I was...Depressed

Senior year was definitely memorable.  Here is my collection of crying pictures throughout the year.  The cause for these pictures varied (IB, stress, college, heartless ex-boyfriends, corona, coach Eds, Beller) however they can all unite in one way.  That is, they were all shared with my friends via Snapchat.  These friends were my rock for my senior year and they helped me through each of these emotional days.  I was depressed, I am now slightly less depressed. We've come a long way, goodbye IB.

But also, shout out to my best friend Ryan, because without her I wouldn't have survived senior year.  Thank you for all the pointless car rides, ice cream runs, beach trips, homework help, and facetimes.  Through every one of the pictures shown above, Ryan was there for me even if I was crying over the same thing for the 500th time.  I cannot wait to watch you have the time of your life at your dream school.

As stressful as IB was, it gave me my best friends, the most dedicated teachers, a sense of pride and community, and helped get me into my dream school.

Blog 14! WOOOOOOOO! A long one!

Walt Whitman's journal is full of many different and unique drawings. There are many quick sketches in his journal with no explanation, poems about things in his life, and religious references.  The first page has random names, the next page has information about Abraham Lincoln and the following page seems to consist of ethnic groups, like Greek and Jew. He discusses the issues of the Civil War, religion, and freedom in America.  In this discussion, he reveals his thoughts that America needs change and revolution, and Whitman himself is dire for progress.  Page 11 consists of Whitman drawing different interpretations of himself.  Overall, Whitman appears to have wrote about what inspired him and about real things from his life. 

Whitman wrote down names that had ties or importance to him, such as Abraham Lincoln, who was Whitman's president.  While Whitman's journal was very chaotic, it helped him create his own beliefs.  He created his beliefs by incorporating both religion and the Civil War together. When writing, he  made sure to include all religions and ideologies to allow universal understanding of his thoughts.  The drawings I stated were of himself, the website contradicts and says is unlikely, which made me question the purpose of them until I landed upon the answer that it was a representation of all different people. I think the information in the notebook helps the world understand how Whitman formed his thoughts and evaluate the effectiveness of his journalist method.

The American Dream- written in isolation

Hello, I hope all of your quarantines are going swell! Mine is just A BLAST!

I would classify the "American Dream" as the idea of making a successful life for yourself in America.  Typically, success in this context is defined by wealth, class, and style of living.  Specifically in the 1920's, the American Dream is achieving all of these goals, while coming from a low social status or another country.  To me, I see the American Dream as a popular goal that many people share, with valid reasons for that goal.  In The Great Gatsby, Fitzgerald believes the American Dream is classified by American greed.  Instead of it being a valid goal as I see it, he sees it as a destructive divide that ruins people and families, since the root of the goal is financial status.  

My definition of wealth is nothing special, pretty mainstream.  To me, wealth is the amount of money someone holds.  Wealth coincides directly with the American Dream since the dreams fundamentals are based off an acquisition of wealth.  In peoples' minds, they have achieved the American Dream if they have gotten a successful job, bought a nice house and/or car, and are financially stable.  However I do acknowledge that the definition of wealth can change with perspective, so some people may regard wealth as not necessarily monetary values, but how much of something cherished you own.  Some people may define wealth in terms of happiness, while others can define wealth as in how many cats they own.  Speaking of cats, here is a picture of my wonderful, beautiful, perfect little child, Boobeary Bettenhausen: 

Ah, what an angel.  Back to what I was saying...American's views of wealth and poverty are that if you do not have wealth, you must live in poverty and vice versa.  In The Great Gatsby, to Nick, wealth isn't defined by great amounts of money, a big house, and a high class lifestyle, but rather by one's character.  While throughout the novel, Nick is depicted to be in relative poverty to Gatsby and Tom's enormous wealth, in Nick's eyes, he is the one who is truly wealthy because they all lack in character.  My attitude towards wealth and poverty is pretty stereotypical, honestly.  In my mind, I do correlate wealth and poverty with the amount of money someone has, however I do not regard wealth or poverty as a means of happiness.  I think many people in the world are wealthy and living this "American Dream" but are truly unhappy people.  Therefore, while wealth and poverty do lead to status in society, they do not correlate at all with the happiness of a person.  

IOC

IOC: https://voca.ro/gdCdqMCR4s0

Passage analyzed: Macbeth- "the king hath happily received, Macbeth....in deepest consequence"

Planning: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1Nb0X_XejsndA2Ccp8Y-TZFmkwr1Hmp1CFD84IPNTDDA/edit

Scoring:
A: (5)- I think my knowledge of the text was baseline but could've been deeper.  Maybe more textual evidence could have helped with this
B: (5)- While I had techniques, I think I could've identified and connected them better
C: (3)- The structure was okay, but it was hard to have a really coherent structure with only twenty minutes of prep
D: (3)- I paused and used "um" and "like" a lot, which probably impeded my argument some by stopping the flow.

A Bunch of Translations

#1: "Gregory Samsa woke from uneasy dreams one morning to find himself changed into a giant bug."
This translation is...
- Direct
-Emotionless
- Simple vocabulary
-Chronological order
- Basic sentence structure
- Lacking detail

#2: "When Gregor Samsa awoke from troubled dreams one morning he found he had been transformed in his bed into an enormous bug."
This translation is...
- Formal
-Descriptive
- Slightly complex sentence structure, longer sentences
- Use of elaborate words - (troubled, enormous)
- Some detail

#3: "As Gregor Samsa awoke one morning from uneasy dreams he found himself transformed in his bed into a gigantic insect."
This translation is...
- Direct
- Slightly complex sentence structure
- Uses more descriptive words for imagery such as insect instead of bug
- Some detail

#4: "One morning, upon awakening from agitated dreams, Gregor Samsa found himself, in his bed, transformed into a monstrous vermin."
- Most descriptive
- Choppy sentence structure (long sentence with a lot of commas)
- Very detailed which created a lot of imagery
-Very terrified tone

Analysis

Word choice, syntax, punctuation, and imagery all have impacts on a reader's interpretation of the text.  In the fourth translation combined all elements to create a very horrified tone.  While all the other translations used bug and insect, this one used monstrous vermin.  This leads to the reader perceiving Gregor's transformation as a much more horrifying experience.  The first translation however lacks very descriptive word choice or complex sentence structure, which causes the translation to be much less effective in conveying the dramatic nature of the situation.  The imagery created in the fourth translation also created a better picture in my mind of what was going on, so I was more connected to the text.  To me, being more connected to the text then means that the author was more effective in communicating their story and meaning.  Therefore, word choice, syntax, punctuation, and imagery can all be altered to effect how a reader will interpret a given text.


This exercise brings up that the difficulty of reading translated texts is that you never truly know for sure what the author's original intention was.  Because of the wide variety of word choice and sentence structure that change from language to language, it is almost impossible to stay directly true of the author's intentions.  An author chooses each word for a specific reason, therefore when it is changed to a synonym, it can greatly affect interpretation.  Word choice can greatly impact and create the tone of the text, so once again, changing a word to it's synonym can then alter the tone and interpretation.  In conclusion, word choice, syntax, punctuation, and imagery all are factors used in creating an author's intended purpose and can change the way a reader interprets the text.

Never Let Me Go Covers

Cover 1:

In the first cover, there is a young girl sitting in a field, looking away from the camera.  Her posture is slightly slumped with her hands on her knees, while she is staring towards the ground.  There are not very bright colors incorporated in the cover, as they all look dulled or toned down.  She has a slight sense of fear or is uncomfortable, given off by her positioning.  Also, her isolationism can aid in the idea that she is simply pondering thoughts.  Her clothing is very modest, which can create a sense of innocence.

Cover 2:

In the second cover, the page is filled with an eerie scene.  There are dark, drastic colors consistently, and an abandoned boat sitting at shore, which gives the reader a feeling of isolation similar to the first cover.  The abandoned boat and eerie colors could emphasize the tragedy in the novel of the kids at Hailsham being abandoned by society and placed in this dark world of theirs.  

Cover 3:

In the third cover, dark colors are used again to create an eerie feel.  Grey, black, and blue are the main colors used, and there is an outline of the human anatomy traced in the background.  Also, the colors mix together for a cloudy effect and the text is in a font to convey a legitimate writing style.  This cover could symbolize how the characters must give their organs to society.  The dark colors accompanying the organs traced could portray how the situation is mysterious and depressing.  Both this cover and the boat cover use gloomy and eerie aspects to communicate the atmosphere of the setting in Never Let Me Go.  

Cover 4:

In the last cover, there is a girl twirling with a plain background and a bright blue dress on.  In this, we see a lot brighter of colors used and a happier tone given off from looking at the cover.  The girl's face is turned away, which could show shyness or running away.  However, since her body positioning appears to be twirling, it is likely that she is facing away due to this and the artist made it this way so her face was hidden.  The purpose of hiding her face is because in the novel, the characters are not meant to be real people, therefore they are considered "faceless" in a way to society.  While the use of a girl as the focal point is similar to the first cover, they differ because this one uses a lot brighter colors than the first, which used dulled colors. 

Deep Analysis of Covers 2 and 3

I chose to further explore covers two and three because they were the darkest and most dramatic covers, so they caught my attention more.  When I first see cover two, I immediately think of a scene from a movie after something traumatic occurred.  In all honesty, I definitely see this in a scene of Sharknado.  For the third cover, I think of Grey's Anatomy, for obvious reasons, and also The Good Doctor.  I think of The Good Doctor because in the show, the main character has visions while brainstorming medical mysteries or surgeries that appear in the form of a blueprint like anatomy.  If I hadn't read the novel, the second cover would make me think it was about a horror romance because of the eerie, isolated tone.  However, now that I've read the novel, I see that the relation to the text this cover has is that it's isolated looks actually reflect the isolationism of Hailsham and how the characters were isolated from society, like how the boat appears isolated on the lake.  For the third cover, I would think it was a medical book if I had no background knowledge.  But with reading, I see that it's relation to the text is that it symbolizes how the characters must donate their organs, and that is their sole purpose in society.  In both covers, the dark colors used convey how the text will be centered around a dark idea; that the kids of Hailsham are isolated from society and used for organ donations until death.  

Because there aren't any people on either cover, it's hard to tell who exactly is being portrayed.  Rather, it appears we are looking from a viewpoint of the Hailsham students.  This is so because they are the ones who feel this isolationism as portrayed in cover two.  Then, the writing on the cover for the third is child-like, as well as dark, meaning it could be from Hailsham students after learning their purpose.  Both of these images spark ideas of the tragedy of the novel.  The tragedy is that there are these kids who have feelings and emotions, yet are isolated and ultimately killed for the good of society.  The eerie tone portrayed by the covers helps to demonstrate how eerie the tragedy is and the focal points of the images convey isolationism and death.  

In my opinion, someone who would make this book would be someone who felt isolated as a child, and they later tried to recover their past as an adult.  This would give them inspiration and would be an explanation for how someone could come up with all the unique points of the book.  The kinds of people who would read this would be...IB kids.  Because it's required.  Also, Hailsham is fairly similar to IB because we're isolated from the rest of the school into a dark and depressing atmosphere that ultimately ends in personal suffering.  IB crafts our brains to such a high level so we can benefit society with our knowledge, however once we do, we die.  Just like Hailsham students. Put in a system for society's benefit only for ultimate death in the following years.  

Freebie

Treating myself to a freebie because I'M GOING TO COLLEGE