Just a reminder that this blog is going to be inactive as i am now only posting to my Wordpress.

Winter Break Topic

My topic or better yet topics consist of synesthesia research that will be from my own experience as well as research that is being published through various scientific networks and even accounts made by other people with the condition, also I will be researching as I have done throughout the year for the GSA that I am the co-president of but I’m still debating whether or not to publish the research or not that I am doing because I’d need to find a way to remove it and put it more in an objective light so that the other students in the GSA are not included without their express permission for various reasons but most importantly their safety and stability. I became interested in researching synesthesia when I was younger because I was discovering a sphere of reality that everyone else thought either only existed with the assistance of hallucinogens or some form of spiritual enlightenment. It existed and continuous to exist in every part of my perception so it’s pretty hard to ignore even when you put express thought and concentration in it. I became interested in our schools GSA because I became friends with a few of its members when I first came to Reghetti but the GSA at that time was more a meet up place for us that didn’t seem to be really anything more than a few of us sitting in a room and talking as we did every there day of the week. though last year I took a more active role and began assisting the president of last year’s GSA who then left school and since I was pretty much the most assertive and stubborn of the group besides my co-president of course, we then were chosen by last year’s members to be the presidents this year and we choose to work together instead of having a single leader because being the head of a GSA is different than any other club because you’re not just dealing with club meetings and what the next fundraiser is going to be (which isn’t really the most fun work anyways) but you’re dealing with social issues and people who just need you even its just to be part of their support system, you also get more hate than any other group on campus and are the most likely to be targeted. So we decided to be leaders together because we brought different things to the table and we just work well together as the group’s leaders but at this point we are more second parents to the group members then anything. For the synesthesia research it requires an awareness of one’s own reality and the distinguishing features between your own and others, also requires being able to sift through the same 4 year articles in order to maybe find a new one in the research field. The requirements for the GSA topic are a little more fluid, I think the most important trait for it is that you have to be adaptable to the constant changing issues but also really stubborn on certain ones as to show that some moral issues like defining the worth of one’s life compared to another based on preference or orientation is one that doesn’t require a devil’s advocate that leans to the side of the one that it perpetuating hate. You also have to stay constantly informed because the difference between our side and others is that ours has to know the issue every which way while the other side can make an allegation and if you don’t have the perfect response then they believe that they’ve one and thoughts eventually become actions and usually those actions aren't the most cordial. Learning about synesthesia is a constantly ongoing process and the value of information spans from just being able to understand another human being better to understanding the biological makeup of the brains different processes and how to apply it to other cases such as neurodegenerative illnesses and so on. The learning of information that goes towards the GSA is also constantly on going because it has to be adapted to the situation and the feel of the social environment. The information is valuable because it can be used by other groups or organizations looking to improve tolerance and social stability within their groups of people or community. If I had to pick a person to meet someone for my synesthesia masterpiece it would either be someone who has done research in the field or other people with synesthesia or multiple forms of it. For GSA I’m already in the process of trying to acquire a grant and also networking with the other leaders of GSAs or similar groups. For story telling across both topics I hope to further use transmedia and digital resources to better paint the picture. I hope to start and continue regularly posting about both topics on a different blog. I’ve decided that blogger just isn’t for me and I’ve already created a WordPress that I will start posting to exclusively from now on. I choose WordPress for its user interface and freedom to create and do more.

The Yellow Fog

In "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock." the fog is metaphor for something deeper than he saw fog and it was yellow. But going off of what was said by Mr. Preston and Alyssa i agree that there was an artificial nature behind the fog. I also found it interesting that the poem deals with fear and how time was slipping because from my own synesthetic stand point yellow usually represents fear as an emotion. So I think it would make since within the poems context because it also deals with his fears of growing older and not living up to his full potential and then rationalizing to himself that there will be more time later.

Hamlet Essay

“Though this be madness, yet there is method in't” I chose this quote because I think it wraps the whole play and defines all of Hamlet’s actions throughout the poem in one efficient sentence. By dissecting this we see that Polonius is starting to realize that Hamlet’s more of a tactical genius than a madmen but Polonius still considers him to be mad because he still doesn’t understand the scope of what Hamlet has set into action. Polonius said this line to himself but this does affect how he interacts with Hamlet in future scenes and the actions he takes to try and learn more information about what Hamlet is really planning, and then enrolling the help of others with his vague assumptions. This is what I think is one of Hamlet’s tactics in play, he knows how intelligent Polonius is and clouds his words in enough metaphor that he would understand to a degree and then want more information, Hamlet was always counting on Polonius to go tattle to someone that had authority over Hamlet as a way to set Claudius off of his balance and give himself the upper hand. This line was spoken at a time in the play when others were still suspicious of Hamlet and what his true motives were so this parcel of suspicion seems larger than it really is because everyone is watching him so closely and that’s exactly what he wanted.

Polonius is used more as a messenger than anything else through the play, his personality help this progress the play by always confiding in authority figures and wanting some form of recognition for his actions leading him to keep delivering them regardless of any actual reward. Almost as if he’s the castle intern and all of Hamlets vague words are the coffees the higher ups are always demanding.

The quote defines Hamlet because despite how much calculation and thought he puts into all of his actions and his words and who he says them to and how, he is considered mad by the other characters. This shows two things, first is that Hamlet is extremely intelligent and the other characters don’t begin to recognize his level of intelligence until most of his plans have been in play for some time and the momentum of them is too great to be stopped, and second is this demonstrates how much control has over himself and his own emotions he has. Hamlets is able to contain the raw emotion he harbors towards the murderer of his father and instead of attack him and get the deed over with he chooses to do it in a way that will make Claudius expose himself. He takes all that emotional energy festering inside of him and mines it directing it to help him reach his goal. He uses his control over his emotion and self to manipulate others into thinking what he needs them to think in order for the next part of his plan to unfold. Hamlet’s actions are totally based off of madness, pure unbridled madness, he’s going mad his father was murdered and his mother is sleeping with the murderer, his friends are turning on him and he’s alone. But what makes this play different from some messed up revenge scheme is Hamlet cages all that madness just beneath all his actions and words, only letting it peak when its beneficial to his ultimate goal and this is the method the method of controlling yourself and your own emotions so that you may change the reality around yourself.

Intro to Poetry

So for the poetry it said maybe to write some poetry and I haven’t written poetry in a little over 6 months according to my last poems date but I do have a bunch of poems written already so I chose two that I thought related to the course and how we talk about everything being a remix and our impact that we have on the world, I’d like to note that I think it’s funny that these poems were written about this time last year and covered very similar topics. Also they’re in more of a stream of conscious style because I usually find that relying on rhyme scheme can be limiting at times.

“How many original thoughts does my mind contain? I’m sure others throughout time and the stretch of reality have shared my thoughts. Do I even have one? Is my consciousness a mirror, am I holding stained reflections of others thoughts? A tally of all my originals would be convenient. So that I could know what direction my mind is racing towards in claiming its own frequency, how many mental copyrights have I broken?”

“What moments does my future solidify, is the future as water, my will a pebble, ripples the pebble at the epicenter, never seeing the ripples only water filling the impact, sinking further, how many ripples were there, how long did they last, were there any at all, these will be the last wonders, only to repeat and be washed ashore, anticipating until I meet the waters boundary between my action and its outcome, to have the same effect and wonder.”

Now I posted these not because I think they’re necessarily good, in fact I see how much I’ve grown as a writer that these make my eyes itch. But the point was to show parallels between the course and works I’ve previously written, I think these show that we may have thought of these same concepts before this class but we were never given the materials or time to take them to such depth.

Poetry Remix

For our groups collaborative poetry remix/jigsaw puzzle we chose the poem “Working Together” by David Whyte. So the whole point of our groups’ giant cardboard jigsaw puzzle was to highlight the theme of the poem which is probably as you already know from the title working together. The poem also touched on the things that we don’t see that can also shape us; I thought this drew a nice parallel with my synesthesia so I incorporated it into my piece.

Using the different colors outside a human’s tonal range wasn’t just to show that I can think in a pop art kind of way but to show how I view people synesthetically. And these colors that make up a person’s personality and eventually work together to create that person’s identity within my own head. The background colors can represent anything from the person’s voice to the colors that they project when I’m around them; it can be their attitude or emotions.  I think that’s one of my favorite parts of my synesthesia is that it’s very complex but easy for me to understand since it is coming from my own head after all, I also like how its intangible and works more in my subconscious so in a way it actually does greatly shape my likes and dislikes and some of my actions. Also as a side note I tried to paint this piece in about thirty minutes only because when I usually paint or draw something I’ll take upwards of seven hours plus total on any given piece. So it was a nice change to just bump out the meaning rather than muddle through the painting details. Also ignore the hair i usually spend half my time on a peices hair but tried to speedpaint.

Imagination Decay

I thought the journal prompt about rather or not your imagination is growing stronger or continuously weakening as you age. Imagination is hard to quantify because it’s such an abstract concept that our words can only grasp at its fumes because words too were meant to solidify the abstract. Different people imagine in different ways, almost as we all speak the same language but we each have mastered a different dialect. Someone who puts most of their concentration and energy towards something such as engineering may have a similar imagination as someone who puts all their concentration into dance, i think this is because imagination is just looked at as the approach and someone who thinks mechanically will approach the same concept as someone who usually approaches concepts abstractly and depending on the concept one person may be considered more imaginative than the other. I think imagination is relative to the concept that is being approached or even created. But I do think imagination can decay over time or strengthen depending on the person who uses it and how often they test it. As someone who is constantly imagining different design elements and figuring out different ways to solidify their own thoughts through art I think that my imagination is at least a little above average. Imagination shapes our lives in ways that seem minuet but eventually grow enough in magnitude that our decisions because of it can’t be ignored, imagination could be the way you try and escape from a bear, the way you talk to people, or the way you view yourself, any of those possibilities eventually shape yourself and how people see you. I think imagination eventually becomes your personality and your character because it does dictate your thoughts, so I guess you are what you imagine.