Everything I Need to Know...

I was scared, I was lost, I was confused and I felt alone. Beginning high school was probably one of the scariest times I've ever had. Once I was here at Millbrook I was totally lost. So many people, so many classes(A, B schedule right??) so much to do, and such little time in four years. I had no clue where my place and boy would it take sometime to find it. The middle of sophmore year we had to make a choice, to do IB or not to do IB. My initial thoughts, no thanks too much, don't want to do that. After lots of consideration and a large amount of influence from my parents I decided that maybe IB was a good idea. Junior year, I had many mixed feelings towards the program, I loved parts of it and I hated other parts. Now, looking back as a senior, I see it was one of the best decisions I've made. It was one of the hardest things I have had to do, and while my grades weren't always the best throughout the program, the relationships I made were so worth it. I made life long friends and got close with people that I never would have even imagined being friends with. I'm now apart of a family, and that is totally worth the sleepless nights, endless hours of wondering what I'm being yelled at in French, and countless IA's and word counts.

Witty Whitman

Part 1:
*Two Characters as a dialogue*
*Letters for a president elect*
*Dialogue between  (IDK what that said) and President elect.* -This was actually about Licoln, I thought it was just about some random person or someone made up.
He crosses out a lot.
* I will see how much you can stand* (Testing?) - * I shall see the crash* - later includes perhaps, trying to create a feeling of hope.
* Does the Queen of England represent a thousand years*
Multiple pictures of what seems to be the same man, each picture changes a bit and adds something new.
*Poem, the halls of brooklyn?*
The first thing that I think when I saw this is that his brain was rather scattered brain, and cluttered. He jumped from topic to topic randomly and just seemed to have random thoughts written down. This shows us that he had lots on his mind, which probably led to a lot of things to write poems about. I think it is very significant that he included a question mark around the word poem, showing that not everything was a poem or even began as a poem.

Part 2:
I think it is very important that Witman and Lincoln never really conversed, but yet he seemed to have this connection with him...he could infer information just from his facial expressions. I think its really interesting how a lot of what he is writing about is very historical, not just events that pertain to him. I also think it's rather interesting that I couldn't tell that simply from looking at what he wrote down. To me it all just seemed to be random thoughts or events that could happen or happened to him, but I was wrong.

The American Dream

1. How would you describe the “American Dream?”

I think the American dream is based around the hope of wealth and freedom. It is our hope to have material secuirty and happiness. 

2. What is your definition of wealth?

My definition of wealth is happiness. I dont think that when it comes to wealth money really matters. To be truley wealthy you need to be happy. While, this is what I think, many would disagree with this, and I think America during this time would say that wealth is solely based around money.

3. What are Americans’ attitudes toward wealth and poverty?

Americans think that wealth, as in money, is the only way to be truly happy and that anyone who is poor or in poverty is living an unfulfilling life. 

4. What is your attitude toward wealth and poverty?

I completely disagree with what America thought during this time. Money isnt the only thing that matters, and often it just creates stress and makes people unhappy. Clearly, America learned this because the obsession with money led to the Great Depression, which lead to many hardships for America. 

Nothing Really Mattress

Translation 1:
Diction:

• Gigantic-seems huge, bigger than giant, larger than life
• As- we are reading this while it was occurring
• Insect- less repulsive than bug, more scientific

Syntax:

Since morning comes before uneasy dreaming, it seems that the morning is more significant than the uneasy dreaming. Including transformed in his bed creates more of a creepy feeling because we begin to imagine an insect in our beds

Imagery/Details: 

• Uneasy dreams- creates a picture for the reader of someone tossing and turning in their bed
• Into a gigantic insect- we picture a huge bug, and it creates this creepy crawling feeling again. 

Translation 2: 

Diction:

• Changed- connotation- usually changed means for the better, in this instance it would represent the opposite 
• Woke- creates a startled feeling
• Giant- just big, nothing too ordinary
• Bug- creates a creepier feelings than insect

Syntax: Beginning with the characters name puts the focus of the passage on this character and dives right into the event.

Translation 3: 

Diction:

• Troubled- connotation- complicated, somewhat self inflicted. 
• Transformed- more drastic than changed, something bigger than that, something harder to control 
• Enormous- larger than life, extreme  

Syntax: 

Putting troubled dreams before the morning makes the troubled dreams to be more important and the morning is only extra details. 

Imagery:

Again the fact that it states in his bed makes it something that we can picture and even relate to and something that grosses us out even. 

Translation 4: 

Diction:

• Awakening- peaceful, like a fairy tale, not abrupt. 
• Agitated- stressful, uneasy, not calm or peaceful. seems worse than troubled or just uneasy
• Monstrous- like a monster, mean, ugly 
• Vermin- more than just a bug, could be a mouse or something larger

Syntax: 

Placing his name in the middle really takes the focus away from him. It makes it seem like he is not really important to the plot, just a mere addition to help move it along. The use of commas splits it up so that we absorb each section separately, and understand that each part is important. 

How does the word choice, syntax, punctuation, and imagery shift in each affect meaning? 

Each different translation completely changes the way that the reader looks at the text. This all occurs just by changing around the words and how the sentence is formed. In some of the translations, the person is extremely important. In some translations there is a creepier feeling and others it seems to be kind of normal. 

Is one more effective than another? Why? 

Personally I think the last was the most effective. By breaking it up with commas you really look at each part as it has equal importance. I also think the diction was more dramatic and created more images in the readers head. It makes the passage seem to be even more creepy and stressful. Making the character himself not appear until the middle of the sentence makes the reader want to keep reading to see what exactly is going on, not everything is given away right away. 

What does this exercise bring up about the difficulty of reading translated texts?

Translation can be very difficult because we don't always know the authors intention. When translating some words, have many different words that are similar in another language, but have different connotations and create different feelings. Since the translator is not always sure of the authors intentions they don't know for sure if the author wanted it to be on the creepier side, or a little less intense. The different translations can change the tone of each passage because the words and the formation of the sentence makes some words and areas have more importance than others. 

Practice IOC

IOC Practice #2
Handmaid's Tale
Criterion A: Knowledge and Understanding of the text or extract
I think I would have received a 3 for this section of the rubric. While, I did not go very into depth about the context of the extract I did relate my comments to the extract most of the time.

Criterion B:Understanding of the use and effects of literary features
I think I would have gotten a 4 on this section because while I did talk about the use of the literary features, diction, flash backs and figurative language, I failed to adequately explain how they effected the reader.

Criterion C: Organization
For this section I would have given myself a 3. The presentation was organized in a way that made sense, but at some points I would go back to what I had said previously and should have incorporated that earlier.

Criterion D: Language
For this criteria I would give myself a 2. This was probably the weakest part of the commentary because my words would become jumbled and I would have to start over. Also, the language was rather repetitive.

FREEBIE(:

Freebie

The Technology of Story Telling

https://www.ted.com/talks/joe_sabia_the_technology_of_storytelling#t-208826



The argument of this talk is that story telling has evolved over time. He begins by talking originally stories were just boring books, but then Lothar came along. He created the pop up children's book. Then he talked about other types of story telling including the opera, radio news, film, and then even to social media.

I chose to look at this Ted Talk because I thought the idea of story telling through technology would be interesting.

PURPOSE: I think the purpose of this talk was to show that we witness storytelling in our everyday life, even if we don't notice it. I think he is hoping to have us realize that there are stories all around us and to appreciate them.


ETHOS, LOGOS, PATHOS
I think pathos are the most evident in this Ted Talk. He uses music to evoke our emotions. He also talks about childhood and makes us remember the things we did during childhood, like reading pop up books.