just sucks having to stay up till 10:30 (look out, we got a bad-ass over here) at night doing homework. Just last night I was up till said time doing four labs, and no, I didn't procrastinate a ton and do all of it the night before, I did about half of each of them two nights before, but then we had more homework from biology due this same Friday! It's terrible! I go from 7 hours of school, to two hours of ultimate Frisbee, to homework till I sleep.

Halloween

Yesterday was Halloween. I didn't really do much, just kinda walked around the neighborhood with two of my friends and went to various of our other friends' houses. We all dressed up in the normal teenage wear: wanna be costumes that never made it to be their own solo clothing. Basically, we just took random clothes in the old dress-up boxes our sisters have and put as many on at a time as possible. I called myself the "Family Shepard Princess" because of the princess clothes and Shepard staff I had in my wardrobe. One of my friends went as "Count Swagula", which I higher opposed, and the other went as a skeleton or something of that sort; we couldn't really decide what he was. I honestly wouldn't think it as a very exiting night, as it used to be when I was younger. We just wandered, and candy wasn't a very big motivator for actually trick-or-treating because candy makes me feel sick. We only went to two houses for candy; our friend who couldn't hang with us's house about two blocks away, and this guys house that we mess with every year who has amazing decorations. We always pretend that the "big kids" stole all of our candy and then we beg him to give us some even though our costumes were far from par. Once we got our handful of candy, we went back to Skeleton friends house and talked with his family that is living in his basement because their house got destroyed in the recent flood that hit Colorado like a bowling-ball. 

Jack

Select one character from the chapter on and write about him in detail. Use two citations in your description.

I am picking the character 'Jack' because of his immense importance in the first chapter. He first shows himself when him and his little group of choir kids comes out of the forest to the call of the conch. Once they all take off their cloaks he "was tall, thin and bony; and his hair was red beneath the black cap. His face was crumpled and freckled, and ugly without silliness" (Golding 18) This shows that he is a little older than the rest of the choir boys because of his height, and since he has to command them, he can't be silly about it, or they wont listen. His face looks ugly with this lack of silliness because he is very serious in his command of the smaller children. '"I ought to be chief,' said Jack with simple arrogance, 'because I'm chapter chorister and head boy. I can sing C sharp."'

Chill Quoting

"'History,' said Joyce's Dedalus, 'is a nightmare from which I am trying to wake'. But we do not awake. Though we constantly make a heroic attempt to rise to a level ethically superior to nature, our own nature, again and again we suffer a fall- brought low by some outburst of madness because of the limiting defects inherent in our species" (Barker xv).

This is an intriguing quote because of how in-depth it is in the world we live in today. Once we see that "History is a nightmare from which I am trying to wake" is in here, you can tell that something is going down. The author of the quote is literally saying that they wish they could take back somethings, or maybe even do more things than they had. The next part of the quote is saying that we all make heroic attempts that don't seem possible to the standards of natures' power, but very few of them come to be something of heroic measure. She then goes on to say that "again and again we suffer a fall", meaning we always have a big time low, which is called the abyss, and its different for everyone. This is brought on by the human race always trying to bring down each other, so we ourselves don't feel bad.

An Essay for the Modest Proposal

As the history of writing has increased to a standard that is essential for living, many different writing styles have popped up around the world. Satire really takes the cake, on the most interesting one. In Ireland, A man named Johnathan Swift was the father of satire. He wanted to get a point across, and so he invented a different way of writing, that would forever change society. This new way of writing is called satire; a way to say something, and have only the smartest of people know that you are actually bashing against a group of people who have made a mistake. Swift wrote an essay to get people to see his point of view, and this essay was just the start of a much more in depth subject later on in history. Satire may be up for questioning on if it actually works, so here are some reasons why it, in-fact does if these things are made clear; a societal ill was exposed, a corrupt person of power, and an ignorant action.

Swift is a very smart man, always writing for the paper, and helping out his community as a wealthy man, but there was a ill in society that was really getting at him. That ill, was the fact that those who walk through Ireland could see that "cabin doors, are all crowded with beggars of the female sex, followed by three four or six children, all in rags and importuning every passenger for an alms" (Swift 1). Well, this ill was actually only half of the problem. The other problem was that nobody was doing anything about all of these people starving on the streets. This is where the sarcastic satire comes in; Swift proposes that "a young healthy child well nursed is at a year old a most delicious, nourishing, and wholesome food" (Swift 3). This is Swifts way of getting rid of all the starving people on the streets. If they weren't helping in keeping Ireland alive in the times of British rampancy, then they should help in a different way; more food. He is not actually wanting people to start eating the babies of poor folk, he is simply using loads of sarcasm and irony to get his point across that things need to change with these poor people. He then goes on using rationalism and logic to say a whole bunch of numbers about how many people in Ireland would be fed if they started to eat children. He actually says it in a logical way, meaning, if you didn't understand the satire, you would agree that this could  be a good idea for this problem. The wrong-doing in society was very much exposed with this amazing essay, therefore. step one of a good satire is complete.

Another part of a good satire is that the writer needs to point out if there is a corrupt commander. People look up to people of power, so if these people make bad decisions, their underlings will try and follow them to their watery grave, so to speak. Swift does a great job of taking the corrupt politicians off their thrones, when he states " this kind of commodity will not bear exportation, and flesh being of too tender a consistence  to admit a long continuance in salt, although perhaps I could name a country, which would be glad to eat up our entire nation without it" (Swift 9). Swift is literally saying that England's rich folk would rather eat imported, maggot infested human meat, than just give up some of their salt factories so that the Irish can support themselves and take care of their own problems. In a way, he is simply saying they are barbaric, with his grotesque sarcasm. This is kind of like a video, where the government is asking for more and more money, when they haven't even gotten their first priorities done with; they are already preparing for whats to come next (Trapwire). Swift then goes on to say that "I have no children by which I can propose to get a single penny; the youngest being 9 years old, and my wife past child-bearing" (Swift 9). Swift is now just mocking and making fun of other ideas that have come forth to save the poor people in Ireland. He is stating that "yes this is an amazing idea, but no I will not be taking part in it." This is the sort of thing that other people that have come up with ideas have said at the end of their essays, or something just as unreasonable. The tone can only be described as disappointment  because Swift is sad that nobody has come up with a way of getting these people back on their feet.

An ignorant mistake is the third thing that makes a satire work. When someone does something, without thinking about the consequences, or the people they are hurting, one can make a satire about them. This is exactly what Swift does. Swift starts to tackle the rich when he says, "beside the profit of a new dish introduced to the tables of all gentlemen of fortune in the kingdom who have any refinement in taste" (Swift 6). When one analyzes this, they can come to the conclusion that Swift is bashing on wealthy people for not helping out the poor people with food and that of the sort; and they would rather eat human flesh than to do so. Swift also states that "I shall now therefore humbly propose my ow thoughts, which I hope will not be liable to the least objection" (Swift 3). Using sarcasm and irony, he is saying that he actually has no humbleness whatsoever, and we should raise our kids as cattle; so that they may die and be eaten and skinned for food and clothes. He really hates that none of the rich folk are helping out the less fortunate with survival, so he writes this satire to show just that.

Satire is really interesting with its different ways of showing ills and corruptness's in society and powerful figures as a whole. Satire works, and Jonathan Swift has proven that for us with his amazing essay A Modest Proposal. Satire was a breakthrough for the human race, for it has shone many people that what they are doing is wrong, and it works the majority of the time, as long as the person understands the satire. As was said above, Swift was the creator of satire. He needed a way to get people to listen, so he came up with an unspeakable idea to do so, and it worked. If there is a problem in society, satire is a great way to show people what is going on. If there is a need for a change, satire is the number one place to go. Satire is confusing, misleading, and irrational, but it does its best to keep humanity in line. Satire is like a pot of delicious human stew; if one puts in a child at the right age, and the perfect amount of salt, it will be the most scrumptious and wholesome meal said person has ever had, and they may never go back to their normal selections. Keep this in mid when writing satire; it will work if you have the right ingredients.

SATIRE VIDEO OPINION

So over the last few days, my class and I have had to bring in a satire video, and present to everyone else why it is satire so we get a sense of what satire is (mine is up on this blog about 2 posts ago). Mine was about the government, specifically the CIA, and it was also saying how Americans are dumb, and don't do anything unless they get something in return. Well, enough of that, I'm going to talk about other people videos.

In general, a good percentage of the videos had racism and/or stupid Americans doing stupid things. The different branches of Americans being racist and dumb were as follows: religious views, gun control, need of technology (mainly Facebook and apple products), make-up products for women, people being blatantly racist, and Americans being major hypocrites while pointing fingers at other Americans (stubbornness). I really enjoyed the videos on religious views and and gun control; because both of those are in our first 10 amendments. It's just hilarious to watch people argue over things that will not be changed no matter how much you want it to. In this one video on religious views, some ignorant American said on national news that a women should be put in prison for wearing a burka, which is worn by many women in the Muslim culture. The fact that anyone would even say this is just disgusting. I think they should be put in prison for saying something like that (you could even make a satire out of me if you really wanted to from that). I have learned quite a lot about satire from this past week of satire videos, and I very much think satire is a great way to show off someones faults.

Jonathan Swift and all His Swiftness

Jonathan Swift was quite an interesting man,

When he was born on Nov. 30, 1667; he had no father.

Thus being born into a poor family, he was given to his rich uncle.

He was then put into a very preppy private school,

Where he would get his bachelors degree at the age of 14.

He might have married back in 1716, its not fully known.

Laws are like cobwebs, which may catch small flies, but let wasps and hornets break through. (Jonathan Swift)

Swift, the greatest writer of English prose, and the greatest man who has ever written great English prose.

(T.S. Eliot, The Varieties of Metaphysical Poetry, 1926)

Where I got these quotes; go check them out.

http://grammar.about.com/od/rhetoricstyle/a/SwiftSimple.htm

http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/authors/j/jonathan_swift.html#X1XFoePpsAoQxYDR.99

Satire, and its Deepest Secrets

Satire itself has quite the story behind it. It has so many aspects that need  explaining, I don't even know what to do with myself. Luckily, I found this video on YouTube that has quite a bit of satire in it. The main type of satire in this video is first; that it's a parody, and second; there is tons of burlesque. The government agents in this video are talking about keeping our country safe from terrorists; "we are using security cameras in metro areas to look for suspicious persons, who might be pre-planning terrorist attacks." (Trapwire) This is an example of a normal thing governments might try to do, therefore making this video a parody from the very start. The man next explains, "here's an example: lets say someone in a restaurant is eating a banana; then we get a seemingly unrelated report that the potassium in bananas can be used for making bombs." (Trapwire) This is still the parody because they are doing what any good government would do and try to keep its citizens safe, but they are also adding some burlesque in there because they are exaggerating immensely when the agents then shoot down the citizen for having and eating the banana. The two agents then go on to say how expensive it is to keep our country safe; only 1.5 million dollars; basically making an incredibility unreasonable donation amount.

Now for the deeper meaning of this video: they are completely satirizing the government, and the CIA. All throughout the video, these two are saying things that the CIA themselves might say (but obviously they do it with more emotion than the CIA). So for the first example I said above: they are making this video a parody. Then for the second example, they talk about how they gun down the man eating the banana. This would never happen in real life (I hope); this is the burlesque kicking in. The deeper meaning is that the government is trying to keep this country as safe as possible. But instead, they are just causing way more issues; like a false accusation of a civilian for being dangerous, but they are just trying to live their life. The people in the video then go on and say there are rewards for donating. This is satirizing the American people themselves by saying that they wont donate unless there is something in it for them, hence not making it a donation at all. 

Heroism Poster Process

I really thought the hero posters were very fun, they were quite a lot of work, but it was fun work. How often do you get to do a huge write up and poster on Scooby-Doo?! My team was amazing, and we all went to my house, and watched our movie. We have all been friends for a year or two now, so we all listened and loved each others ideas. We watched Scooby-Doo and the Cyber Chase, which is one of the best ones. We made our poster really cool looking, so that if we screwed up the presentation (which we did, so badly), we would still get tons of points for the visual feature. Also, watching the other groups present was pretty cool too. One group did the movie, "Back to the Future." They did a really nice job and their presentation was quite exquisite. One person in their group was amazing at talking, and really caught the attention of the crowd. Its real cool to spend a week working hard, and then coming together at the end and putting it together to make something bigger. All around it was quite a fun project.

           

I also mentioned that I enjoyed listening to a group do the movie, "Back to the Future." It was quite good because they seemed to plan it out so well; or even if they winged the whole presentation, they did an amazing job. I really loved how they put all the pieces of the movie together to make their poster. Oh yeah, that reminds me; it was kind of annoying with steps 10 and 11 because they were both the same scene in our movie, and it was about 4 seconds long. It made it quite difficult to turn each into 8 sentences per step, but we got it done. Back to the movie, "Back to the Future", It was cool how they made it seem as though I had seen the movie, even though I haven't. Their descriptions of all the steps in the movie were very helpful to get down what the plot was. I could tell exactly what was going on in the movies' heroism circle. I really enjoyed this whole fricken project, and would love to do another anytime of the year. It was quite groovy.

Hardcore Parkour!

After school every Tuesday, Thursday and sometimes Saturday, I go to a place called Apex-Movement from 6-9pm. It is a ginormous parkour/break-dancing gym. This place has a very large significance in my life because of how much I love doing parkour and free-running. I have been going to Apex for about a year and 2 months, for 2-3 days a week. It’s really interesting to see how much people, in general, improve physically and mentally, the more they have been training at this gym. Parkour is all about confidence and strength, if you want to get good; you have to increase each of these together. You may be wondering what the difference between parkour and free-running is: parkour is just getting from location A to location B, as fast and efficient as possible. Free-running is basically the same thing, but instead of going as fast as possible, you try to make it look as awesome as possible; its more for the flashy, cool looking factor, not really for speed. Free-running and parkour both have flips involved, but free-running has them much more so. I really love them both, and you can’t do one without the other, so I like them equally. Anyone reading this should defiantly check out Apex-Movement, you might find your dream sport.

Sadness of the Abyss

The abyss is the lowest moment in the journey. It’s a time of suffering, pain, and facing fears (metaphorical monsters.) “Slay the dragon.” Describe a time in your life that resembled an abyss. How did it transform you?

When I was in 5^th grade I had a teacher named, “Mrs. Mag.” She was honestly the worst teacher and person you could think, of multiplied by 6. She gave tons of homework each night, and actually had grades for us; which was scaring enough for a 5^th grader. That whole year of 2008 was a terrible year, and I was in the abyss. Being in the abyss sucks, but when you are a 5^th grader and still not even knowing what’s going on in life, it’s treacherous. After that year, I have never really trusted a teacher to the whole extent I could, because of her demonic ways. She gave us more homework than I have this year, and all around she was just a bad person. But I couldn't just give up and let her keep me in the abyss forever, I had to get out. Somehow. Nowadays I just deal with the teachers I have and don't really talk or sass them back; basically so they don't notice me.

Hero is a Different Kind of Word

What does the word hero mean to you? Do you have a hero? Real or fictional?

            Heroes are all over in this wonderful world of ours, but in this very community there is one certain hero that really charms me. That hero is my father, Bill. All through my life he has picked me up and pushed me further in life. “Hero” to me means: someone who makes good choices and others can look up to for almost everything. My pa has always been a major inspiration and has forced me into some things I would not have done without his help. I know find that these things he wanted me to do have changed my life, always for the better. This hero of mine; I am proud to call my dad.

The Beginning of Something Mediocre.

This here picture, is of one of my favorite quotes, from my all time favorite movie, "Hitch Hikers Guide to the Galaxy." 

In this video, a huge relation between dolphin intelligence and human intelligence collaborates. I really like this movie because of how interesting it would be to be to know so much about the world., that no one else did.

                       

In the video, it shows how the dolphins blow all the humans minds and fly away. As said in the quote, "Man had always assumed that he was more intelligent than dolphins because he had achieved so much," humans thought that they were always the smartest animals, but dolphins thought the same thing, humans just couldn't see just how smart dolphins really are. Humans thought they were so smart because they could invent things, but dolphins were still smarter because they had conquered the ultimate challenge; happiness. They find frolicking in the water the best thing on earth, so therefor they found themselves smarter than humans, who are always just working and such.

Back in 2008

When i was just 10 years old, I qualified for the Junior Olympics, or JO's. I was accepted into this competition for jump roping, which I did competitively back then; on a team and everything.

For my video got to his link: (my team at CU. I think we were doing a half time show) http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=1EwyToJ_re4

I'm the child in the bottom right hand corner at 0:30, middle 4:43, and at 7:00 right side.

I really loved this experience because I got to compete at the highest levels and got to travel to Reno! I placed 3rd for the All Around in my age group, which was surprisingly great. Life lessons I took out of this experience: hard work pays off completely. I trained for 3-4 years, every Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday, until I finally crawled my way to the top where I competed more and more often. I made tons of friends while training also, which was just a huge bonus. I feel it could have been a tad better if I was over 21 because of all the casino's everywhere. Our hotel was even a casino, so yeah, it would have been better if I was older at the time. All around, it was an amazing situation and opportunity for me and my team.