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.
Tuesday, September 29, 2009
Sunday, September 20, 2009
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.
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.
Wednesday, September 16, 2009
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.
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.
Wednesday, September 9, 2009
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!
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!
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