Metacognition: Jane Eyre Mashup

Around 380 pages later, I could finally close Charlotte Bronte's Jane Eyre for good.

That is, until I had to reopen it once more to dive into its many complex themes and subtleties to create a compilation of examples of de and recontextualized love. And I chose to do this with none other than Mr. Aaron Ach. 

Originally the thought was to go with independence as our theme, but we struggled with just scratching the surface and realized that we needed to choose a theme that allowed us to dig deeper into not only Jane Eyre, but also previous English and outside sources. That's when we decided to mashup 'love'.

I will willingly admit that this assignment was not easy. Despite a seemingly obvious topic, it was difficult to "go back in time," so to say, to not only text from Jane Eyre we read weeks ago, but also to that of Orlando and King Lear that we read months ago. But making connections to these very different examples of great literature was surprisingly exciting. Through these commonalities I was opened to new ideas and themes that I never recognized while I was actually reading, and that was fun for me. And while coming up with these connections took some time and thought, it got easier with time. It was like getting a strike in bowling, as weird as that sounds; once you hit one pin, more and more fall each time, and the more excited you get. Once we came up with one great idea, the rest just flowed from there.

Getting to work on iMovie for the first time was awesome. I had so much fun being able to creatively express our ideas on a new medium. I really think that making decisions about what music to use, what transitions were best, and how to get text and ideas across helped tremendously in understanding not only the assignment but also the theme. Personally, I also think that a movie, as opposed to a PowerPoint or website, is very entertaining for the viewer, and that is also an important aspect to this project.

If I were to change anything, it would probably be my partner...

Just kidding! Aaron was amazing to work with, and I think our individual strengths and weaknesses were perfectly balanced with one another, and I think we both share the same determination and work ethic, so this project was very pleasurable! But in all seriousness, I think being more organized during the process would have made it a little easier. This is especially important for someone like me who, as I've probably said in every Metacognition blog, loves diverging and struggles with converging. Organizing our thoughts and keeping track of what we had/what we needed could have been better, but ultimately we nailed it down and birthed a project that I am very proud to be a co-creator of. 

Metacognition: "Short" Story

Finally. I never thought in high school we would ever get the opportunity to flex our imaginative and creative muscles to conjure a wonderful work of fiction. And I love writing fiction. So from the get-go I was completely ready to dominate when I began writing the first draft of my story.

Right away I knew what I wanted to write about. I honestly don't even know how it came to me, but I knew that my story had to revolve around life at the home front during the Vietnam war in the 60s. I also knew where I wanted my story to go, and that in the end the relationship between the main characters would be stressed.

In a nutshell, I ultimately decided to write a story about a girl and her brother. But it took a few steps to get to my last draft, and definitely a lot of changing. The first draft consisted of a girl who has a rough relationship with her brother, and the brother comes home after a long time, and they have this car ride, and yada yada yada. My favorite part about writing fiction is all of the freedom of description, and unfortunately I got a little carried away with my first draft. The plot was complicated and needed way too much background and explaining that just wasn't going to work for a short story. There was no way I could have written 1200 words worth, when setting up the main plot took over half of that. And that was my biggest downfall.

So I scrapped that, and started the second draft. This time I made sure that the relationship between the brother and sister was explicitly clear, and ultimately once again spent too many words getting ready for the main conflict of the story. My biggest problem when it comes to writing, as has been evident in previous assignments, is the divergent thinking. I have so many ideas and so many places to take them that I find it difficult to focus on one main idea.

So I scrapped that too and started all over again. This time I turned the relationship around between the two characters, and starting basically where my previous drafts had barely ended. I made the pressure come mostly from character v. self and character v. environment. Of course no final draft is actually final, but I was glad that I was finally able to take bits of pieces from my old drafts and make them into something much more complete.

In short, (haha, get it?) short stories aren't as easy to write as one may think. They're always fun, and it feels good to take a break from more serious forms of writing, but should I ever write another, it will definitely be important to come up with a solid, concise, and straightforward plot, as well as character personalities and sources of pressure!

Just to be fun and cliché:

It Matters: Denying Love

DISCLAIMER: The following blog expresses my personal opinions about certain religious ideas. I in no way intend to offend anyone or challenge their beliefs.

The other day I was watching "For the Bible Tells Me So," a documentary about how conservative Christians have explicitly used their religion to deny human rights. Among these was the ever-pressing and extremely current topic of gay rights. So far only ten out of the fifty states in America have legalized gay marriage (one of them more recently Illinois, who historically passed the law this past Valentine's Day.) And what I find so frustrating, as I saw in the documentary, arguably the most common reason for the justification of homophobia is religion.

I could go on a Bible-lengths rant of my views on religion and what I believe and don't, but that will be for another blog, perhaps. But right now I am concerned with the topic of love. No, love is not perfect. No, it doesn't have to be destined. Maybe this is because of timing, maybe because of personal conflicts. But no love, whether it be imperfect or forbidden, is so because two people are of the same sex. And in no way whatsoever should religion be used in such a way to curve morality to the point where this ignorant idea is justified.

A common theme within Jane Eyre so far has been the manipulative nature of religion to legitimize certain thought and advocate certain way of life. For example, Jane is told that instead of standing up to her enemies who wrong her, she should just be passive and absorb every mental and physical blow like a sponge. To clear something up: if religion is your thing, right on. I understand completely why people find it important to have something to believe in, to have something to serve as guidance, or to have something to have faith in in times of need. But when religion starts becoming an excuse, when it starts filling people like empty shells with immoral beliefs that go against basic and undeniable human emotions and rights, this is where I start to lose the beneficial idea of guidance and start seeing a mirage of manipulation. And this is confusing. And frustrating. And I simply just don't get it.


So it is moments like this that I like to reflect on. This past October, two straight women kissed in front of a crowd during an anti-gay protest in France. The image is not only powerful, but this quote explains it impeccably:

"This snapshot brings out a simple and efficient mechanism: the one of the oppositon between reason and emotion, between the power of the image and the complexity of the slogan. The protesters are holding signs and screaming claims that cannot exist, to make sense, in the instantaneity of the photograph."
- Romain Pigenel

This photo, and the countless homosexual couples across the world, blatantly disprove every anti-gay, anti-same-sex-marriage, homophobic claim that love between two people of the same sex cannot exist. Because it does. It exists with your neighbor, your cousin, that stranger across the street, that guy that checks you out at Jewel, the lady who told you to buy that shirt. So how can someone say that it not only shouldn't exist, but that it doesn't?


In my opinion, this picture is part of the many, but not nearly enough, viral medias circulating universally that challenges common worldviews and has a powerful impact. Too often we see, especially in media, obnoxiously conspicuous celebrity couples too readily getting married, only to get divorced within the week. And this drives me insane. I don't know if they're entranced by the idea of a billion dollar wedding or overcome by lust mistaken for love at first sight, but these people do not really love each other. So we, as curious, nosy, and magpie Americans love to do, are immediately enthralled and even somehow inspired by this idea of obliviously false "love." Yet a great deal of our country, and even a great deal of the world, has no problem being so repulsed by certain couples, who have been together for years in true love, that they deny the human right of marriage, a right that those we idolize throw around like nothing.


As we discussed while watching Once, love is imperfect. It doesn't come at the right time, it may not always work out, etc. But it is also something that we cannot control. As we see during the film, we do not choose who we fall in love with. So the idea that there are many people out there who try to tell us to do so, or even try to do so themselves, is inexplicably ludicrous. How can people say for some love does not exist? Who's to say that it should or shouldn't exist? Love is not a privilege. It is not something that is only graced upon those deemed "worthy." Denying someone love is not only wrong, but it is not, and never will be, possible.

iMedia: "The End" - The Doors

(Lyrics to this song can be found here.)

iMedia: “The End” – The Doors

When I first chose this song I was completely unaware that it was the opening to the Heart of Darkness-based movie Apocalypse Now. The Doors are classic, and having this song in my never-ending mental iTunes library, I immediately knew it perfectly epitomized not only the novel itself, but also deeper character and plot themes.

Heart of Darkness is plagued by themes of ironic savagery: the twisted truth that those deemed as “civilized,” aka the Europeans, are actually more savage than the natives themselves. It also touches on “the horror, the horror” of colonialism and brutal foreign dominance. These are ideas are specifically demonstrated in the following lines from the song.

“This is the end

My only friend, the end

Of our elaborate plans, the end

Of everything that stands, the end

No safety or surprise, the end

I’ll never look into our eyes again

Can you picture what will be

So limitless and free

Desperately in need of some stranger’s hand

In a desperate land

Lost in a Roman wilderness of pain

All the children are insane

All the children are insane”

These lines touch on both the colonialist theme of the book, as well as Kurtz’s character. The lines “our elaborate plans” and “desperately in need of some stranger’s hand” clearly are referencing European dominance and unjustly taking over African lands. However, I think that not only do “elaborate plans” reference those plans of colonists, but also those of Kurtz. On page 65 of Heart of Darkness, when Marlow is with Kurtz in the forest, Kurtz says, “’ I had immense plans… I was on the threshold of great things.’” So the plans mentioned in the song also could relate to those of Kurtz, who while although a tad mad, did have a glorious dream he never really got to fulfill.

In my opinion, the most haunting lyrics from the song are “all the children are insane.” Clearly this can be interpreted in as many ways as anyone who read the book or knows about European colonialism can come up with, but I took this also as a reference to Kurtz. Toward the end of Kurtz’s life, Marlow compares his mind to that of a child, needing to be cared for yet always in a world of their own. From this idea, I took that the children were just another way of referencing all of the colonial men who came to the Congo and were hypnotized by the primitiveness of the surrounding nature. When entranced by this, Kurtz, like many men I supposed, truly went insane. It’s pretty obvious that Kurtz has pretty much jumped of the precipice of insanity and this point, and these lyrics further reflect the irony in that.

Although the song has a slower, more hypnotic sound, this parallels the egotistical and dark lyrics that together incite a creepily suspicious feeling for the listeners. The son’s ambiguity not only reflects that of the entire book, but also Kurtz as a character, as most of what we readers learn about him toward the beginning of the book are second-hand and often biased notions of his personality and actions. This is also repeated at the end of the book when Marlow is visited – and visits – all of the people who Kurtz knew, and we still cannot get a completely crystal clear picture of who he really was.

This feeling of eery complexity is one that I got throughout the book. Whether it be reading the suspicious trek down the river, the natives repetitive shrills and ceremonies, or the colonial intentions, reading Heart of Darkness left me with more questions than answers, and “The End” by The Doors just does the same. I am left to wonder whether the darkness serves metaphorically for the truth, or for blindness. Maybe both. But this song puts it into perspective. The characters and themes of Heart of Darkness constantly push the complicated, twisted, hard to accept truth at its readers. Kurtz especially is walking irony, a mish-mosh of civilization and destruction, but also blatant savagery. However, it is “The End” that oddly answers this confusion with its own added confusion, leading me to accept that there really is no answer at all. Nothing that can permeate the “heart of impermeable and impenetrable darkness.” 

Blogging Around

The first blog I responded to was miss Stephanie Smelyansky's. In her post, iMedia: Orchestral Skrillex, Stephanie analyzes the similarities between a bass-pounding modern-day controversial music style with the highly respected orchestral art form. She also talks about how many people are quick to have negative opinions about this type of music, but at the end of the day dubstep really is no different.



Stephanie, this is probably one of the coolest things I've seen in a while! So first off, thanks for showing me that, I will definitely be passing it on. 

I completely, wholeheartedly agree with everything you said. The only thing is is that I'm just not a really big fan of dubstep; it just doesn't provoke the same feeling as a folk mandolin or barely-there indie voice has for me. However, I think that many people who do not like something are quick to dismiss it as unworthy of what it really is, like the concept of dubstep being or not being music. Even though I don't personally listen to dubstep on a regular basis, and while my more reserved personality shies away from the fist-pumping, headbanging, hyped-up concert atmosphere, I would never think of disregarding dubstep as true music or art.

Who's to say what is and is not music? I may never understand full-fledged screamo or incomprehensible rap, but who am I to deny music that exemplifies so expertly inciting feeling and emotion while giving listeners an much-needed escape? Because isn't that what music is for? It's an artfully crafted medium for expression, and DJs do that rightfully so. I ask, what makes Skrillex any less genius or less creative or less worth of appreciation than Bach? What makes the crescendos of a melodic symphony any different than the bass drops or high-pitched synthesizers of an electropop-meets-metallic-meets-who-knows-what dubstep DJ? I answer, nothing. 100, 200, 300 years from now, I would not be surprised in the slightest if Skrillex - or any dubstep DJ for that matter - becomes a highly respected and fervently analyzed historical artist of the 21st century.






The second blog I responded to was Sebas's post about education. I noticed it was an extremely popular post and was very anxious to read it. He starts off by talking about the extension of school hours in Chicago, and also examines how school is transforming into a lifeless, lackluster environment when it desperately needs a splash of creativity. 


I think I'm going to get on the Sebas educational editorial bandwagon. Seven (now eight) comments on one post! You must have something going for you.

We make it no secret as students when we express our boiling hatred for school. The days are already long enough as it gets, and slowly but surely with new laws such as the extensions in Chicago, school is becoming increasingly arbitrary and redundant, which isn't at all what it should be. 

And this is why I think Academy is great. What we learn and the way class is formatted not only provokes the creativity and insight that we need to do well in the class, but also arms us with important knowledge that reaches far beyond school and applies to everyday past, present, future life. Like you said, it's not so much about what you teach but how you teach it, and when we learn in Acad's open and vulnerable environment we acquire so much more intellectual, conversational, and social skills that are normally stifled by the mundane routine of average classes. 

I often here my friends in honors or regular English classes who talk about how they are supposed to be writing an essay on why this character did that or memorizing unnecessary details on what happened on this or that page. I don't understand the seeming necessity of any of that. When we write a paper or read a book in Academy, we apply what we learn to things way beyond the text and explore ideas that coincide with the real world. 

And that system is what I think that school should be; an open environment for kids to learn actively and thoroughly. Most importantly, students need to see a purpose. Classroom ideas should constantly be reinforced as being applicable to the real world. After graduation that is the world we live in, and I would like to think that the hours I spent studying for my math test or trying to learn about chemical bonds will follow me even throughout my life, even when I may think I am no longer at need of knowing it.

Metacognition: The Phases of Poetry

Poetry isn't easy. Great poets make it seem like magic to produce such works of art, yet I'm sure overly-complex and underdeveloped poems prefaced "The Raven" and "The Road Not Taken." I may not be an Edgar Allen Poe or a Robert Frost, but taking a few levels of mediocrity to ultimately reach something stellar is and experience that I, a sophomore Academite, share with these ingenious poets.

One of the best memories I have as a child is being in North Carolina, and I wrote my first draft around this memory. My favorite poetry is that which is a little bit eery and creepy, yet simultaneously soft and smooth. This first level I worked on making sure my poem had an element of mystery and harmony. I focused heavily on creating a mood with rhyme and sound that when read aloud would mesh seamlessly into music. But my downfall was not realizing that music isn't just a sound; it's a feeling, a story, a message, and my poem had none of that.

My second draft I tried to keep that same ambiguity that I felt writing my first one, yet this time I seemed to amplify it to the point where the plot got stepped on and muddled in my creative ambition. I often tend to think in a way that always makes perfect sense to me, but when articulated to others does not come across the same way, and this became an issue in this second level. I created this fantasy scene with dark forests, sly animals, and curiosity. It all seemed wonderful and imaginative in my head; I knew every reference, metaphor, figurative language. Yet, it was not truly complete. I still did not know why I was writing it. Honestly, the only purpose I had was to write a possibly better poem that I thought Mr. Allen would hopefully deem as better, but realistically I was still close to flat-lining in terms of progress.

Finally, I caught it.

A great poetic idea is one of those great phenomenons of the world that cannot be obtained by force. For me, my greatest poetic work comes from those "aha!" moments that fly by my head and need to be harnessed into greatness. I found myself struggling for an idea when I sat down at my computer at a convenient time and stared at an empty screen begging and pleading to be splattered with words. My true success came about from the unintentional and divergent day-dreaming that I was able to condense in a fleeting moment. Eventually the hunger of the captured idea inevitably pushed its way into my fingertips and started to type. No matter what nonsense came about, be it completely ridiculous or utterly ingenious, it created the stem from which ultimately, with the combination of hard work, creativity, and elbow grease, a complete and develop flower blossomed.

My third and fourth drafts resulted from an unintentional turn. The impatience of waiting for my dad to pick me up had compelled me to walk home without a coat in the biting cold. In the two-mile walk of solitude and self-reflection, I realized that a poem did not have to be complex to be great. As a 'V' of birds towered over my head, I decided to focus on one of the most simplistic and innocent trends of nature: a bird escaping the winter. Thus, I had a feeling, a story, a message, and therefor I had music. When I sat down at my computer, the ideas poured out. Alone in the cold reminded me that I too wanted to escape the winter and fly away, and with this I found a way to emotionally connect myself to what I was writing, and what I was writing was exponentially better because of this vital piece of the puzzle I had previously lacked.

I am ultimately proud of my poem. But more than that, I am proud of the progress and steps it took to get there. Not only was creating an increasingly better poem for me satisfying, but finding that one moment, that one muse, was everlastingly thrilling. From this process I have taken away the recognition of drafting and editing, as well as the accompanying progress. But what I want most is for others to take away their own unique thoughts and feelings, different than his, different than hers, different than yours, and different than mine.

Get Organized: Metacognition of Organizing My Closet

I chose to complete the daunting task of organizing my black hole of a closet. The thing practically unhinges its snake-like jaws every time I feed it with random objects, clothes, shoes. Usually I'm not an excessively organized person; that is until my situation-onset OCD kicks in and my straightening up turns into an alphabetized game of Tetris. Some things needed to be dumped, some moved, folded, tilted, turned. I didn't want to do it, but once I started I knew I wouldn't be able to stop.

Before I started I knew my goal and how I wanted to accomplish it. I knew what should go where and with what and how. But I didn't really know specifics. I didn't know that my jeans were going to be folded in two piles, or that my old piggy bank would be parallel with a snow globe.

During the process I felt anxious. I saw the progress like taming my hair by brushing and untangling its endless knots. Creating piles of right out garbage and useless parts of nameless objects was relieving. I don't quite know how to articulate it, but it made me feel current and in the moment, seeing that all that was really left were things that I had a good chance of using or appreciating in the future, and the past was cleaning itself up.

Even after my closet was dustless and organized like a well-ordered machine, I felt that I couldn't stop. I then proceeded to clean and straighten the rest of my room until every object was neatly tucked away in its home. Even my "crap drawer" looked a bit less crappy and more purposeful. After I finished, I felt satisfaction and serenity. Organizing my humble abode definitely made my mind feel more at ease, for my thoughts had less objects and junk to jump around and think about.

This project made me realize that the way I create ideas inside my head parallels the environment around me, Like my room, my thinking process does not organize itself. If left alone they will tangle into a taxing pile of "I'll-do-it-later"s and "it-will-happen-eventually"s. Unless I truly focus and put my mind to it, things will never be worked out. My endless divergent thought will never converge unless I choose to take the time to steer it in that direction. I would like to work on creating an organized mind that allows me to be messy up until the point where it becomes noticeably overwhelming and I need to clean it. Like my room, its okay to throw things on the floor or push things under the bed, but eventually I need to embrace that I live there, and straightening up is inescapable and necessary.