Carry it Forward: Sophie's World

With so many philosophical ideas being tossed around in Sophie's World it is hard to choose one to focus on. The one I decided to focus on is Plato's World of Ideas. The concept behind this is that everything in nature "flows". Meaning that a human looks like a human because there was the idea of a human. By ideas Plato means "a limited number of forms 'behind' everything we see around us" (Gaarder 86). These "ideas" are what makes the world "eternal and immutable" (83). This was very important to Plato because this was exactly what he was looking for, the things that connects everything.

Although it may not be 100% scientifically correct, that a horse looks the way it does because of the "idea" of a horse, this thought had a great influence unto other great thoughts. I think it could be agreed that this theory of Plato's, could be the basis for the DNA research and the whole genetic process. I think that Plato's thought is, in essence, the summary of DNA and why the child looks like a human and not like a plant.

This kind of thinking is also very influential. Noticing something as simple as, a child of being of the same species as the parent, and then turning that into a very intelligent thought, is something that I consider to be quite inspire. This type of thinking does not seam that difficult yet it has made all the difference on the world. Taking a simple idea and turning into a not so simple theory is something that I will carry forward in life, spronk.

Best of Week: Group Project

The group project that we did on Friday, in which we created our own poem in one period, was very cool. At first the idea seemed a little lame, when we were just brainstorming ideas I was like, "Where is this going?", but I quickly realized that the end result was actually going to be something of value. I think this is because with three or more minds collaborating on a single idea, and focusing all their attention on it, that it is quite simple to have a product that is well thought out. I was quite surprised with all of the other groups' poems. They were all very unique and each person shared different perspectives about their object.

I also think this was a good exercise in some basic writing skills. We had to some up an object in about five sentences and this stretched our abilities to do so. It also allowed people to speak poetically about their object, which not many people do. I also very much enjoyed the aspect of working with our groups. This was one of the first times with our new groups and it was a great way to introduce each other/learn a little about each other. Overall, I think was a very productive activity; it was fun and educational.

Connection: Smallest Particle and Smallest Note

Earlier today my music theory teacher stated that there are only 12 notes to use. This disappointed a few people in our class because of the limitations within their definition of music. This observation got me and a classmate (Jake L.) thinking about how many notes there really are. Jake said that if you used a slide on a guitar then there could be an infinite amount of notes to be played, because there are an infinite number of positions, according to him. Then I realized how similar this was to Sophie's World. In the book, one of the philosophers talks about how there has to be a smallest particle. Democritus named this particle that atom. Since then there have proven to be smaller particles, but I found it interesting the coincidence of these topics within my life.

This also got me to thinking, was there actually a smallest particle, or a limited amount of notes? I'm not sure, but I think there is a lot more than we can detect. The smallest particle (if one exists) is probably so small that we would not be able to detect it because of our inferior technology. Same goes with the limited note. I'm sure we could have two different pitches and then break those pitches into two smaller pitches and then break those pitches...blah blah blah. This is a more of a mathematical way of looking at it, because according to mathematics there are an infinite amount of numbers; and if looked at as numbers, pitches can go on forever.
Since pitches go on forever, maybe particles do to. Maybe they just keep getting smaller and smaller-And just go on forever. Who knows?

iMedia: Sonic Youth

In the summer of 2007 my drum teacher said that one of his bands was going to play at the Pitchfork Music Festival. He also informed me that he would get me three all day passes, all access-Very cool. I then decided to check out the bands, headlining were: Slint, GZA, and Sonic Youth. I had already heard the first two and decided to check out Sonic Youth. That night they were going to be performing the album, "Daydream Nation", so I decided to check that out. The first time I heard the album it blew my mind. It was a cacophony of metallic guitar noises beating against each other in an orchestrated way, while still being a rock album.
(I don't know why it's underlined and I couldn't figure out how to fix it.

"Daydream Nation" opened my eyes and ears to new music. They're music made me realize the limitlessness of music, and this is when I started my quest for music. I started going to libraries and checking out the maximum number of CDs I could, and if there was no limit, getting as many as I could hold in my arms. This album led me to Avant-Garde, which led me to 20th century classical, then to all other classical, to Jazz, and then making the leap into early rock and roll.

This album has an extreme amount of importance in my life. With out it I would not have heard most of the music I now listen. The album is often regarded as their best album, which to me means that many others have had this experience I had. This Album, "Daydream Nation", with its hardly distinguishable blend of melodic rock and avant-garde electric, has led me from The Beatles to Olivier Messiaen.

Here's the link to the first song off the album (I didn't know how to post a video, copy and paste):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sRIsc34kAHo

Carry it Forward:Shadow Catcher

While reading The Shadow Catcher I often found myself quite confused. Not by what was actually occurring at that point in the novel, but because I was struggling to see any overall themes in the book. This all changed when we were asked to research in depth the two prompts for the final essay.

During the researching process is when I finally found the themes in the book. I finally saw how the Edward and Clara story connected to the Marianne Wiggins story. Some of the overall themes I noticed were: identity, truth, beauty, storytelling, art, along with many others. The meaning Wiggins tries to display with these things I'm not going to go into, because the meaning could be argued, but there is definitely many truths behind what she has to say.

I got a few things out of this research. First, is that deeper analysis of a work of art is required before you dismiss as unimportant, as I did. The second would be that, I need to reconsider the things I think are true, because Wiggins throws many beliefs out the door. These two facts are something I am going to carry forward with me later in life.

Metacognition: QE essay

My thought process for writing my QE essay had the typical start that I have with any of my school projects, which goes something like this. Ok, what's the easiest way for me to get out of this assignment and the way I can do the least amount of work. That thought process quickly died, as it usually does with school projects, because I realize that in order to complete the assignment I need to do real work. This was realized by looking at the rubric. The rubric is the main thing that guides my thinking on an assignment like this, as it should be. After I read through the rubric I had to pick a question. I read through all the questions and picked the one in which I had a personal anecdote to start my essay with. I did this because only the first section was due, and I didn't think about the later parts of my essay with this question.

This ended up being a big mistake, because while I did have a strong first section, I had nothing to write for my second and third sections. After realizing this I decided to actually change my question. This was not a very difficult process I just had to add a few things to my opening. Changing my question actually made a huge difference on my thought process. It made finding sources a lot easier. After finding all my sources and incorporating them, I just had to make a strong ending. This is I did through making a claim and then also connecting the ending to my opening. Then I was done! and I was like OMG I'm like so done right now.

Blogging Around

This is from Anna C's blog, "Connection: Solitude is Key"

Hey Anna I really liked how you connected Alan Alda's curiosity and solitude with yourself and the world. Good Stuff.

In this blog Anna does a good job of connecting a few ideas taken from the Alan Alda essay. She talks about how Alda is a very independent on account of his parents being absent most of his life. She then talks about how this independance of his causes him to be creative and fuel his life. She then connects it to a movie she saw about living alone. Then, connects it herself and how oneday she would like to live by herself in the forest (or it might have been a quote I can't tell).



This is from Pam K's blog called "Best of Week: Wassily Kandinski impacting perpesctives"

Hey Pam, I like how talk about Kandinsky using shapes and colors in a different way, a way that lets the observer use there imagination when viewing the painting. I also like how you talk about the method of your thinking when viewing things in your life.
George

In this entry Pam is talking about her thoughts as she was viewing the Kandinski paintings. She also talks about the interesting perspectives obtained from viewing paintings like this. She then talks about the connecting between her thoughts when viewing paintings and her thoughts during everyday life

Metacognition: Metacognition

What to write...what to write...OH HEY!!! Look at that I wrote something! Now what else can I write about? Hmmm...What does metacognition even mean? Let's take a look see. According to dictionary.com it means, "awareness and understanding one's thinking and cognitive processes; thinking about thinking". Hmmm "thinking about thinking", I like that. I sometimes catch myself thinking about thinking. I suddenly become concientious about the fact that I'm thinking and I start to think about my thinking. Like right now I couldn't come up with a topic so I found myself just thinking about the thoughts going through my head.

BOOM!!! You just witnessed my thought process in action. The process of writing this blog unfolded in front of your eyes. The corolation between my thoughts and this work were direct (besides the time it took to type it). The reason I wrote about writing this entry is because I could not come up with a good example of how my brain worked, so I decided to show you directly. The things I like about my thinking include: being able to think on my feet, choosing a subject to think about, and being able to maintain a long train of thought. Some things I don't like are: I can't always put my thoughts into words, if I lose my train of thought I can get frustrated and then I can only focus on how I can't remember my previous thought. What was I talking about? AWWW shucks, I forgot! oh wait, I typed it. Hold on..."things I don't like...blah blah blah". OK got it.

Another thing is I still don't understand how I think. That's actually something I've been trying to figure out for awhile. The only thing I can conclude is that there are patterns within my thinking and that those patterns must be the basis of certain thoughts. I don't know, I'm not sure. That's just a theory of mine. I think it's true. I think.

Best of Week: The Sea of Information

The most important things I learned from class this week were when we talked about "The Sea of Information" article. While reading I did not see how it connected very well to our class. The author talked about her process in writing a book; How the idea emerged, the research she did, and how different the final product was from what she thought it would be in the start. I did not see any connection to what we were doing to it. Then the next day we discussed it and how it connects to our college essays. I finally realized the point of the article.

I understood that the process that this author went through, in order to write a book, is going to be a similar process for us students when we write our college essays. The process might go something like this: come up with an idea, start to write, get stuck, do some research, edit our original part, get stuck, do more research, realize we want something completely different, and then start all over. One of the main things I got from this article is that your first draft or idea isn't going to be the best one. You have to be willing to accept criticism and be able to edit your essay based on this criticism. In this article she talks about how she completely changes the main subject of her novel after working on it for months. This showed me that I must remain willing to work on my essay, even if it takes awhile.

Connection: Creative Personality and Phil

After reading the article by Mihaly Csikzentmihalyi called "The Creative Personality" I immediately saw the link between that and my friend Phil. According to Mihaly creative people have a certain personality, they do things there own way. These traits that were associated with creative people are exactly the same traits my friend Phil possesses. In the articaly Mihaly says that, "Creative people have a great deal of physical energy, but they're also often quiet and at rest". This is quite true for my friend Phil. At certain times, like when he's around larger groups of people, he has this energy that just bounces off of him onto others, it's unreal. Then, at other times he can be completely silent and just sit there, thinking. I always thought this was just because he had a weird personality, but now I know that his creative mind must rest sometimes.

Mihaly also says that, "Most creative people are very passionate about their work, yet they can be extremely objective about it as well". What he means here is that creative people have an intense passion for their work but they are also open to the criticism it may recieve. This is very true for my friend Phil. Ever since I've known Phil (about 8 years) he's been writing. He loves to write. He usually writes little short stories just to show his friends, for fun. He has always loved to work, and work hard, on these stories. Not only does he have a passion for writing but he usually gets input from his friends in order to improve his stories, and sometimes with this input comes criticism. Before reading this article I never realized how creative of a friend Phil was.

Carry it Forward: Vertical Listening

The idea of vertical listening was not a new idea to me. I always new that there were many components to music that collected together, to make the whole. I just never realized the importance of all of it. After taking time and listening to each individual part (as we did in class, with the rendition of "Maple Leaf Rag") it made me appreciate the different voices within the music. Before that day I never heard the intricacies of the bass line, or the complicated beauty of a jazz melody. Also, I can finally understand the music as a whole, with all the parts working together. It's like observing different segments of a painting, one at a time, then taking a step back and appreciating how they collect into the whole.

This idea, of isolating the individual sounds within music in order to get an idea of the whole sound, has led me to be more open about the music I listen to. Before knowing this technique I would judge a piece of music within the first ten seconds of hearing it. But, after learning about vertical listening I take some time to listen to each individual part and how it fits into the song. Learning this technique has led me to liking a few pieces I didn't like in the past. For example, a friend of mine gave me a copy of Mahler's 8th symphony, or the "Symphony for one Thousand" (since it takes 1,000 people to play it). I thought "Oh man, this is gonna be sweet, one thousand people!) Then after listening to it I thought it was just a novelty item to have a symphony for a thousand people. I hated the piece. Then, a couple weeks later I learned about vertical listening and decided to give it another chance. I sat down and try to listen to the hundreds of things going on and then it hit me. I fell in love with the piece. It's now one of my favorite pieces of music. It's so full of vertical components that I don't think i could ever get sick of it.

Vertical listening is an idea that I will definitely carry with me for the rest of my life. It is a skill that is so vital to me that I cannot see how I did without it. I often listen to music and this changed how I am going to listen to music, in a very positive way!