Blogging Around: Sam and Sebas

Sorry about the blue but for some reason when I copied and pasted the text did not show up too good. This was the best solution I could think of, if it is hard to read please let me know and I will change it.

Sam's last blog entry about Facebook really got me thinking about the various implications that social networking has on our lives and I briefly explored my feelings toward it.

Okay let me preface everything by noting that I may have already posted a response to this but I think I deleted it so I will try to retype my response (rant) from memory.

Facebook is a guilty pleasure. I think we can all agree on that fact. Even now among the 13 pages I have open; Facebook is one of them. On a personal level I utilize Facebook a lot and there a lot of pros and cons attached to it. On the pros side I will never have to write down Academy homework again and there is no risk of me forgetting because I have Andy covering my back. Of course in the scenario that Andy is kidnapped or worse our lives become the plot of the TV show Revolution then I am screwed. More pros are that I have at least a dozen on call at any time to help me with whatever it is that I am too lazy to do myself. On the cons side it is worth noting that Facebook is a constant distraction to both myself and probably most teens. Sra. Cosgrove also brought up an interesting point about Facebook in class and about how there used to be a time when all your actions were not tracked. However now there is really no way to escape the constant stream of updates, statuses, and whatevers that follow you around. We have gotten to the point where anyone, anywhere, at anytime and basically cyber stalk you (lets not even pretend privacy exists on the internet). I think that that is a scary thought at the very least.

Going on to the second part of Korsky's post I think on the global or macro scale Facebook is a very powerful tool. It can organize revolutions and usurp nations, that is the awesome power wielded by Facebook. The even scarier thing is that any one of us can hold that very same power. There is no need to reiterate Korsky's statements but I agree with him that as of recently Facebook's global influence has increased dramatically. He also brought up a point I had never thought of before. As I looked through my own profile I realized that I "followed" posts from celebrities to shoe companies. All of them just vying for attention and using the free publicity of Facebook. There is a profound socio-economic effect that Facebook has on us all and the mere fact that we know what Facebook is means that we subscribe to its all mightiness. I mean seriously...if robots ever rise up against the human race I am half expecting them to use Facebook to track us down and systematically eradicate us.

Moving back to a more relevant stand point I have a slightly different view of Facebook than Korsky. In poems we have read and in class we have all make mockeries and satirical references to Facebook when in reality it has the power to cripple nations, proliferate ideas, has a population of over 600,000,000, and its owner is a billionaire. I would say that that is a pretty darn impressive resume. Now many may think that Facebook is the spawn of Satan but I think it is too early to tell. In a couple thousand years historians may look back and say the Facebook Revolution was as bad as the Agricultural Revolution for humanity but for now it is too early to tell. All that I am sure of when it comes to Facebook is that for better or for worse it is here to stay.

As for Sebas his blog entry about the educational system also got me thinking about how inconvenient it really is to face some of the hard facts. I explore my personal feelings about our school systems in my comments to that blog.

Sebas, I like your thinking. I agree that school systems are the type of things that constantly need to be innovated and updated.I personally would hate longer school days. The fact is that it would have to trade off time wise with after-school activities, clubs, sports, and just down time in general. Time is definitely of the essence and both GBN and GBS offer so many different opportunities that longer school days would subtract from the overall experience.

When looking for solutions I think they all have to be uniquely crafted to fit the school and community. Our teachers at the Glenbrook school are arguably some of the best in the state, if not the country. However, I see your point come across more clearly when you examine schools in impoverished areas and even inner city schools. The matter at hand is that we need quality over quantity. Teachers should teach because they truly wish to enrich and educate the lives of kids. As for your specific accounts of good teachers, I have to agree. In the Academy we have some of the finest teachers our two schools have to offer. In English we are able to tackle complex, in depth, topics successfully because the teacher is able to keep the entire class engaged and focused. Yet at the same time there is a certain level of interest and participation that I feel a student should reciprocate to a teacher. A teacher can lecture, play games, and even yell at the class but if his or her class chooses not to listen to him or her then it is their loss.

The conclusion of my rant in response to your rant is that I feel the only way to create a successful educational environment is through competent teaching as well as engaged learning. The responsibility starts primarily with the teacher especially in the younger grades but by the time you get into high school I believe it is about a 50/50 split of responsibility to teach and learn. By the time kids go to college I think you may have to learn a lot on you own without a teacher to guide you. I may have gone out on a tangent towards the end of this response but I am just putting in my two cents about the educational system. (Of course all my thoughts are subjectively biased since I can only speak from my personal educational experiences with school and the Academy).

iMedia: Arrow

A really annoying thing that happens to me with school is that whenever I learn something new or cool I find myself unintentionally applying it to all aspects of my life. We learned about all the tools that poets have at their disposal which was all pretty sweet but that made me think about how people form interests. Or better yet how advertisers catch your interests. I recently saw a commercial for an upcoming TV series and I thought about how even if the premise was absolutely horrible; trailers often highlight the best parts about shows and movies to make them seem awesome. In its own way, advertising is an art.

The commercial I saw was for a show called Arrow. I didn't know much when I first saw the trailer other than that it was based off the DC comic book hero Green Arrow. I personally love Green Arrow as a comic book character but I honestly didn't think that he could hold his own television show. Add in the fact that CW (the network that will be airing Arrow) had just finished off their block buster series Smallville and suddenly the whole situation smelled of desperation. If you are not familiar with Smallville it was a 10 season show that was the origin story of Superman. Now you ask any red blooded American and they can instantly tell you who Superman is; but Green Arrow is a bit more obscure and I doubt many would know much about him. This is the main reason I think the show will not be successful but as for this blog I want to focus a little bit on the trailer itself.

The trailer starts right off the back with Oliver Queen. He was a ridiculously wealthy boy but a boating incident left him stranded on an island for five years. After his rescue Queen decides he wants to clean up the filth from his home city and dawns the identity of the Green Arrow. Note: Green Arrow is not batman. Green Arrow is not batman lite. He just happens to be a young billionaire masked crusader. Now that we have cleared that up we can focus on the trailer which attempts to promote the show in a couple ways. First the music through out it attempts to get you pumped and the trailer starts with an action sequence and an explosion in the first fifteen seconds. The color green is also subtly and sporadically used to get the audience to connect with the character of the Green Arrow. The trailer also showed no hesitance in using multiple action sequences. The deliberate usage of all these factors to promote a single show is pretty astonishing to me and just like any other piece of art I think there are many ways to craft it.

Diverging away from the trailer itself I have to give my personal opinion. I will probably watch Arrow but will be very disappointed in CW if they attempt to just make it into their next cash cow. The reason Smallville worked so well was because the characters had great development, the writers took their time and effort with every episode, and it humanized Superman to the point at which the audience could relate. If the network tries to sell some cheap, low quality super hero show I guarantee that it will be gone just as soon as it came.

Best of the Day: Mockingbirds are Bad-ass

Today we discussed some of the fundamentals about poetry and I received a glimpse into all the various tools that a poet has at his disposal. I've never had anything personally against poetry but seeing that whiteboard made me nervous. Honestly poetry is really intimidating as is and knowing that I would have to write my own poem only made it worse. Yes, there are many fantastic poets and even countless many more poems in the world but I always end up thinking, "how could I ever create anything that good"?

I truly believed that anything I created for class would be terrible but at the end of class today I was kind of okay with it. After seeing that TED talk I realized how much fun poetry can be because it is a simple way of expression. The poet in the video was obviously skilled but he used so many of the tools written on the board with ease that it honestly comforted me a little. To name just a few, I recall him utilizing changing tempos, allusions, juxtapositions, non sequiturs, and that is just what I remember off the top of my head. His speech got pretty excited to write a poem because I know I will be given plenty of time to play with the craft and if I got that much enjoyment out of listening to a poem I can only imagine how the poet felt creating it.

English so far has been being a pretty good segue into poetry and the two videos that we saw today got my thoughts racing. The TED talk got me pumped to write my poem and then the second video made me realize that life is a little like a living poem. There are patterns, sequences, moments, and things that all portray beauty just like a poem. As I sit before my laptop typing away; my brain began flashing memories of moments from the day. The feeling of an electric toothbrush vibrating across my teeth. The moment I took my first step outside only to be greeted by a harsh cold breeze. The moment while I was daydreaming in class and realized that it was Monday. The very next moment when I realized that it is Tuesday and that I am an idiot. The feeling of having to tie your laces three times in a single day. The feeling of jumping into your comfy bed. These seemingly random events are all real moments from my day. If I had never watched the Moments video I definitely would view a list of events like that completely irrelevant to poetry but now I realize that some of those moments are what shape beautiful poems.

This also leads me to another revelation I had after English class today. Before the Moments video I felt that I could never be a good poet because I didn't have anything to write about. I am a fifteen year old boy living a fairly posh lifestyle whose biggest concern of the day was losing his poetry book. I know nothing of love, or loss, or fear, or tragedy because I've never experienced these things in a grand way. However, after class today I took away one very important lesson. I could try and write a poem about love and fail or write a  poem about what I know and have it be awesome. I think I'd choose the latter just because I ultimately want to produce something that I can be proud to show off. I learned a lot today. I learned that A. mockingbirds are bad-ass B. that A. actually has a poetic structuring that we like to hear C. that a great way to make ice cream seem nasty is to put a picture of poo before it and finally D. that anyone can be a poet and that poetry is everywhere.