Textbook Reading Yay! Part 1 (Notes p. 2-14)

History of England

• zeitgeist: spirit of the era
• Celts, Druids, Gaels, Romans, Anglo-Saxons, Danish Invasion (Norse - Vikings), Normans
• Christianity in England arises by Roman cleric Saint Augustine, converts King Ethelbert of Kent
• Alfred "The Great" resists Danish encroachment
• William "The Conqueror" - feudalism is instilled in Anglo-Saxon society
• Henry Plantagenet - ablest kings (Thomas Becket - religious devotion)
• King Richard I (Crusades), then King John signed the Magna Carta; first beginning of a constitutional government
• Lancasters (Henry IV, Henry V, and Henry VI), Yorks, Tudors
• War of Roses (1455-1485)
• Black Death = No more Feudalism; land owners pay peasants

Anglo-Saxon Literature

• Anglo-Saxon Poetry - "The Wanderer" and "Beowulf"
• "Beowulf" - long poem describing a warrior featuring qualities of dignity, strength, and courage
• Anglo-Saxon Prose: 'vulgar tongue', England's greatest Latin scholars was Venerable Bede wrote History of the England Church
• The Anglo-Saxon Chronicles

Literature of the English Middle Ages

• first true dramas were initially started by Geoffrey Chaucer
• Medieval Drama: miracle plays or mystery plays, religious stories into dramas, then morality play
• An Emerging National Identity: Movable Type concocted by Johann Gutenberg and issued by William Claxton
• Chaucer: The Canterbury Tales, fabliaux (French saying "short stories") 

My Opinion Isn't (A) Right

• Does my opinion matter? To me yes. Maybe to others yes. And the other half, probably not.
• You want the other person to believe in your opinion, not just a win-lose situation
• I was thinking that to earn a thumbs up from the opposing opinionated is to persuade, make them either think about it and realize that maybe it was a good point or argue that your opinion matters
• A racist does not have a right to voice because they are who they are and should keep it to themselves or should never think about their opinions anyways because of obvious reasons
• I have a right to make an opinion valid based on my beliefs or from experience
• "I have the right to my opinion means that I have the right to be stupid"
• I have a duty or obligation to go against the opinion based on intuition or common sense
• Stopping a person from getting hit from a car when crossing the street needs to be advised that their opinion matters when "there's no car coming" but to make sure that they are surely right

Another Learning Experience That Changed Me

In 7th grade ( I know, we're going way back then), my favorite teacher of back then was Mr. Reynoso. He's now assistant principal here in Righetti, but he taught me a lot about life in general and what I should expect from goals and achieving them at it's finest. I learned so many things about goals and the future, especially one about college and the time after college. Before I had Reynoso, I had no clear idea what to do with my life, but when I did have him as a teacher, college was next the big step in AVID. It made me want to be on the path of higher education and to never back out of it. Over time, it was clear that Mr. Reynoso encouraged kids to go to college so that they wouldn't be the ones left on the streets. The class also had preparation to seminars, maybe not socratic ones, but the subject did get heavy sometimes. Reynoso let the students speak out and debate with each other. Even though I had no clue what to say, I knew that later on I wanted to be involved in it. He also taught me not to betray friends (and I was so stupid at the time to believe  it and I regret it) and the ones who were going to be really successful are the ones who care about you and will help you along the way. Mr. Reynoso was someone I can relate to; lived in a small community, grew up with good and bad friends, was assumed not to go to college because of grades, but still lived on to reach his goal no matter what anyone said. It was a true eye opener for me to go higher than what I can do. The year with Mr. Reynoso was one of the best learning experience I've ever had.

Vocabulary #1

adumbrate: to produce a faint image or resemblance of, to outline or sketch of.
Ex. If it wasn't for my family, I wouldn't have the adumbration to write a personal statement.
apotheosis: elevation or exaltation of a person to the rank of a god.
Ex. Pharaohs were usually treated to be apotheosis by high priests.
ascetic: a person who dedicates his or her life to a pursuit of contemplative ideals and practices extreme self-denial or self-mortification for religious reasons.
Ex. Monks are ascetics who like to spend their time in peaceful observations and general silence over nature.
bauble: a showy, usually cheap, ornament; trinket; gewgaw
Ex. Why don't bauble necklaces sell for more at the swap meet even if there is wide variety of them?
beguile: to influence by trickery or flattery, etc; mislead; delude
Ex. Street magicians beguile their audiences with those trickster deck of cards.
burgeon:  to grow or develop quickly, flourish
Ex. Infants burgeon the use of their voices at a really early incipient age.
complement: something that completes or makes perfect
Ex. In literature, complementary clauses make sense for a fragmented sentence
contumacious: Stubbornly perverse or rebellious; willfully and obstinately disobedient
Ex. Some kids can be contumacious; it's annoying when they don't listen to you.
curmudgeon: a bad tempered, difficult, cantankerous person
Ex. It's a good idea for a curmudgeon to take anger-management classes if he can't control himself.
didactic: intended for instruction; instructive
Ex. The professor can be very didactic when she talks about the theory of evolution.
disingenuous: lacking in frankness, candor, or sincerity; falsely or hypothetically
Ex. It's disingenuous to be at the dinner table and burp out loud.
exculpate: to clear from charge of guilt or fault; free from blame; vindicate
Ex. Prisoners living death row are rarely exculpated if their case was reviewed, therefore getting an unlikely chance of release.
faux pas: a slip or blunder in etiquette, manners, or conduct; an embarrassing social blunder or indiscretion
Ex. American manners may be a little faux pas compared to other countries manners
fulminate: to explode with a loud noise; detonate; to issue denunciations or the like
Ex. I fulminated the bubble wrap and the whole looked at me because of the loud sound.
fustian: a stout fabric of cotton and flax; pompous or pretentious talk or writing
Ex. Stephen King wrote with a fustian style of writing that really brought light into people's minds.
hauteur: haughty manner or spirit; arrogance
Ex. The nobles were hauteur toward the peasants because of how much property they owned
inhibit: to restrain, hinder, arrest, or check; limit the range or extent of; to put down by force or authority
Ex. During the Cuban Missile Crisis, the United States wanted to inhibit the placement of missiles in Cuba by Russia.
jeremiad: a prolonged lamentation or mournful complaint
Ex. The little girl had a jeremiad over the fact of losing her doll.
opportunist: a person who practices opportunism, or the policy of adapting actions, decision, etc. to effectiveness regardless of the sacrifice of ethical principles
Ex. The Ferguson riots are happening because of opportunists who don't live in that local area.
unconscionable: not guided by conscience; unscrupulous
Ex. Sometimes people feel unconscionable when they're actually doing something wrong.

Reflections on Week 1

1. I don't think I'm going to have any problems getting on the internet so I'm pretty set on Open Source Learning and experiencing anything there is during English. My schedule shouldn't have any setbacks since I meet all the A-G Requirements for the fall semester and spring semester. Transportation shouldn't be a big issue even though I don't live around Righetti, I have ways of getting to my destination. Friends and family are my main supporters to keep striving and build my self-confidence for being an upcoming freshman in college because that's the route I will be taking as my choice.

2. Freedom. I had the freedom to argue with the teacher about anything that could be reasonable and arguable. I had the freedom to write in what I truly want to write in my own voice. And I had the freedom to know my rights and how it applies in the real world. I learned that the freedom to write speaks out about a person who adumbrate a future. I realized this in the first week of Dr. Preston's English class. Everyone in my 6th period class knew that this would be an expediency of learning abilities and such. Experiencing the range of freedom meant that as a blogger and student that I had to be attentive with what I was writing about. This way established retrospective to look back at and so later on can improve on writing and style. Since everything was going so fast and a lot of homework was being put on the table, it made me realize: "You can impress those college admission offices by being yourself and not faking another." I knew that this best learning experience of freedom was happening at an instant when I stepped into Dr. Preston's class the first day.

3. I'm excited to voice my own thoughts, though I'm concerned about the fast pace of the class. I just have to adjust to it like any other class. I look forward in getting help filling college applications, while at the same time getting to know how the class is being managed by student perspective. I think that learning this way is way different than turning in hard copied papers all the time. By getting to always see my own work, I can just improve on how I think and extend my knowledge by looking into other student bloggers and read their insights and perspectives. Something different is usually not how I roll with things in general, but I'm willing to try new things so that later in life I can take more risks and express my view of things that I hadn't said before like I should of had. By continuing what I do now, it'll definitely make a practical difference in what I do and gradually life.

Montaigne/Austen Essay #2

Words are what we make up at an instance from what we know and what is happening at the moment. Thoughts make up much of these words, but so much goes on that it takes more thinking to come up with words to make sense.  For Michel De Montaigne, essays were like diaries based on continuous ideas and words that seemed endless. Decisions and choices judged the actions of what a person was thinking, yet reflects how a choice can be made up at an instance.Montaigne's acclaimed written works ascertain the attitude of how much the effect of common language defines the simpleness of imagery.

Readers look for ambiguous meanings within a text, themes or the proper use of literary devices define the attitude of what the author is narrating. Montaigne’s freestyle of handwriting his thoughts, in other words piecing them together so that his readers can get the gist of the mind-boggling that goes through his head. Because Montaigne’s techniques and topics correlate to David Foster Wallace’s quote “What goes on inside is just too fast and huge and all interconnected for words to do more than barely sketch the outlines of at most one tiny little part of it at any given instant,” thus it is determined for readers to seek the author’s innermost thoughts. A part of what the world perceives is said under limited sayings and is typically missing out on the universal aspect of things if there isn’t enough to say. Montaigne’s essays generally broadens the idea of sharing Wallace’s least known facts between “sketch the outlines” and the idea of “all interconnected for words.” It’s easier to focus on one subject and continuously talk about it’s relevance in Montaigne’s essays. For example, one essay named “Apology for Raimond Sebond” was not necessarily a discrete apology for Montaigne’s friend, but the history and comments of the word apology itself. Apology is connotated into so many diverse meanings alone and primarily serves to teach readers the reality of deeply explaining one word that has a true significance.

If people see the essence of writing with confidence and the perspective of actually writing words that could have been from a seminar or a discussion with some other being/beings. Montaigne’s style reflects discussions that have happened, even if it was already discussed early on. The prospect of bringing back a subject is to establish augmentation between peers and to reach a different conclusion. Gradually, audiences will realize that his style opens a window and supports Wallace’s statement. By experimenting with common knowledge and common sense, Montaigne’s efforts for bringing back history, especially ancient Roman/Greek history, he displaces bland, start up ideas. Doing this, he establishes himself with potential concepts or opinions. “What goes on inside [...]” by Wallace is his convenience for looking for an identity, likewise is foreseen in Montaigne when he acknowledges his essays as something that disgusts him, but digresses by writing anyway. It’s the author's attitude that objectify or subjectify their organization of words. The same goes for the author of Pride & Prejudice, Jane Austen, who also has a different style of writing that audiences also admire for its ironic love story and family expectations.

The name is what is suppose to be in the whole book of Pride & Prejudice, judgement and pridefulness in 18th century England. There are some ambiguous moments in Austen’s book, but Austen keeps her readers on the edge of true pride and doesn’t go straight to a climax at the height of the book. Montaigne’s style of explaining events are related to Austen’s style of holding back the main conflict until the end. The principal points of getting the reader to know what really happens comes at the near end of chapter for both authors. Although Austen deems on a questionable love story between two unlikely people, Montaigne engages in stories he has experienced or other aspects from what he’s learned and implements it in his writing. Austen’s style jumps around at separate events, similarly like Montaigne’s style of going from one subject to a whole other topic. Examples of Elizabeth being at a ball, then transitions to bedsides or friends’ houses. Montaigne’s essays consists of events that happened to him at that time and he had the need to write about it.

The basis of words relies on the speaker who is willing to share whatever they have on mind. Sometimes it takes more words to explain what is going on just as David Foster Wallace states in Good Old Neon. Montaigne’s techniques and style of writing entertains audiences who desire stream of consciousness at it’s fullest or Austen’s interpretive style of writing that readers want to know more and if that one special scene was going to happen or not, or simply end badly. It all depends on both these authors who narrate their language with inconceivable insight and knowledge. It’s like an image carries a million words to say and this how early writer displayed their work for people of common interests.

QuestBridge Scholarship! Apply now!

QuestBridge is a national scholarship non-profit organization that gives a lot of money to students of high-achieving low-income value. It is available to all, but extremely competitive because it's nationwide and you are competing against the most dedicated and academically smart seniors. I'm going to apply to it either way!

Deadline to apply and turn in application is September 26, 2014 at 11:59 P.M. Pacific Standard Time

If you haven't clicked the link, here it is ---> http://www.questbridge.org/ <---More info about money and QuestBridge's partner colleges.

My First Impression On The Day Back As A Senior

2 days ago was the last first day of high school. So they say. I mean I wouldn't stay in high school forever, but moving on. Everyone was excited to comeback and I was glad that school started because I needed to get stuff done fast before the denouement of growing up starts. That means before college applications hit the fan and seniors are determined to get into their desired college after high school. Summer went too fast, which was basically the time to think about preparations and decisions. The first day was somewhat exhilarating because my mind was thinking: "Oh man, I get to be the top dog because I'm a senior and this is my last year of high school," but what I was really thinking: "Dang, those freshman are small!" It's like all the other years, but I knew I had priorities and responsibilities that I needed to take care of. I like my classes I'm in now and I hope to stay on top of the assignments for this important year. All I need to say now is GO SENIORS!!! WOOOOO!

Poetry #1

Link to poetry---> http://ofwhatisfoundthere.wordpress.com/2012/09/26/is-this-poetry-go-forth/

1. From what poem/author does this commercial borrow (without credit)?
The poem was spoken by Charles Bukowski in his original poem "The Laughing Heart" during the commercial.

2. Why might the use of this poem by a corporation be considered ironic?
It's all about the money. A corporation like Levi's is trying to 'touch' the hearts of customers by obtaining (not sure if Bukowski was asked to convey his poem without his permission) a piece of literature that has real meaning. And the true meaning isn't about having a selection of pants or denim jeans up for sale, but the author was basically robbed of what his ambiguous poetry was portraying for his audiences. Levi's ad makers see this as poetry = capital.

3. Does the poem reflect the reputation of the author? Why/why not?
 It better affect the author's reputation in a positive attitude because hard has to be rewarded if work is plagiarized by another user. But all in all, his reputation for having spoken is what brings out potential readers. Life was Bukowski's main center piece and so focused on uplifting people's spirits. I guess that it was a good thing an ad relayed his poem, therefore increasing attention for Bukowski.

4.How did you find the answers to #1 and #3? Describe your research process and your sources in detail.
Dr. Preston's article link displayed an article that talks about riots happening in the U.K. and in Berlin, Germany which relates back to Bukwoski's poem.. Chief correspondents of Levi's wanted to "capture youthful optimism" by advertising ads related to that idea. Doing so was conveying the poem. However, it didn't work out to well that way if it relayed the wrong moral of the poem. I also googled the author and the poem to see it's significance. People comment how they enjoyed an uplifting poem, even if it was commercialized wrongfully.

Bookmark a Blog

If you haven't already, you can bookmark the home page of another senior from Dr. Preston's Member Blog List onto your bookmark bar or preferably a folder that you can simply name Bloggers, Blog Websites, Dr. Preston's Greatest Thinkers; whatever it can be. Doing this will simply be faster for you to see other people's thoughts on their blogs without the hassle of always going to the main website. Make sure to follow them and me!

Have fun with it :)