Blogging Around

I guess I've said it before, but i'll say it again:
I love these blog assignments. I'd prefer them over any written essay. The way I see it, there's just a casual, free-thinking element to every blog post- and i love this element. I can convey my thoughts without any of the pressures that I'd experience in an essay. No pressures, no outlines, no forced claims, and no stress. Nothing but the perfect thinking environment. (I'll make THAT my next blog post)

So I began by reading Brandon's metacognition post- and i must say that I liked it alot. Brandon made a point of how revising a poem is very similar to picking up dog poop- in the sense that it's very unpleasant but necessary. So in any case, I just found this analogy to very humorous, quite logical, certainly clever, and by all means, original. I just had to comment on such a perfect analogy.

But either way, Brandon made a point of how there is such a thing as too much revision. He recounted how, after hours of revising, his poem looked nothing the way it originally did. He even went to say how too much revision can kill a poem's original ideas. I believed this idea was an important subject. I wrote:

"That's what revisions are: picking up the poop in my poem."
Honestly, Brandon, i don't think anyone could have said it better than you have. It's tedious, it's frustrating, and it also involves alot of overspent thinking. So you're right, it's a pain in butt.
Still, what I've noticed about the revision process is that there's really no clear formula for it. It may just be a touch-up here or there.
So, in any case, this leads up to one of the biggest, most dauting questions of all time: "Where the hell do i start??"
When you mentioned the "stream of conciousness" that you experienced, i couldn't help but think "How did he do that?"- so that is my question to you. How does one overcome writer's block? Is it just confidence, or perhaps something else that im missing? Either way, i'm beginning to think that I need to take a "brain laxative".
As for the poem degradation you mentioned, I believe the key to solving that is a balance of ideas. Revision, in fact, is just like anything else: It needs to be done in moderation. Too little revising basically leaves you with the same original rough draft, and too much revision turns it into something you can't even recognize.
For an analogy, I think revising poetry is just like a delicate surgical operation. You have to make just the right cuts- hopefully without killing the patient.

But ok, moving on. The second post that I read was titled "Relating my Standards to King Lear's". It was written by Crystal, and it recalled alot of important family values that i wouldn't have even otherwise noticed while i was reading king lear.

So yes, this was an inspirational post for me. Through all the dark, tragic events of King Lear, I would have never realized how it emphasized the importance of family!

So here's what I wrote:

Ah, that is a very good point you made there! I would have never thought about these positive family aspects in King Lear before you mentioned them. To tell you the truth, I had thought of these family values the other way around up until now. I thought of King Lear's situation as something that PROVED how you couldn't trust family members. Now I see it differently!I mean, right now I'm just picturing a little family stepping out of the shakespeare's theater, recalling how awful it would be if one of their beloved children suddenly turned against them. The youngest child, of course, will say, "I would never do that to mommy or daddy!" and he would be telling the truth. So that's jsut what i'm thinking right now- and i totally agree with what you said. Still, it makes me wonder whether the aspect of family was an actual renaissance idea. Could it have possibly been medieval?

Metacognition: Rhyming Poetry

Creating poetry itself is a difficult task, and I'll admit that the rhyming element is a lot harder than it seems. Still, now that i think of it, there are alot of great upsides to writing poetry in rhyme. First off, rhyme usually takes good care of the poem's rhythm and transitions- in fact, it's almost a given. Poets with OCD may even find that rhyming satisfies that horrible twitching desire for everything to flow smoothly. Rhythm comes with every rhyme, and transitions are things that these poems just seem to take care of naturally.

Still, this doesn't quite compensate for the fact that rhyming poems are so strictly limited in terms of structure. Quite simply, every other stanza has to rhyme. It actually restricts the amount of words that can still be used while pertaining to the poem's orgininal theme (and you're not allowed to use the word "orange" either). As a matter of fact, rhyming may even obstruct some of the poem's content- especially while the writer is struggling to make everything rhyme.

What i've also noticed about rhyming poems is that they don't just "fly out of your head", like any other kind of freeform poetry. The whole rhyming filter slows down this process, where ideas are directly taken from their abstract state and inserted among the poem's stanzas. That's what frustrates alot of poets who attempt to use rhyme in this "idea to paper" manner. You can't just scribble things down with perfect rhyme and regularity. Based on my experience, I believe rhyming allows your ideas to come out one line at a time.

So, without further ado, let's say that I'm creating my rhyming poem. I begin by reviewing some of my themes (snow, frost, beauty, redemption, numbness, nature, bitter winter cold) and i jot some of these down before i lose them. My next step now, is to create a line using some of these themes.

"Like flecks of silky fallen fluff"
Ok. that sounds pretty good. I'll just have to create another line since I've decided that this stanza's going to be ABAB format.

"Like dust from angel's powdered wings".
Hmmm... I'm really liking this... But here comes the tricky part. My next line will require 8 syllables and end in a word that rhymes with fluff. Let's see if i can pull it off.

Fluff, luff, bluff, stuff, huff, puff, snuff, duff, ouff?..........
Don't get me wrong- these are all good words- but it doesn't look like any of they'd work with the poem's theme. This poses a problem, so i'll now have to go back and change the first line of my stanza. I change it to "Like flecks of silken fluff it fell". Luckily, it works. So, now that i have fell as my rhyming word, i find it much easier to get that third line written down. The fourth line just comes to me naturally.

This also goes to show that you can't simply whip off a rhyming poem in under 10 minutes. Creating a poem that rhymes can be frustrating, mind-boggling, headache-inducing, and very time-consuming. Sometimes it requires the use of a rhyming thesaurus. But even then, it seems to me like my ideas for this kind of poetry always slip out of my head a little too quickly. Sometimes i'll think "Omigod! Perfect line!" and then it will disappear in a split second.

I've always imagined these ideas in poetry to be little insects whirring around in your brain- especially when you don't take notice of them right away. You'll be minding your own business when one of these little thought-bugs suddenly and unexpectedly whizzes by right in front of you. Then of course, you're somehow left with one choice: to capture the thought before it flies away. You struggle to hold on to it. You do finally manage to capture it.

The lid is almost firmly secured on the little jar containing your idea. You're on the verge of writing it down, and your fingers are poised over the keys. Unfortunately, and that also happens to be when mom enters the room, asking whether or not you've done some petty task this afternoon. You are distracted from writing. The insect in the jar breaks free, flies away, and the other little thought-bugs scatter at her voice. "NO, MOM, GO AWAY, I'M WORKING!!!" you shout, obviously very frustrated with the situation. Mom wonders why you're so temperamental.

Best of Week: King Lear Writing Assignments

I cannot say whether I actually consider this writing assignment to be a good or a bad thing. A blessing in disguise, perhaps? Sure, it adds untold amounts of stress to my life (especially when my grades are faltering), but in any case, i see it as an opportunity to learn. An opportunity to truly get to know the book.

And yes, perhaps Siddhartha was right in saying, "You are your best teacher", because I felt like I learned more about King Lear in these past 3 days than i would have in any other sort of situation. I don't even think I would have learned as much from a 6-hour class discussion (which usually tend to stray from the main point anyway).

Working alone for a few hours on Sunday night allowed for plenty of brainstorming, and i believe this really opened my eyes to some of the elements in King Lear. The whole aspect of good vs evil, for example, was something that i wouldn't have even noticed if i hadn't taken the time to think about it. The fact that i was so freaked out about this essay essentially forced me to think. And i'm glad about that. Isn't that basically how our school curriculum works? It's all about instilling fear to the point where students are actually forced to think. Most students probably wouldn't study, or even learn for that matter, if they didn't have that loathed 100-point quiz looming over their shoulders.


But enough of that, anyway. I just felt like this assignment simply proved that ideas often come from within yourself. After all, we as a class had never even truly discussed the medieval/renaissance aspects of King Lear. It reminded me how good it feels to work alone sometimes- I was delighted in being able to move so smoothly between ideas. It also reminded me of my favorite passion, surprisingly enough. I myself believe there are things you can learn from just watching birds on your own. You may notice how two birds interact, how they behave, and perhaps see deeper into their lives' meaning. There are so many other things that you just wouldn't notice if you were traveling with a group of birders. You may see more birds with a group, but that's something different.

Connection to Shakespeare

Shakespeare, in my mind, is the most uniquely distinct playright in all history. In all my reading, I've found NOTHING that even remotely resembles his works and style (His plotlines, maybe). Just by looking at a play like King Lear, for example; we can see a powerful, well-crafted, twisting, yet interconnected plot. Sure, these plots may have holes in them- but take a look at Romeo and Juliet. Is that NOT the perfect love story?

Still, in addition, we can take note of shakespeare's craft, which is perhaps even more unique than the very content of his plays. Just look at how he uses words. He does all sorts of crazy things with them. First off, he'll just take an ordinary word and create a new meaning or phrase out of it. Secondly, he'll simply allude to all sorts of things: poems, sayings, myths, songs, gossip, innuendos, pick-up lines, and nursery rhymes. It's just amazing how many different things Shakespeare alludes to in his plays. Last but not least, it seems like shakespeare sometimes gets a little too creative and begins to use alot of other weird phrases (Spare my gray beard, you wagtail?). I mean, some of these don't even make sense!

So in any case, i think it's these elements that compose the weird and wonderful Shakespeare we know. In terms of his style, you either love it, or you hate it.

Speaking of weird and wonderful, i think shakespeare actually reminds me of ANOTHER weird and wonderful sort of artist.

This would be Salvador Dali, whose insanely surreal paintings have spurred countless "WTF?" moments. His paintings, like shakespeare's works, are very unique in themselves. They're strange but powerful, highly intriguing, they convey meaning, and they're sometimes very hard to understand (like shakespearean language).

Some of Dali's paintings even share some of the same themes in shakespeare's writing, especially those that relating to vice and human nature. Like shakespeare's characters, some of these paintings just convey total insanity.

Thoughts Regarding the TED Project

Overall, it went pretty well.

My worst fears for this project, as you can guess, were composed of several notions. One of these was the thought that my group was totally disorganized. That was just one thing i was a afraid of. I mean, our group after all was disorganized, and that's not surprising if one considers how huge the project was, the number of members in it, the tasks assigned, and the different approaches taken by each individual. I'm just pondering here, but now that i think of it, no project is perfect after all. There's just no way to create this sort of ideal project unless every group member thinks as one (which I also believe is physically impossible). Every individual is going to think differently, and no matter what group it is, each person is will have a different mindset for the project.

That's why i thought it was a really smart idea to create a task page and allow members to work on little sections of the project on their own. I thought it was a great idea, especially when everybody seemed too lazy to collaborate on one major idea. Collaboration in that sense, is very difficult. Meeting for 3 hours on a saturday to discuss the project would have just meant hell for every academy student.

So i liked the task page in that sense. Still, going with what i said before, i noticed how people treated the whole idea differently. The purpose of the task page, going with what i believed, was for people to clarify whatever aspects they were covering in the project- and if it wasn't that, it was made at the very least to inform people of what you were doing.

Telling people to write up at least 3 tasks for themselves just seemed to defeat the whole purpose of the page. Some people; like me, for example; were made to carry out and perfect ONE major task within the TED project. The 3-task quota forced me to split this task and simply be LESS clear about it. Better yet, the thought of doing 3 tasks also reinforced the idea that it's "quantity and not quality" that matters. Any half-brained student could write up a few sentences, change the title of a page, add an image, and label what he did as three separate tasks.

So that's just one major flaw that i noted within the project, and perhaps it's me who's partly responsible for my group being a little disorganized. It was me, after all, who focused soley on one issue and failed to communicate in regards to anything else. Now that i think about it, i probably should have provided help to some of the freshmen who really had no idea what they were doing. I really think I should have been more supportive and collaborative.

But still, even in spite of that, i think the project went fine. Most of us (the academites) are just glad that it's over. Our presentation went pretty well (aside from the time crunch), and i think everyone did a good job.

Captured Thought

Although it's been a fact for at least eight years, it was only yesterday when I truly realized how much my special hobby means to me- Birdwatching, of course. I just simply can't get enough of birds. I watch them, i study them, i seek them out, i adore them, and I also sometimes write about them. I just don't know what i'd do without my weekly dose of birdwatching. I'm hopelessly addicted. Even when i'm locked up inside my miserable house working on a TED project, the least i can do is dream of them.

So it seems like I'm just totally hooked, but that's kind of funny now that i mentioned it, because it's only been like this for two or three years (out of my entire eight-year career). It seems like i was just a beginner for those first five years: I rarely traveled for the sole purpose of seeing birds; i had never attended any bird-sponsored events; i rarely, if ever met up with other birders; I had no clue where to find birds; and most importantly, i could not tell seagulls apart from ducks.

So i was a noob. The simple fact that i came this far in eight years is amazing. I was certainly not as crazy about birds back then as I am now. So what made me change?
Was it just one particular bird that inspired me with its jaw-dropping beauty?
Was it a particular eye-opening trip?
Was it a certain feeling that i felt within myself?
Or was it the first nature festival that i attended?
I myself am not sure of what caused this spark in my interest. Perhaps it just developed slowly at first.

Either way, i believe that my passion for birds is all part of a greater picture that defines who i am.

This previous sunday, i simply felt like i could not bear to stay inside and miss out on all the fun. The winds were blowing, birds were soaring effortlessly, and my heart could resist that irresistable temptation to go birding. The whole world of birds was just calling to me! It was adventure! Opportunity! Enlightenment! Purpose!...but mostly just fun, i guess.

My homework load for that sunday was ridiculous, however. Unsurprisingly, I did not want to do my homework. But this time, i felt a great emotion with it. I felt the dread of missing such a beautiful day that i could have otherwise spent outdoors being who i was meant to be. I dreaded this work more than ever. I dreaded it so much, that i simply forgot about my school-related concerns. No- i did not forget about them. I stamped them out, pissed on them, and shouted "F*** SCHOOL!" And so those school-related concerns just became pointless. It's like i suddenly didn't care about them. All i cared about was the opportunity outside...

ALL I CARED ABOUT THE BIRDS!!

(so yeah...maybe i got a little too carried away here. I did think carefully about my "birds vs. homework" decision at the time, but perhaps even I am still too young to grasp how important my school-provided material is. Perhaps I'm missing something....but in any case, that just proves how powerful these birds can be in my life.)

What if?

Just what would happen if I suddenly lost control of everything i said or did? What if i took the censor bar out of my everyday thoughts and speech? What if I simply stopped repressing the dangerous, impulsive side of me? What would happen if i just let my mind go free? Allowed my entire sense of good judgement to drift away?

I myself can be impulsive, i can be a control freak, and i can also be very obsessive over certain things. Maybe that's why it scares me so much when i ask simple questions like, "What if i stuck this fork in an electrical socket?" I fear that thoughts like this may overpower my mind, force me to carry out the task, and cause me to end up doing great harm. It's a fear of becoming Obessive-compulsive. A fear of OCD. A fear that I'll somehow let my mind off the leash by accident. At least in my opinion, i think it's a bizzare fear I don't think most people aren't afraid of themselves to the extent that i am.

Sometimes, I can't even drive without feeling this strange urge to crash the car (and i'm dead serious about this, by the way). My conscious, of course, tells me to steer carefully and keep to the middle of my lane on the expressway. But then there's this other voice, something that tells me to do the exact OPPOSITE of what i intend to do. It's this malicious voice inside of me that asks, "what if?". What if you just steered the car off the road right now? What would happen if you just suddenly got up, shouted, and swore violently in the middle of class? What if you just straight-out told her that the dress was hideous and she looked more or less like a warthog while she was wearing it? What do you think would become of you if you simply jumped off that 100-foot ledge? What would happen if you just poked a venomous snake with a stick?

So these are the "what-ifs" that I'm really asking myself. The answers, to each and every one however, are the same. I would be in deep shit if i even attempted to do what this evil voice told me. And i fear that someday, i will end up doing the voice's bidding.

But even with that said, i am glad to have formed a mental barrier that prevents me from following the voice's commands. A barrier of pure will power. It's a barrier that acts so strongly, it would even physically prevent me from doing one of these obviously stupid things.

it's this barrier that has prevented me from performing these various acts in the past, like climbing onto my neighbor's roof and dropping stink bombs through their chimmney (even though i've always wanted to do that).

So hopefully, with this thought/action barrier up, my great big "what if" question will hopefully not be answered.

I'm perfectly sane, by the way :-)

Blogging Around

I just have to say that I love assignments like these- I mean, Blogging Around: The name of it just sounds as fun and carefree as the actual task is. All i have to do is read and comment. It's that simple.

So anyway, the first blog I read was Mitch B's "360 degrees on God". A great argument for atheism. Mitch used alot of evidence to back up claims as to why people actually believe in God, and he also used similar evidence to prove how ridiculous the idea of God is.
Again, I don't know if it was really a 360...(maybe a 270?) but i still greatly enjoyed what Mitch had to say. Here's what I said:

Hey mitch,

I loved your rant about God, and i especially liked some of the points you brought up. Still, i'd have to agree that it was a little one-sided.You were pretty much dissing creationists for the most part, and you were using logical evidence to back up your claim- which is great for an argument, by the way.

Still, I don't really think you CAN use logical evidence to back up any claims relating to God. That's because the whole concept of god has nothing to do with logical evidence. God is part of a totally different element. Comparing the two elements is like apples to oranges, as they say.

So you've already made it clear that the idea of a God has a huge influence over our actions. Still, I believe there's some deeper meaning as to why the thought of God is so widespread and universal. It leads me to believe that the entire notion of a god is just byproduct of man's conscious thought.

I believe that the idea of a god at least brings some order to people's lives, and I'm not saying that I myself believe in it. Its just that most animals, as you see, are controlled by external factors: their environment, their predators, their food, and their instincts. Mankind, in emerging from this animal-like behavior, was thus exempt from most of these governing external forces. I think god was created because people really needed this sort of external force to control their lives. They invented god because they didn't have any other external forces to keep them in order. They needed someone to tell them what to do. And so God's role in this sense, is very similar to that of a leader's. Human beings NEED leaders. That's my point.

PS: I absolutely loved that "carrot of salvation" quote.


Another post that I read came from the other Mitch, who i know for a fact is very into politics. His post had to do with the Republican VP Candidate, Sarah Palin, and it clearly illustrated views from from four very distinct points on the political spectrum. He wrote about what the democrats may think of Palin, the republicans' opinions, the independents', and those who may have had trouble deciding who to vote for.
So, overall, i think this was a great example of a 360 degree post. Here's what i said...

Hey mitch,
I think you did a great job with a 360 degree Sarah Palin- I mean, you pretty much nailed the key concepts right then and there. As you mentioned, Palin could be interpreted as several different things: A joke, an inspiration, a threat, or a downright scary political figure.
I think you're especially right about Palin pushing some of the more indecisive, slightly leftish voters towards Obama because she is, after all, far more right-winged than McCain.
McCain himself is definitely one of the more liberal Republicans that the nation has seen, and i think that's actually pretty cool. Even for the opposing party, I thought he had some good ideas. I didn't think there was too much that was wrong with him...but that was all before Sarah Palin entered the picture.
Palin just scares me.

360 Degrees: What's the point of all of this?

Seriously: what is the whole point of our entire school-centered lifestyle? Why do we go to school? Why do we have homework? Why should I even learn all this stuff? Why should i even show up to class? Why can't i just take a year off and go study birds somewhere in Peru? Why should I kill/subdue every other aspect of my life so that i can achieve a passing grade?

One could agree that these are all commonly-asked questions, and i myself believe that every commonly-asked question has a commonly-stated answer. Many people, for example, will ask "Where did people come from?" and they'll probably get either one of two answers: "God created mankind" or, "we simply evolved from monkeys". Now just because these are some of the more popular answers does not necessarily mean that they are correct. It doesn't even imply that they are the only answers.

So I believe there are many answers as to why people go to school. If I asked any ordinary middle-school teacher, for instance, they'll most likely give me that "Don't you dare get any ideas" sort of look, and respond by saying "You're going to school because you need an education." And while that seems fairly obvious and plausible, one may even say, "WHY do we need an education?"

So now, as I imagine, the teacher in this argument will tell me that I need an education so that i can get into a good college, earn a well-paying job, obtain some essential knowledge, and become successful in life...but is that really true? Maybe I'll ask this teacher what all this precalculus stuff has to do with being successful in life (assuming she's a math teacher). Maybe she'll tell me that it's helpful if i ever plan on becoming an engineer, for instance. What if i tell her that I've already thought out my entire life ahead of me and i don't plan on becoming an engineer? What if i tell her that I really DON'T want to become an engineer and much I'd rather spend the rest of my life photographing birds and using what little money i have to buy new camera equipment? She'll probably just tell me to shut up and quit acting like a smart-ass.

But even in spite of this, it seems like there would be a legitimate reason as to why we go to school- And there HAS to be some sort of reason, because our education wouldn't otherwise be required by law. I for one, believe that each and every subject has the opportunity to make a person successful, but i also think that depends on who that person is. I am interested in ecology, literature, botany, and field studies, whereas math may seem boring and meaningless. Perhaps the fact that I took Honors Biology will help me in the future. But still- Why am i even taking precalculus?

And with that said, perhaps it's best for people to be well-rounded in their subjects. I know for a fact that colleges prefer well-rounded students. Perhaps being well-rounded is the key to being successful in life?

So here are some other reasons as to why I SHOULD go to school. Explanations for what i believe school may be all about. Here they are:
1. School keeps kids out of trouble.
2. School provides people with the opportunity to excercise their minds and become critical thinkers.
3. Schools help form an ideal society in which everyone is knowledgeable, keen, and well-educated. (it makes me recall what we learned about in history about the Confucian education system and how great of a success that was)
4. School teaches kids all about real-life skills (so my question is why they don't ever teach self-defense?)
5. It makes for a great social environment!
6. In the case that I didn't go to school, I'd eventually get bored of playing video games and end up in school anyway. So my point is, school makes life interesting.

Metacognition: Planning the Essay

So here's how my thought process worked while I was laying out the evidence plan for my essay. I had to begin with my subject: a subject tied in directly to the Kite Runner book. So in order to choose this essay topic, I had to start with some brainstorming.

I had four possible topics written down by the time I was finished. One of them was the thought of burying the past. This was a major theme of the book, so i thought it would have been easy subject for my essay.

I still ended discarding that thought because i realized this was a very broad topic and it was almost too "glaringly obvious" within the book for me to write something thoughtful and creative about it. I could do better than simply restate the idea of someone's past. I figured i could be more original about it- maybe more focused on a specific issue?

So I began paying more attention to the book's details. I consumed small pieces at a time- not just big pictures. I quickly learned that when one DOES focus on smaller ideas within a book, it becomes much, much easier to find big ideas. I was finding little tidbits of wisdom within every chapter of the book: wisdom regarding truth, lies, hopes, guilt, friendship, and connections to my everyday life.

So I eventually found a good essay topic. The truth This was the truth. I asked myself: "What does the book tell us about the nature of truth?" (and Mr. Allen really liked this idea).

And with that, i began to work on my heavily-worded evidence plan. I was aware of how heavily-worded it was. I am a wordy person after all (Not to mention a perfectionist who can take hours writing one paragraph). So i found my evidence. It took a few thorough searches through the book to get the evidence i precisely wanted, but it was worth it, and i soon discovered there was more evidence that i could fit on one page!

It almost felt as if the further i delved into this project, the sharper my thinking senses came to be. I realized that again, I am a wordy person.

Best of Week

I would have to choose the TED video (the one we all saw in class) as my favorite classroom activity for the week. This was the video that featured Ted Rives and his amazing "slam-poetry" speech about mockingbirds.

I remember seeing it for the first time and sitting dumfounded at the computer for at least five minutes thinking "WTF??". I remember watching that video and thinking it was just some sort of looney artist with an unusual talent for making these sorts of whimsical, spontaneous speeches.

So I had to admit this guy had some incredible creative abilities. His clever wording, even when it didn't make sense, seemed to flow with a lifelike energy that i have witnessed rarely, if ever, in ordinary speeches. His ideas were thoughtful and inspiring. His elegant style of rhyme; combined with a strange, inconsistent mishmosh of phrases, made the speech even more meaningful. It made the entire speech appear as if it was simply free and unconstrained. Free and flowing just like any mockingbird's song.

It also made me wonder if this man made his speech with the intention of actually reproducing the mockingbird's style. Mockingbirds themselves can learn up to 200 songs by mimicking other sounds and reproducing them (as Ted mentioned), so they will oftentimes create a "mixed bag" of the regular noises that they hear: Owls, songbirds, cats, whistles, car alarms, etc. Ted himself seemed pretty keen on creating this sort of "mishmosh" poem for our lives and ideas, so I'm wondering if he put the whole thing together in a similar style to a real mockingbird.

So I listened to that video several times and realized how rich it was in craft. But it was not just the craft that impressed me. The content in Ted's speech was simply inspiring. I'll admit difficult to understand for the most part, but i believe that Ted's "mockingbird ideology" was akin to the thought of ideas and understanding spread throughout the world. I believed his idea of having "mockingbird cacaphony" was also a representation for the great gathering of ideas that were held at TED.

The way i connect this video to my life comes from a quote where Ted says,"When all the little mockingbirds fly away, they'll sound like the last four days."

Of course, he's refering to the four days in which TED was held, but what he's saying is that all these ideas from TED will hopefully take wing and spread to other parts of the globe. He's saying that these ideas will hopefully be applied someday in the near future. And with that said, i personally hope that my thoughts and ideas will someday spread and take wing just like those from TED. I hope that the thoughts and ideas from Academy will someday spread and influence the world. I remember how Mr. Allen said he could just imagine us presenting all our brilliant ideas at TED sometime in the future. So it's made me think of how WE acadamites, can change the world.

The Wonders of Technology (and a Change of Mind)

If I'm not mistaken, there has been an explosion in commucations, computer technology, online applications, and social networking within the past 17 years of internet. And if I'm also not mistaken, there's been an enormous surge in the amount of internet users.

So what did this mean for me? The internet, once i figured out how to use it properly, quickly became the time-consuming tools in my entire life. It became the enormous black hole i imagined it to be: Every day i would get sucked into it. I'd upload photos, IM my friends, play online games, compulsively check facebook, watch some obscure youtube video, or do whatever i could to waste time on the internet.

With that said, the idea of a school-based webpage simply intrigued to me. I thought it would just be simply amazing to have something like a Ning page or a Blog where all 30 members of Academy were socially interconnected. I thought it would be wonderful to have an online assignment I could access from any computer. No paperwork, no printer problems, and no troublesome gluesticks or sharpie markers. My work would simply appear online, so long as there WAS a reliable internet connection.

And so i had my hopes up for a year of smooth, efficient online homework. I thought the online work would be simple. But my mind changed as soon as i created my Ning account. I acutally needed an INVITATION in order to access the Glenbrook Academy Ning, and while this alone wasn't too difficult to manage, I somehow couldn't request my invitation. I couldn't join the Ning for some reason! Even when i did join and get my confirmation email, the Ning wouldn't recoqnize me as a member unless i accessed it directly from that email. But either way, it was probably just a small glitch (and it fixed itself).

So that was solved and out of the question, but to make matters worse, our homework soley depended on the existence of a web page. This was Mr. Allen's Academy Webpage. It would have been our light and salvation if we somehow glossed over that last bit of homework in our assignment notebooks. It would have been my official homework guide, had i not forgotten the site address and assumed that Mr. Allen would just tell us the assignments in class.

So I failed to check the posted homework. I forgot to check it, and even if i did, the internet on my computer was completely blown out. Dead. The internet had no connection, and that meant I wouldn't be able to even view the website.

So the whole "Ning-thing" just looked pretty dim for me. Even as of today, I have little faith in online-based assignments. Technology, in my opinion, makes things more complicated.

Testing... (W00t!!!)

Ok, sorry, just wanted to experiment with the blogging mechanism. Now for the real stuff.