Brave New World II & III

II

Creepy book, isn't it?

Everything's so cold, so clinical.

Every aspect of the human experience reduced to a science. And the vision of the typical family life? Forget about it, "Mother" and "Father" are reduced to smutty words that make the kids blush. And "good Christian morals" are undesirably portrayed and looked down upon. Psychology itself is deemed obsolete, because of the new philosophies taken its place in the hypnopeadia.

But you know that the part that stood out the most was the conditioning of the 8 month old babies, and why wouldn't it? We nurture babies, we cradle them, we protect them from harm. It's ghastly to imagine purposefully hurting babies.

I don't know about other people in my age group, but kids are conditioned like this all the time. How many children's parents do they witness reading? How many times do the smart kids get picked on in school? We're always subconsciously learning where we fall socially. In this Brave New World it's just more formulaic.

III

There's a part at the beginning of the chapter where the Director is talking about how strange it is that games used to be played with simple equipment and now they're all complicated...video games anyone? This was a prediction that came true.

What shocked me the most about this book when I first read it was how flippantly they spoke of little kids engaging in sexual activity. I mean sure, little kids always have and always will experiment but it for it to be encouraged and passed off as normal is so alien even in our culture today. I imagine in Huxley's time this was not well recieved at all.

"Our Ford" also spoke on the evils of family life which is particularly interesting to me. They live by the rules that everybody belongs to everybody else, so exclusiveness is unheardd of. This becomes important once the Savage is introduced.

Lenina is also looked down upon for only having one lover. Completely backwards.

They produce the question of before Ford, "how could anyone be stable?" Instability is the spice of life, we need it. It's what makes us, us.

First Quarter Review

'Sup Bloggians?

I write this after the first of my last weekend of performances of Busybody, and I'm upset that I have school in the morning.

whine, whine, whine.

My two rats are currently scurrying about my bed and occaisonally jump on the keyboard to see what I'm doing. But they don't really care. They're rats, you see.

Anyway, I feel like I've done pretty good as far as assignments go. I've been reading and stuff, and stuff I've had trouble doing (such as vocab remix) I hacked to make it work for myself by using other blogs as resources. Yay opensource learning!

My smart goals are still moving towards being completed, and someone commented something psuedo intellectual on my big question. So I guess that stuff is going pretty okay.

Well, I'm off to catch as many "Zs" as possible before friday gooses me.

Also my rats are fighting. I REALLY have to go now.

Goodnight Blog world!

I am here.

This semester.

This semester I have gone through some interesting changes.

For one thing, I'm going to Europe after graduation because of a dear friend's love and generosity. And I'm more excited than I could possibly express without profanity and nudity in a combination not suitable for even MY school related blog.

I've also made some great health decisions. I'm exercising daily, eating healthily, and living more purposefully. I've decided its time to grow up a little bit, maybe not all at once, but enough to say I've tried.

As for goals and things, Busybody at the Santa Maria Civic Theater is almost over. I've sent out scripts for my senior project (SNL Night! Woo!) TODAY actually. Clue the Musical is moving along quite smoothly. I'm taking acting classes with Peter Frisch, who's a pretty big deal. Google him. Seriously. To add a new development in my theatrical life, I'm going to attempt to direct a "Fairy Tale" at the Civic Theater if the board will accept me. Things are looking not bad.

I've been casually browsing Junior's blogs in first period because I'm trying to be an AWESOME T.A.. I even did my virtual T.A. assignments and I have to admit that it didn't suck. I could get used to this teaching thing. 

Remember how I said I wanted to find direction this semester? 

Probably not, but I did.

I'm still waiting for the dust to settle. But I'm feeling good as of this moment. It's like the calm after a storm, and next time a storm hits I plan on being more prepared.

I'm here. 

But I won't be forever.  

I brought you some hack.

I overheard Hayden talking about how he did an analysis on Tale of Two Cities on his blog last semester. After about 4 minutes of browsing...

Thank you Hayden, and you're welcome.

A Quote, and Some Good Dickens

"What is it that makes you want to write songs? In a way you want to stretch yourself into other people's hearts. You want to plant yourself there, or at least get a resonance, where other people become a bigger instrument than the one you're playing. It becomes almost an obsession to touch other people. To write a song that is remembered and taken to heart is a connection, a touching of bases. A thread that runs through all of us. A stab to the heart. Sometimes I think songwriting is about tightening the heartstrings as much as possible without bringing on a heart attack." -Keith Richards

Well, for one thing, I really feel like I should look up some of this guy's music. 

This oughta do it.

ANYWAY

Right now, I'm ACTUALLY reading Great Expectations, which I lied about reading last semester. Well, I didn't lie, but I didn't read it. So I guess that's lying by omission.

So it goes.

Or doesn't go?

Anyway. Charles Dickens reminds me a bit of Mark Twain, mostly because of that "streaky bacon" dry humor in this book. It's a very loose comparison, but bear with me for a moment here.

Mark Twain's most well known works are Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn, respectively. What do these have in common with Great Expectations, you may ask? THESE BOOKS ARE THE NARRATIVE OF A YOUNG BOY ENCOUNTERING PROBLEMS THAT ARE BIGGER THAN THEY ARE.

The child's perspective always offers this view of innocence and naivety because their opinion on the world is still developing. This offers a perfect canvas for a bildungsroman, because the character is literally and figuratively coming of age.

That said, I think Dickens wrote Great Expectations to offer his view on the human condition, both the good and bad, through a child's wide eyed wonderful perspective.

Dickens Map

AAAAAAAH.

Is how I feel right now.

So much is happening! It's the last semester! We're doing great things! The "BALL" is rolling! Not limited to, but including, this class.

So here's what I was thinking. I'm a T.A. for two classes in a row, so I'm just gonna have to read the crap out of this Dickens book whenever I get a chance. I'll have to read it back stage, too, since this is Tech Week for Busybody at the Santa Maria Civic Theater. (WE OPEN FRIDAY AND RUN ALL MONTH ON FRIDAY AND SATURDAY STARTING AT 7) Finishing this book isn't what I'm scared of. 

also, here are the 5 questions. I found them on Hayden Robel's blog, which I subscribe to. If I had time to do this earlier I would have found different ones, but it's late, and someone else already gave me a source. Here is a link to his blog.

•   Is Pip happy that he is given the opportunity to kiss the beautiful Estelle? Why or why not? (http://jpdrhsenglitcomp.blogspot.com/2012/02/great-expectations-study-questions.html)

•  How does Estelle behave towards Pip? What is her disposition, character motive towards the main protagonist? (http://jpdrhsenglitcomp.blogspot.com/2012/02/great-expectations-study-questions.html)

•  What does it mean that Pip has been raised "by hand"? (http://hswrhsenglitcomp.blogspot.com/2012/02/great-expectations-questions-and.html)

•  How does Estella criticize Pip, and what does his reaction to her criticism reveal about Pip? 
  (http://hswrhsenglitcomp.blogspot.com/2012/02/great-expectations-questions-and.html)

•  This entire blog post :) (https://sites.google.com/site/mrpipsgreatexpectations/home/ap-style-multiple-choice)

Last, to demonstrate what we have learned, I think an AP style essay would be be best. My class mates might hate me for that....but come on. It will help us practice for the AP test, provide in class discussion, and more post opportunities on the blog. That way the blogging world can SEE our work. Oh, and peer editing. That's always a good thing.

Remixing the remix of a remix

I love that we can all see each other's work because I know that if I'm lost or whatever, I can totally look on someone else's page to catch up. Some people REALLY get into this remixing thing, so I thought for my remix I'd post links and descriptions of people with unique habits to help ME study and hopefully help others to.

My rat, Codex, is currently running amuck all over my work area pleading for my attention. It will be hard to focus on homework with that temptation. However, I press on.

1) Christa Weston. This girl goes ALL OUT on her remixes. She deserves some props. I've never seen such dedication to an assignment like this. It's been a major help using her page to study off of.

http://cwestrhsenglitcomp.blogspot.com/


2) Sarah Gutierrez. Sarah's blog is good for more than just videos on Shakespeare. A combination of word pictures, images, and videos. Very well done.

http://sgrhsenglitcomp.blogspot.com/

3) E'Ana Bordon. DISNEY THEMED REMIX ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME THAT'S AWESOME.

http://ebordonrhsenglitcomp.blogspot.com/

4) Lizbeth Estrada. If you've a visual learner, this is the site for you.

http://lerhsenglitcomp.blogspot.com/

5) Kathryn Greenup. Kathryn is just an awesome allie to have in this class. She's always on top of everything.

http://kgreenuprhsenglitcomp.blogspot.com/

I think that's it for now. Codex is getting antsy, and so am I. Good night Bloggians. I love some of you.