Month of Madness

March is a month filled with upsets, buzzer beaters, and dramatic finishes as big time college basketball teams battle to stay alive in the NCAA tournament. The addition of 4 more teams to the tournament has just increased the drama as 11th ranked VCU, who many thought should not have been in the tournament, has upset 3 teams with convincing victories. This year teams like Florida State, VCU, and BYU are trying to have a cinderella season while power houses like Duke, Kansas and Ohio State try and survive the madness.

Creative Blog #2

Lupe Fiasco's Lasers is his newest and very hyped up album. He originally came out with the cd's top hit The Show Goes on then followed up by releasing his album. This album is much different from his previous and debut albums. This album is much more mainstream, I think Lupe may be influenced by the people around him and his record label. He has conformed a bit too much to other artists. Originally he laid down poetic verses with unmatched flow. While there are still many good verses on this album his beats and featuring artists has taken away from his original style. While this is one of my favorite albums right now, I prefer the previous album. He just needs to get back to his original roots and start making music like he did before he got famous.

Creative blog #1

Although most people look at conformity as something bad, everyone still manages to conform in one way or another. The classic situation where conformity occurs is when one person wants to be accepted by a group, or a certain type of people, so they change either, their clothes, appearance, ideas, or attitudes to "fit in" with the rest of the crowd. However the type of conformity that usually goes unseen is when one is actually trying to separate themselves. For example, someone getting a tattoo or wearing neon colored clothing or something else that wouldn't be considered the norm would actually be conforming to those who try and separate themselves as well. So I guess everyone conforms in one way or another, and the harder they try not to the more they are conforming.

Conformity

In class we discussed the idea of conformity either at a younger age, in school, or later on once taking APs and honors courses. In my opinion we need to conform at an early age to be able to have the basic structural foundation inorder to communicate and relate with the rest of society. But as we move on and become more mature we should be able to move away from conformity and towards developing our own ideas. Once at higer levels in highschool and college it is important that students move away form conformity and start challeneging commonly believed idea and start forming their own ideas. But total nonconformity would just be unproductive and would lead to unnessary questioning.

Pg. 1018 #4

I find that Kuper shows the most sympathy towards Gregor because of the way he shows each characters distinct facial expressions. First off, he depicts Gregor's father and boss as two very cruel, strict, German men who have no tolerance or patience. He also actually puts a face on Gregor rather than showing a full transformation into a bug. This detail helps us understand Gregor's emotions and attitudes. Kuper is almost showing Gregor some respect by giving him a human like face and showing his facial expressions with his feelings.

Leaderless Discussion

One of the topics that came up during our discussion was the idea of are people naturally born as good or bad. Although many have argued that people are naturally bad and need to be repressed and controlled, it is my opinion that people are born neutral and it depends on their experiences they have while they are being raised. For example, if a child is born into an abusive family or a family of criminal with bad morals they will follow their lead and become instinctually bad. However, when people are born into a more religious or moralistic family they tend to live they live following a good value system with good morals. Thus, determining if a person is naturally good or bad comes from the situation they are born into.

Heart of Darkness Intro

            Marlow’s journey into Africa is not just a journey to find Kurtz but also to find himself. It is evident that Marlow is fascinated with Kurtz; his accomplishments, reputation and demeanor intrigue Marlow because he actually wishes he could be like Kurtz but, as Sigmund Fried would say, his super ego is suppressing his desires because he realizes despite Kurtz’s accomplishments he is a disturbed man. Kurtz has lost his mind because he has lost his mind because his super ego is no longer maintaining his moral values. The lack of checks and balances has corrupted Kurtz and has become the man who Freud describes. Marlow experiences more than most people do in a lifetime; therefore, when he returns he finds his old world dull and boring. Marlow’s journey has helped him realized his subconscious and why he is the person he is.

Worksheet Q#5

When Marlow mistake the shrunken head as decorations it is just emphasizing the how wrong Kurtz's mentality and ideas for the future are. It isn't normal for heads to look like decoration, if someone could possibly mistake these for each other than there is certainly something wrong. Peoples deaths should be recognized but not make fun of. This one picture only further illustrates how corrupted the European mindset is about imperialization.

Essay Ideas

I am thinking of talking about how Marlow changes throughout the journey and how his subconscious becomes more visible as he has to act without preparation. We see he becomes less cohesive and his ideas and thoughts begin to blend. Although he remains intrigued by Kurtz during his journey thats about the only thing that remains constant about Marlow.

The Psychological Journey

We as readers follow Marlow but what he does and thinks is dictated by his subconscious. We can tell from his speech patterns when he is worried or concerned but he may not realize as much as we do. As he moves down the river he beings to encounter past memories and we see how he feels about different symbols. As he faces uncertainty and realizes the lack of civilization his though process becomes scattered and incoherent.

Pg 430 #6

I think the painting represents Marlow and his journey. The torch represents someone lighting the way, like how Marlow is leading the trip into Africa. The Blindfold is a symbol of Marlow not knowing what to expect. The painting is ironic however, because why would someone who is blindfolded need light? But the painting is also a symbol of what the Europeans are doing in African. They think they are leading them towards the light but actually they don't know what they are doing and are actually leading them towards darkness.

Heart of Darkness Pg. 429 #2

Marlow beings his tale with the account of London in "very old times, when the Romans first came here" because he wants to show the relationship between the how savage and uncivilized London was yet they were the ones invading and spreading their culture. Maybe this colonization was what set up certain African countries for failure. Marlow wants to emphasize how ironic it is that people who are not capable of being civilized still believe that they need to expand and spread their culture, values and beliefs.