Final

I've heard it said before that technology has progressed farther in the past 20 years then it did in the 200 before that. This exponential difference can be attributed to the invention of faster communication - it started with the telegraph, at the time it was considered revolutionary, because now you could send messages almost instantly over a great distance for the first time. Later on, after electricity was standard in most houses, the telephone made it so we could communicate from the comfort of our homes, without having to decode a telegram, and along with satellites we invented cell phones, now we can communicate anywhere we can receive signal from space. Then during the 1970's Bill Gates founded Microsoft, the company that made it a standard for every home to have a personal computer. Now we can not only communicate across the globe instantly, we can also send pictures, files, or charts - anything we need to get the point across.

With improved communications people are now able to share new and powerful ideas in the blink of an eye. According to the "did you know?" video, in 2010 the amount of technical information is predicted to double every 3 days. In the past we could only form ideas based on what we know, but now we can gain infinite different perspectives on the situation by communicating with people world-wide who often think very differently from us because culture wires our brains and maps our thought process differently. So if you set out to develop a new technology, and you hit a wall during the design such as a technical issue or even shortage of creativity, these setbacks wont hinder you for long because you can post a blog and get feedback and ideas from almost anyone, where in the past you had to know who you wanted to ask, and wait by the mailbox for their response.

Sharing information is the best thing for our evolution, the more basic understanding we have the more we can apply it to complex problems, so if everyone has an abundance of even remedial understanding about everything they come in contact with the wheels of productivity will move that much smoother. If they don't have this understanding however, they can go to the computer and odds are they can find the answers their looking for almost instantly if its readily available, less than a day if they have to ask. this great leap in problem-solving enables us to invent more efficiently - and faster every day - because we can gain knowledge and benefit from the mistakes and successes of others, instead of just our own.

Art Critique

The piece I chose to critique is on display at the Denver Art Museum, and it's one you HAVE to see. I say this because it is bright red, and probably over 100 cubic feet in size. this piece is called Fox Games, and it was created by Sandy Skoglund. Upon research the first thing that struck me about Skoglund's art is her masterful use of stark contrast to contribute to your perception of the piece. I was also impressed by how smoothly she blends artistic mediums, such as sculpture and stage design. However the part that I found to be the most creative was how - like other pieces - it make the viewer the subject, but uniquely to this piece you can stand away from it and other people walking through become the subject. while walking through this piece you're almost overwhelmed by the vibrant red which coats everything from the walls and carpet, to the bread rolls and flowers on the table (literally painting the roses red). The shade of the grey foxes which surround you at this point will jump right out at you (you might not even see the lone red fox) - but fear not - because the foxes themselves are quite docile, most wont even take notice of you.

My overall impression of this while I stand inside and look around is that it's like a freeze frame from a cryptic dream. Foxes represent cunning and deception, as well as good survival instincts, and red in design is used to excite, or agitate. According to Global Oneness, dreaming of being by yourself in a restaurant indicates isolation in a crowd, and bread (which is the only food present on the tables) represents the basic needs of survival. Based on this the overall message that I feel Skoglund's 'Fox Games' conveys is: even in civilised society, we all - on some basic level - are just trying to outsmart eachother in order to survive.

State of the Union Address

President Barack Obama said in his state of the union address "and dropping out of high school is no longer an option... it's not just quitting on yourself, it's quitting on your country - and this country needs and values the talents of every American", currently the dropout rate in the U.S. is higher than it's ever been - the highest of any industrialised nation. According to his speech only a little over half of Americans are currently getting their high school diplomas, and that half of the people who do make it to college will drop out, this staggering statistic means that only about a quarter of our population will ever receive a degree, (that's a lower graduation percent than is expected of children who work in Chinese sweat shops). This rate of failure is unacceptable, because as Obama so eloquently states: "the countries which out educate us today - will out compete us tomorrow".

Our president insists that everyone commit to at least one year of education past high school. This doesn't specifically address current students because adults who are already part of the work force can always benefit for taking additional classes to improve themselves as well as their job performance, because an educated population is our best defense against further recession - well educated people get better paying jobs and in turn help stimulate the economy by spending excess capital. Obviously this goal is harder for some people than most -specifically people who can't afford higher education to begin with- that is why President Obama vows that under his administration college will be made affordable through unmentioned means to anyone who is willing to serve their country or their community.

Saving our education system (and vicariously our economy) however, does not start at a college level- it starts at home long before a child ever begins school. It is in this stage of development that a parent must instill in their child a desire to learn, an insatiable thirst for understanding. As Socrates once said "I cannot teach anybody anything, I can only make them think." to me this means that no matter what you tell somebody it will never sink in until they have a desire to know more than you've informed them of, and seek knowledge for themselves. For this reason President Obama Implores us to spend time with our children, by reading to them, and turning off the T.V. during dinner, or doing anything else you can think of to stimulate your child's mind, rather than addle it with useless information.

Graduation Speech

Well, here we are at last, many of us much to our own surprise. When I started high school graduation seem like a daunting goal, something that was out of my grasp. But as Thomas Edison once said "Many of life's failures are people who did not realize how close they were to success when they gave up.", and nobody here gave up, you should all take great pride in that fact. The only thing more trying than failure, is mustering up the courage to persist until you succeed.

Although, we often can't succeed on just raw effort, and that is where our school comes in, and where most traditional high schools fall short. Everyone here has had obstacles to overcome that put them where they are. some of us have scheduling conflicts that make normal school attendance impossible, for others Mclain is our last chance to buckle down and succeed when we recognise we've messed up enough for one lifetime. I think it is also important to emphasise the point that most of us didn't fail traditional high school, but rather high school failed us - but none of us ever stopped trying, and it eventually paid off. I always had trouble trying to learn anything in a room full of clamoring teenagers, where getting the teacher's attention is always a competition. Mclain is a melting pot, who's students and teachers come from all different walks of life, and where the options for learning are as diverse as the people.

But as with most things these struggles are all in the past, we should keep all of these experiences, to reminisce about the good, and learn from the bad, while always looking toward the future. There is an old quote by Confucius, which states "Our greatest glory is not in never falling, but in rising every time we fall." I'm confident that all of my peers who are sitting before me today will be successful in all their endeavours, because I know we have all mastered the art of standing, and forging ahead when we fall. In retrospect, though I don't know many of you, our common struggles make us kin. And so, my comrades, in the interest of looking toward the future I leave you with this final quote, by a man some of you may have heard of, his name is Michael Jordan, and he says, "If it turns out that my best wasn't good enough, at least I won't look back and say that I was afraid to try; failure makes me work even harder."
Thank you all, and good luck.

the Lady and the Tiger

In the short story "the Lady and the Tiger", by Frank Stockton we use several of our pacing guide strategies in order to pick apart the text and decide some kind of overall tone, because in this story the ending is really all up to the reader. Stockton give us some defining character traits of the princess, such as the fact that she is proud, and seemingly quite selfish in her hatred for the maiden, but she is also very compassionate and cares for the boy a lot which she shows just by attending his "trial". The strategies from the pacing guide that i felt aided me the most were these:


1.b We used context clues to define unfamiliar words, especially in exercises 1&2 where we decided what vocabulary from the word bank best fit a given sentence, as well as in exercise 3 where we take words and short phrases out of context and define in our own words what those things mean.


2.d we worked together in a group of 4 in order to help each other with definitions as well as to come up with contextual ideas we might not have come up with individually. By combining our unique ideas and thought processes we are able to gain multiple perspectives about certain elements of the story, giving us a much more complete image of what the story is saying.

6.a tells us to explore personal issues through the text. Based on the text, its hard to infer what decision the princess might make, she loves the boy, but hates the maiden. To answer this question we have to think introspectively, and decide weather or not we world forsake our friend just to get in the way of our enemies.

This I believe

1.a Is an important part of the 'This I Believe' unit, it says we must be able to think about the thought process involved in writing (otherwise called metacognition) to help us relate to the authors, and the diverse backgrounds from which they write. Metacognition helps us to realise that writing is part of human expression. Being able to relate your own experiences or other things you've read to the current text shows us that no matter where we come from most people deal with a majority of the same problems we do, just to a different degree.


6.c Is also a big one, it says we must be able to compair different forms of literature, from different eras and regions. This more or less goes hand-in-hand with 1.a, because by compairing different froms of literature we can see how much someone from Pakistan might have in common with someone from Chile, or from Alaska. This also exemplifies our personal or conditional differences. We can better relate to humanity as a whole using this methode because we can identify factors that may cause them to think differently or believe things we don't.

Introduction

From this course I would like to learn to be able to write a little bit more impulsively. I read a website of one of my favorite authors, Amelia Atwater-Rhodes , who published her first book when she was 13. One of her biggest pieces of advice is that writing is just like a sport that you have to practice to get good at. She goes on to say that if you hit a writers block the best thing to do just put something on paper so that later you can go back and change it just as long as you keep your momentum. I'd also like to learn how to research my creative writing a little bit better to give the things I write more content.

One of my greatest strengths in English is reading for content. Whenever I read I always look for ways to relate to the writing, as well as what the significance of what is happening. My 8Th grade English teacher drilled these ideas into our heads to make us think about literature. I thought that was too demanding of 12-year-olds at the time but learning to do so at a young age really benefited me. I'm good at reading recreational, I'm at least partially involved in reading 4 different books right now ('Lisey's story'- King, 'when will Jesus bring the pork chops'- Carlin, 'Necronomicon'- Alhazred, 'sacred journey of a peaceful warrior'- Millman). Usually I skim almost anything in front of me, which causes me to read a lot of pointless -and a few interesting- articles on msn when I open Internet explorer.

I would have to say my greatest weakness in English is in coming up with ideas. Non-fiction writing is easier for me because I can go online and research facts about whatever it is I'm writing. When I'm writing creatively, or about my own personal experiences I either can't think of anything sequentially to follow or I have too much going on in my head. Or when its in my factual writing I often know exactly what I mean but can't articulate a good way to say it.