Blogging Around

While reading a bunch of students' blogs, in the end, I commented on Victor's and Danny's blogs. The posts were very interesting and I really enjoyed reading them.


In Danny's post: "Danny's Blog Post: Captured Thought: Building a Longboard" he talks about a project that has a lot of passion for and would really enjoy doing. He wants to build a longboard. This post intrigued me because I too am working on a project to build something I have a passion for. I want to build a guitar. In Danny's post he talks about how he loves longboarding and that he would love to have a longboard personalized to him, to what he likes. I too am going to personalize my guitar to what I like. We both have this in common.

Hey Danny, while reading your post, I realized that I too am looking to build something that I've always wanted and that I always wanted to learn and master. I've been looking into making a guitar from scratch. Although I am going to buy design and stencils to cut the wood for my guitar, I am fulfilling a wish that I've had for a long time. My teacher for engineering actually is allowing me to do this during class. Not only will the project be a lot of fun, but it will also benefit me because I will gain a guitar out of it, and it will be personalized to me, and my personality. I hope you continue and design and maybe one day build your own longboard, that seems like a very fun project! I look forward to reading anymore posts you make!


In Victor's post: "Connection: Sophie and Childhood" he talks about how Sophie's personality and drive to learn reminds him of childhood. He says that he is reminded of memories of himself yearning for knowledge like how Sophie does everyday with her philosophy. I agreed with Victor about his thinking, when I think of Sophie's personality, I think of a little girl asking tons of questions just because she's curious and that she wants to know everything. But Sophie is 15, turning 16. She is no longer a little girl, but her personality and her mind don't show that. Victor's connection with childhood, and Sophie was very interesting and I enjoyed reading it.

Hello Victor, as I was reading this post, I found myself agreeing a lot on what you were saying. I agree that Sophie brings out memories of childhood, she has that curiousness about her like every little kid does. They ask questions and they are not afraid of changing there mind or thinking something new. Sophie reminds me a lot about a phrase that I've heard. The phrase is "Act your shoe size." Since we know that Sophie is 15 turning on 16, we know that she is not a little kid, she is a maturing and becoming a young woman. Her personality and brain however are stuck in the past, in the childhood years. Thanks Victor for writing such an interesting post, and I look forward to reading more.

Get Organized: My Room

For this assignment, I decided on cleaning my room because it was a horrible mess. Clothes were everywhere and everything was so dusty and my closet was not organized at all. Before I started cleaning, I felt extremely lazy. I did not want to begin my cleaning because I knew that I would rather spend my time doing something much more fun or entertaining. I was procrastinating a lot because I just did not want to start.

When I finally got over my procrastination faze, I started first with picking up clothes and putting them in the laundry. This would help me clear my room. After that, I started with my closet and began to put long-sleeve shirts on the right and short on the left. Shoes were paired with their matching other, and so on. Once I understood what I was doing, it really did not feel like it was that much of a hassle. It actually did not seem all that bad!

After the closet was sorted out, I started dusting. This took a while, but it bother me because my mind was already set on finishing this cleaning project. I realized once I set my mind to do something I know I have to do, I can finish it without being mad or upset that I'm wasting my time. I had the mindset of, "if I already started, why not finish the job?" and this helped me throughout the cleaning process. I also found some pretty interesting old stuff, that I hadn't seen in a long time. This made it somewhat entertaining.

When I was finished, I really liked the way my room looked. Everything was orderly and it smelled nice and not like old clothes. I knew after the project that cleaning my room seemed difficult at first, but once you set your mind to do it, and finish it, the job didn't seem at all like a job. And when I finished I also realized that my room turned out for the better and that I had used my time wisely to organize my room. This allowed me to use it more often while doing homework and other tasks because I wouldn't be grossed out by the stuff inside it. I enjoyed this project and now I have a clean room because of it! Thanks!

360 Degrees: Why is Soccer Disliked?

For a great majority of my life I loved soccer (I still do of course) and I never really thought why anyone would hate the sport. It is the perfect sport. It takes a lot of skill to play and it takes good thinking and problem solving skills to help keep yourself playing well in the game. I thought, "how could anyone not love soccer?" But now I'm seeing different angles and perspectives.

America in general we all know, does not like soccer. Compared to football or baseball or basketball, soccer is a mere tiny little baby compared to those big name ones here in America. I started thinking why. Maybe because it's a sport where you actually have to sit down and watch for more than 5 or 10 minutes without a break? Maybe because people do not understand the game? Or the rules? I think the typical, American, football-loving person would say all these things. They would not like to dedicate themselves to sitting down for such a long period of time. Also the rules of soccer could be complicated, for example, the offside rule is a tough rule to understand. Maybe this is why people do not like soccer? Maybe there isn't enough hitting or bashing of players? This usually gets lots of people attention in football, but there isn't as much body-to-body contact in soccer compared to football. 

Another reason why people may not like soccer is because it's still dealing with problems internationally. FIFA have always had a problem with racism in the sport of soccer all around the world. Since a lot of countries in 2012 still haven't gone through a Civil Rights fight in there history, there are still many racists out there in the world and since soccer is the most popular sport in the world, it gets a lot of negative attention because of the racist fans. I believe that the majority of people still don't like the idea of racism in a sport so they decide not to watch it and therefore, not like it. FIFA is making rules and policies towards racism and it is helping not just the sport evolve but the world too. People don't want to banish there favorite team because of the racist things they've said during a match, they'd rather watch their team play than say these racist things. But in my opinion this racism issue is a large one, that many people don't like about it.

Or maybe people just don't like kicking and running? Maybe they'd rather watch a water sport, or a ice sport. All people have their opinions and that could lead them away from liking soccer. Soccer is the sport where you do the most running in. Maybe people would rather watch racing? Such as cars, or motor bikes. This could be their hobby and not people just running around a field for 90 minutes.

I've tried to touch on most of the perspectives of the sport of soccer and, of how people view it and if they like it. I talked about my opinion and a lot of the world's opinion that it's the most entertaining and skillful sport in the whole world. I touched on an American's view point. I also talked about the issue of racism and how people despise the sport for still having racism in it. I lastly touched on one's view of just not enjoying land games and liking swimming or racing sports. These are the perspectives that I could think of, and I realized when thinking of these I could understand why someone would not like soccer. It has helped me realize that my point of view isn't the only point of view out there. There are many and this assignment helped me think about that.

Best of Week: Aesthetics and Beauty

During pretty much the whole week we were always talking about how this unit and this quarter we will be focusing a lot on aesthetics and beauty. Aesthetics are the rules and structures for creating and appreciating beauty. We spent a lot of time discussing this and you spent a lot of time explaining it to us and how important it is.

When I think about the definition of aesthetics, I look at the word "beauty" and I think a lot about it. What makes something beautiful? What characteristics does something need to have beauty? Why are there rules for creating something beautiful? Can't anything be considered beautiful from a anyone's point of view?

Well there could be tons of answers that go along with the questions above. Many people will disagree and agree on these topics. My view, I say that beauty depends on the person viewing it. For example, a little boy really likes the color blue and hates the color pink. Whenever he sees something blue he thinks it is amazing and beautiful. But if he sees that same thing in pink, he will consider it ugly and not appealing. Many people are like this, they like something of their own taste, but if a different person says "this too is beautiful" to that same person, he/she will debate whether or not it is because they have a different taste or sense of beauty than the other person.

I myself have my own taste of beauty. I too am biased toward my own taste or sense of beauty. If I see 2 advertisements right next to each other and one is of a soccer player and the other is of a American Football player, I of course will think to myself that the soccer advertisement is a ton better. I will completely disregard the football one and even if it has better graphics and more vibrant colors, I would still pick the soccer one over the football one.

Aesthetics and beauty relate with each other a lot, but they vary vastly with someones thoughts or views on them. Depending on someones taste in beauty, they make their own definitions of beauty and aesthetics, there really can't be a one ruling definition on beauty or aesthetics because not everyone thinks the same.

Metacognition: Creativity Essay

While working on the creativity essay I noticed a lot of things that you had touched on during class one day. You noted that creating an essay is hard and there are many factors that come into play when creating it.

The big issue was starting the paper. You told us as a class that starting is the hardest part of a paper. You also said that you can start anywhere in your paper, it doesn't really matter where. I tried this technique and it really worked out for me. In past years teachers always told us to start with the intro and to go from beginning to end, in that order. I started my paper in the very middle, touching on a fact about geometry that I didn't like at all. This helped make my essay grow with less thinking and effort. I did not have to think of a intro and something to grab the attention of the audience. That came to me as I was writing the body. This made my paper a lot easier to type up, and less stressful.

I also realized when writing my paper that when I started putting in quotes and sources, it was a lot easier with this subject because the articles we read, were strictly about creativity and this helped us incorporate them into our essays quite easily. I could integrate the quotes very well because they were going with exactly what I was saying. This also helped make the paper less stressful, and more enjoyable to write.

Finally, I realized that no matter which way I start or write my paper, I should always proof read, or get another person to read it for me. I caught a ton of errors because a friend of mine read the essay thoroughly and pointed out what the errors were. I fixed them and I read it. The paper sounded so much less choppy, and much more smooth and readable. This not only will boost my grade but it will also help me in the future when I have to write a paper. It's a very smart tactic to do.

These realizations were very useful in the writing of this creativity essay. They helped make the writing a lot less brutal, and it made the essay, not-bad to write. I hope all the rest of the papers we have to write are like this, because this helped me write a ton easier.

Blogging Around

         I looked at Victor's post "Connection: Creativity and Poverty" and I was intrigued with what he was saying about how creativity at such a young age, thrives so much and as we grow older, that creativity fades. I also thought that the point about in a poorer environment, creativity thrived for longer periods of time. This is because kids were allowed more freedom and were allowed to express themselves more. In a wealthier society, the parents put you in front of a TV and tell you to watch. This does not allow a child's creativity to be used therefore depleting it from the child's brain.

Hello Victor, after reading your post I found myself agreeing with almost everything that you wrote.

I believe that our younger years were the years that we were the most creative and imaginative. We did not have a care in the world when we were younger so that allowed us to express ourselves in any way that made us happy. 

I also agree that as we get older, there are roles that are pushed onto us. As we grow older, we learn about things such as money, popularity, fitting in, and tons more that require us to change our personalities just so we do not seem like we are crazy or weird.

We share the same view on this topic Victor, and I wouldn't mind talking about this outside of class in the near future.

          As I was looking at Danny's blog, the post "What If?: We could harness creativity." really caught my eye. He talks about a somewhat tangible creativity that we could just look into, or use, when we wanted to think creatively. That really interested me because I myself am not very creative. I spend hours on end trying to think of things to draw or write for papers usually. But this "totem" he speaks of, if I could use it, creative thoughts would come to me quicker. 

Hey Danny, as I was reading your post on this "totem" for creativity, it really made me think. Your idea of this "totem" could really give the power of creativity to anyone. It's not someone else's creativity that you're stealing, it is the creativity that you think yourself, it is just that the totem helps give your creativity a chance to thrive. 

I also agree that creativity would help the world in many different ways. Like you pointed out, it could make music better, technology could improve, and the world problems like war and poverty, those could be fixed. The creativity to do all these things has not been thought of yet, but when it does, it can only bring a positive outcome to the world. 

Thanks Danny for giving me a new insight to the world of creativity through your ideas. They really are very inspiring.

Best of Week: Ideas

During the school week we were assigned to read the article "The Elusive Big Idea" by Neal Gabler. Because of all the great articles that we have already read this quarter I wasn't not looking forward to it. Once again an article from this class has actually made me enjoy reading.

While I was reading throughout this article I found myself agreeing with Gabler in very many instances of the text. When he says, "If our ideas seem smaller nowadays, it's not because we are dumber than our forebears but because we just don't care as much about ideas as they did" (Gabler 2) I agreed with what was said. There was just one thing that did give me a sense of disagreement, it's that he said that we are not dumber than our forebears. This I disagree with because I have seen the world now, especially the United States, showing how dumb or stupid the general public is of this year and generation. There have been tons of studies showing that the public is quite dumb and ignorant.

I did agree with pretty much everything else he said. He talks about society being more interested in "who Jennifer Aniston is dating right now" than interested in finding or creating the next big "thing" or idea. This is true for tons of people I know personally in my life, especially the females.

He also points out that some of the greatest ideas have already been thought of by the great thinkers of the past; Marx, Freud, Einstein, etc. There is not much more to think ideas about since a lot of the ideas have already been introduced to the world.

Gabler did a great job of portraying his ideas about making and using ideas into this great article. I enjoyed reading this and look forward to the next piece of reading we do.

Connection: RCA and Google

The article "The Televisionary" by Malcolm Gladwell describes the life of a man, Philo T. Farnsworth, who had the idea of creating the television. Farnsworth had created his idea, but while making his idea come to life, RCA, took his idea and created it before him. RCA had planned to buy his idea and then give him royalties for all televisions sold, but Farnsworth rejected their offers. 

RCA is a company alot like Google today. They buy over different sites, ideas, etc. and then market them as their own. RCA did the same thing with Farnsworth, although he didn't give it up. RCA was one of the biggest electronics company back then, in the early 1900s. Just like how Google is one of the biggest online companies right now. They both have a lot in common. 

One thing they have in common is the amount of wealth they both have. They use that wealth to buy over other companies, or buy new ideas or patents that could make them a lot more wealthy in the future. Having this wealth makes them more powerful which makes them one of the hardest companies to compete against. Which brings me to the next similarity... Power. Their power makes them the best of the best and the strongest and it makes their company prosper for lots of years and years. Their power also drives in the best workers and employees. This increases their customer "likeability" which is a huge factor when it comes to selling or gaining support from the public.

RCA and Google really stand out to my own life, because in the future I am planning on working for a big company, or creating one of my own. Working for a strong and powerful company just brings you better and better opportunities to succeed in life. This gives you more money and higher position in the company which brings more wealth into your hands. When owning a massive company like RCA or Google, the money you get is countless. You won't have to work for another minute in your life!

What if?: Using My Creativity

Ever since the first day of Humanities, Mr. Allen has been stressing the use of creativity, and this class strives on using creativity in all assignments and homework. I've usually just thought that school was all about memorization and studying and studying and studying. This class has opened up my mind about creativity.

I really enjoy this class now that it has opened a new type of thinking and idea making process for me. The first assignment we did, which was the letter, I had never done a paper like that with that type of prompt. I enjoy writing about what interests me and I love being creative about the things I enjoy too.

Reading in past English classes have been brutal for me. I disliked every single book that we read. None of the books really appealed to me and I never said "I can't wait to see what's next!" when reading those books. Already in this class we have read 2 poems and an article and they have already drawn me in. Those pieces of work beat all the past novels I have read by a long shot. If the articles and poems are so good already in this class, I can't wait to see what we have next to read!

I also am excited about the mindbooks. These books just show how creative a person is and how thoughtful someone is. I don't know if my creativity is as high as others when it comes to drawing or coloring or making collages; I have always been better in math and sciences like physics when it comes to school, not English. I hope these mindbook assignments really help my mind grow creatively for me to become a more knowledgeable person, both intellectually and creatively.

So far this class has beaten any English class I have taken my whole life in school, and it's only 3 weeks into school! I really am looking forward to next things we do during class. Me being a teenager, I'm not looking forward to any assignments or essays but these are far less brutal than different classes. This class sure makes me at least entertained while working at home or at school doing a project. I can't wait to see what is in store for the upcoming quarters and semesters, this surely will be one great journey.