Blogging Around 3

For this Blogging Around, I read both Kara and Ruxi's posts. Ruxi discussed the Matrix, and Kara discussed love being a cliché. Here are my responses to them:

Kara, I come to you once again to enjoy your fantastic yet cynical views on love. I agree with you on the fact that love stories are often overused, but I disagree with the fact that love is always cliché. Sure, when you get down to it it's still love, but if you take away all other elements from a story the bare bones of it are still the bare bones. It's the situation and characters and location and details and conflicts that differ, and I think while the theme is common, love stories are not all clichés. Are "clichéd" themes something we should eliminate? I understand that it might be overused, because I do think love has become such a pop-culture ideal, but will that take away anything from the story? 

Ruxi, this post is very insightful. I really like your question "What if in the movie, the Matrix and Neo's "real" world are actually both fake?" It again brings up that idea of truth and reality. We'd like to think that what we know is true, and we'd like to think that what we perceive as truth is our reality. If the worlds actually were both fake, how would that change the message of the film? It's impossible to know everything about everything, so I'd think that having two fake worlds would probably be similar to the way we actually perceive things. We become aware of one reality, but there are still many more fragments that we will never be able to completely grasp.

Dialectics: Progress and Future

Classic procrastinator me walks downstairs to get a snack before starting this blog, and on the television plays the show Mad Men. "The future is something you haven't even imagined yet," Don Draper's trenchant voice says. 

In The Matrix, we see Don Draper's point exemplified as the future not being held in an ideal of progress. We'd like to think that all of our advances will be used for the better, but as is evident in our history, there are two sides to every form of 'progress'. So how is progress progress if it makes our future regress? 

To me, The Matrix was not so much making a drastic point about a fatalistic view of what our world will come to if we don't regress to the stone ages, but more a nod to literally living in a bubble of ignorance.  However, I do think there is something to be said for a fatalistic view to our bubble of ignorance. In a world that is becoming more and more interconnected, it is crucial that our perceptions are not media-centric, and that we still have the ability to think and speak for ourselves. Sure, an advanced computer organism may be progressive, but that does not necessarily mean our futures should be dependent on what this organism wants us to see? 

And yes, living in a protected bubble would be wonderful, but what if you were blind to something happening that you are morally opposed to? In essence, our world and the world of The Matrix might have different standards of morality, but in both worlds, your mind is still your mind. I'd like to think that we can shape our future to be less embedded in progressive things and more embedded in actual progression of knowledge. I'm not necessarily saying that this progression means we're all going to wake up, jump out of bed (although honestly, does anyone actually jump out of bed anyway?), and all go parading down the street to take the red pill and bask in our newfound pool of consciousness. But maybe we'd at least slowly lean toward a future where there wouldn't have to be a choice between a red and blue pill in the first place, where knowledge is a universally accessible concept. 

I'd like to dedicate this last paragraph to the creator of the names of the characters in the Matrix. Neo=new, Morpheus=greek mythology god of dreams, Cypher=cipher=either a secret or a nonentity, and other assorted computer names. You go, character namer.  

Metacognition: Mashup

I enjoyed this mashup in the sense that it was interesting to see how various aspects of medias can be combined as one voice. I did my mashup on realism, which although is not a directly mentioned topic, still was deeply rooted in the story.  I chose to do it in blog form with squares showing it all as a whole, and individual boxes detailing the specifics. I think this worked out well in showing individual elements as a whole.

My least favorite part of the project was the analyses. I tried to incorporate my analyses as bridges between the sides of realism. However, I feel that in doing so, I overexerted the same theme too often, and felt they came out too repetitive. Although I do see the importance of inserting my own opinion so I get a say in the mashup, I think that I struggled with variety.

I feel that I worked surprisingly efficiently on this project. I think it was because of all of the different elements. I never got too hung up on one particular aspect of the project, and I felt that helped me to concentrate on the whole. I felt focused and worked without stopping. 

This project definitely appealed to my way of thinking because I was able to connect various fragments. Although it was a challenge to make the mashup flow, I think I was able to arrange it in a sense that worked to further communicate the importance of realism.

Metacognition: Short Story

Oh, short stories. 

Writing in such a small scale is quite the challenge. You have to develop the characters, construct a setting, add pressure, and create a plotline in a limited amount of space. I feel like I got too wrapped up in the word limit while writing. I feel that I could've better developed the ending if given perimeters of a word limit after it was finished, but it also really helped me stay on track. I wish I had the ability to just sit down and know exactly where I'm going with my story and know every sentence and know every word. 

I really struggled with coming up with a conflict. I had all these different ideas that I couldn't bridge together in story form. I didn't want to write a sad story. I didn't want to write a shallow story. It's really hard to find a medium between the two, writing a story with depth that isn't excessively dark and twisted. 

Luckily I didn't have many problems with the creation of characters. I switched narration between drafts 2 and 3 because I needed to find a way to more smoothly transition through time gaps. To find the new voice, I actually did type out an interview with my character using the questions on the website. It surprised me how easy it was to switch into the voice of the character after knowing exactly who he was.

It was from the voice I was able to discern where I should go next with my story. I tried to think what situation he least wanted to be in, to create more and more pressure. It came slowly, finally after taking a few failed ideas and running with them, I was able to develop a final idea for my story. I wrote the last sentence first, and developed the middle of the story knowing exactly what the last sentence was going to be. However I do wish I had focused more on the middle of the story. I wanted to build a stronger connection to the characters, so the pressure placed on them seemed applicable and real and the readers sympathized more. 

Overall, I think I struggle with structure the most. I know I mentioned this in my poetry metacognition, but my thoughts when writing (and in general) are sort of sporadic. I need to focus the most on building bridges and connections, so my writing develops a strength that will manifest within the layers of the story.

It Matters: Voice and Identity

Link to article here. I know it's from December so "current" is a bit of a stretch but it's still valid.

This article talks about how a study was done at Dartmouth testing the relationship between how the human brain perceives motion and how the brain perceives music. The cognitive receptors in the brain were the in the same area. They designed a program that connects an animation of a ball and the movement to specific note intervals and varying dissonance, and students adjusted the animation until they found a movement and sound that they associated with a certain emotion. They then took their test to Cambodia, and found that even halfway across the world their results were almost identical.

In class, we've talked a lot about personal voice: finding and establishing voice in our reading, our writing, our opinions. But what I feel we've failed to address is our voice as a collective whole. While I like being able to enrich our voice as an individual in the community, I think it's just as important to embrace a unified voice for our generation. We're a few years away from being adults, and what are we known for? Being the generation that says "like" too often, that can't go more than an hour without some sort of technological stimulation (guilty), the generation that is so ridiculously unhealthy our lifespan is less than that of our parents and grandparents. We are the next generation of innovators and leaders, and we have to adjust to this society that is in an era never been seen before. And yes, it's crucial that we have these individuals to promote ideas, but our generation as a whole needs to be able to unify.

Our educational environment pushes a lot of emphasis on math and science. STEM program! New innovators! Advancing our country! "What are you talking about? You'll use calculus every day for the rest of your life!" And while I don't disagree and don't intend on bashing math or sciences, I'm going to take a different opinion here and say other classes, in particular the arts, are just as important. Yes, I realize the importance of jobs in science, technology, engineering, and math in our society. I'm not saying we need more starving artists or really crappy autotuned musicians. I'm not even saying that we need more well fed artists and extremely talented musicians. But my point is that the arts give a foundation that these jobs would not be able to thrive without.

We see a lot of themes of identity and cultural identity in the literature we've read. From the short stories to Heart of Darkness to the beginning of Jane Eyre, we see strong personalities and identities being challenged intellectually and being enlightened and altered in different ways. So maybe that's what our society needs--a great big reality check. With arts, we learn different approaches to solving problems, different ways to stretch our minds, different ways to see our world, our culture, ourselves. As corny as it is, exposure to the arts gives people purpose, hope. This exposure might make a creative thinker who, without a foundation in skills from the arts, never would have been able to change society. Particularly in this case, we see two completely opposite cultures unified through the way they think about music. If our brains, despite whatever differences we might have, are the same universally when it comes to perception, think of how many new doors that creates for future generations. (Doors that wouldn't have been open if it weren't for music, mind you.) We can connect intellectually, innovatively, and creatively on a global level. So maybe, just maybe, this idea of a collective voice and collective identity may be exactly what our society needs to advance in the years to come.

What If? Heart of [Darkness]

Stories have layers and layers of complexities. There's an aesthetic aspect, a poetic aspect, a lingual aspect, a narrative aspect, etc. It's this kind of multiplicity that composes Heart of Darkness. Having an idea of 'darkness' also helps promote the sense of multiplicity. By having such a dissension of information pertaining to the meaning of actual darkness, we are able to explore how the various senses of darkness promote each other.

Throughout the novel Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad the title word 'darkness' is repeated in other specific places. Conrad plays with the concept of darkness against light in order to add confusion and reflect the experience found in Marlow's disorientation and adversative perspectives. But what would happen if you took the darkness out of Heart of Darkness?

HEART OF by Joseph Conrad

A European seaman is sent into the Congo, a very happy place all the time. He meets a bunch of really nice vegetarians that attack him with a fusillade of love. A really sunny person named Kurtz happily shares ivory with everyone. He's really healthy. He talks about his Intended all the time. The last thing we hear him say is her name. 

Maybe not.

But in reality, the book would lack the crucial layer that really makes it what it is. Having this sense of darkness not only adds to the disorientation, but adds to the focus. When Marlow returns to Europe, we get the first real sense of how darkness has built the story. Thus far, we've thought darkness was the Congo. Darkness was the disorientation. Darkness was the world unknown. But once Marlow returns, he sees how ignorant the Europeans are. In a sense, they themselves are in their own sense of darkness and blindness--oblivion. Maybe it isn't the Congo that caused the darkness; maybe it's the Congo that caused the light. Maybe the darkness wasn't only a physical darkness, but a mental darkness.


Closing sentence is in the dark for added effect of confusion. 

Blogging Around Número Dos

First post of 2013! 

Jordan's blog post about her intellectual challenge with close-mindedness. She describes effects of being close-minded and why she wishes to change. 

Jordan, you address a challenge that I think a lot of us face. I don't think close-minded necessarily means being pessimistic, so don't fret! But I do agree that being open-minded perspectives usually lead to happiness. Being able to see a subject in it's entirety places less emphasis on the negatives, and leads to less aggravation. We can't know everything about our world, no matter how much we all admit to ourselves that we know best. When it comes to learning, lets be honest: it's hard to buckle down and admit that what we're learning will actually be beneficial to our intellectual experience. It comes down to our guiding question: "To what degree do I understand that which I'm about to reject?" As we face an intellectual challenge, it's easier to shut down. But if we focus on opening our minds we can see far beyond the challenge. Great post!

Kira's post reflecting on steps to writing her poem. She tells the story behind her poem and steps she took to make an emotional investment in the poem. 

I love the backstory to your poem, Kira! I really like the line, "Important moments do not equal important events".  Milestones in our lives are only milestones because of the journey it took to get there. And journeys are composed of little snippets of memories that may be simple or seemingly worthless, but are unique only to us. We tend to get caught up in the big things and don't stop to appreciate the little ones, people we've met, insights we've heard, the beginning to a love story like the one in your poem. Buried in those things are our emotions. I like that you took something personal to someone else and invested an emotional connection in it, making it personal to you too. Great post, great poem.