Curation Progress (Blog 7)

        The largest and most difficult part of starting my curation project/blog was choosing the right music. Since I did Old school hip hop and new school hip hop, I basically had to sift through what felt like the whole Internet in order to end up with exactly what I wanted. Of course I started out with a crazy, freak ugly list of songs because it was such a mess. But I figured I'd properly sift through that list once my brain started to function again.

         After feeling brain dead from song searching, I decided to do research on the list of artists and songs I had found and thought that could clear out that three page list. That doesn't sound like much of an accomplishment, but once I finished going through half that list, I felt like I could breathe again.  Also, after all that research, I found out that one of the most prominent hip-hop artists (MF Doom) used an alias for one of his albums. I was always wondering why that album was so impossible to find and without even trying, I found my answer.

My next three steps will be to finish sifting through that freak list and narrow it down to just the essentials, then to organize them in the order that I want them to show up, and then to finally begin typing up descriptions/thoughts on the songs.

Best of the Week: Shakespeare (Blog 6)

        Reading Shakespeare this quarter has actually been anything but the stereotypical, mind numbing reading of Romeo and Juliet . Our class is taking a pretty unconventional approach to reading A Midsummer Night's Dream and that rules because it puts a lot of people out of their comfort zone (including me). I absolutely sound like a fourth grader saying "it rules", but putting us out of our comfort zone by making us stand in front of the class and read with legitimate emotion is a pretty good idea. It's kind of a funny, get to know you better exercise that pushes us to see this play, and our classmates, from a different perspective. Rather than having every aspect of the play explained to us like kindergarteners and still not understanding it, we've got to learn to comprehend what we read ourselves (even though we've still got help).

        But I think the best part might be that Mr. Allen won't take our crap when it actually comes to reading out loud. If it sounds bad when you say it, lucky you, you get to do it again. He has no shame about it and I think that's actually pretty funny. You can suddenly see people starting to regret their decision to go up and perform the part of Puck in rapping form because all of the blood drains out of their face and they look like they want to vomit. But I've honestly never had such a positive experience with in-school Shakespeare. 

Blogging Around

          The first comment I posted was on Nigel Howard's blog on "Tenacity and College". He spoke of freedom and being taught grit just as I would have described it, though the composition of his words is basically incomparable to mine (he writes so beautifully). I felt I could just relate to him so well because our current experiences are very similar.

"I've probably read this over three or four times by now, and what you've said resonates with me on such a dramatic level that I'm not even sure I understand it. Having freedom so close that I could practically feel it on the tips of my fingers, I'm coming to realize, is an overwhelmingly common feeling considering our circumstances. Our parents are teaching us really similar lessons, your mom talks about it in terms of windows and doors and my dad is straight up with me "you have to be clever." Telling me i have to be realistic and handle situations like an adult, use your brain and opportunities that you could have never imagined will be coming to you. Either way, I can relate to you. Grit absolutely  had to be shoved in my face by someone who understands it, and it was effective. You worded this post better than I ever could have. You've really got a way with words Nigel. "

         The second blog I left a comment on was Sophia Almeroth's blog. She put up a simple video of one guy dancing and how one person can impact hundreds. She made a lot of good points about the necessity of such acts in order to create change in the world today. 

"Sophia, I absolutely agree with you. You've singled out such a simple moment, and brought out the true nature of the situation. That sounds pretentious types out, but it's true. The sheer simplicity of this is what makes it so amazing, one ridiculous dude starts dancing and then it's hundreds of ridiculous people dancing. All of a sudden it's a movement and you're right, something like this is so critical for our future. When you get down to the core of it, that one guy who got up and started dancing made a change and it was as simple as getting up and flailing your freaking arms around. It's not always that simple, but you pointed out that this is how we as humans create change. How applicable is this to the real world? Extremely. I think you said all of the right things in this and I appreciate your post. "

Best of Today: Andy Rooney's Views on Post Modern Art

My initial thought when Mr. Allen pulled up the video of Andy Rooney was that we get to watch a wonderful documentation of the oldest man in the world speaking so highly of post modern art and the unbelievable talent we see before our eyes everywhere we to these days, though I quickly realized how absolutely wrong I was. 

          After just 30 seconds into the video, I thought "I'm going to marry this man". His sarcasm and blunt approach to explaining his views on post modern art not only obviously made me fall in love with this beautiful man but all that he said resonated with me on a level that I didn't think many people would agree with. Rooney pointed out that nowadays people just fill in empty space where it doesn't need to be filled with some unsettling piece of art (ex. Rainbow barfcloud painted bull) and he said "does that really look better than nothing would?". He's got very strong opinions, but in all honesty, I think they're brilliant. 

I sound like I'm kissing some crazy old man's butt, but he just got it absolutely right. And most of the time, all of this unsettling art we see, we try our best to like it and I know in the last that I've tried to convince myself for so long that I like those ugly bright barf painted bulls when in actuality they are probably the stupidest things I have ever seen. A lot of the time empty space is needed because it has a beautiful effect on our surroundings. These ugly art pieces crowd us when they aren't even  needed and very few people seem to realize that. 

Maybe I'm just as nuts as Andy Rooney.

Blogging Around

In Nicole H's post, Nicole reflects upon the organization of her closet (her chair) and the accomplishment felt after having organized one of the most impossible areas of a room.

Comment:

StaceyDecember 10, 2012 10:55 PM

All I could think while reading this was "tru dat". So many people of the opposite sex don't realize how scary girls really are. We aren't made of flowers and giggles and we definitely do poop (pardon the yucky reference to people saying that girls don't poop), but I'm trying to emphasize that when it comes to a system of organization, most of us are pretty awful and this post just rang so true. My chair and my floor have become my closet but after all is organized (after a million and five hours) it feels miraculous. Miraculous enough to reward oneself with a four hour nap. We are the same person and props on this beautifully worded post.

In Isana P's post, she talks about the struggles of correctly organizing her makeup and getting pumped up by "T Swift" in the process.

Comment:

StaceyDecember 10, 2012 11:11 PM

I feel exactly the same way as you, except for the whole mold thing. And knowing you, the mold part is actually true, there are probably seventeen different classes of mold creating different WORLDS in your room (hehe, well deserved because of the over usage of "T swift" in your post). But I constantly go through this same process, and its true, after cleaning one thing so efficiently and beautifully you're left itching to clean it all. But kudos on all of the make-up organization, it's a lot harder than it seems to those who haven't gotten the wonderful chance to clean up the most disgusting mess one can leave behind (I dont mean you specifically ;)). I'm proud of you though, whether you believe me or not.

Get Organized

        Like most fairly messy teens like myself, I so dreaded the start of this organizaition fiasco because I had a feeling it would take me forever because of my habit of procrastinating on things I don't want to do.

Though I guess my idea of organization would be perceived as a hot mess from someone else's point of view, and to be completely honest, I am absolutely okay with that for the time being. I like to think of it as organized chaos.

Of course I'm not entirely unorganized, there are very few things that I compulsively tailor to my liking, and there has been one important aspect of my being that has yet to be properly settled into the dwelling cave I call a room...
                      My movies.

Over the year or two, I've really taken a liking to collecting my favorite movies, as well as movies i have yet to watch, mostly on tape. Except the problem is that I come  home and leave them in the plastic bag they were placed in and leave them there until they eventually find their own way out. The end result is piles of movies covering what is apparently supposed to be my floor. Ask anyone who has been in my room, it's like tip toeing through an old war zone with hidden underground mines.

I was sitting in my room and I almost didn't know what to do with myself because of the extent of this actually ridiculous mess, but I had to throw myself into it and thought that once I got going, it would go smoother than in my past experiences.

After an hour and a half of sifting through over 150 movies, and arranging them alphabetically (which was a surprisingly calming procedure), saying that I felt accomplished was an understatement. These films were no longer a burden on my brain and my room also didn't look like a pack of wild boars plummeted through the ceiling. I felt like there was a little extra breathing room in my lungs once I was finished, and it was honestly a freeing feeling, no matter how pretentious all of that sounds.

Blogging Around

 

Stacey said...

To be honest, I love every last sentence that Nicole has written here. It makes me laugh and it makes perfect sense, all the while she's talking about how she makes no sense. We lived and breathed structure and organization, and then they told us that it's more fun for everyone if we don't do it the way we were originally taught.

October 10, 2012 9:48 PM

          NicoleH's blog prompt cracks me up every time I read it, and she's SO right. We were force fed the fundamentals of organization and structure (especially in english classes) until our ears bled and we had to sit there and take it. And no matter how disgustingly dreadful education was back in the day, our teachers were right to make us learn it that like that. You have to really learn the basics before you can go off doing your own thing, because if you never learn the basics then chances are, you aren't going to make any sense and no one will care about a single word you say. And Nicole had a really good point, the most difficult part was learning to think in a way where others would understand you because that was surely an enormous struggle for me for so many years.

 

Stacey said...

MarieT is absolutely right, these overwhelmingly vibrant and passionate children are basically born into confinement and their lives are set for them from day one. She captures that big idea so well.

October 10, 2012 9:18 PM

        Obviously, most people chose "Born Into Brothels" as best of the week for the last blog that we did, though I think that all of that attention is justified. These kids had such curiosity..such hunger for life and knowledge that they truly valued, it was incredible. Marie makes a good point that not many of us truly appreciate what we have, because let's face it, we've got a lot. But it makes sense, so many of us were born into this lifestyle that we just grew accustomed to all that we have and everything started to blend in, just like those kids were born into a situation that I wouldn't wish upon anyone. Their dreams seemed so wild to them because they hadn't known anything outside of what they were born into, while our dreams (which still seem pretty wild to me) appear to be more realistic because of the flexibility of our lives.