A Conversation on Being

Credits to Michael Hilton on Flickr

So we live in a time that I feel can best be described as exposed.  Things you type on your computer can reach the other side of the world in an instant; you can learn about the lives of strangers with just a quick scroll through their blog.  But although technology has made us all more exposed, it has made us all more connected.  And when you’re exposed and connected to so many people, you have to take into consideration the narrative you’re putting into the world because that’s how you build up the weird thing we call a “self”.

I was listening to this radio interview with Seth Godin and it was part of a series called A Conversation on Being.  Basically, he was talking mostly about the wide range of ways that people express themselves, and in turn how they market themselves.  How we are all artists and how we all create, whether we realize it or not.

Godin made sure to say that art isn’t just paint on a canvas; he defined it as doing things with the right intent, for the first time, in a way that has an impact.  So the poetry that you wrote in the margins of your notebook?  That’s art.  The freaking awesome play your theater group put on?  That’s art, too.  But what about the things we do in class?  The things we’re usually assigned and graded on?  Is that art?  I think it’s art if you look at it and can say you’re proud of it.  I think this is more true in English class than any other.

In my English class, we focus a lot on creating.  Creating essays, creating blog posts, and ultimately creating a book that is a collection of the essays that we write in class.  This is implying that the work we do in class should be something we’re proud enough of to share with other people.  This pride in your work is one of the key aspects that Godin says contributes to its value.  Another thing Godin insists is essential to marketing yourself well is having the right “tribe”, a group of people who we choose to belong to.  I think my English class does a great job of developing these tribes: there’s the people I sit next to that I depend on for feedback on all my essays, and there’s the group of friends I consult with as we start to patch together our book.

Godin wants to redefine marketing as making a story that resonates with the intended audience.  The goal is not to effect large numbers of people on a superficial level, but to deeply influence maybe a pocket of people, whom your ideas really speak to.  I have a bit of trouble expressing my ideas to people, however small the audience, because I have a fear of my work not being good enough, or my answer being wrong.  Godin describes this as the voice in our head that tells us, “You’ve gone too far; don’t show this to anyone.”  But obviously, there’s no way you can get a reaction from an audience if you refuse to give them anything, so I’m working on overcoming my fear of being wrong and to instead improve my ideas so that I think they’re ready for public consumption.

The most interesting thing I took from this Conversation on Being was that no matter what you do, there’s a trail you leave behind.  Once someone documents it, there’s a sort of immortality to your actions.  I do disagree with Godin’s point about how we need to know our audience before we even meet them.  Having preconceived notions of whom you’re writing to can be dangerous, especially if it affects the honesty of your writing.  It’s good to have an idea of who you want to reach, but you can’t really imagine each individual’s mindset towards your art without letting them react first.  I think the best thing to do is to create something you’re proud of and then hope for the best.

I really wish that Godin would’ve expanded more on spinning the narrative of our daily lives.  Because I believe that every day we make decisions that affect the people around us, and that’s how we leave our trail.

Keep creating,
Celine

Word Vomit

 

Ah, the horrors of public speaking.

I think most people have experienced the painful anxiety before a presentation in front of the class.  I certainly have.  No matter how prepared I think I am, no matter how many times I talk myself through what’s going to happen, I’m always nervous.  Sometimes, just slightly.  Others, on the verge of hyperventilating.  Sigh.  You’d think at some point, I would’ve gotten used to it by now.

It’s always been a goal of mine to be able to articulate my ideas clearly, and while I’m no wordsmith (dream job, right there), I hope I’m able to get my point across rather decently most of the time.  Thinking to myself?  No problem.  Writing?  Sure.  Discussing with my friends?  So unbelievably natural.  Alright, how about presenting?  No.  Thank.  You.

So, this week in English, we’re doing a BRAWL, which is basically a competitive Socratic Seminar to analyze and answer predetermined questions about the novel we’re reading.  And there is nothing that makes me feel worse than having a well-defined answer written down and then stammering your way through the first sentence until you’ve given up all hope.  Did I mention this was a team competition?  Sorry guys, I tried.  The thing is, I don’t really like to read directly from the paper, and neither does the rest of my team.  We use it as a reference and as a foundation for our answer, but we can choose to add whatever insight we see fit.  The only thing is, the other members are a lot better at doing that than I am.

And now I’ve run out of things to say even though I was sure I had more planned out in my head.  Well, it’s certainly not the first time this has happened.

And… now I’m done.

To be continued at an earlier hour on a later day,

Celine

Looks Can Be Deceiving

So my English class has moved on from the death and devastation of World War I, and we are now exploring the turmoil and treachery of post-Napoleonic France.  Oh yes, we’re reading The Count of Monte Cristo.  Or should I say the Count of Hottie Cristo?  I can’t believe I just said that.  Am I besmirching the name of Alexandre Dumas?  But come on, look at that face.

This one has the dark and brooding thing down.

This one looks like Kevin Jonas.

This one has the smolder.

Let’s not overlook the fact that the one in the middle is basically Kevin Jonas from the 1800’s.  You know a guy is handsome when he can work the sideburns, though, admittedly, those are probably best left in the nineteenth century.  I just hope he doesn’t pull a Hans on me.

In addition to the teenage heartthrob covers, let’s talk a little about the actual story.  It’s very romantic.  And I don’t mean that it places unnecessary stress on romantic relationships; the book will probably end with two dead and five wounded, but it was written during the Romantic period.  (But I’ll have to check my AP Euro notes because I don’t exactly remember what that means.)

Historical relevance aside, the book is absolutely captivating.  I’m barely a fifth of the way in and I can feel myself becoming more and more invested with the story.  I don’t want to go into too much detail yet because spoilers, but I will tell you one thing.  This book is about the Count of Monte Cristo.

A Read for Speed

Reading is supposed to be a leisure activity, right?  I mean, it’s something you do in your free time to get away from the overwhelming burden of reality.  I’m pretty sure I enjoy reading.  I’ve been doing it ever since I was young.  I can name series that have molded me into who I am today.  So why is it when that I’m assigned reading, I avoid it like no other?

It always starts the same.  I’m given a reading schedule and for the first three days I follow it to the page number.  If I’m feeling feisty, I may even read ahead.  The first reading check quiz comes, I feel good because I actually retained some information and then… I somehow manage to fall hopelessly behind until I’m scrambling to finish the book with a deadline looming over me.

Then I saw this on my Facebook wall:

Needless to say, I was amazed.  So some genius identified the point of a word that your brain uses to comprehend its meaning and he highlights it so that you can read exponentially faster, no training required.  Do you understand how useful this would be?  I might actually be able to read through my textbooks without dozing off, and my reading time would probably be cut in half.

There’s just one problem.  Do flashing words and red letters take away the novel-ty of reading?  I’ve never even been all too comfortable with e-readers, let alone an app for speed reading.  Spritzing, while clearly an innovative new method, seems more suited for informative text rather than works of fiction.  I just wonder if it would make reading less enjoyable.

Which brings me back to my first question.  Why do reading assignments seem so much less enjoyable than leisure reading?  Well that’s just it.  It’s the idea of being told to read versus choosing to read.  Active learning will always be more effective than passive learning.  That’s part of the reason why Spritzing is so effective; it requires active participation.  So whether or not I choose to speed read in the future, I think I’ll take more time to appreciate what a book means to me, rather than dwelling on the fact that it’s required reading.  I’m quite fond of A Tale of Two Cities and All Quiet on the Western Front, both of which were assigned in my sophomore English class.  Oh, and if you don’t like what you’re reading?  Just power through it like there’s no tomorrow.

MLK Day

There are very few people who have changed the course of history so drastically that their imprint may never be revoked from this world.  There are even fewer whose actions give me the opportunity to take a day off from school.  Thank you, Martin Luther King, Jr.

First and foremost, yes, I would like to acknowledge my extraordinary gratitude for the extra day to study for finals.  It was much appreciated and very necessary.  But that is the least meaningful gift you have bestowed onto this world.  You have changed the way that people look at each other.  Your words still echo with their earnest, with their conviction.  You do not judge a person by the color of his skin.  No, you judge a person by the content of her character.  You had a dream.  A dream that was pushed forward by protest, by indignation, by the power of an outspoken mind united against the injustice being shoved down our throats.  Thank you.

I am sorry that I only remember you from what I learned in elementary.  I am sorry that I am too consumed in trivial things to remember the sacrifices of those before me.  Forgive me.  I am only trying my best in a world that is brighter because of you.

Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.  – Martin Luther King, Jr.

Recalled to Write

So I’m not sure if anyone’s noticed but I missed my weekly post last week and I was super bummed out about it.  I wasn’t too disappointed in myself really, and I wasn’t worried about disappointing my nonexistent viewship, but I missed writing.  I really did.  I missed being able to type things out and see the little scrollbar form along the page, as it slowly becomes thinner and thinner with each press of a button.

One thing about me.  I am a perfectionist.  A lot of people are.  But I’m also really lazy.  A lot of people are.  And I read a quote about the combination of perfectionism and procrastination, and it’s not the best thing.  I’ve had countless of unfinished projects because I’m just too scared of seeing how they will turn out.  I’m so attached to their being good ideas, successful ideas, that sometimes I’d rather not take the chance with them.  I liked to keep them locked up in my head, safe from any real world criticism, or heaven-forbid utter failure.  But if my ideas never come to life, they’ve already failed.  And that just makes me sad.  It’s the same thing with parents and their children.  No matter how much you want to protect them, one day, they’re gonna have to leave the nest.  And if all goes well, they’ll soar.  And if they fall, you can only hope they’ll be strong enough to get back up.  And that’s absolutely terrifying.  There’s a point in time when you realease an idea, and it’s no longer yours.  It’s public domain, and the public can be a tough crowd.  Still, I’m attempting to convince myself there’s no harm in trying (and definitely no harm in typing).

In the classic novel A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens, one (or more!) of the characters is Recalled to Life.  And even in reading, the meaning of that iconic phrase can remain as ambiguous as you want it to be.  And however way you choose to take the message, hopefully it’s one of Hope.  (I don’t know man, Dickens really likes to capitilize words.  Who does he think he is, Margo Roth Spiegelman?)  Because life is a beautiful and treacherous thing, and sometimes we all just need to be called back.

Due to my perfectionist nature, I take a long time to write things down.  I like things to be well-planned, written so it seems effortless, and sprinkled with contagious personality.  But my writing will never be perfect, and that’s okay.  Improvement is one of the best feelings in the world, but it shouldn’t become something that defines you.  It should not be an expectation, it’s just an occurance.  So for anyone out there who can relate to that feeling of being to afraid to do what they want, I want you to try a challenge.  Ban the backspace button.  The only exception to the rule is that you have to fix any glaring grammar mistakes or it’ll make me insane.  I’ll have to admit, I cheated a little on this one.  I tried to do it on this post, but I ended up rephrasing things just a little so that they would make more sense.  I tried to omit transitions in this one.  I tried my best not to try, but to feel.  And I have to say with all my heart that this blogpost, which I refuse to edit after I press that fateful button, which I know in my heart could have been written better and with fewer mistakes… I know in my heart that this blogpost is not a failure.  Because it means something to me.  I felt it.  I hope you feel it too.

Subject-ivity

This type of image is called, fittingly enough, an ambigram. I know because I googled “what are those upside down words pictures called”.

The world is shrouded in ambiguity.  There are few things that are absolutely definite.  One of those things is math.  Now there are things about math that are subject to opinion.  For example, if asked if they enjoyed math, many high school students would reply with a resounding “no, it is the bane of my existence”, while others would say that math is their best or favorite subject.  Still others, such as myself, would describe their fondness of math as a love-hate relationship.  But math itself (most of it anyway) is clearly defined.  All the answers are in the back of the book, and there’s a methodical approach to solving for that elusive x.

So let’s say, hypothetically, that your English teacher offered extra credit to anyone who could write a good blog post about math.  We all know that the definition of good is relative.  And, hypothetically of course, in this case, good was described as better than a certain example.  So how are you supposed to find the x factor?  Or more appropriately in my poorly executed metaphor, how am I supposed to find the x variable?

Well there’s no formula to solve this problem, obviously because 1) I’m solving for an unknown in a sea of unknown, and that’s just too many variables for me to compute and 2) This particular standard of success is defined by the opinion of my teacher.  Now who’s to say that my attempt to analyze math philosophically is any better than another person’s effortless explanation of the Pythagorean theorem?  It’s completely up to the reader.

So it looks to me that math isn’t so crystal clear when seen through the eyes of an English teacher.  Then let’s consider something else.  How is an English class supposed to be graded in the same way as Math class?  Math almost always has a definite answer, while English does not.  If you ask for the range of answers for an English function, I’ll simply have to say, “the limit does not exist”.  So it really frustrates me when people act as if a piece of literature can only mean one thing, and then insist upon grading responses to that specific.  Sure grades are one thing, but there’s something else that bothers me even more – being “right”.  How can one assign a degree of correctness to something that is supposed to be freely interpreted?  When the CST (which will soon be changed to Common Core or something…) asks me what I think the message of the story was, they’re not really asking me what I thought the message of the story was.  They’re asking what I think they think the message of the story was.  And that’s just ridiculously contradictory, now isn’t it?  How many times have people said to you, “You can’t expect me to read your mind”?  I understand that the multiple choice is supposed to offer the most noticeable themes in the text, but that is still open to interpretation.  And many well-versed writers will write in a way that allows dual meaning or several possibilities without a definite answer.  The text can be as opened ended as the test questions that follow it because that is what makes reading comprehension so awesomely complex.  No one wants a cookie cutter, straight forward story.  Everything from Doctor Seuss books to The Great Gatsby is stuffed with hidden meanings, allusions, and symbolism.

And even with all that possibility, no one knows for sure.  Not even the author.  Because not even the author has the authoritative power to say “That is what I wrote, and this is what it means.”  If they did, what would be the point of reading?  You read for yourself, not the author, and certainly not for your English teacher.

All this being said, I absolutely adore English and Math.  Maybe for the reasons you think, and maybe not.  But it doesn’t really matter.  Because it’s just my opinion.  And I strongly believe in the right (should I say write? or is it getting old?) for you to have yours.

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I don’t mean to offend anyone by this post, but it shouldn’t because it’s just the opinion of some fifteen year old girl in front of her laptop.  And if you didn’t like this post, although I sincerely hoped it provoked some thought or agreement or oh-so-characteristic teenage angst, at least I ended it with a Mean Girls gif.  I also tried to sprinkle crossovers between Math and English throughout this because I do believe they complement each other.  Just not word problems.  Ugh.

Thanks for reading all the way down to the bottom it really means a lot to me that you don’t mind me being so verbose – love,

Celine

Pumpkin Tao

‘Twas the night after Thanksgiving and our writer sat writing 

In a tale of two pies she found to be delighting 

And hoping her blogpost would spark and would wow

She proceeded to write of the math constant, Tao

Tao is like pi’s older sibling.  He’s better looking and loads more useful, but no one really knows he exists.  It’s a shame really.  Tao is actually twice the man pi is, and mathematically speaking, tao is defined as two pi – 6.28, when rounded to the hundredths place.  So now you know a little bit about tao, but if he’s so useful, why isn’t he being taught in schools?  Why are we all content with the tyrannical over-complication of pi?  To put it simply, we’re too lazy to change what we’ve been doing for such a long time, even if we know that there’s a better way.

And what exactly is tao so useful for?  Radian measure.  For people who know the unit circle…

…this jumble of numbers is a little less intimidating.  When you first see a unit circle, you might expect the full circle to be a measure of one pi.  But it’s not.  It’s two pi.  So though it would make more sense for one fourth of the circle to be pi over four, it’s actually pi over two.  As youtuber vihart explains in her video, the entire radian system would be a whole lot simpler if it was based on tau.  (Sidenote: I highly recommend checking out vihart’s videos because she is a kick-butt female mathematician who is so intelligent it makes my brain hurt.  She also works for Khan Academy.  And is friends with Hank and John Green.  I am seriously jealous.)

Maybe now you’re thinking, sure, using tau would be more efficient, but wouldn’t changing the way we teach the unit circle just be inconvenient?  But that’s exactly the problem.  If there’s a better way to do something, then we should implement it instead of resisting the change because in the long run, the new method will be more effective.  Could this be part of the reason that our government struggles to get things done?  Stick the word reform after a political issue and suddenly it’s a threat.  People don’t like change, but people do like progress, and it’s practically impossible to have the latter without the former.

Take the penny.  The penny is a completely useless form of currency because it does not facilitate the exchange of goods the way other money does.  Try walking into a grocery store and paying for your food in pennies.  Not gonna happen.  Many countries, such as Canada (it seems like they do everything better), have already gotten rid of their pennies without any negative effect.  And not only do pennies serve no purpose, they are debt-inducing.  I mean, it costs more to make a penny than the actual monetary value of a penny!  So for every penny that the U.S. treasury mints, the United States is losing money.  But why can’t we just get rid of pennies?  It’s because this is not an issue that will win votes; it’s not a democrat or republican idea; it’s just a rational proposal that will save the U.S. millions of dollars.  It’s little things like these that really illustrate the human inability to address obvious problems.  I have way too much experience of this in my own life with habits I know to be detrimental, but don’t bother to fix (like sleeping too late, or spending too much time on the fathomless vortex of the internet).  Yes, it’s hard to change, but it doesn’t mean we shouldn’t try.

My reference for the rant on pennies is included above. Thanks for reading!

~Celine

Something Worth Writing For

Writing is an act of passion.  It is meant to cut to the heart of the conflict, the root of reality, the soul of the reader.  Writing is an act of elegance.  It is when the words float daintily along the page, followed by the strings of their meanings.  Writing is an act of defiance.  It is something that is really, truly yours, even when the world is trying to say otherwise.  Writing is an act of trust.  It is sharing your innermost thoughts, from each crevice, every corner of your mind, without the slightest idea of how you will be received.  Writing is one of the most beautiful, magical, and humble forms of human expression, and we take it for granted.

We begin use it solely in practicality.  We forget that behind the jumbles of letters, there is real sentiment, actual intention.  We forget what makes writing so very special.

So how do we keep the magic alive?  What gives life to writing?  Reading.  Reading lightly and reading deeply.  I truly believe that books are portals to different worlds; they let you peek into someone else’s mind.  Books are a great act of kindness.  In reading them we gain from a writer’s sacrifice.  Books are their gifts to the world.

 

Write On

-draft mode- NaNoWriMo

update: That up there is what I wrote when it was still November which is National Novel Writing Month, or NaNoWriMo.  To any of you who have ever wanted to write a novel, that’s awesome.  To any of you who have ever tried to write a novel, it’s insanely difficult.  I’ve tried.  All writing involves story telling.  Even essays are just overly organized, and sometimes overly boring, stories.  I myself have never actually participated in NaNoWriMo, but ultimately I have to admit that every year I’m too scared of failure to actually start.  I know, I know, that’s no way to live life, but still, it’s hard.  Novels are very complicated things that take lots of time and care to construct.  And let me be clear, many novels take years to write.  Unless, of course, you’re James Patterson.  So instead of talking about my successes in writing, I want to talk about the obstacles that stand in the way of you creating your perfect story.

maybe later… I’ll have to put off finishing this post yet again because my internet is about to shut down.