Friday, January 30, 2015

Lit Terms List 2

Circumlocution
noun an indirect way of expressing something; a style that involves indirect ways of expressing things
Classicism
noun a movement in literature and art during the 17th and 18th centuries in Europe that favored rationality and restraint and strict forms
Cliche
noun a trite or obvious remark
Climax
noun the decisive moment in a novel or play; arrangement of clauses in ascending order of forcefulness; the highest point of anything conceived of as growing or developing or unfolding; the most severe stage of a disease; the moment of most intense pleasure in sexual intercourse; verb end, especially to reach a final or climactic stage
Colloquialism
noun a colloquial expression; characteristic of spoken or written communication that seeks to imitate informal speech
Comedy
noun light and humorous drama with a happy ending; a comic incident or series of incidents
Conflict
noun an open clash between two opposing groups (or individuals); an incompatibility of dates or events; opposition between two simultaneous but incompatible feelings; opposition in a work of drama or fiction between characters or forces (especially an opposition that motivates the development of the plot); a state of opposition between persons or ideas or interests; a hostile meeting of opposing military forces in the course of a war; a disagreement or argument about something important; verb go against, as of rules and laws; be in conflict
Connotation
noun an idea that is implied or suggested; what you must know in order to determine the reference of an expression
Contrast
noun the act of distinguishing by comparing differences; the range of optical density and tone on a photographic negative or print (or the extent to which adjacent areas on a television screen differ in brightness); the perceptual effect of the juxtaposition of very different colors; the opposition or dissimilarity of things that are compared; a conceptual separation or distinction; verb put in opposition to show or emphasize differences; to show differences when compared; be different
Denotation
noun the most direct or specific meaning of a word or expression; the class of objects that an expression refers to; the act of indicating or pointing out by name
Denouement
noun the final resolution of the main complication of a literary or dramatic work; the outcome of a complex sequence of events
Dialect
noun the usage or vocabulary that is characteristic of a specific group of people
Dialectics
noun a rationale for dialectical materialism based on change through the conflict of opposing forces
Dichotomy
noun being twofold; a classification into two opposed parts or subclasses
Diction
noun the manner in which something is expressed in words; the articulation of speech regarded from the point of view of its intelligibility to the audience
Didactic
adj. instructive (especially excessively)
Dogmatic
adj. characterized by assertion of unproved or unprovable principles; relating to or involving dogma; of or pertaining to or characteristic of a doctrine or code of beliefs accepted as authoritative
Elegy
noun a mournful poem; a lament for the dead
Epic
adj. very imposing or impressive; surpassing the ordinary (especially in size or scale); constituting or having to do with or suggestive of a literary epic; noun a long narrative poem telling of a hero's deeds
Epigram

noun a witty saying

Tuesday, January 20, 2015

THAT DAVID COPPERFIELD KIND OF CRAP

Dickens' style is distinguished from other authors for his fastidious writing and acute attention to detail. Dickens loves to go into every minute detail about a character to animate them to life for the reader. When Holden says he does want to go into "all that David Copperfield kind of crap" he saying he doesn't want to go into the intense detail Dickens usually does. Salinger probably respects Charles Dickens as a writer but chooses to refer his attention to detail as "crap" because it provides his audience with some characterization of Holden. By distancing his protagonist from Dickens', Salinger can juxtapose the characters and their writing styles. 

Friday, January 16, 2015

My Senior Speech

A while ago we had a team banquet for our prosperous 2014 water polo fall season. One tradition we have for every banquet is for all the seniors to give a speech, usually thanking the parents, coaches, family, ect. I wasn't very excited about giving my speech, and I was nervous about getting in front of all the parents, coaches, and my teammates. For those of you who don't know me, I like to make people laugh. I get an extreme satisfaction out of getting someone to smile and chuckle over a joke or funny story. So that was my idea for my speech. I am not that much of a "charismatic" person, but I can try to be sometimes. For some reason, my speech was exceptionally long. To put things into perspective, the next longest speech to mine was only five minutes long. One thing to mention is that Lukas Sheckherd had just uttered his speech before me. He is not a very good speaker. Sorry Lukas. Another thing to mention is that some of the things I talk about are slightly strange. If you play sports and are on a team with friends who like to "mess" with you, you know what I'm talking about. I hope you enjoy my speech.


Wednesday, January 14, 2015

HACKING MY EDUCATION

I'll be honest, I don't always want to put in the effort to learn something new or complete certain types of work I am given. When it comes to education, I think I have an issue staying focused on the subject at hand. I  find that the times I am the most focused and the most interested are when I am genuinely intrigued by a topic. When a factor of interest comes into play, I don't want to just learn about the topic because I have to, but because I legitimately want to. I enjoy learning about things that pertain to the physical world and how those things affect people and the world itself. It is very easy for me to get lot in a subject that grabs my attention because I forget that it's a 50 minute class period. And when the bell does ring I'm like, "Wow, already?" So to hack my education, I will make the topics at hand, no matter how unappealing they may seem at first, appear to be genuinely intriguing to me by asking how the development of the discussion around the topic could affect my fellow students, myself, and future students. Run-on sentence game strong.

Tuesday, January 13, 2015

Big Questions

My big question revolves around the universe and the ultimate questions of how it all came to be. More so, I'm interested in what the universe is hiding from us. Or rather, what we are blind to. Just like how we were blind to magnetic fields up to the early 1900s, I wonder what we are blind to today.
Technology is evolving exponentially so the next big discovery could be just around the corner. 
Learning about future tech is what will lead to the next discovery which could propel our world to unknown territories. Could you imagine if some tiny particle that could power the whole world was just floating around, right under our nose? We could be on the brink of a technological and scientific breakthrough and all we have to do is look closer. 
There are currently 118 elements on the periodic table and the last few have been created by scientists. That makes room for millions of combinations of elements, and who knows? One of them just might be what the next space shuttle will be made of, or the next large source of energy. Speaking of energy, the world needs answers for clean energy... And soon. All the issues with global warming and environmental destruction are looking to be answers by a new clean energy source. While there are many theories and ideas to create that, there is one that always prevails: the sun. "We get the astonishingly huge amount of 400 trillion trillion watts. To put this into a crazy context, every second the sun produces the same energy as about a trillion 1 megaton bombs! In one second, our sun produces enough energy for almost 500,000 years of the current needs of our so-called civilization." -The Boston Globe. The only problem is that we do not have the technology to absorb it all. These are the types of scientific matters we need to study to propel our generation to the future. 
If I were to try to be a part of the next big scientific discovery, I would have to be the pupil of the most intelligent and well informed professors/scientists of our generation. Sounds ridiculous but necessary. To make a discovery with a team of scientists that would change the world would be an awesome feeling. 
The next discovery could be right under our nose. In the ten years there could be personalized space travel, a new extraterrestrial species discovery, an inhabitable exoplanet discovery, and who knows what else?

Saturday, December 27, 2014

Maui Trip

Aloha,
My family and I are on the lovely island of Maui this winter break and the experience is too great to not share it with someone. Here are some pictures and videos:
our hotel-

my sister and I-

hotel pool-

View of the pool and the beach-

I tried to get a selfie with a fish...didn't quite work

Cool fish-










Here's a video of me blowing O's (I recommend highest quality)



All photos and videos were taken with my sister's GoPro
Mahalo :)

Friday, December 12, 2014

Transmedia Literary Analysis

I'm going to try to pave a new path for a style of literary analysis so we'll so how well it goes.

"Death of a Salesman" by Arthur Miller

The play opens with Willy coming home from a hard day of work and talking to his wife about his work and problems around the office
Willy's biggest concern is providing for his family.
Willy's wife is very caring and supportive of him and their two sons who are eager to make it big in business although one is disillusioned and the other is irresponsible.
Willy must commute to Chicago everyday which is tiring for him especially in his old age,
Since the story takes place in the 1940s, the American Dream is thriving and Chicago and New York is the epicenter of big business.
Willy talks to himself a lot and suicidal because of how sad he is that he is not as good of a salesman as he used to be. He also changes mood rapidly and lashes out on his family.
He wants the best for his family but he is frustrated because his job doesn't get him much pay. Willy likes to reminisce about his brother Ben who died some years ago. He hallucinates about Ben and has conversations with him. Willy can be heard by his family who develop a deep concern with him.
It sounds like Willy may have schizophrenia
In the end, Willy decides to take his own life and crash in his car. 

Death of a Salesman is about family and traditional values like the American Dream.
Although Willy may not be an emotionally stable person, I would call him a static character for the way he is constantly changing attitude. 
"WILLY (corning out of The Woman’s dimming area and going
over to Linda): I’ll make it all up to you, Linda, I’ll...
LINDA: There’s nothing to make up, dear. You’re doing fine, better
than...
WILLY (noticing her mending): What’s that?
LINDA: Just mending my stockings. They’re so expensive...
WILLY (angrily, taking them from her): I won’t have you mending
stockings in this house! Now throw them out!"
Biff and Happy are under a lot of pressure to become great businessmen like how their father was. There is an awkward situation between Willy and his sons because they want to be the great businessman he was but Willy is doing poorly in the business world now. He gets fired near the end of the story which makes it difficult for him to be a role model for his sons. Willy wants what's best for his sons and gives them all of his knowledge of business and pushes them to achieve greatness in the business world.