A POETIC INQUIRY

Since my Big Question is mostly about serendipity (and not like, love or flowers or nature or other typical sonnet fodder), I wasn't sure how to find a sonnet related to it. After unsuccessfully scouring an online sonnet database (organized by author — not very helpful in my case), I tried again with a web search for "sonnet serendipity." I had to sift through what probably amounted to three standard Google search pages of results, and visited about six different websites until I found this huge page of sonnets. One in particular caught my eye, but I couldn't find any details about the title or the author. So, I went back to the search page and searched the first line of the poem. That got me to this page at PoemHunter, which revealed the poem as "Coincidence Coins Serendipity" by Johnathan Robin:

More than before she finds felicity
At hand, within, without, without a doubt.
Unfortunate conditions round about
Divert attention from her need to key
Emotions into opportunity,
Coaslescing energy to flout
Man made blocks, internal locks, whose rout
Appears essential for heart's harmony.
Unperturbed, frustration fought, she
Defeats dismay, demands free flight. Love's drought
Ends offering expansion, joy throughout.
Coincidence coins serendipity.
Meaning, which below horizon hid,
Comes clear: fears, tears, fade, open inner lid.

In this poem, I saw a lot of myself. Maybe a sugarcoated version of myself, but that can be dismissed by either (a) I see my situation as worse than it actually is, or (b) what else do you expect from a sonnet? Either way, I can still see a lot of parallels between this sonnet and my slow, halting recovery from my illness. For the first, I'm absolutely sure this isn't what the author meant, but the phrase "she finds felicity at hand" reminds me of my amulet bracelet that I've been wearing for months. It brings me calm, and in a way, happiness. Lines 3–5 ring especially true for me, as my illness has redirected so much of my time and energy towards necessities, and away from life's real opportunities that I would have taken in health. However, the rest of the poem is more disconnected from my story. The remainder speaks of joyful perserverence and a final victory, which (I struggle to phrase this; I don't know whether to say "...which I haven't achieved" or "...which God hasn't yet granted me", and I find myself getting emotional. I guess I'll just have to put it in the vaguest terms possible) is not true of my life. Still, for a girl two and a half years into waiting for a miracle, the title phrase "coincidence coins serendipity" offers the most precious commodity: Hope.

ALLEGORY OF THE CAVE SONNET

The dwellers of the cave all have no sight
With which to understand reality;
The shadows of the cave are all they see,
Forever isolated from the light.
As metal chains hold them all at the site,
None of them could ever decide to flee.
None of them even think of going free:
Too, shackles on their minds prevent their flight.
But if somehow by stroke of fortune fair
One of these prisoners is then released,
The world of which he had been unaware,
The water and the sunrise from the east
Would certainly reveal to him the truth,
And finally free him from his despair.

SONNET ANALYSIS #1

I was absent the day we learned about sonnets, so for this assignment I'll be posting what I've learned about sonnets from the interwebs (and of course the gratutitous xkcd comic of the day)

• sonnets usually compare two or more contrasting ideas, emotions, beliefs, actions, events, images, etc.
• usually in iambic pentameter
• there are three main types of sonnets:
• Petrarchan/Italian
• first 8 lines are called an octave, and have a rhyming scheme A B B A   A B B A
• next 6 lines are called a sestet and can have either 2 or 3 rhyming sounds, with much more freedom in how they can be arranged (like CDCDCD, CDECDE, CDDCEC, basically whatever! Even unpaired lines are okay [sometimes])
• however, they usually don't end in a couplet (as in, last two lines can't rhyme)
• often, the transition from the octave to the sestet signals a change of subject (called a "volta," or "turn")
• Spenserian
• invented by Edmund Spenseras
• pattern A B A B   B C B C   C D C D   E E
• 14 lines: 3 quatrains and a couplet
• like the Petrarchan sonnet, the different divisions usually talk about distinct ideas
• volta often goes at the beginning of the final couplet
• Shakespearian/English
• pattern A B A B   C D C D   E F E F   G G
• 14 lines: 3 quatrains and a couplet (like Spenserian, but without the overlapping rhymes)
• most flexible of all the sonnet structures because each line only has one rhyme, and there aren't strict rules about the placement of the volta (Shakespeare usually puts it after the first two quatrains, like the Petrarchan structure, or at the beginning of the final couplet, like the Spenserian structure)
• source: Sonnets.org

Furthermore, as promised:

THE BEST SONNET REMIX EVER

(Shakespeare's original here)

UPDATE: check out my Allegory of the Cave sonnet. Can you guess which rhyme scheme I used?

THE PERFORMATIVE UTTERANCE IN HAMLET

As I was reading "The Performative Utterance in Hamlet," I noticed that since it's a 20-page essay, there are more levels than just intro paragraph > topic sentences > rest of paragraph, which is what we're used to with our standard 5-paragraph essays. Instead, there are actually like, sub-intro paragraphs (I'm sure there's probably a word for that which sounds SO much smarter) which introduce the next 3-4 paragraphs on the same topic. So, I took notes by outlining all the paragraphs in a hierarchy.

• Intro (thesis: "For much of the play Hamlet is able to speak but not do.")
• Austin's theory of performativity
1. self-overhearing in Hamlet
1. qualification of self-overhearing
2. scene w/ the ghost
3. problem w/ scene w/ ghost
2. drama/playacting
1. "hollow performativity" & its implications
2. emotional contexts of utterances
3. "perceived legitimacy of the emotional context of utterances"
4. what Hamlet considers good acting, based on his speech
3. pretending
1. Hamlet's madness & Polonius
2. Polonius's gullibility
3. Hamlet's madness—allows him to free himself of his restricted place in society
4. …and also recognizes that his own identity is also fake in a way
4. if Polonius pre-modern, & Hamlet modern, Claudius in between (esp. w/ his failed prayer)
1. rules for successful utterances & why Claudius failed
2. Claudius's failed prayer vs. Hamlet's conversation w/ Horatio
• Hamlet & Laertes both get their revenge, but because of Laertes, not Hamlet; ∴ Hamlet's performative utterance is not toward revenge, but "realization of the self"

TOOLS THAT CHANGE THE WAY WE THINK

From Dr. Preston's post, "tools that change the way we think":

Answer this not-so-simple question: How does use of the Internet, media, and/or technology change the way you think? Focus on your memory, your ability to concentrate, your sense of time and priorities, and the subjects/topics that interest you most. If you find "thinking about your thinking" difficult to assess, try the following strategies: compare yourself with older people who did most of their formal learning before smart phones and 2.0 existed; compare yourself with contemporaries who don't use those tools much today; read up on what education leaders and thinkers have to say about generational differences in thinking (and remember to cite your sources).

First off, I'm going to link to the XKCD strip Extended Mind because it's relevant but mostly because I just like linking to XKCD



...anyway, I know that for myself personally, the Internet has given me almost a sort of disdain for unevidenced "conventional wisdom" and faith in facts and statistics instead, all of which are readily available to me within a few clicks. At the moment I'm under some rather severe dietary restrictions for my health, and I'm never satisfied with reasoning like, "Well this is a vegetable, it must be ok for me to eat." Before eating anything I always look up the nutrition facts, glycemic load, how it's made if it's a processed food (ex. I can't eat anything fermented, so turns out I can't eat chocolate. Did you know chocolate is fermented? I didn't. Thanks Wikipedia), etc. Such immediate access to facts makes me question statements with the imperative "Prove it."

However, I know that the Internet has probably also shortened my attention span, because I'm ALWAYS tab surfing. Even when I'm doing homework, at any given moment I probably have Listube, Pandora, my email, XKCD or Dinosaur Comics or something, and a Google search of whatever I just thought of 10 seconds ago open in other tabs. The Internet has made it so whenever you think of something (ex. "Hey, I wonder if I have any new emails since I checked it an hour ago?") you can and probably will search/check/access it, regardless of the task at hand. Given the ubiquity of computers, as desktops, laptops, tablets, smartphones, smart glasses, and according to a commercial I saw last month, smart watches (!), the status quo really isn't that much different than the hypothetical Google search in your brain mentioned in the passage.

(Also, I just have to say this. When the article mentioned "computers that pay attention to what's going on around them and suggest useful information" I was like, "OH GOD. NAVI." Otakus in the house will get it.)

FILTER BUBBLES

a) What new information did you learn from the video?

This video IMMEDIATELY reminded me of XKCD's Umwelt (by Mr. Munroe's definition, "Umwelt is the idea that because their senses pick up on different things, different animals in the same ecosystem actually live in very different worlds. Everything about you shapes the world you inhabit--from your ideology to your glasses prescription to your web browser.") The page I linked to actually displays one of about 40 comic strips; the one shown to you is determined by your computer model, your OS, your browser, your window size, your location, even how you navigated to the site. I thought it was a pretty cool novelty... until I watched the "Filter Bubbles" video and realized, "OHMYGAHD. IT'S UMWELT. Except it's real and it's EVIL."

b) How does this information make you think differently about what you see online?

This makes me feel like I can't trust the Internet anymore, especially since I use Chrome... that means Google can see EVERYTHING I DO, not just my Google searches... oh god >.<

c) What questions does this video raise about the Internet in general?

I was aware that services like Adsense were collecting information about me based on the sites I visit, given the obvious evidence of whenever I visit a shopping website (for example, my favorite clothing brand Express) I get ads for that brand (and sometimes related brands) for a few weeks. However, I was convinced that Adsense was doing a pretty crappy job of it. For example: I go to Express.com, therefore I am an 18-24 year old female who likes Express in particular and fashion in general, therefore I get ads for Express clothing and a few other clothing brands. I visit a lot of anime websites, therefore I am an 18-24 year old heterosexual male who likes Asia, therefore I get ads for Asian women from ChinaLoveDate.com. Everything is really direct and isolated from everything else. It seems to me like it wouldn't be that hard for Adsense to put 2 and 2 together, and conclude from my browsing activity at BOTH websites that I am an 18-24 year old female who likes Asia, and therefore give me ads for Asian men, not women. Even better, I like fashion and Asia, so why not show me ads for Asian clothing companies? C'mon Adsense, I'm not clicking on the Asian women! Haven't you figured it out yet? Aren't you trying to make money off of me?

However, I realize that Adsense is only what I can see; this video raises the question of how my online experience is altered in ways I CAN'T see. The problem is that I don't know what I don't know, and that bothers me. Especially since I've used Google countless times for some EXTREMELY IMPORTANT searches, given that none of my doctors have been able to cure me (obviously, I'm still hiccupping) and I've basically resorted to doing my own research and trying to figure it out myself in my spare time. If there's something that I've missed because it's been "filtered out," I would be really really really mad, let's put it that way.

d) How can you improve the effectiveness of your searches?

I can... install the DuckDuckGo extension for Chrome! Hey look! I just did :D

Blogger Hacks #2: creating pseudo-separate blog feeds

Even as I was asking other students about if other classes would benefit from a Random Absence Mentoring blog feed, I was thinking to myself, "Crap, how am I actually going to do that?" I knew that if we had six classes all on the same blog page, it'd be an unusable mess. Luckily, there are TONS AND TONS of articles about Blogger hacks on the Internet, so I figured out how to make it work. This is going to be a pretty long, detailed post (for Dr. Preston's benefit, since the course blog could use some dropdown menus too *cough*) so I'll put the rest after the jump.

In case you were wondering...

...this is what I recited today. Y'all's reactions were priceless ^_^

Adventures in Computer Code

When I told Dr. Preston how I created the "To Be Or Not To Be" practice test on the Random Absence Mentoring website, he asked me to write a quick post about it on my blog. Here's why:

I wrote entire thing in JavaScript, but I don't know JavaScript. I know HTML and CSS, which are nowhere near as complicated. All I did was skim through the JavaScript tutorial at the World Wide Web Consortum (or, as techies like me call it, W3). Then I went back to the lesson with an example that looked closest to what I was trying to do, and then screwed with the code in the lesson's tryit editor until it worked. That's it.

Dr. Preston pointed out that this was a pretty close parallel to what he's doing; he said to me something to the effect of, "All the other teachers think I'm some kind of genius because of this Open Source Learning thing that I'm doing. But really, it's crazy how simple it actually is."

The moral of the story is that you don't have to know everything. The Internet is overflowing with FREE resources, available to anyone who seeks them. If you want to create something but don't have all the technical knowledge, chances are you can find some way around it, either by learning what you don't know, finding something to copy-[modify]-paste, or connecting with an expert on whatever it is you need. Now that I think about it, I suppose that's what Open Source Learning is all about.

VOCABULARY #7

Here's Vocabulary #7, because I know that if I don't do this assignment I won't remember the words ^^;

DEAR OPHELIA

Dear O,

Wow, that sounds tough! It's hard for me to tell from just a brief letter what you should do, so ultimately, you'll have to make this decision yourself. However, I do have some advice for how you can make that decision: first, make a list of everything you like about your prince/reasons you want to date him. Next, make a list of what your father and brother don't like about him/why they don't want you to date him. If you can (this is the hard part) try to objectively decide which side is more reasonable. Finally, if you had a little sister, would you let her date him? If the answer is no, then maybe isn't a very good idea for you to date him, either. If the answer is yes, then you'll probably be fine.

I wish you luck, O!

LITERARY FICTION & EMPATHY

I think it makes sense. Reading fiction is like listening to someone else's thoughts (depending on the POV) so we can empathize with the narrator, which would logically allow us to empathize with others in real life.

I actually clicked the link at the bottom of the article to take the “Reading the Mind in the Eyes” test. It was difficult; half the expressions looked like they were just kind of staring off into nothing. I did pretty well, though-- I got 29 out of 36 of the expressions right. I was expecting to be given a passage to read before the test, but there wasn't anything. However, after the test there were several questions about demographics and reading preferences (or lack thereof). I've done a few online psychology tests like that before (for example, the uber-detailed sorting hat test and a ton of different ones at personality-testing.info). I think they're cool because it's interesting to learn about myself, and plus I get to help the studies at the same time.

I tend to empathize with characters rather quickly-- I'm the type that immediately says "Don't listen to them, Ophelia! Follow your heart!" Even this three minute youtube video made me genuinely sad for the characters. I just watched it again... so tragic...!

GREEN EGGS AND HAMLET

a) What do you know about Hamlet, the "Melancholy Dane"?

I know next to nothing about Hamlet. The only thing I can think of is a quote from a video we saw in LeClair's class three years ago, where Ophelia (is that her name?) is screaming, "Cut the crap, Hamlet! My biological clock is ticking and I want babies now!" ...or something like that.

b) What do you know about Shakespeare?

Shakespeare wrote a LOT of plays, most (all?) of which are in iambic pentameter. In his plays, he made up words and phrases which have become quite commonplace today, although in many cases people don't know that the word or phrase in question originated with Shakespeare. His plays are also repeatedly referenced in art, literature, and pop culture (how many songs can you think of that use the names Romeo and Juliet? I can think of three right now); in other words, Shakespeare continues to be verrrry influential.

c) Why do so many students involuntarily frown when they hear the name "Shakespeare"?

Shakespeare is difficult to read because of all the crazy wordplay and puns he uses, many of which refer to archaic figures of speech that confuse modern audiences. For example, I specifically remember having noooo idea what was going on during the Nurse's monologue in Romeo and Juliet (14-year-old Lisa says, "Okay, I guess that makes sense, if you fall backwards you won't get dirt on your face or whatever, but why is that so funny? I don't get this..."). Also, trying to READ the plays sometimes doesn't make much sense; seeing them performed clarifies things immensely when you actually get to see/hear the actors' blocking, gestures, intonation, etc.

d) What can we do to make studying this play an amazing experience we'll never forget?

Maybe it's just 'cause I'm a drama person, but I love reading plays out loud in class (but Dr. Preston if you decide to do it this way PLEASE assign characters by volunteering only! Read-throughs by people who don't want to read are bad. Besides making the victims uncomfortable, it also takes lines away from the people who actually WANT to read who would do a better job anyway.)

SO MY MAIN POINT WAS/WHAT I MEANT TO SAY WAS

...because I think those two are actually the same assigment (?)

In my BS'd Chaucer essay (I missed the day in class where each group presented their tales, and didn't know Chaucer was going to be on the midterm/didn't have the foresight to think to myself "Oh I should read people's blogs since I missed class today," that would have been really smart), my thesis was pretty much "Chaucer wrote his Canterbury Tales about a variety of characters and used a variety of genres to effectively appeal to a wide audience, trancending class distinctions and hundreds of years."

...Y'know now that I think about it I can't even remember if that answered the prompt or not O.O

IF I JUST HAD MORE TIME

Before the midterm, instead of studying vocabulary, I decided to spend (sell?) my time studying for my SAT Subject Tests on Saturday. Y'know. 'Cause it's like, my future. And stuff. Luckily, I'm generally pretty good at vocab, and writing stories for every vocab list prepared me very well for the test, even if I didn't do any cramming the night before.

However, I thought the midterm was going to be entirely a vocab test, so I was really mad when I saw the Chaucer essay prompt on the board. I was absent the day that each group presented their tales to the class, so the only tales I was familiar with were the Prologue and the Cook's Tale (not very good preparation AT ALL). When I saw the two questions, I thought to myself it's not like I could write a good essay anyway, so I might as well devote extra time to racking up points on the vocab section and then BS a paragraph about Chaucer in the last 10 minutes. Aaaaand that's basically what I did. I haven't seen my score yet, so I'm not all that sure how well my strategy worked out for me. If I knew that Chaucer was going to be on the midterm, I would have read several of my classmates' Tales of Canterbury Tales to make up for missing the aforementioned day in class.

LITERATURE ANALYSIS #2

Given that I love theater so much, I knew I had to do a literature analysis on at least one play this year. So, without further ado, here is my second literature analysis, on Tennessee Williams' famous play, A Streetcar Named Desire.

I just typed so many captchas

I basically scoured my contacts for working email addresses to invite people to the Google Group (which I am now shamelessly promoting, to the point of adding a completely unnecessary parenthetical comment to this link so you get a wall of blue text that glows on scrollover if you have a COOL browser), except I had to type a captcha EVERY TIME. I missed a bunch too. I think I'm only 95% human O.O

Side Note 1: if you didn't get an invite, it just means I don't have your email. The "apply for membership" button works just as well :)

Side Note 2: I couldn't resist posting this comic ^_^

TALE OF A CANTERBURY TALE

In The Cook's Prologue [lines 4325-4364] and The Cook's Tale [lines 4365-4422], the Cook comments on the Miller's tale, and then starts his own (which was left unfinished by Chaucer).

Summary

The Cook is amused by the Miller's tale, and introduces his tale as "a funny thing that happened in our city" [line 4343]. The Host tells him to make sure his story is interesting, and sort of insults his cooking skills. The Cook good-naturedly acknowledges that what the Host has said is true, and then begins his story.

His tale is about a victuals apprentice who was such a good dancer that he was called the Perkin Reveler. The Reveler was handsome, energetic, a ladies' man, and good at singing and gambling as well as dancing. Whenever there was any kind of party or gathering he couldn't resist going, causing him to often shirk his apprentice duties. The Cook comments that it wasn't fair to his master, because while the apprentice is off having fun, it's the master who suffers the loss of work. So, the master recalled the "bad apple" proverb, and accordingly fired the Perkin Reveler so he wouldn't spoil the other apprentices. Now without a job, the Reveler went to live with a like-minded friend, who had a wife and a shop. Here, the tale is cut short.

Indirect characterization

• the Cook likes stories (as opposed to getting really bored at listening to other people talk), shown by how much he enjoyed the Miller's tale [lines 4325-4326]
• he is probably a Christian because he references God [line 4335]
• he is a bad cook, based on the Host's list of dishes he's ruined [lines 4346-4352]
• he likes giving advice and has a strong sense of morality, based on his repeated use of sayings ("Into your house not every man invite" [line 4331], "true jest, bad jest" [line 4357], and "A rotten apple's better thrown away before it spoils the barrel." [lines 4406-4407]) and his comments on how the Reveler's partying is unfair to his master
• however, he probably also likes dancing himself, because his initial description of the Reveler [lines 4365-4387] is a positive one

Chaucer's purpose

I'll admit that I'm aaaaaactually not sure what Chaucer's purpose is here. The Cook has this weird double-irony thing going on: he's a cook, except he's all sloppy and disgusting, except that he's actually really good-natured and happy all the time. I don't really get it. Coupled with the fact that his tale is unfinished, and it's not even about the Cook anyway (unless it was going to be revealed at the end that the Perkin Reveler IS the Cook, dun dun dunnn), I don't think I have enough information to state Chaucer's purpose for telling his tale.

International Book Week

It's International Book Week. The rules: Grab the book closest to you, turn to page 52, and post the 5th sentence as your status [or blog post, as I decided right now]. Don't mention the title. Copy the rules as part of your status.

"Is he married?"

CHARACTER STUDY (II)

[I'm writing in first person now, since that's what everyone else is doing and I'm easily influenced like that]

I looked in the mirror and did a final once-over. Favorite black t-shirt: check. Gladiator sandals: check. 90's cargo pants that I swear are making a comeback: check. Necklace of keys that would be really cool if they opened something: check, check, check, check, and check.

Preparations complete, I stepped into my shiny new Mazda Kiyora that I just downloaded off the Internet (in the magical world of imagination, anything is possible...!), checked to make sure my suitcase was in the back, flipped on some drum'n'bass, and started driving. I was meeting Daniel, Jake, Ashley, and Bianca (the hitchhiker that Ashley texted me about) at the Santa Barbara Zoo to begin our journey... to Lithuania! With a myriad of stops along the way, I knew it would be an amazing road trip-- I just hoped my illness wouldn't hold me back.

After about an hour of driving, I reached Santa Barbara. I got off the freeway a few exits early so I could take some surface streets-- just for the hell of it. I passed by Cottage Hospital with mixed emotions, thinking of pills, MRI machines, and the blood lab. My mood brightened considerably when I drove by Paseo Nuevo. Good times.

Finally, I reached the Santa Barbara Zoo. I decided to put on some G-Dragon to surprise Ashley. Her timing was impeccable: she arrived just as the song reached the chorus, the only part I knew.

"Geu saekkiboda naega motan ge mwoya... oops!" I laughed. "Pardon my Korean." Ashley smiled, but her hitchhiker Bianca looked unimpressed. Well, I thought to myself, this is gonna be interesting.

CANTERBURY TALES (I)

There are supposed to be 29 characters besides the narrator, right? WELL, I numbered them all in my notes and I got 30. I'm so confused.

I'm surprised that Chaucer doesn't really introduce the second nun or the three priests at all.

I'm wondering about the "Wife of Bath" -- why did she have 5 husbands? What happened to them? Did she marry, change her mind, divorce, and repeat? Or did she do the Mrs. Peacock thing and marry each for their money, only to have them *mysteriously* die shorthly afterwards? Her story is the one I'm most interested in reading, to find out more about her.

Also (this will probably only display on Windows because I don't know the non-Windows equivalents of Cambria Math) what's up with this symbol ⨗ in the Key & Peele video? (if it doesn't display, you can see it here)

WHAT A CHARACTER

This summer I finally got around to watching Death Note, which has been on my To-Watch list since freshman year. To compress the premise into the smallest space possible, Death Note is about a high school senior named Light Yagami who finds a mysterious book called the Death Note. According to the instructions, any person whose name is written in the Death Note will die. Light uses it to kill criminals, envisioning himself as the god of the crime-free utopia he'll create.

At the beginning of the show, I immediately identified with Light: like me (or, more accurately, me during freshman year before I was sick/alternate-universe me who was never sick in the first place), he is a high school senior at the top of his class with occasional narcissistic tendencies. Light's almost immediate (i.e. within 20 minutes of airtime) sanity slippage made it so I couldn't identify with him as much anymore, but I was intrigued by his character. To be honest, I'm even more intrigued in hindsight when I reflect on how my opinion of Light changed over the course of the show. The rest of this post contains spoilers, so here's my cue for a jump break.

LITERATURE ANALYSIS #1

Here is my first Literature Analysis, on George Orwell's famous novel, 1984.

That Netvibes thing I'm supposed to write a post about

Well, I made a Netvibes dashboard (I totally spelled that dashbored the first time-- can you tell I'm writing this after midnight??) but I didn't find it all that useful for me. The one thing I liked the most was the ability to embed other webpages within the dashboard, but it made the controls all derp. Like, in order to scroll down on the dashboard you have to make sure you're not mousing over any of the webpages 'cause then it scrolls that instead. Y'know. Besides, I'm actually already very systematic about keeping my stuff organized (an absolute necessity for someone with my attendance record)-- I've been dutifully keeping an assignment book since 7th grade, and over the years I've developed a rather elaborate system of symbols/codes for organizing it which I'll gladly explain to anyone but don't particularly want to type out. Y'know. Anyway, I'm linear, I like lists, but dashboards are cool if you're a dashboard-y person like that.

CHARACTER STUDY (I)

"Dude. How much of this crap do I need?" muttered Lisa, contemplating her fistful of small white pills. She hated taking the medicine, but knew her life would be much, much worse without it. Maybe that's why she hated it.

"Whatever," she concluded, pouring them back into their container and throwing the entire bottle into her bag. Looking up, she caught sight of herself in the mirror: blonde hair held back with a headband from a pale face (paler than usual, she noted) and hazel eyes, looking a little dead. Lisa sighed. Can I do this? she thought to herself. I can barely make it to class half the time, let alone keep up with everyone on this journey to who-knows-where. Should I just stay home...? She shook her head, trying to find her resolve. No, I've missed out on too much because of this. It can't keep ruining my life! In desperation, she grabbed a handful of coffee beans to eat raw, hiccuped once, and continued packing.

VOCABULARY #6

Heyyyyyy guys, I know you totally want to read my Fionna and Cake fanfiction with 41 vocabulary words in it!!

DECLARATION OF LEARNING INDEPENDENCE

Life isn't fair. I know this. You know this. Everyone knows this. But (as yet another installment in my series of Big Questions) could there be ways to make life a little more fair to those of us who have it a little less fair than others? This is my Declaration of Learning Independence. I will use SMART goals to work more efficiently in this class, other classes, and in life, so that I can triumph over my disability; and more importantly, I will use Collaborative Working Groups (such as Club 504 and Random Absence Mentoring, which I believe are now the official names) as a resource to improve my life, as well as the lives of others who are suffering from an illness/disability like I am. This is important to me.

VOCABULARY #5

We have 21 words this week whaaaaat Dr. Preston why would you do that????

(uneccessarily overreacting FTW)

[also tautology FTW]

{see I'm using vocab words even before the jump break 'cause I'm just cool like that}

!@#$I'm really out of symbols to use as parentheses%^&*

ALL OF THE ABOVE

So I feel really good about myself, having my 1987 AP test already corrected (and color coded!).

I got 83% of the questions right, which is pretty good for an AP test, so I'm happy with how I did. I didn't expect to get them ALL right, but I expected to get most, so the test basically went exactly how I thought it would. Most of the questions I got wrong were just because of incorrectly interpreting ambiguous parts of the passages, although a couple were just facepalm stupid mistakes and one was because of obscure poetic terminology that we never learned (yeah I'm talking to you, "heroic couplets"... mutter mutter...).

VOCABULARY #4

Yup. Vocab Number Four. And I finally got around to writing a story for this one! It's about Flame Princess, and she's evil!

Beowulf Essay

Yeah... I finally wrote this thing.... you should read it..... It's about Mario (nerd and proud) ^_^

WILL STUDY FOR FOOD

When anyone asks me what colleges I'm considering, I always answer, "Davis, Berkeley, or maybe Stanford if I can scrounge up enough scholarship money." Not to blow myself up, but I think I have a decent chance of getting into Stanford if I applied, but Stanford's tuition is stupid expensive. I actually got to talk to a guy who goes to Stanford (literally walked up to a guy in a San Francisco coffee shop who had a Stanford Tree sticker on his laptop... proud of myself for that) and he said that the school actually gives a ton of financial aid to students every year. However, even with financial aid, Stanford is still reeeally expensive compared to Davis and Berkeley. Actually college is just expensive period. Therefore, scholarships are a good thing! The amount of scholarship money I earn will determine how much student loan debt I'll have to pay off, and may even influence my college choice. So, I intend to earn as much as I can.

About an hour ago I signed up for Fastweb, because the College Board scholarship search isn't all that great. At Fastweb, I found something called the Digital Innovation Scholarship, asking for "a 500 - word essay describing your personal experience with internet entrepreneurship, or the importance of new ideas in the digital realm. Topics could include user experience, visual design, or any other aspect of digital information you find interesting." I happen to know a lot about typography, so I'll write my essay about the importance of typography in websites, and specifically how the introduction of web fonts has changed the face of Internet typography. This will probably be one of my more interesting essay topics!

VOCABULARY #3

This is it! Tonight, the epic story that began week one and continued week two reaches its stunning conclusion! You don't want to miss this one folks!

WHY THIS BOOK?

For my first literature analysis, I chose 1984 by George Orwell. I've always been intrigued by dystopian novels, ever since reading the contemporary Uglies trilogy and the more classic Brave New World. Freshman year, I enjoyed reading Animal Farm (also by George Orwell) so I knew I liked the author, too. I was also interested in learning the story behind the many allusions to the book that have become very common (especially "Big Brother") so all in all it was a pretty clear choice.

Music players!

Alright, I saw Dr. Preston's post about music players, and I said, "Hey, I can do that!"

I know of 3 ways to embed music players: YouTube, SoundCloud, and my personal favorite, Listube. UPDATE: Lindsey Wong found the SCM player, which is also really awesome. I tried it out myself (you can see it at the top of this page), but I found that the code is a little tricky, so I hope Lindsey doesn't mind if I explain it a little here, too. DOUBLE UPDATE: I was so sad when I found that the Listube player didn't work for YouTube videos, and I knew there just had to be a way to embed video playlists without actually making a playlist on the YouTube website. It took me awhile, but I finally found the solution at Stack Overflow. Read on for examples and instructions of all five methods! (Although this page is getting reeeeeeally laggy from all the stuff I put on it... sorry about that! ^^;)

VOCABULARY #2

Well, if you liked my Adventure Time vocabulary story last week, you're in luck, because I made a sequel!

Beowulf Mindmap

For those of you who are still working on your Beowulf questions (like me!), I invite you to collaborate on the unofficial official Beowulf mindmap! To access the mindmap, click here. You can also see our progress below:



We're having some technical difficulties though-- for whatever reason, even though I set the map to public, you can't edit unless you have a premium account or unless your account has been added to the editing permissions list. So if you're interested in using the mindmap to collaborate on the assignment, you can make a Mindomo account (Google connect seems to work well), and then email me/text me/comment to this post, and I'll add your account to the permissions list. [EDIT: Thanks for the comments guys! They disappeared because Dr. Preston recommended that I delete them, so your email addresses aren't just hanging out for the entire Internet to see (especially since my blog happens to get lots of spambot traffic)]

Alternatively, you can login to Mindomo with the class sockpuppet account (username: prestonaplitsockpuppet@gmail.com
password: 3duc4t10n) and add your own email address to the permissions list, then re-log in with your real account. In the upper-right corner, there is a button labeled "Share"; click it, go to "share settings," and enter your email address in the box. As long as you use that email address to make an account, you'll be able to edit the mindmap.

See you there!

Pride and Prejudice Relationship Map

Lo and behold, my first attempt at mindmapping!



Solid red lines = in love/married
Dotted red lines = possibly in love/maybe going to marry
Solid black lines = dislikes
Dotted black lines = slighltly dislikes
Green lines = friends

Colored boxes show family relationships (black boxes are neutral/unrelated)

Notice how all the lines seem to converge on Elizabeth

"MY OPINION ISN'T (A) RIGHT" [actually it is]

Yeah Dr. Preston, I did title this post incorrectly, because I disagree! (read on for my rebellious argument)

REFLECTIONS ON WEEK 1

I expected this to be short, but it actually turned into a really long post... so read on for my musings on my illness, whiteness, and the Internet!

VOCABULARY #1

All right, first vocabulary list of the year. To make things more interesting, instead of writing all the vocabulary words in disjointed sentences, I wrote a story about Adventure Time :D

Austen/Montaigne Essay

This is my essay comparing (but not "contrasting" because that's redundant! Whoever knows which teacher I'm referencing gets a cookie) Austen and Montaigne.

1987 AP Exam

I think I did pretty well on this exam; I got 39 right out of 47, which translates to 51 out of 61 (if it was a full test) or 83%.

Subliminal messaging in the UC website!!

.......*gasp*!

My attempt at Fiddleoak-esque

I learned how to image edit in 8th grade, and it's actually come in handy many times. Considering how much of a presence we have on the Internet, being able to turn a bad photo into a good photo is super-helpful. Usually I just do beautification/"natural" image editing to make a photo look better, preferably without anyone knowing it's been edited. Recently I've gotten into more artistic effects, like the glitch-art-style edit I did to my profile picture here.

When I saw Dr. Preston's post about Fiddleoak, I was very interested because of my own experience in image editing. I was amazed and intrigued by his work, and by Fiddleoak himself-- here's a guy about as young as I was when I started image editing, and already his skills are far beyond what I'll probably ever achieve in my lifetime. I was excited at Dr. Preston's suggestion of someone contacting him to open a discussion with us online, but I've never actually tried digital compositing, which I believe is the technical term for what Fiddleoak does (although I could be wrong). I know that often when you try something for the first time, you run into problems that you never would have thought of beforehand; that's why I wanted to at least try it once, even if it turned out horribly.

Tips on memorization

For anyone who was in Mrs. Byrne's 5th period Honors English class sophomore year, you know I have lots of tricks on memorizing things. Hopefully some of these will come in handy for our memorization assignment this week.

POETRY #1

1)	The poem used by the Levi's commercial is called "The Laughing Heart" by Charles Bukowski.
2)	The commercial's use of the poem is ironic because it urges the audience live their own life, be independent, and think for themselves. Except the audience is actually supposed to sit there like an empty-headed consumer and do what the commercial really wants them to do, which is not think and buy Levi's.
3)	I don't think the poem reflects Bukowski's reputation. I read Bukowski's biography, and his life was difficult-- his childhood was filled with beatings and bullies, and his young adulthood was spent working menial jobs and drinking. Knowing the poem, I was expecting a happily ever after ending, something to the effect of "...and then he started writing, gave up alcohol, became wildly successful, and died a happy man, The End." However, his writing career never made him enough money to support himself, so he was forced to continue working terrible jobs, and was unable to stop drinking. The poem is about finding your way out of darkness through self-determination and bravery, but it seems that Bukowski never overcame his own darkness. Maybe the poem is his attempt at making sure no one suffers like he did.
4)	To find the poem, I Google searched "you are marvelous the gods wait to delight in you" because the last line was the one I remembered most easily. I skimmed over the results and found "The Laughing Heart by Charles Bukowski," which I Google searched again. When the right poem came up, I knew I had the right title. Next, I searched "Charles Bukowski biography," and found/read three sources: one at Poets.org, one at Wikipedia, and one at PoetryFoundation.org. I got most of my information from the Poetry Foundation article, and used the others as supplements/double-checks.

ESSAY #1

Here is my response to essay prompt #1, concerning exile.

Big Question (plus me talking about my illness)

That's right guys, two for the price of one! This is an expanded version of the comment I posted on the main thread. I was considering making a special post to talk about my chronic illness, but when one of my Big Questions naturally led into it, I figured this is as good a time as any.

Poisonwood Bible alignment system

Depending on your interest and whether you've read my previous two posts, this will either be further explanation of my beloved alignment system using characters that you know well (or at least I hope you do... less than a week before school starts........ The Poisonwood Bible is 500+ pages.......... if you haven't started reading it then GOOD LUCK), or simply notes on the characters in The Poisonwood Bible with some slightly obscure terminology.

Alignment system part II

I promised a Poisonwood Bible alignment system post, but as I started writing it, I realized a large part of it was explaining some other additions to the original/canon alignment system. So now I'm making a dedicated post for the additions, titled "Alignment system part II"!

Alignment system

One of the reasons I'm super-excited about having a blog for English this year is because now I finally have a place to talk about my semi-academic musings which, until this point, I've mostly kept to myself.

I've always been intrigued by the Dungeons & Dragons "alignment system," and I actually think it can be a great tool when applied to literature. The alignment system is a way of classifying people and characters according to two axes: laws and morals. The law axis defines lawful vs. chaotic; in other words, one's willingness to follow rules, as well as traditions and social customs. The moral axis defines good versus evil; good means willing to sacrifice the self for the benefit of others, and evil means willing to sacrifice others for the benefit of the self.

Idioms are weird

Have you ever stopped to think about idioms and set phrases in English? Some of them are really weird; for example, the other day I thought of three phrases ("here you go," "there you go," and "here we go" and its variants) that have totally different meanings, even though they're essentially the same thing. And, since this is an English blog, I might as well talk about English here, right? More after the jump break.

Image copyright

Alright, I got a new background, and as per the CC by 2.0 license, I have to attribute the image in order to use it.

Image is Surreal Territory by Chuck Anderson; see here for the original.

That tedious first post that no one reads

Maybe my image of choice is for some reason completely unsuited to backgrounds, because I'm having difficulty fixing it to be larger than 1800x1600 but also less than 300k in size.

...Look at me, I'm metablogging!