Semester Reflection, Part 2

What is the greatest challenge facing your generation? What will be necessary to address it?

Well, other than the fact that my generation is losing it’s history and culture, I feel that the biggest challenge is the state of the environment and economy.  Now not only is unemployment going up with inflation, but also we’re running out of potable water, global warming, and now the oil spill which will have very lengthy long term affects on the world.  So my concerns mainly lie within the environment.

What in the world do you care about and what are you doing about it?

I have a passion for contemporary art, it’s a possibility for me to earn a curatorial degree and get a job at MCASD, but right now I care extremely for the respect and reputation of contemporary art; every time I talk about working at MCASD people insult contemporary art.  I hate this argument so much that I literally wrote my Ampersand article about it.

What is a quality in a classmate that you would like to develop in yourself?

I see school as a competition, always have.  I see my strengths as a student and that I should keep them to myself because when college application time comes I want the highest GPA and highest everything.  I don’t want to look at school this way.  This is a quality of mine that I would like to remove. 

Beyond grades, what motivates you to work hard at school?

My future; I am constantly motivated to do my best because I really feel that my future will be much better if I work extremely well now in my life.  Whether it be try hardest to learn the most to be a more intelligent global citizen, or be a nicer person to be an overall better person. 

Semester Reflection, Part 1

What project was most valuable to you, and what have you gained from it?

Easy, the American Icons project.  It truly helped me move pass a personal loss of a friend and really helped me grow overall as a human being.  Although the process was extremely difficult, challenging, and at times seemed to be not worth it, in the end it was one of the great projects due to the help I attained from it.

Describe one valuable mistake you made this year.

One valuable mistake that I made this year was failing time after time to come up with Ampersand article ideas.  I went through poems, fictional photo essays, nonfictional photo essays, and finally settling upon a true debate type of essay.  Going through all of this craziness, I find that my final topic/theme was very much stronger compared to all of my other writings.

           

What is your greatest strength as a student in a project-based learning environment?

I get the work done.  I always do.  Well, there was one time when I had swine flu and missed out on very important newspaper work time.  Nevertheless, I continue to surprise many of my classmates with the work ethic I put into collaborative projects, and sometimes I even surprise myself as well.  I don’t necessarily always know what I’m doing during these projects, but as John Locke once said, “No man’s education can go beyond his experience”, which is a quote that very much sums up the High Tech Village spirit. 

Writing Reflection

I was never pleased with my writing in the past, always eager to hold back my essays from class critiques, now I welcome it.  I can now feel proud of my work and am generally pleased with my current level of writing skill.

I feel that might writing has greatly improved in almost every sense of term "improvement".  Looking back at essays from 10th grade, even early essays such as my "Confederates in the Attic" piece, I have noticed that I was a very bad writer.  But looking at my Ampersand piece, I have noticed that it is of much higher literary quality, which is odd.  What happened from the beginning to the end of junior year? Something must have happened.

I underwent very intense yet valuable writing rehab during this year in Randy Scherer's 2009-2010 Junior Humanities class.  I have learned to use many literary devices such as something entitled "The Loop" which starts off with an idea and at the conclusion brings the audience back to that very idea.  It has been very helpful in essay writing, but more/so in more persuasive essays where you keep bringing the reader back to your thesis, almost like alliteration. 

Come Ampersand Exhibition night I was actually eager to show off my article, rather than keeping to myself.  I find that this is either a sign of great improvement or great psychological changes to myself, either way I think my writing has gotten much better.

The future of my writing lies within college;  I plan on spending the summer working on my college application essays and what not, trying to pump out my greatest writing work, even surpassing my Ampersand piece.  But after that is completed, I want to pursue a Writing & Publication minor if I attend Emerson college in Boston, which offers that.  I also need to stick with the literary devices if I ever want that to happen, because I don't want my old past writing habits and strategies to creep up on me again, I want them to stay in the "past" in emphasis.  I think the better my writing becomes the more I can actually improve my actual education. 

Historical Reflection

1. John Locke was one of the most influential philosophers during the Enlightenment period who created many philosophies during his lifetime, some that still inspire modern norms of society. I have a feeling that John Locke would be the hippy-type of college characters living at the end of the hallway on your floor in your dorm building, or playing hackie sack while 'chill-axing' on the quad. I have a feeling that he would be very popular without being a 'conformist'.

2. "Parents wonder why the streams are bitter, when they themselves have poisoned the fountain. " I absolutely love this quote because it does show his rebellious side against the conformities of families.

3. I have chosen this person because he sort of helped the world escape from the atheists/VS/religion mindset, the age of enlightenment was a massive step forward in society, and some of his own ideologies of asking questions and thinking of for yourself has helped me.  Right before John Locke released his most famous book, there was the European War on Religion, and most people either were for religion or against it, until Locke wrote about Tolerance, and how Religion could be accepted, only if it were to be rationalized of sorts. 

4. Not quite sure, primary sources almost universally mean first hand encounters or first hand speaking quotes and what not, if so I'm not sure, so I will just list 3 quotes by John Locke:

"All wealth is the product of labor." is really the quote that inspired me to think of John Locke as a peaceful, free spirit, but the: "I have always thought the actions of men the best interpreters of their thoughts." is a really sort of odd thing to say, completely true to do this, in my opinion, because sometimes my actions represent my words better.


"No man's knowledge here can go beyond his experience." I really think this quote should be used more around the HTHMA workplace, since its basically our education/curriculum theory, working on experiences cause better knowledge. Some people are auditory learners, some visuals, but everybody learns from experiences, no matter what. 

Literary Reflections

If I could bring to life one of any character from any book or reading that I have read this year, I would definitely bring Jay Gatsby (of The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald) with me to college.

Why would I do this, you ask? Simple, Gatsby could teach me the ways of success and fame and partying in the ways of the Roaring 20's, and show me the ways of not-smuggling-drugs through pharmacies in America. I have a feeling that knowing Gatsby as sort of my personnel mentor of mine would be beneficial to my future.

Gatsby was a partier, a romantic, a business man, and a genius drug smuggler (or..not), but unfortunately he was shot and killed in his pool for revenge, even though he didn't actually do anything to deserve.

That would be the best...

Mock Trial Blog

1. Summarize the facts of the case, as presented by the prosecution. Include relevant witnesses and testimony.

The Prosecution argued that the 6th Amendment, arguably taken out of context, makes it so everyone has the right to a free trial, which goes against the Arizona bill. It will increase the risk that police officers, especially those who are untrained, will be placed in a situation where they will try to comply with the law and will be looking for characteristics to try to determine whether someone is here without authority. The Prosecution made good arguments using the Constitution, but the fact that 2 out of 3 of their witnesses not only owned slaves but signed off on allowing slavery to exist was not a good plan, and that the Defense could have utilized a lot of messed up stuff that old America had to offer, but didn’t.

2. Summarize the facts of the case, as presented by the defense. Include relevant witnesses and testimony.

The Defense argued that a lot of Illegal Immigrants commit crimes in America, and their illegal status makes it very difficult to track them down and enforce justice the American way. A lot of Illegal Immigrants take jobs from Americans. That SB 1070 does not specifically state increasing profiling as its goal. Basically, the Defense didn’t argue the correct arguments, I thought, they missed a lot of points on the Constitution applying to American citizens, not citizens of the World.

3. What was the most significant piece of evidence, in your personal opinion?

I feel that the fact that no one could answer the question that what makes a person eligible for reasonable cause for stopping and checking their immigration status besides their ethnicity is the most important piece of

4. What was the most significant argument made, in your opinion?

Kyle made great argument within an argument. When Calvin, a lawyer for the prosecution, tried to make him read aloud a piece of the 6th Amendment, he counter argued using the Preamble as evidence, even when Calvin tried to counter argue that, which did not work in my opinion, Kyle stayed strong in his argument.

5. What do you personally believe the correct verdict should be? Do you agree with the jury? Why or why not?

Well, it’s my own personal belief that much bigger problems than illegal immigration exists, especially to the President, which it isn't really his job to fix if you think about it. However, it’s also my belief that something should be done. Perhaps SB 1070 is not the answer, it probably isn't. History has shown that profiling is racist, but at the same time actually does help, even though it reinforces racism and shames people. I really think that someone needs to do something because everyday that America gets flooded with illegal immigrants from Latin America, we cannot let in the patient, rule following people who are awaiting to enter legally. I'm not even talking about Southern America, I'm talking about different continents, people from all over try to become citizens and we can't let as many in because people don't respect our Country and/or borders. I just wish that they would crackdown on illegal immigrants already, its getting ridiculous, not only do many illegal immigrants I know don't pay taxes and contribute to decay in our economy, I also have to listen to them harass America. Now I'm not the most patriotic guy, at many times I wish I wasn't American, but at the end of the day if you came here you should respect it, or go back to where you came from. I mean this in the nicest way.

___________

I think I deserve a 47-50 out of 50 points because I worked very hard researching and writing for the Defense and acting as a Witness, and helping them build their argument. I did the following things very well even though the Defense did lose, I still knew everything to know about my character, his story, and overall, himself. I could have done better at being a witness by memorizing my testimony word-for-word, I knew my character’s story, I just did not have the testimony memorized, which prompted my team to force me to ‘perform’ with a piece of paper. Mainly, I tried really hard to learn who Kenneth Collins was, using limited information I think I really discovered who he was.

WWII Letters

Who am I?

I created a fictionalized version of my grandfather as the character I am writing a letter as. He is a navy soldier (sort of) but mainly just a late twenties recruit working for the 17th Task Force during the Battle of Midway in June of 1942 (the Task Force 17 was aboard the USS Yorktown, the only US carrier sunk that day).

He is sending the letter about 6 months later, retelling his story of survival, the letter is dated October 13th, 1942, one day before the attack on Henderson Field, which he references as to be temporarily stationed (he dies the next day).