Best of Week

I'll tell you what the best thing this week was: Me getting better. All of those awful cold symptoms finally starting to fade away. I tell you, i thought i was never going to get better. I had missed 2 days of school and been sick for 5 days total.

But anyways, on to the real stuff. Perhaps the second best thing this week was getting that darned AP test over with. Sickness had me cramming all my study time into 3 days before the test. It was a tough situation. I had to be thorough and efficient. Skipping over little details would have probably meant lower scores on the multiple choice section, but i couldn't go to deep either because I simply didn't have enough time to review the entire course and it's details.

My solution therefore was to single out WHERE i needed reviewing the most. Medieval Europe. Byzantium. The Dar-al Islam. China's various dynasties. The Mongol Empires. Mercantalism. All of those needed reviewing- so i made reminders to go over those topics.

My plans for review also changed quite a bit through the course of time. First, it was making PERSIA's for everything. Big, extensive documents and charts. Tons of details- and I did this because i was paranoid about forgetting the information. Very paranoid.

Alot of people tell me they remember things better when they write it down. Now the same goes for me too, but i REALLY have to write it. Even if i'm just scribbling stuff out on the textbook pages and not looking at it again.

So i had to make these extensive study guides, but as i ran out of time, i realized i couldn't do that. I had to simply look over the content. No more wasting time. I had to be efficient. I wrote less and less detail, skimmed more sections, and reviewed things in much less of a chronological order.

I remembered it, though. And for that reason, i believe i succeeded on the AP Test. It felt SOOOOOOOO good to get that out of the way!

But this method, however, proved unhelpful after awhile.

Birding the theater of the ABSURD

Well, ok. Perhaps this is a bit of a far-flung connection, but I personally believe it rings true.

It was something I thought of just yesterday as I strolled through the woods- out on my own- enjoying nature and whatever birds I happened to stumble across.

So yeah, you've probably guessed that I'm going to talk about birds. You're right about that. But i've noticed some funny things about them recently. Perhaps these are the kinds of things that you notice only after you've been birding for several years and you THINK you know every bird there is to know.

Yesterday, for example, I was out in the woods when a certain bird caught my attention. Its thick noisy wingbeats filled the air as it flapped through the trees and landed on a thick branch- a huge, poofy gray behemoth of a bird- all by itself- in the middle of the woods. What could it possibly have been? It was something even I did not recognize, so i quickly put my binocs on it.

It was a pigeon. A feral rock pigeon. Like, what the hell? What was a pigeon doing in the middle of a forest- away from civilization? Was it lost? Or had it just decided to come here like me to get away from the city?

So you see, this pigeon was just one example of a bird not doing what it's supposed to do- and birds, surprisingly do that quite often. They don't follow the rules. They don't follow logic-and if they did, it's probably no better than the logic birders follow. The whole world of birding is simply illogical. Like, who else but birdwatchers will miss their cousin's wedding, drop what they're doing, and trudge through a mosquito-filled swamp just to see some paltry little feathered creature? Who else would you find snooping around a sewage treatment plant at 7 in the morning looking for a rare species of duck? I mean, doesn't it seem kind of silly what we birders do? I believe so, and that's part of why i do it. I believe in absurdity.

Oh yeah, and i forgot to mention Murphy's Law. That's perhaps the ONLY law that exists for birdwatching.

Metacognition: Short Story

Writing a short story, as I've learned, is a difficult process, involving countless nuances, levels of depth, letting your mind run free, and of course- requiring enormous patience.

Such patience, as I see it, is immensely important to the quality of the story. I mean, first of all, it's just a good quality for a writer to have in general. Impatient writers tend to get frustrated very easily- and there's nothing worse than being a frustrated writer- grasping for words, counting minutes, deleting paragraphs, and struggling to get ahold of thoughts. Uggh. That's me, by the way. When I'm faced with things such as deadlines, external pressures, or distractions my writing, I naturally become frustrated. It's unfortunate, however, since this frustration overrides all means of creativity and jams the writing process.

So the question I asked myself during this assignment was how to overcome such frustration, and truthfully, my answer differed several times. The initial response was to drop the writing and do something else (even if i had just started a paragraph).

So i did that, of course, and yet I found this situation even more problematic because it served only as a distraction- not necessarily a mind-clearing tactic. Just a tool for procrastinating. I mean, really- once I was sitting in front of the TV eating a juicy popsicle, I'd simply begin to dread going back to work. I'd put it off some more- and as we all know, that's a terrible work habit.

The alternative method- which simply meant digging in for several hours on end- seemed harsh at first, but I wound up doing it anyway as the project's deadline neared. It was productive, sure, but still- after 4 hours of solid writing, my mind had worn itself down to a pulp. My brain would simply stop working. I would become flustered. I'd rewrite the same paragraph over and over again, and my writing was crappy.

So, you might ask how I dealt with this? The answer: I didn't! And for that reason, my story sucks.

But no, really. One thing I realized is that a writer must do everything NOT to get frustrated- and this is a difficult thing to do. It's easy to be frustrated with the assignment- So therefore, what i found is that one should NOT THINK of the assignment. One should think of the characters. The plotline. The imagery. All of the story's elements. In fact, one should become immersed in them. This is where the phrase, "Putting yourself in the character's shoes" rings a bell, but unfortunately, this is much easier said than done.

Metacognition: The Jane Eyre Dialogue

My thought process for writing the Jane Eyre dialogue involved several key elements. Some of these initial elements included procrastinating, loathing, brainstorming, briefly thinking,-"Oh, this isn't so bad", more brainstorming, more procrastinating, trying not to think about all the endless work i'd have to do, and then panicking once I realized it was Wednesday afternoon and the dialogue was less than 10% complete.

The dialogue itself was about defying the status quo, and like any other writing assingment, it began with the brainstorming: writing down each idea as it came into my head. "St. John's power over Jane", "Jane's concept of marriage", "Marriage on the basis of love", and so on. So I typed each idea onto google docs, called Kate, and asked her to see what she thought of them. She thought they were fine (if not great).

But instead of jumping into the dialogue like I'm sure most other people did after the brainstorming, Kate and i actually posted some of our opinions beforehand. This would help fill in any missing information, clarify certain notions, make sure we're on the same page, add detail to our ideas, and narrow down the discussion topic.

So in any case, that WAS a good start, but after that, things got tougher. Our schedules tightened up, both of us were away for the weekend, other assignments were thrown at us, and a huge miscommunication on Wednesday turned the whole thing into a last-minute nightmare.

With luck, however, we were able to write things out fairly easily. The format of the paper as an open-ended discussion made the writing very smooth and easy-going. Smooth and easy-going, that is, as long as I knew what I was talking about. And better yet, since we typed in tandem, it was almost as if we were actually having the discussion!!

Metacognition: Crazy Ramblings

"I hate writing essays. I hate writing essays. I hate writing essays. I hate writing essays," was what i told myself after finding out about the short story project- and yes, I know you meant "short story" and not "essay", but to me, they were just the same at that point. Graded writing assignments. Things that i would be judged upon.

So I loathed in having to write this short story. I knew that it was going to take forever. I knew that I was going to struggle with ideas. I knew that I'd almost have nothing to even write about either. I knew I was going to put it off to the last minute, and i knew that it was going to give me an awful headache in the process. Why couldn't i just write about something simple, like birds? My overly-obsessive brain was just going to make the assignment harder on me, and the more i thought of this, the worse it became (it's funny how that works!).

And i do tend to be a little over-obsessive when it comes to writing. I tend to spend hours knit-picking my way through sentences as opposed to letting my thoughts flow freely. I struggle to come up with the perfect ideas. I revise as i go along. I find myself in a slump quite often, and the fact that I get stuck so often reflects my poor sense of organization. I get stuck on words, phrases, ideas, thoughts, and whatever other garbled crap that happens to be floating around in my mind.

So ok, i know, I'm way too hard on myself, but that actually contributes to poor writing, believe it or not. How can one even hope to write when they have such low self-esteem? Sure, he or she may feel free to think that their finished work is crap, but how does one even write when they know ahead of time that it's going to be crap?

I certainly had that notion for my short story, and that notion, I realized, almost pushed me to the brink. It ruined my spirit. It put a damper on the assignment. It also would have fed on itself, had i not overcome it and began writing.

Yes, writing. I've noticed how wonderful it feels is once I actually begin my writing. It's like relief. Releasing built up pressure. Allowing oneself to become absorbed in his work. Ahhh... this writing...it's almost like a drug!

Dialectics: Science vs Religion

Ok, we've heard it before: Science and religion have always contradicted each other. We've heard of the creationism/evolution debate. We know the benefits of both, and we always seem to hear of science gradually replacing old faith.

Then again, i believe that neither science nor religion should replace the other. I believe that there's actually a balance between the two of them. Something akin to yin and yang, perhaps. I mean, after all, it's pretty obvious that science and religion are both equally important in terms of defining human nature.

Science fulfills mankind's natural curiousy, allows us to be independent, and gives us the chance to use logic and reason. It bestows us with knowledge and factual certainty. It controls our lives and provides explanation.

I mean, seriously, we couldn't prove anything without science! How would we even be able to prove something like gravity? We wouldn't, if it wasn't for scientific logic. We wouldn't be able to trust whether objects fell up or down. We wouldn't be able to trust ANY natural forces. We'd begin to doubt our own senses and intuition.


So, with that said, religion gives people something to cling to. It allows us to momentarily forget life's material aspects and connect instead to the spiritual world. It gives people hope as well as fear. It too, answers questions and provides explanation.

Some of these questions include "why are we here?", or "What's the purpose of life?"-- questions that science could never even hope to answer.

Blogging Around: Jamie and Leanne

Jamie wrote a blog post about class discussions and how "graded discussions" ultimately fail their purpose.

Here's what i wrote:

Dear Jamie,

I totally agree. Your blog post reminds me of the stark contrasts that show between alot of our class discussions. If one compared one of our free-flowing english discussions to something that we did from our other class(ie a "graded" discussion), he or she would find a HUGE level of difference in participation.

the subject, for one thing, plays a HUGE role in creating a good discussion. I personally find it easier to discuss a piece of literature as opposed to reading 50 pages of historical documents. I mean, really, there's not much to interpret there. How do you discuss anything that's a simple matter of fact? You don't. You either restate it or talk about something surrounding it.

For a good discussion to work, one must also keep everyone's interests in mind. Everyone has to be keen on discussing the subject. I, for one, am not just going to get up in the middle of class and start talking about birds' mating behavior. That wouldn't go too well.

Leanne wrote about sight and how it greatly affects people's lives.

Here's what i wrote:
Dear Leanne,

Sight is a very interesting sort of perception.

Humans, after all, are largely visual-based creatures. Our eyesight is crucial. We rely on eyesight and vision more than any other sense. An overwhelming majority of our memories tend to be visual. Humans tend to seek visual experiences of everything.

And many of us are so deeply rooted in vision, that the thought of being blind is almost unimaginable. Like, how do people LIVE like that? It's like pac-man being born without a mouth!! (my own crappy analogy)

So in any case, my argument is that vision gives us purpose. Like you said, we have to see to believe. People who go through their entire lives being oblivious to the world are not helping it or even being a part of it. If people didn't SEE horrible things such as genocide and slaughter going on in the world, there would be nothing done about it. The world would suck.

And the world CAN be beautiful too, by the way, but it's not going to be that way unless people actually try acknowledge and fix some of our major problems.

Closing your eyes is like shutting yourself up in a little cage.

Best of Week: Story Fragments

What a free and abstract assignment this was. Perhaps this was what made it so easy and fun for me. Writing this year has been such a difficult process for me, and i'm not exactly sure why that is. Not long ago, i was a very smooth and efficient writer who could whip out paragraph after paragraph in some of the best written word. I don't know what happened to that version of me. Perhaps it got bogged down in a series of difficult writing assignments and edits.

But in any case, to make a long story short, whatever happened turned me into a writing perfectionist- the kind who often spends hours on the first simple introductory paragraph. It's almost like I can't write without inspiration. A single paper may take up an entire day.

So perhaps this assignment freed my mind, in a sense. My instructions were to "go crazy" with writing and not to worry about the revisions. Revisions would come later.

And so i completed my story fragment with my own personal tale from the heart- and it only took me 1 hour to complete it. I wrote whatever popped into my head, and despite how awful it sounded when i read it, this method of writing seemed a hundred times more efficient than revising along the way.

I just can't believe that I actually write like THAT sometimes. It's common knowledge that you're not supposed to actually revise while you're still coming up with the rough draft of an essay. It messes with the writer's train of thought, wastes time, induces writer's block, and the paper usually has to be revised again anyway.

So perhaps i should try to write freely more often. I need to organize my ideas, puke them out onto paper, and THEN revise them. I must develop a new writing process. Writing the story fragment helped me see how effective this new process really is. I'll definitely try to do it this way from now on.

What if: Academy in the Darkness

This was brought to my attention after reading Heart of Darkness and noticing how all the refined social aspects of Europe dissolve in the vast and desolate wilderness of an African jungle. It reminded me of another novel where here society breaks down, and men such as Kurtz are consumed by the darkness. Lord of the Flies. Has anyone read that book? It's a great story, in addition to the fact that it shares much in common with Heart of Darkness.

But in any case, I'm not here to talk about Lord of the Flies. I'm just using it as an example to show what might happen if some kids- perhaps academites- were thrust into a similar situation. Seriously, what would happen if our plane somehow crashed on the way to Spain and we drifted off somewhere like Central Africa or French Guiana? Somewhere totally isolated from the rest of society. A jungle or a desert island, perhaps. What would happen to the Glenbrook Academy Class of '11???

Perhaps we'd try to maintain some sort of civilized order for a few months. One of bolder and more assertive academites would also probably establish his/her status as a leader. This would enable our tiny, meager society to function for at least some time. Otherwise, we'd crumble into anarchy and chaos- another possibility- given the fact that we tend to be very stubborn in disagreement.

Still, as long as we're stuck in the jungle, forest, or some place with ample food, I'm sure we'd be able to survive on the level of basic needs. We're resourceful people after all. With 30 brilliant minds on the spot, I'm pretty sure that we'd be able to come up with some sort of survival method. My guess is that at least one or two of us would have the knowledge required for a little basic fishing or foraging- perhaps even hunting. And if that doesn't work, we can always just kill someone and eat him.

But that doesn't solve any long term problems. A single leader may lose credibility, or perhaps be corrupted by power. Rivalries would occur. People like Kurtz would emerge and exert their dominance over the others. People would go insane after awhile. They'd run off into the forest and never come back. The group atmosphere of academy would dissolve after a while and it would more simply become "every man for himself".

So if the academy did somehow end up stranded in the middle of the jungle, chances are good that we wouldn't last more than a year or two. That's really the most likely situation. The other three situations are either
a) Getting help, which is not likely to happen out in the middle of nowhere (sorry, Alyssa)

b) Working together and forming some sort of escape plan. Like building a raft and sailing down the river. Now that's something to consider (Provided we have the skills and group effort).
or
c) Reproducing and creating a new society, which is HIGHLY UNLIKELY and moreover dumb, because that's just not how it works. It just never turns out that way.

Connection: Heart of Darkness and an Eco-Catastrophe

In regards to Heart of Darkness, Joseph Conrad mentions Africa's forested regions as an endless "God-forsaken wilderness", yet today, there are very few places in the world that can be likened to this. Very little darkness remains. Fewer "blank spaces" on the map. And while wildnerness may still exist, none of it remains in the same untouched aspect that we read about in Heart of Darkness. The eerie and wonderful places that Conrad talked about now probably stand as farms or residential areas. So in this sense, we're aware of how ENORMOUSLY mankind's influnence has spread in that timeframe.

So another thing to be aware of is the amount of exploitation that's involved in the spread of mankind's influence. Countless tracts of forest destroyed. Land going up in flames. Native tribes being wiped off the map. Animals as well as people going extinct. It's just like what Conrad said: "The conquest of the earth, which mostly means the taking it away from those who have a different complexion or slightly flatter noses than ourselves, is not a pretty thing when you look into it too much." And most conquest, after all, is centered on human greed.

So this ties in very well to what's happening in the Amazon frontier, where mankind is slowly creeping up on wilderness and encroaching on the remaining darkness. Resources are also being exploited in very similar ways: Where it was rubber and ivory in 19th century Africa, it's timber and cattle in the South American rainforest. Settlers are moving in, grabbing as much money and profit as they can possibly get their hands on. Brazil alone has lost over 4,600 square miles of rainforest in just 1 year. Even protected areas are hugely vulnerable to logging. And this rate of deforestation is even worse for Indonesia (which is smaller in area, but loses a much larger percentage of trees). Species are disappearing like crazy, and almost invariably, as a result of this, there are native tribes who are also being displaced.

And so this "rape of land" lies at the heart of almost every modern-day ecological issue. Whether it's caused by desperate farmers struggling to earn a living or corrupt and power-hungry white men like Kurtz, we simply cannot allow it to continue. The results are becoming catastrophic already.

Really! Such exploitation of the land is not only short-sighted, but also harmful to the ones who inflict it. Saying it does continue, it WILL be the downfall of mankind. Just look at what happened to Kurtz!