Friday, April 24, 2015

Act V Scene IV

Malcom is telling his soldiers to camouflage themselves so that Macbeths army can't see how many of them there are. 
I don't think that it will effect Macbeths decision. 

Wednesday, April 1, 2015

Just a little more (research) on my Masterpiece

Now it is still unclear to me to what exactly I would like to do but this is some research onto how to achieve my goal.

Flow: the mental state of operation in which a person performing an activity of energized focus, full movement, and enjoyment in the process of the activity.

  • focused motivation. There needs to be some sort of drive that one has to be in "the zone"
Hyperfocus: "bad flow." Hyperfocus is more of an addiction that a state of mind. People often become controlled by hyperfocus when flow is supposed to be the other way around.

Flow Theory says that there are three conditions that are usually met:
1. The activity at hand must have a clear set of goals.
2. Clear and immediate feedback.
3. Good balance between perceived challenges of the task at hand and their own perceived skills.


TPCASTT Poem Analysis of I Felt a Funeral, in my Brain by Emily Dickonsen

Title: I Felt a Funeral, in my Brain - she is losing her mind. Just through what a funeral represents which is the loss of something you love and the synonym for brain which is mind. 
Paraphrase: 
  • "and mourners, to and fro, kept treading - treading - ..." - anxiety and pain keep coming into her thoughts.
  • "and when they all were seated," - the anxiety and pain all came to a halt.
  • "and then a plank in reason, broke, and I dropped down and down" - the foundations on which her sanity is built on collapsed under her and she fell into the darkness of insanity. 
Connotation: 

Attitude: The attitude of the character/author is very panicked and scared. She is afraid that she is in fact going to lose her mind and go crazy. My attitude towards the character is empathy and benevolence. I can understand, maybe to not entire this extent but to some degree, of what it feels like to have your mind and soul trying to leave you. 
Shift: I think the shift is somewhere between the last stanza and the one prior to that. When she says "Wrecked, solitary, here - ... and then a Plank in Reason broke."
It goes from her feeling all alone as if no one could come help her while she's hanging on the edge of her sanity, to the point where she could hold on anymore. 
Title Revisited: Instead of losing her mind i believe she has lost her mind. That's obvious to me now because you don't go obviously don't go to a funeral to mourn someone dying. 
Theme: Don't take what you have for granted.

Tuesday, March 31, 2015

Jiro Dreams of Sushi with my Bachan

     After watching the movie, Jiro Dreams of Sushi in class I told my parents about it at dinner and they decided they were going to watch it. So during/after dinner with my mom, dad, and Bachan (Grandmother) we decided to watch it. It was interesting to see her reaction about the movie. Especially since we just ordered sushi from this korean owned restaurant that doesn't take any care at all into their sushi. We ordered yellowtail from there and got some substitute fish that we knew wasn't because yellowtail is white and we got a pinker looking fish. So anyway while watching the movie Bachan commented on how Jiro does it the right way and how that's how its supposed to be done. Also when he commented how Jiro has been working for 75 years she said "that's right and he will continue too forever." I thought this was pretty interesting because she is a lot like Jiro. She is a very active 92 year old woman who still goes to luncheons, sings in a church choir kind of thing, and even goes to Obon, a big Japanese festival. I guess after all of this what I learned is that it doesn't matter what age or how skilled you are, as long as you are doing what you love nothing going to stop you from doing that.

Brave New World Essay

     In the novel "Brave New World," Aldous Huxley writes about the struggle of wanting to be different when society will punish one if they are. He shows us through through the plot line and characteristics of one of the main characters Bernard.With symbolism and irony Huxley describes Bernard's problem of outward conformity.
     Bernard is a psychiatrist which is fitting because he understands how people work and why a society is ultimately broken if there is no conflict of ideas which impedes progress. The irony of him being a psychiatrist is that a society that doesn't want to change shouldn't have someone who studies why that is actually against human nature. Due to his position in society he has a harder time dealing with the pressures of society because he has the knowledge of why it is corrupt.
     In the society the drug called "soma" is a representation of all the things is society today that distracts people from their problems and make them feel better. Bernard refuses to take this drug because he believes the happiness produced by it is artificial. Even though it ultimately makes people happy in the end he thinks that it isn't real happiness because it is given rather than earned. There is a struggle between what society deems is happy and what Bernard believes happiness truly is.
     Bernard is constantly fighting between his feelings to conform to a broken society and his feelings to be an individual and do things differently than what his peers believe to be correct. Huxley uses irony and symbolism to further establish the internal quarrel that Bernard is having. 

Friday, March 27, 2015

Masterpiece

I have done some research on "flow" and am getting closer to figuring out what I actually want to do for my masterpiece. I know I want to do something that is both mentally and physically challenging and involves complete focus to become immersed in the present.

Tobermory Explanation

Tone: I think the tone of the story is humorous. Saki even use obvious comic, ridiculous humor of a talking cat or the fact that he died by an elephant charging and killing him. He also uses more intricate jokes and set ups, for example he uses foreshadowing when Colvis is saying that he won't show up that night because he was "in the local newspaper office at the present moment, didacting the first installment of his reminisces." Also Saki uses sarcasm as humor when Clovis "having made this contribution to general cheerfulness." Which he is not really that cheerful. 

Theme: In my opinion the theme of the story is to be careful what you wish for because it might just come true. Appin tried so hard to teach something intelligence and it did become intelligent and enough so that it decided it was done with him.