My favorite observation from this week was regarding Edgar (Poor Tom) and King Lear in the forest. I've really enjoyed the actor's portrayal of Edgar, as he's multi layered and very entertaining. The observation that we made during class was that both Edgar and King Lear were crazy, with Poor Tom being crazier, yet Poor Tom wasn't actually crazy and King Lear was on his way to it. While seeing Poor Tom, we saw foreshadowing of what King Lear could become. As we saw King Lear take Poor Tom underneath his wing, it reminded me of a young child caring for a baby doll. Shakespeare shows the various levels of insanity, creating a nice contrast. I'd like to be able to use this technique in my writing, in the future.
Connection: King Lear and Cinderella
As I was sitting in my parent's car, driving home from the hawk's game, I was thinking about what I could connect King Lear to. As I was thinking, Goneril and Reagan came into my mind. There are both pretty distinctive characters, and almost immediately I began to think of the evil step-sisters in Cinderella. While there is not a absolute connection between the four, there are definite parallels to be made. In both Cinderella and King Lear the sisters are pretty mean. They also lie to get what they want, and the other sister gets left out in the dust. Cordelia got taken out of the will, and Cinderella almost didn't get to go to the ball. But in the end, Cinderella did come out on top. Whether it will happen in King Lear, I'm not sure, as it's definitely not a fairy-tale. It's interesting to see how Shakespeare's characters influenced a classic fairy tale that has been told over and over again. In the evil stepsisters and Reagan and Goneril we can kind of see an archetype that has been fairly pervasive through the ages.
Ted Project
To start out with, I'm going to say that the ted project this year turned out way better than the one last year. But it was definitely not perfect. I'm going to start with all the good things I liked about TED, and then the things that didn't turn out so great. To start, I liked the way the google sites worked better than the wikispaces from last year. They were better organized, and easier to understand how they worked. There was also a better amount of collaboration, as with the built in discussion and comments. I also really enjoyed meeting up with everybody else in academy at the end for a discussion. That really gave me a good feeling of community, as it's not often that you'll see all of the academites in one area at every given time.
No I'm going to start talking about some of the stuff that I didn't like. First, the video that I was given was not on my top three list. That took some of the enjoyment out of it, as I wasn't as passionate about the topic I was given as the topics that I chose. I also didn't like how we only had one meeting time built in. I know that is hard to coordinate, but it would have been better if we had more times to meet. I'm still not feeling great about the way that everybody is being graded. I like the rubric for the group grade, but for the individual, I didn't like the tasks and assessment part. I know that I worked on that site a lot more than just what was documented. But how do you create a task when you do multiple little things that take only five minutes each? I feel like it would have worked better if we had maybe a clock in, clock out kind of thing, where you write the times you started working, stopped working, and what you did during that time. I feel like the task's thing was slightly arbitrary. Another thing that I didn't like was how people set out working on the project. Most people didn't start until the week of, when it was like, "O MY GOD!!!! Ted's on thursday!!!". I wish that people would be more responsible, but there's nothing that you can really do about that. Another thing that I didn't like was how our teacher's allocated time for ted. In one of my classes, the teacher would say "Take 30 minutes for ted, etcetera etcetra". But in another all the teacher said was that they cut out some projects, but there was no specific time for TED. One of the areas about this project that I thought could have run smoother was the rooms. The lyceum was perfect for this task, but I was stuck in the emerald city. In that room, the computer along with the internet was slow. It wasn't set up as much for a presentation as for teaching a class. Also, when the computer screen was put on the projector, the screen on the laptop went black, making it very difficult to navigate. I also think that more time would have been better, but that's again logistics.
Overall though, I really enjoyed the project, and though I had a lot of comments, most of them are nitpicky, and I think that this was a good experience over all.
Captured Thought: Humans and Nature
A week ago I was playing with my dog, Callie, in my backyard. As I was walking along the gravel path, I watched her sprint through the yard joyfully, seeming to be perfectly content. As my flip flops scuffed against the gravel, I started thinking about how come I don't feel that. I don't feel content just sitting outside. I can't just run. I don't feel right just being outside. I need to be doing something, I need to be wearing shoes, I need to be warm, I need to be dry, etcetera etcetera. But as I was thinking this, I realized that I wanted that. I wanted to feel (this is sooooooo cheesy) at one with the earth. I wanted to feel like I belonged, not that I was intruding on something that was so much bigger than me. Dogs have this, as do all animals. Some humans have this. But I don't, and most other people don't have it either, but why? We've become so domesticated, so used to our nice, comfortable indoor lives that we lack this ability. As I'm typing this right now, I'm lying on my bed, warm and dry. In maybe half an hour I'll go and eat dinner. But I haven't forgotten this feeling. I'd like to feel content with the earth, but maybe what's wrong with humans is also what makes them great? If we felt content with what he had, would he have built houses? Computers? Cars, and loads of other great things. But what I'd really like to have is both, both a contentedness with nature and the comforts of every day life. But I don't even know if that's possible.
360 Degrees:Blogging for Change
On wednesday of this week, it was Blog Action Day 2008. The whole point of this event was to raise awareness of poverty through blogging about it. It was estimated that the message reached 13,498,532 people through 12,836 blogs. That's a massive amount of people that would have read about poverty, assuming the website didn't exaggerate. But is this a good use of everybody's time? I'll probably spend 15-20 minutes writing this blog post, and I I'm assuming that the 12,836 bloggers spend approximately the same time writing their average blog post. The time that all the bloggers spent comes out to approximately 150 days of time. Couldn't more to be done in a 150 days than just creating blog posts? A person could go to volunteer their time in Africa, or in any place with a large poor population. 150 days of a person working at a minimum wage job comes out to 26,100 dollars. Wouldn't that do more good donated to a good cause than spent sitting in front of the computer? I guess it kind of depends on what the readers of the blogs are gonna do. Because me, I'm already aware of poverty. You've got to be kind of dense not to be. You see it on the news everyday, you see beggars in the street, etc, etc. So what is all this time spent blogging accomplice? Hopefully some of the readers of these blogs will donate some of their time and money to helping the cause. But we can't really see this, can we? We've got to be more content with knowing that maybe this is helping someone. Though the numbers that I mentioned at the beginning of this post are impressive, you've really got to ask yourself, what are these numbers doing?
Blogging Around
This is my response to Kate K's 360 degree look on soul mates. In her post, she questions whether or not everybody has soul mates out their, and how they find them.
In a way, this theory is more comforting to me than the theory of having just one soulmate. What if that soulmate dies, or lives in China? Or finds someone else who they think is their soulmate? With my theory, you've got multiple chances to find somebody to love.
We see this happen all the time. Some people haves spouses die, but they can find love again. Could this happen if people just had one perfect soulmate?
People all like to think that they'll find love someday, and I'm not any different than that. Hopefully we all will, whether they're are "soulmates" or not. Because really, isn't "soulmate" just a term for someone we love unconditionally?"
This is my response to Crystal T's 360 Degree look on PostSecret. She talks about the significance of a specific secret, and how secrets don't just affect the people who sent them in, but the people who read them as well.
"Crystal, I really enjoyed your blog post also. I've been a follower of postsecret since last year and I've really enjoyed reading the secrets, it's been one of the highlights of my sunday (other than the homework).
I also really enjoyed the post it note. To me, it really speaks of an optimistic hope that we should have. Reading that quote brightened my morning.
In responding to the question at the end of your post, I immediately thought of Kite Runner. In the introduction to me essay, about how secrets drive the story forward, I talked about Post Secret. According to my thesis, people's stories are driven by their secrets. Maybe the people sent in the secrets to let them go, to follow a new, clean path in their life?
We all have some secrets, no matter how big or small they are. There's a big relief in letting go of your secrets. Some people might not think that guys do this, but I've shared a few secrets with my friends, and they with me. It's nice to know that somebody else knows, and postsecret allows you to have that feeling anonymously."
360 Degrees: Weapons Manufacturing
Recently I started watching Iron Man the movie. I haven't finished it yet, but what I've seen so far has made me think about the impacts that weapons manufacturers have on the world and war. People keep developing weapons that can kill in a more sophisticated manner. In some ways, I believe that this is necessary. It's slightly ironic, but it could be possible that having weapons is actually a prerequisite to peace. Because if somebody wants power, and they get there hands on weapons, then somebody else will also need to have weapons in order to stop them. But if nobody made weapons in the first place, and nobody had weapons, then there wouldn't be a problem. But won't humans never feel safe unless they have weapons to protect themselves, because they believe that everybody else has weapons to? But doesn't it become overkill eventually. Doesn't the USA have enough nuclear weapons to blow up the earth ten times over? Why is it necessary to have this many weapons. And what about the people who work for the weapon's manufacturers. How do they feel about their line of work? Are they okay with it as long as they only sell to countries that will use it for good? But, like in Iron Man, some weapons will fall into the wrong hands, or are sold to them. Either way, people will die. Another question is, will creating more advanced weaponry decrease the amount of deaths or increase them? Would it be better if we resorted to having men line up with their swords across from each other, and the last side standing the victor? Wouldn't this shed less blood than dropping a nuclear bomb onto somebody? How can weapon's manufacturers answer these moral dilemmas and come to peace with them selves?