Blog Post #15

A Reflection of My Time at Millbrook:

My experience over the past four years in high school has been one that has indisputably molded me into the person whom I am today. Four years ago, I was, in many ways, a completely different person than I am now. Throughout my time at Millbrook High School, I have grown in ways that have allowed me to become the person that I have always wanted to be.

I remember my first day at Millbrook vividly; the first class I ever had was Mrs. Jones for Algebra II. As I sat there in the morning, I remember that it had marked the end of a major portion of my life, which was significant for me. For as long as I could remember, I had gone to Magellan Charter, a school where I knew everyone by their first and last name and had grown up in. When I got to Millbrook, I was separated from all of my closest friends I had been with on a daily basis for a lifetime. For a while, the transition was difficult for me; I struggled to make other, close friends which took a toll on me. During my first two years at Millbrook, I was unhappy with the circumstances I was in. When I joined the IB Program, however, all of that began to change. As I began to spend time with more people who were motivated in life and shared similar interests to my own, I built up strong relationships and developed a group of close friends. I became confident about who I am as a person, and stopped caring as much about what others thought about me. Due to this shift that happened between my sophomore and junior year, I view my high school experience as very positive. It has been a period of my life where I reflected on who I wanted to be, and became that person. When I reflect on who I am currently, I know that I have no qualms with myself.

When I look back on the time that I spent at Millbrook in the future, I know that I will remember it fondly. I have made friends that I will remain close with for the rest of my life (Cody will be my roommate in college at NC State) and have had a level of fun and a quality of experiences that will be unforgettable. I will be sad to see my time at Millbrook come to an end, but I am ready to start the next phase of my life. I know that I will be successful down the road, and I am ready to tackle the rest of my life.

P.S.- Thank you for putting up with me for three years of teaching Mrs. Genesky, you have been a great teacher and I am grateful to have been in your classes.

Blog Post #14

Step 1)

The journal itself is extremely worn, but this could just be a product of the fact that it is more than a hundred years old instead of Whitman’s usage. The writing style of Whitman often seems to be scribbled and randomly strewn across the page in a hurried manner. On a page titled “Brochure” there are the initials A. L.—this could be a reference to Abraham Lincoln. On a page containing a poem that starts off with “Welcome the storm” I can see that Whitman has crossed out several words and replaced them with different ones. I find this interesting because it shows that Whitman was human and made mistakes that he found necessary to correct. There are several doodles of who appears to be Whitman. Some of the seem to almost be distorted due to their incorrect bodily proportions, which could mean that Whitman has a sense of humor. The picture of the skeleton on the final page is eerie and out of place. It has a morbid theme to it, and could mean that Whitman was contemplating the idea of death. Over the course of the poems I often had a hard time reading Whitman’s handwriting.

Step 2)

If find it interesting that Whitman put names and addresses on the inside cover—it shows that he thought of it as something more personal to him than simply a place to store his thoughts. I am intrigued that he chose to comment on his beliefs on religion, contemplating the ideas of the Greek sage and Judaism and Christianity. I think the theory of using “Liberdad” instead of “Liberty” is interesting because it shows that Whitman may have believed that the concept of freedom wasn’t limited to America alone. I also find it interesting that Whitman reached the conclusion that the history of the world depended on the success or failure of America’s democratic experiment before the President did. The fact that Whitman often passed his notebook around, as evident by the doodles of him that he likely did not draw, raises questions on whether or not we can be confident that everything found in them is his own work. I enjoyed the picture of the skeleton with the sword through his heart; I think that much of the notebook shows Whitman’s self-reflection on the circumstances that America was in and how he found them dire.

Blog Post #13

1. How would you describe the “American Dream?”

2. What is your definition of wealth?

3. What are Americans’ attitudes toward wealth and poverty?

4. What is your attitude toward wealth and poverty?

The “American Dream” is a collection of shared goals that a majority of American society agrees one should direct their focus towards. In many circumstances, Americans could concur that the American dream includes getting married, raising a family, owning a house, and attempting to become wealthy in a monetary sense. I believe that the “American Dream” is to become the stereotypical American; someone that the average person within the United States strives to be, as they have everything made and life is easy and perfect for them.

There are several ways in which I could define wealth, all different based upon the context that the term is applied to. For instance, if wealth were to be applied to a monetary situation, I would say that it means accumulating an amount of money that is significantly more than the average person within a society retains. I say more than the average person because wealth can be a relative thing; what seems like a lot of money to one person or group of people could be an unsubstantial amount to another. If I were to apply the term wealth to the quality of one’s life, the definition I would be left with would be much different. In this context, I would say that wealth deals more with the quality of relationships an individual has in their life, the impact that they have had on their society and the world, and the value of the morals that they have. One could be wealth in a monetary sense, but not wealth in the quality of their life.

I believe that Americans, as a whole, are mostly superficial in their attitudes towards wealth and poverty. The majority of society values the quality of their life and the level of their happiness based upon the amount of money that one makes. This means that they could look down upon someone who makes less money than them, or feel jealousy or hate to those who make more than them. In regard to poverty, it is my opinion that most Americans do not see those who live in poverty as equal to themselves. Many are condescending to people who live in poverty, and make judgments on their value based upon the amount of money that others make.

In my lifetime, I wish to be a person that is wealthy in both the ways that I have defined; my hope is that I am wealthy monetarily and in the quality of my life. I have worked hard to do well in school so that I can go to a good college and receive an education that can propel me into a favorable career. I do this so I can be successful and accumulate much money later on in my life. While I believe money can help one to be happy, I do not think that it alone can provide all the satisfaction necessary to have a quality life. Therefore, I also know that I need to have quality, lasting relationships in my life. My attitude to poverty is that it is a situation that can lead to much pain and uncomfortable circumstances for many. The rate of violence, imprisonment, and drug and alcohol addiction for those in poverty is much higher than those who have money. I believe that poverty is a cycle that is difficult to break; once a family falls into poverty, it is likely that generation after generation will remain there. Due to this belief, I think that it is necessary for others to help those trapped in poverty. This could be by donating money, doing charity work, or for our government to provide social programs or increase spending on education to help lift Americans out of poverty. It is extremely difficult for the poorest Americans to escape their circumstances and achieve the American dream, and I think that we should all try and do more to assist our fellow citizens.

Blog Post #12

#1: As Gregor Samsa awoke one morning from uneasy dreams he found himself transformed in his bed into a gigantic insect.

-        -This translation uses very strong words to make its point. “Uneasy” and “gigantic” are evidence of this.

-        -This almost sounds like a run-on sentence; it is meant to sound jumbled, as there is no use of commas.

-        -There is strong imagery in this translation. “Uneasy dreams” and “gigantic insect” paint a vivid image of the situation.

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#2: Gregory Samsa woke from uneasy dreams one morning to find himself changed into a giant bug.

-        -The difference in diction that occurs in this translation is that it is stated that Samsa has “changed into a giant bug” instead of having transformed. This difference could hint that the change that occurred could be more metaphorical than physical.

-        -This translation’s use of syntax causes it to seem more coherent than the previous. It does not sound like a run-on sentence, and communicates the same information more concisely.

-        -There is not as strong of imagery in this translation as the previous. Instead of stating that the bug was “gigantic”, the bug is said to be “giant”. This effect diminishes the size of the bug in the reader’s mind.

#3: When Gregor Samsa awoke from troubled dreams one morning he found he had been transformed in his bed into an enormous bug.

-        -An interesting note on the diction of this translation is that Samsa’s dreams are described to be “troubled” as opposed to the “uneasy dreams” the previous two translations have stated. This could mean that Kafka wants to communicate that there was a specific issue plaguing Samsa instead of a simple emotion that had overcome him.

-        -The syntax of this translation is similar to that of the first.

-        -The imagery in this translation is mainly just commenting on the “enormous bug”, which uses a different adjective to describe the size of it than the previous two.

#4: One morning, upon awakening from agitated dreams, Gregor Samsa found himself, in his bed, transformed into a monstrous vermin.

-        -The diction used in this translation is very unlike the first two. “Agitated dreams” and “monstrous vermin” are used, which is different from the previous ones. “Monstrous vermin” seems like less of a commentary of the size of Samsa, and more of the quality of how he looks.

-        -The arrangement of this sentence is different in this translation than the previous. The sentence starts off with describing the state of the dream Samsa had been awoken from instead of stating Gregor Samsa’s name.

-        -The imagery in this translation is much different than the previous quotes. The image of the transformation that Samsa has undertaken causes the reader not to think that he has been turned into a large bug, but rather a vermin that looks like a monster.

How does the word choice, syntax, punctuation, and imagery shift in each affect meaning? Is one more effective than another? Why? What does this exercise bring up about the difficulty of reading translated texts? How do different translations effect the tone of the sentence?

Shifts in diction, syntax, punctuation, and imagery can have great effects on the way that the reader perceives the meaning of a text. When the syntax of these translation is changed, it does not have much of an impact of the information that is being communicated. It has a greater impact on the coherence of the translation because it can cause some of them to sound jumbled. Diction was perhaps the most important aspect in changing the meaning of these translations. When the diction was changed between translations in these texts, it sometimes caused the image that the reader was meant to see. In example, the first translation stated that Samsa had been transformed into a “giant insect”, while the fourth stated that the being he had been transformed into was a “monstrous vermin”. This is a significant change because when the first translation states that Samsa was now a “giant insect”, this sounds literal, but when the fourth says that he was a “monstrous vermin” this sounds like more of a metaphorical comparison that speaks to the character of Samsa.

This exercise highlights the difficulties that can be associated with reading translated texts. The reason that the difficulties can exist is because when a text is translated, there is no perfect way to convey the message that the author intended perfectly into another language. Therefore, it is up to the translator to make assumptions about the authors purpose in order to convey it to their audience. This is why discrepancies can exist among different translations; every translator can interpret the authors text in their own way. Translations one and two do little to change the tone of the sentence. They both speak of “uneasy dreams” and use similar words to describe the bug. Translation three changes the tone of the sentence by speaking of “troubled dreams”, which makes the audience think that there is a specific reason the dreams Samsa was having were bad. Translation four does the most to change the tone of the passage. This is done by describing Samsa as a “monstrous vermin” which makes him appear to be more of an evil person than a physically changed being.

Blog Post #11

IOC for The Handmaid's Tale Excerpt

I could not upload the passage to this blog so I emailed it to you.

Annotated Excerpt:

Evidence of Planning:

Self-Grading:

A: Knowledge and understanding of the text or extract: 6
I gave myself a 6 for this section because I believe I demonstrated an adequate knowledge of the text on the upper-end of this requirement. I supported my beliefs with examples from the text, but could have pulled more quoted evidence. I believe I did well in this section because I compared back to Atwood's intentions for the book and her theme.

B: Understanding of the use and effects of literary features: 5
I gave myself a 5 because I gave a good demonstration of my knowledge of the literary devices that Atwood used within this passage. The reason that I did not grade myself higher is because I could have done a better job of explaining how the literary devices affected the reader.

C: Organization: 3
I believe I had a good general organization to the commentary. At times I strayed from my intended message or trailed off, and this is why I did not score higher in this section.

D: Language: 3
I believe that the language that I used was clear and appropriate. There was accuracy in my grammar and the style was consistent with what was expected of the commentary. I did not score myself higher because I trailed off at times.

Blog Post #10

All Photos:

The four photos, while not all exactly similar, contain very similar elements in which allow them to be reminiscent of one another. One way that this is demonstrated is that three of the four covers all feature some sort of a human being. The way that this similarity across three of the four photos is different however, is that one of the images is a photo from a camera, another is a painting, and the final is a drawing of a human body. The novel-covers are also similar in the way that the colors that they use are mostly neutral. This was most likely done in order to communicate to the reader that this will not be a happy story. The covers are also similar in the way that three of them contain scenes from nature on the front. One shows a human in a field, another a boat on a lake, and the final is a human body in front of a forest.

Compare and Contrast Two (Boat on the Lake and Girl in Field):

The first words that come to my mind for Girl in Field is loneliness and isolation. This would make sense in relation to Never Let Me Go because of the feelings of loneliness that would arise from the children coming to terms with the fact that they are clones with no purpose in life other than to die. For Boat on the Lake, the first word that comes to my mind is loneliness, as well. By showing the empty image of a boat by itself, the reader is struck with a sense of isolation. Again, this would be done to foreshadow the book ahead. If I had never read the novel, I would assume that the book was about a lonely girl from the Girl in Field novel cover. After having read the book, I know that this is somewhat true as the book is indeed about a girl who has to deal with loneliness and emotions. The Boat on the Lake cover is different as if I were to simply view the cover I would imagine that the body of water played an important role in the plot-line. After having read the book, I feel that this is simply not true. As a person who judges a book by its cover, I find this cover to be misleading, and therefore offensive. In the first novel cover, it is obvious that the girl is going to be the person who is portrayed. However, since we are looking in on her, I would not assume that she would be the narrator of this book. The other novel cover is different in the way that we are looking through the eyes of someone, perhaps a narrator. While we don’t know as much about the narrator’s identity, we know more about how the story will be told. These covers do little to touch on the cultural constructions of the novels. If anything, all they serve to do is inform the audience that many of the people in the book will experience loneliness within its pages. The covers are interesting because it seems like they are advertising the same book to different target markets. The first cover appears to be advertising to people who want to read a novel about the internal conflicts of a woman. This is done by showing a close-up image of a girl. The second novel cover appears to be advertising to people who want a book to discuss nature instead. This is done by photographing nature, thus highlighting this aspect of the novel.

Blog Post #9

Freebie