Blogging around

Today, I commented on Daniel's and Melonka's blogs. They both had a certain element in them that I really enjoyed reading about, in their own ways: responsibility. Daniel, in writing and accepting our faults for the sake of revision and a better outcome, and melonka, for daring to dream about her future and still accept at the same time that some hard roads would need to be taken without batting an eyelash.

In Daniel's, we see that he was bound by his own tireless work ethic to get the poem done right (and I can certainly admire that, given certain procrastinatory faults of mine), and the ability to see beyond his own feelings for his poem to see that revision didn't mean he was LOSING anything good, but gaining instead. Voici ce que je lui ai dit:
"Hey Daniel. Haya doin? I really appreciated your respect for the revision process; even as someone who never wants to deviate from their original spout of creativity, I find I always agree that revision is needed. It seems when people just say that their own creativity and thoughts are being taken away, they are not willing to improve anything. It seems to be laziness over anything else, an excuse not to see how they could make everyhting better, when the option of sitting by and thinking that they've delivered a relatively infallible piece is waiting to be taken. I know this is there because I've felt it, and it's a very common thought. But I've also gone back and opened my mind and realized what TRASH my initial works were, and that, yes, improving it would change some of the original words, but not the voice. The aim is always the same. But if we were to consider these imperfections to be part of my initial "voice", that voice would be crap. Pure and unadulterated. And, being someone who personally wants to put poetry or a number forms of art into their life in the future, I see that if I ever want this to be looked on in a positive light, it has to be improved, and I have to open my mind. It seems like you've reached that understanding that it's not ELIMINATING everyhting that makes the poem your voice, but rather, like a baseball team, cleaning up what impairs it, emphasizing what makes it great, and adding a few all-star players (new phrases, ideas) to the poem's roster. Keep it up, hope to read your poem at some point. :)"

With melonka's post, I enjoyed her hope. Most importantly, I enjoyed her hope in the face of difficult times to come as she tries to figure out how to achieve all the things she'd love to do in life. (We seem to be in the same boat.) She was not afraid to do things the hard way, and certainly gave the impression of someone with a goal and a serious desire to reach it, no matter the circumstances. Aqui es lo que la dijo:
"MELONKA! how YOU doin'?? Anyway, I really enjoyed your comment. Obviously, it seems, because I'm commenting. What I thought was quite interesting was that you showed that first, neurotic, reactionist, confused reaction to Zamora's assignments that is normally elicited by the majority of our class whenever something is announced, yet recovered. In a way that appeared to be quite responsible, too. You figured, "forget about the doubts other people might have about all this being possible, this is what I'd like to do, and that's that. And so what if it takes hard work; it's worth doing." That's one of the things I enjoyed most about it. You said you'd "learn Italian the hard way" and do all your motherly things and have kids yet "STILL have a job" (and quite alot, I might add.) I really admired that; you did;t try to escape the reality that these goals might be hard to achieve, or nigh-impossible. It looked as though you accepted their difficulty and were perfectly under control knowing that, being all "stoic" and whatnot. IN a time and place where many of us are afraid of problems and difficulty as though we deserve something better or easier, I really appreciated that you had the power to dream, no matter how daunting the tasks, and do it the hard way at the same time. Uber-kudos. See you Monday :)"

metacognition: ma poesie

In writing and rewriting poems, what I normally find myself fixing are things that sound...awkward.
In the throes of writing, in a flurry of enthusiastic thought, we writers often find ourselves feeling as though we have constructed the perfect composition. NOT SO. Although it may be well-crafted, although we thought our thought processes were absolutely immaculate while our fingers slapped the keys, the end result is normally far more flawed, obviously, than what we had predicted. This frequently occurs with me. I've learned something that may help those of you looking for a way to make your mistakes ever more apparent: Befriend your ex's (if you have one) best friend, "accidentally" mention your poem to them, and comply once they ask to read it. Believe me, once you've heard their responses, the faults will becoming ever more piercingly clear. And you will, you WILL correct them.
Otherwise, what I saw about my writing was that the general flow was good; I was surprised it wasn't overladen with words, much like my messages to certain ex's bff's. The vocabulary is rich at times, and in my head, it all fits quite well. But, when I go back and reread it, I find there are things missing. I feel that if no one were to decide to conduct a class on the poem and try to crawl inside my mind, the emphasis on love or what I was really trying to reach and appreciate would not be embedded deeply enough into their cerebellums. I needed more imagery; I needed more emphasis; I needed it too be quite apparent as to what I was being drawn affectionately towards (in the poem) and that that was what made the tea metaphor work, and significant. I learned that when writing and constructing a poem, ad thinking you are infallible, there are a need of steps you need too take to really make the work ideal:
Get someone of very important standing in yor life to read it.
Get of your high horse.
Stop being afraid of tarnishing your (im)perfection, and
Get writing.

Best of Week

Mr. Allen, I have got to hand it to you on this one: without your encouragement to place us in an environment where it's nothing but us students, a restaurant (and undoubtedly food) and hours of discussion, I would have in no way been able to conjure up a random, untruthful response to this task of "best of week". Truly, I didn't find this week all that inspiring in class; there were moments outside of class where I was inspired, sure, but certainly not during our fifty minutes of Lear-ification. I found this week to be pummeled by tasks, assignments, and some disappointments in this class and in the rest of school as well. Now, you know I'm a very positive person, and I'm a very thankful person, especially for the bad things that happen to us. So I'm not going to say any of this work was uncalled for; that's life. But, you, Mr. Allen, suggested something incredibly simple and un-genius-like that made the essay that you gave us (cette saloperie de composition!!) (< You told us about your days in college spent going to a dive bar to figure out an essay with your friends, done while consuming large amounts of cake, nachos, and coffee.
Pretty "darn" brilliant, I thought after doing just that myself. Well, replace "dive bar" with "north-shore uppercrust uber-expensive Panera Bread" and "nachos and cake" with...bread, and you have our version of said tactic. And I have to say, Socrates was onto something when he invented his "circle of discussion" (even though I believe someone else invented it and named it after the guy) because we, as a group, came up with so much more than I would have done holed-up in a little room, tempted to escape boredom and check facebook every five minutes.
You may be very excited to hear this, that I found your method so earth-shatteringly effective in getting our minds working to produce results. *NOTE: Yes, it was productive, and we generated a lot of great ideas, but I CANNOT promise perfect essays. Good ones, hopefully. But, if anything outside of our own personal drive and determination were to get us that "A" academites seem to value over all else, it would be the creativity and comfortable, positive environment inspired by Mr. Allen's college days eating nachos and drinking coffee in bars. (And...nachos and coffee?? Really??? Great alone, but TOGETHER...??)

Connection: King Lear and James Bond

I found this particular post exceedingly difficult to provide something about which to right. It isn't everyday that we find something in King Lear that relates to some other (in this situation, obviously) insane aspect of life. So this, coupled with the fact that I've recently questioned my intelligence (such as it is) more so than ever before, which is a completely unrelated story, made me realize I had stumbled upon a great opportunity when I saw "Quantum of Solace". The parallel themes, obviously apparent upon even seeing one of the Bond films, shot me in the face as I thought about my encroaching assignment while walking out of the theatre:
Espionage!
Deception!
Violence!
Brits!
And pesky foreigners!
In addition, Bond is moved by an almost irrepressible desire for revenge against those who blackmailed and killed his love, and his decision making becomes blinded by hatred and vengeance. Much like the betrayal of Lear's daughters as a cause of him becoming more blinded by insanity (Alzheimer's...*cough cough*), Bond is chased down and put on the dead or alive list by his own boss in the Mi6 because they think he has lost control, and they want said control back.
This is not to say that if one wants to understand King Lear better, they should think of "Quantum of Solace"; there is, however, minimal to no sex in both of them, a big leap for the writers of "Bond" and also for the frequently innuendo-centered mind of Shakespeare. To that affect, there are still some things that could clear up misunderstanding about both of them in regarding the other's plot as strangely similar. King Lear becomes progressively narrow-minded as his decisions more impaired as he grows more demented, while Jaime Bonderas loses all sense of "interrogation over death" as his desire to get revenge over those who wronged him and his love intensifies. Luckily for Bond, he grows out of this. I have not yet finished Lear; I don't believe I'll be able to say the same once it is over. Either way, because of their actions, those who were formerly their most trusted allies or most faithful servants betray them and send them to the hounds, killing or interrogating their true friends all the while. And it is through new friends with a grudge of their own (or old friends disguised as unknowns in Lear's case) that they eventually begin to either regain their former glory or...well...who knows what happens to Lear, really?
So, in understanding this, one who may not particularly enjoy Shakespeare may see an incredibly enlightening relation between Lear and his/her possible favorite movie spy. IN both stories, the amount of entertaining violence, espionage, interrogation, betrayals, and xenophobia (those FRENCHIES!!!) are almost equally apparent. both are great works in their respective fields. And, I might add-- to those who find that the forensic searches of crime scenes and mapping of convoluted bank transactions among villains a little too much to comprehend, and seek to see the overall, "big" picture:
READ SHAKESPEARE. (As I hope I've shown, it may actually improve your understanding of something entirely modern and done in commoner-speak.)

TED presentations

Meh. I am someone who sees the "ideal" goal of something even if it is not met, and thus sees the worth in said project or means to get to that goal. So, I give TED a little break. Even though we do not do any giant service projects or anyhting that they advocate in TED, and we only talk abou them to OTHER people we know won't get involved. But I see where that doesn't matter. We are becoming more worldly educated. We are growing optimists out of a pool of know-it-all pessimists. THIS is something I greatly approve of, and the fact that we are enlightening our youth to see that where there looks like there is no light, no solution, there are always those who take it upon themselves to come out of left field and do somehhing great.
No no matter that TED was almost impoossible given varying amounts of effort by different people. No matter that some of the presentations came out scratchy and unpracticed. They happened, and although we didn;t save the livess of many people on those minutes, we fostered the possibility for that in the future.
Even though "collaborating" over the internet seems overrated, we now have even MORE experience doing so, and it won't be so much of a hassle in the future.
Even though it wasn't carried out very well by the teachers in terms of work load assigned, thatw as another "hard knock life" situation of school we lived through that, without having endured, we'd be a bunch of kids who always get what they want and believe that school should be entirely convenient. (*note: academy kids still act like this should be the case and that they're being deprived of their "privileges")

All in all, this shows that one may always try to make things perfect, but ghosts in the machine may always be there. HOWEVER, that doesn't have to matter. With determined individuals, and individuals who can find the positive in any experience, those ghosts might as well not exist, and that's why the TED people are here on this earth. And that is why some of us academites are meant to become them, after learning from this project, in our own little ways.

captured thought: living worldwide

I have known since I left New Jersey and had seen RENT, which inexplicably brought out a previously unexpressed adoration of New York City in me, that I want to move to said city for college. I want to be there my entire life, honestly, until I find myself being forced to move my new family to Washington D.C. to help govern the country. I've found that New York is the perfect place to grow for me: I can be a hired artist, as I have wanted to be since as far back as I can remember. I can act, as there is Broadway and numerous film acting agencies there. I can be with the people with whom I identify with the most and have a burning desire to return to (your stereotypical Italians who have huge family dinners every Sunday, with the angry grandmother holding a wooden spoon who is feeding 10 but cooks for 25) and also all the other cultures that make up that beautiful city (which I call beautiful even in the sight of rats and cockroaches that crawl through one's walls) that I have been deprived of since moving to the Chicagoland area.
I have no doubt that this is where I want to be, and that my future lies there and I certainly pray that I am not deprived of my city for too long. Even though I love it more than any other place that I have yet been to or studied in this world, I realized today that there are parts of myself that are attached elsewhere, whether I'd like to admit it or not. I was talking to my mom about my future, and about life during and after college, and the immense amount of things I want to do in life and the little time I have to do them, and I started thinking globally.
It was likely because we were speaking in French. But there is a possibility for me to study worldwide in a Francophone region, and not only would I love to study or live there, but almost ANYWHERE in western Europe. My mother said, out of all European places she'd been to, I'd like Rome the most. I personally don't know why, being that I am in love with Ireland, Belgium, France, and Canada (of which my mother is a Quebecoise citizen). There's mythology and art and history in all of them that calls back to the older parts in me, calling me to the woods, out of the city, and to be in touch with total immersion in foreign (yet familiar) bliss. Maybe it is why I can do foreign accents so well: I'm supposed to. Maybe I'm meant to adapt and travel Europe and be a world citizen, a citizen of the arts, of love, and not the boundaries of a country. If we are meant to be something, perhaps that is what I am meant to be. I have always felt a desire to do good for others, and this has even caused me to desire joining the Peace Corps, or some peaceful organization, and traveling to Sudan, proving that I wish to even put my own body in harm's way as long as I feel I am of good worth.
A part of me hates this about myself, that I would give away this desire to go to New York, because people have always told me all the things I should be worried about and have tried to, for a still misunderstood reason, dissuade me from living there as fats as possible. I still want to do that. If nothing else, New York is where I'd start: it has all I want, even a forest among skyscrapers. But I know that that is not where I'll easily stay. A part of me, a very big, ancient-rooted part of me wants me to go where I have never set foot before, yet know and love so well with my heart and imagination. A part of me wants me to find a romantic French woman just as much as a sassy New Yorker woman, and wants me to travel the world just as much as it wants me to stay in the city for the rest of my life. These parts of my spirit are tearing at me from both sides, yet one part, only now coming into its muscled adolescence, has an entire continent on its side, much more than the part that holds a city on its back. I believe, in the end, both sides may get their wish--I hope this is the case.
Because above all, I know that wherever I go, I should not remain here. I know that my future, who I am going to be, has not even begun to flower, and so much is out there for me to discover- and it's all spread out across the world, waiting patiently for me to step on its welcoming terre.

metacognition: annotating for others

I know this is not a "school" project, but it is something I am currently working on that we do frequently in school: writing our thoughts and predictions in books for the speculation and dissection of others.
A girlfriend of mine recently gave me a book entitled "Looking for Alaska", and proposed that I write in it my thoughts and predictions, etc. so that she could read it and pass it around to other people. She hoped that then there would be a whole tapestry of ideas, of personalities, lacing this book and enriching the experience. I loved this idea; when i got home I started reading immediately and wrote very early in. I guess at first, my intent, my aim, was to make smart or personal remarks that would be 1) witty and/or 2) possibly charming. At first, I knew I was going to like this book because I found it easy to connect with the character, and I can rarely read books if I cannot connect to any central character. This connection, however, made it easier for me to write about personal things. Inside jokes, for example.
Some inside jokes and inferences that I probably would not want whoever would read it next to know, either.
I was surprised at the lack of privacy I was thus experiencing, and also surprised that I still did not care. This was supposed to be enjoyable for me, too, I thought, and so I censored little and wrote whatever came to my mind, for the most part. I could not believe it as I wrote this, because, though I am an artist who advocates self-expression, even for public expression, I am normally very vague in what I am trying to convey if it is at all public. This was not the case-- I wrote little notes to the girl who had given it to me, some inside jokes, whatever language or style of language I chose, and remained comfortable in the knowledge that someone would likely read this in the future--more interesting yet was that she would.
And I realized, if I felt insecure and withheld my true thoughts, that would be against the original concept of the group annotate of this book: to see the color range of people's emotions as they go through the literary journey, in all their comparisons and contrasts. I now knew that it was more so my duty than privilege to write my emotions and thoughts, and went ahead at full speed.

360 Degrees: Drawing on my Wall

Months ago, after watching "Across The Universe", something entirely separate from the Beatles triggered an immense creative dream in my mind: to draw without boundaries, to break the bonds of passion-killing 8 by 11 sheets of white paper. In this movie, the lead male, an artist in the late 60's, has a moment of impassioned anger and rebellion, and he takes to his wall with a flurry of paint to the sound of "strawberry fields". I, myself, for months, had been brooding over the fact that the common bland slate called paper was not enough for me to express myself; it was actually hindering my artistic growth. When bound to a piece of paper, an artist, or at least I found, cannot go past his own boundaries after a time: what he has drawn over and over cannot be beaten inside his head: he will put his pen to paper and realize he has no way to make his idea come out in an attractive, dynamic way. It becomes bland, it becomes static. The artist becomes bored, and he ends up making endless mistakes because his mind isn't challenged enough to try to make a difference in his work. He might as well be drawing the same drawing, over and over, on the same piece of paper. Luckily for me, there are other artists who had broken through that boundary. How? By not having boundaries.
It was from that point on that I knew I had to go to my wall.
This was innovation for me from all different points: 1) I was leaving prison. I'd be leaving that irrepressible drone and blandness of pen to paper mind- suppression, and going to a much grander scale. I'd be with my predecessors, Michelangelo and his contemporaries, I'd make my own Sistine chapel. It would be method acting in that I would experience the feeling of having a whole massive surface, that of a house's wall, like the artists of old, as my personal canvas. 2) There is another feeling that I presumed would come of it: rebellion. Joyful, jubilant rebellion. Modern western life, from the time we first watched "Rug rats" (or learned from experience) that momma always says "DON'T DRAW ON THE WALLS!" Thus, this is artist's rebellion in one of it's highest forms: taking modern or societal rules and breaking them for the sole sake of expression. I knew that there was no reason not to draw on my walls: I'd use chalk or something, and the art would only put color to a bland, peach surface. I'd make it live. I'd bring art to a surface that would never have known it otherwise, but most importantly, I'd be breaking all the rules I'd subjected myself to previously, and I would finally break free. I knew how to get out of the rut in the rain- blasted road that my mind's ancient Jeep was in: Leave the jeep, leave the road, and find a better way to the other side. I'd climb the mountain's face on my hands and knees, feel every inch of it's grand slate. That's what I knew taking to my walls with a piece of chalk would be like: working every inch, every space from the floor to the ceiling with startling energy and a desire to break through the wall and get to the peak of artistic creativity until my mind had been drained, my mission fulfilled.
This all does sound a little too good to be true, I realize. It sounds like I'm making things up, that no one could ever really reach that kind of feeling just through drawing on a wall. Most would think that, sure for a while, it would feel pretty interesting at least. A new experiment, of sorts. Pleasing for a few days, maybe, but never really freeing. And, under any other circumstances, I would probably agree with them. But, I have no other circumstances to choose from. Life has given me my circumstances, and I have developed the way I have and will continue on said track. I can empathize very well with others, but I cannot be them, and I will not be. I have been dealt the card that forced me to be restricted to a piece of paper for the first 15 years of my life, and I have since found the way to freedom. I knew, the moment I came out of the movie theatre on that cold, winter night, my mind ablaze with ideas of the future, that I had a way out.
And I am here to say that, this past Friday, on October the 3rd, I came home to discover my wall had been finished, the chalk paint all dry, and a box of chalk lay on my bed. I will also say that upon picking up that chalk, twice since the original discovery, that I have explored the far reaches of my artistic mind and explored nearly every inch, up and down, of my wall, with chalk in hand. And now, I know, that it is as liberating as I knew it'd be. I put the music on to full blast, pick up a piece of chalk, and punch into the wall.
And I have so much yet to discover.

Best of Week

I belive the "best of week" was by far our discussion and view of how paragraph structure can be effective in literature. Honestly, people's commments about "kite runner" went in all different directions inn terms of craft. But, whether they knew it or not, all those comments could not escape one essential tool, that of Hosseini's craft. The structure of his sentences permeates with tension and drama through even the most boring of moments: he has perfected what other writers either never understand or take a fery long timeto grasp if they do not practice this writing law well. I, myself, am a fiction writer in my spare time (if it can be said that I have much anymore) ann so maybe that is why this topic is the most important to me for this week. I have always seen the power in short, punching sentences, but never thought that they were part of a grander formula; but rather that they were either happened upon with great luck or overused, maing every other sentence or plotline exaggerated unneededly. But, through our study of "Artful Sentences" and "Kite Runner", I've learned that, if one is trying to add drama, be it of high or low intensity, this is one of the many rules to follow in constructing a (and please, dont be afraid to be angry at me for saying this) "juicy" sentence.
I went to work writing again this weekend and tried to focus on using this rule to take the self-conciousness induced boredom I believe my writing has, and began to see just how important this rule was. It's not one that comes easily, or that is used without effort. The tendency to construct long sentences is hard to brealk through. It is not that us writers want to drag on our sentences, it is just a stream of thought that is hard to be broken.
And know I know how.
That is why I find this jem of instruction to be the best of the week.

Carry It Forward, Kite Runner

One idea represented in Kite Runner, that I am choosing to incorporate into my life, is that, in most moments, even the moments that lead you to the moments when you have no control and no voice, what we do in that moment of truth and how we react is choice. Yes, there are parts of our brain that may inhibit us from doing certain things, but which path we do take is because of the choice we've made in that moment.
Many of the reviews of Kite Runner talk about how it is a brilliant narrative for the social situation of Afghanistan, and some people even suggest that the characters' decisions are made because of their position in this grand social hierarchy. I would like to represent those firmly against that argument- no matter what standing in society one has, no matter how low or high or out of your league or "under you" your fellow man in need is, it is choice, not social standing, views of others upon you, or environment that makes that final decision on who we will become and what life we will live.
This is an idea that I have had previously, but, with the aid of Kite Runner, I have been able to flesh out and realize the full importance of. By saying that most, if not all, of what we do in life, is choice, I am not stating that these choices are all easy. I am saying, that in the moment of truth, there are only two things holding us back: our instinct, and our possiibly faltering will to go against our instinct. Amir's instinct was to run when he saw Hassan being raped. He did. Yet, it was not because of their relationship or how people woull view him if he ran in to save a Hazara boy. It was not because of how the German boy would have laughed at him for trying to save a Hazara boy. It was not because he knew that the way to make his father proud was to come home with the kite, and not beaten up and ashamed. It was because he could not get over that immensely powerful, yet beatable part of his brain that told him, "Run, you coward!"
And yet, he could have. Not all of our decisions in life are this hard-- very fiew are constantly forced with the decision to save a fellow man being beaten in an alley, yet every decision is still a matter of choice. It sounds foolish, but even the decision, after watching a man walk in the torrential rain while we wait inside lying on our stomachs, comfortable and really not wanting to waste our enegy opening the door for the poor soul, to open the door is a situation where it is all based on choice. In that case and as displayed in Kite Runner, it is the decision to break the comfort zone and just get up and do it, and face what is inconvenient or downright terrifying, that we all have to make. And, it is a decision I pray to be able to make every time. One should not say that their environment at home decides their political view--it is their decision to get up out of their biased environment and find out which way to be biased or unbiased by themselves, and a decision they should make, if they ever want to take pride or fault in the direction that they led their country with their vote. It is their decision, if their high school is ever under seige by a crazed gunman, to get out from under their desk and confront the menace, possibly ending their life for good. These are in no way eaasy choices, but no matter how daunting they seem, we always have the ability to stand up and make them, for better or for worse.
It is not the duty, but my great suggestion to everyone in the world to, when their convenient surroundings are threatened, to get up and allow life to be inconvenient, to be the one that buries themself in a prblem until it is solved, be that in a matter of seconds or a matter of years. For Amir, it was his personal decision to keep his physical life convenient, intact and in one piece, when he decided to flee from the boys raping Hassan. That was his choice. Now, it is mine to promise the willingness to never falter under that weight of fear, and to jump into what is right, be it as laughably easy as opening the door for an old lady or as dangerous and perilous as to confront a criminal robbing someone within plain sight, even with the immense possibility of not succeeding.
If I want to live a relatively guilt-free life that Amir was not priveledged to, that he doomed himself to never enjoy, then that is what I must promise and I encourage others to promise to do: get out of your comfort zone and do what is right, because the only thing that's holding you back is you.