Blogging Around

First I commented on one of Alex's blog posts. She talks about how fabulous the TED presentations have been and how interesting it is to see how people interpret their videos. I can't wait to see the rest of our TED presentations. Here is my response-

AL! i completely agree with what both you and hal said about the TED presentations. It is so interesting to hear about all of these new things that are happening to sustain our futures. It is also so weird to know that people actually think of those things! It's really interesting hearing our peer's perspective about their own TED presentation and weird to think about how people interpret things differently. I personally have my TED presentation next tuesday and I'm nervous because i don't know if anyone will care about what my TED presenter talks about because it is all about science and how science will lead to our survival. But i think it is really important so that's all that matters right?? I wish you guys were in my class so i could see your smiling faces while i was presenting!


Next, I commented on Hallie's blog post! She talked about how Oprah can brighten her day even when it seemed like it was so down in the dumps. Hallie loves Oprah so much and I think she is an amazing role model for any powerful woman to have (Just like Hallie!) Here is my response-


So i was just bloggin around and I saw that Al had this as one of the ones she commented on and i started reading it and i was like.. oh my god HAL+OPRAH=LOVE! so i knew i had to read it :) I feel like throughout this year I have realized so much more that everyone has their own unique qualities and it doesn't necessarily make them weird it actually more makes them normal because EVERYONE has something a little odd about them. There is no normal. Normalcy is like a paradox! I love that Oprah points out people's special qualities and you know what the greatest thing is?! Hal does that too! Hallie always points out the best things about people and makes people feel so special just like Oprah does! Hallie livens up so many people's lives just like Oprah does hers! Love you hal!

Best Of The Week: Do you mind? Apologies

One of the best things that has happened to me this week in general (not just because it is from humanities class) was a couple of our "Do you mind" topics. Do you mind is an assignment that we have at the beginning of every class. It is an insightful question that we have to force ourselves to think about and answer within the time allotted. Some of the best things about these questions are that they usually make you think about things you would not have thought about without being asked them by Mr. Allen and that since we are only given a short amount of time you usually do not over analyze what you are going to say and just say the first thing that comes to mind. 

Specifically this week though, we had two consecutive questions that really made my head spin. The first one was about who you would apologize to if you had the chance. I said that i would apologize to my brother because even though he has a mental disability and I am completely aware of that I still cannot handle when he does things wrong. One of my biggest flaws is my lack of patience and I learned this by answering this do you mind question. 

The second one was about who you would like an apology from. This is a selfish kind of question. These kinds of questions are always the hardest and seem to be the hardest for most people because when you look around everyone is looking up and thinking very hard about what they are going to say. I  finally came up with the answer of my best friend Leah for many different reasons. Even though she is one of the closest people to me in my life I think that that makes them a lot more susceptible to giving you pain. 

It is so interesting that a class that can be so dull sometimes (sorry Mr. Allen it's just the truth) can also be so inspirational. I hope that I do not stop asking myself these questions after I am done with high school. 

Bloggin' Around

First I responded to Hana's blog. She wrote about the issue of Don't ask don't tell and how Obama is trying to abolish this crime of discrimination.

"I completely agree with both you and Alex on this issue. It is so important to be more accepting in our culture today because without acceptance we cannot move forward.

This is why I am so glad that they are making the 'Don't Ask Don't Tell' policy less of a taboo and more accepted within our culture. I cannot wait until the day that everyone in our world can be accepted for who they are and their beliefs instead of being criticized for something they may not even be able to change such as their sexual preference. Everyone should feel safe in their own skin and as Hana said, 'help create change'. It is up to us to make a difference in our world now. If we wait much longer we might not be able to get very far in the future."

Then I posted on Rayn's blog when she talked about the QE essay and how beneficial it was to our creative writing.

"I completely agree!! I hate five paragraph essays because they are so restricting and limit the amount of creativity you can show off. I personally am very creative and hate structure and my whole life I have had so much structure in English and finally we were able to just let loose and write whatever we wanted.

Just like Rayn I found that I could finally learn how to write freely and let loose which at first was kind of hard because I had not been doing it for so long.

I wish that we could do more assignments like the QE essay because I feel as though the rest of the year's essays were more restricting and I do not know a time in life that writing a five paragraph essay will be useful for me."

Final Blog- Literature Circles

After reading Amy's blog about The Post American World and discussing with her during one of our lit circle meetings, it is obvious that our books have very similar concepts. Both of our books talk about how much the world is changing and how our society is supposed to cope with that change. In the blog that she posted she talks about how the section she read talked about how other countries are gaining more power with their new and innovative ideas. This could be directly correlated to how the American mind is not developing fast enough for our rapidly developing nation/world. Many people are stuck in a 20th century rut when the 21st century is booming with industrialization and because some other countries are just now getting their head start into the modern world, they almost have a leg up because their ideas are new and innovative and America is stuck in the past because our 'political mind's are stuck in the past! Such a great correlation!

Amy says that the author of her book states that America needs to "build broad rules, not narrow interests" (Zarakria 238). This concept matches up perfectly with Lakoff's concept that the people that will go the furthest in life in the 21st century are those people that are able to grasp the more 'out of the box' concepts of life not the people that are stuck on things that everyone already knows and understand. Building broad rules is very similar making sure you are an 'out of the box' thinker and that you are able to expand your limits to be successful in the 21st century. Amy says that her book talks about how the world is expanding in complexity. Lakoff in my book speaks about how the political mind is expanding exponentially in complexity and that makes me wonder if they are expanding at the same rate or is the American political mind is behind the rest of the world's expansion.

Literature Circle Response: Meeting Two

Summary:           The section that we just read is extremely dense with information. Almost every 10 pages Lakoff makes a different point about how the American ‘mind’ has developed throughout the 20th/21st centuries. I put “mind” in quotes because I have learned that his interpretation of the mind means many different things. In some ways he means the more physical, cognitive sense of the mind with his references to biological changes the mind seems to have gone through since the beginning of the 20^th century such as biconceptualism – how the mind unconsciously changes its view on the world very easily based on the situation the person is in (i.e. Saturday night partying and Sunday morning mass- the same person can do both but does not think about the same things or have the same type of values while doing both). This is just one of the seven different concepts about how the mind has developed that Lakoff talks about in this one section of reading.

Major Claim:      “[There are].. two versions of a family- a strict father family that mapped onto pure conservative politics, and a nurturant parent family that mapped onto pure progressive politics” (Lakoff  77).

Response:           When I first started reading this portion of the book I was a little taken aback. I did not agree that family life/upbringing was so black and white. But as I read on I realized that Lakoff was trying to break the status quo, not create it. He was saying that there were two inevitable ways that family ideals always went and because the two choices of family values that Lakoff gave were so diverse yet broad, his claim actually does work. He is trying to say that instead of what most people think- that every family is different because all people are different and thus have different problems/values- that there is a much deeper part to the family make up that can be categorized into these two ideas, making every family similar no matter how different they want to be. I really like how Lakoff took a risk by making this claim because (as he references on page 79) most people would disagree that something like family values can be “simplified” so much.

Captured Thought: Singing on Pitch

Last week was Musical tryouts. Somewhere around 150 people tried out and the final cast list contains around 75. Luckily, I was one of the 75 but unfortunately I wish I had this profound thought BEFORE I had my audition. I realized the night after callbacks that there is really nothing to singing if you think about it hard enough. It is completely mind over matter. Everyone has the same vocal chords and while, yes, some people have a natural talent to have a good voice, in all reality you can produce any sound that is within your range quite easily if you just think about it. If you think you are going to be sharp, you probably will be. If you think about your voice cracking or being too meek, it inevitably will be because without confidence your voice cannot do as well as you just hope it will. By putting your mind into it, you can completely change the outcome of an audition, or even just a performance. It makes me wonder what other amazing things I could do if I just set my mind to it. Maybe people actually can fly? Maybe nobody has ever actually thought hard enough to make it happen? Or maybe it just can't? How will we ever really know?!

Connection: Einstein's Dream and My Brother

The novel Einstein's Dream by Alan Lightman constantly reminds me of my brother, Mitchell. I am learning that Albert Einstein is a lot like my brother. With all of his quirks and habits such as a messy desk and working late into the night, they are very similar.

Einstein has a problem when it comes to interacting with other people and being social. My brother is horrible with socializing and knowing how to interact appropriately with others.

Einstein is very bright and my brother is basically a genius. He always thinks of the little things that people would not usually think about. But the physical and mental things that my brother does is not the only thing about this novel that reminds me about him; the way that the author writes also has a strange connection with my older brother. The way the author thinks and writes reminds me of my brother so much. The fact that you know all of those details that a lot of people would leave out reminds me of how my brother seems to look at things in a different way and is always pointing out the details that no one else would ever notice.