Week Seven

Something rare is happening in the world of ballet: At the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C., two African-American dancers will be the leads in The Washington Ballet’s production of Swan Lake: Misty Copeland, soloist with American Ballet Theatre, will dance the dual role of Odette and Odile, while Brooklyn Mack of The Washington Ballet will dance Prince Siegfried. Copeland and Mack have something in common that is also rare for young African-Americans: teachers who saw their potential early on and broke the unwritten rule that all ballet dancers must look alike.

Week Six.

A much-needed reminder.

Week 5.

If you're ever feeling down, remember these pictures of Nicole Kidman celebrating signing her divorce papers from Tom Cruise.

Podcast 3.

Podcast 2.

First podcast.

Week 4.

"When Ameneh Bahrami rejected a man’s marriage proposal, he turned bitter and threw acid into her face leaving her with extreme disfigurements. She went through 19 agonising operations and is permanently blind, but this didn’t stop her wanting justice on the man who ruined her life. In court, the judge wanted the accused to serve a lengthy prison sentence and pay full compensation to Ameneh, but she had different ideas: She asked if she could have exact revenge, by injecting acid into the man’s eyes. The court allowed it as a capital punishment, and arrangements were made for Ameneh to inject 20 drops of acid into her attacker’s eyes to blind him."

Week 3.

It's been one whole week since I've reached the ending of Breaking Bad and I don't think I will ever love another human being as much as I love this show.

Week 2

I'm really starting to believe that I was Ina Garten in a past life.

Alone together.

            The overarching theme of Sherry Turkle’s articles is that as our usage of technology as a resource has expanded, it has come at the expense of our communication with eachother. As human beings, somewhere along the way, we have lost the ability to connect with one another, due to our overusage and possible obsession with technology. She uses examples of families being together, yet using their smartphones and computers while they are in a space together, and as Turkle says, we are “alone together”.

            In a sense, I do believe that Turkle makes a valid point. We have become so reliant on our smartphones and other forms of social technology that we do not know how to exist without it. Somehow, technology has become this shoulder we can lean on, or a system of comfort. Whenever we feel a way about something, instead of taking it up with another person, we often immediately run to social media to vent about our personal issues. Though we might have someone within arm’s reach to discuss our issues with, we seek comfort from other people through the usage of technology, abandoning those close to us for someone else on the opposing end of the screen.

            In my own personal life, I can sometimes pick up on the themes that Turkle describes in her articles. I rarely leave my phone at home, and when I do, it feels as if I am missing a limb. At work, I catch myself occasionally slipping away to the bathroom to check my phone, and even at social events, it is rare for me to be out without checking my phone once.  Although I do not believe that I am extremely bad in my habits with my cellphone, there are times where my friends and I go out for dinner and drinks, and I feel obligated to take away their phones whenever they spend too much time on them while we’re together. It was only last week when I had to confiscate my mother’s phone at a restaurant because she was too preoccupied with updating her facebook.

            However, this does not mean that we are doomed to be this way. In our own lives, we must regulate our usage of technology. It is up to us to determine when it is appropriate to use technology/social media and when it is not.  The solution is for us to stop relying on our technology for connections with people and actually focus on strengthening our connections and interpersonal relationships with the people around us. After all, putting our phones down and actually engaging with eachother may be our last saving grace.

The Process of Blogging

PUBLISH A POST WHERE YOU COMMENT ON THE PROCESS OF BLOGGING – HOW HAS IT WORKED FOR YOU, WHAT HAVE YOU LEARNED, HOW WILL YOU PROCEED WITH YOUR BLOG?

The process of blogging on Blogger has been an interesting one. Though I am already familiarized with blog sites like Tumblr, I've never really tried my hand out at Blogger, so it was a new experience for me. After finding where all the key setting buttons and things like  that are located, working on Blogger is fairly self-explanatory. Then again, I feel like there are more features to Blogger that I haven't quite learned yet that would be a challenge for me. Proceeding, I feel like I'll just use Blogger for this course and continue to use my Tumblr in the aftermath, but I think it'll be interesting experimenting with this site.

Poetry Challenge From 2013 I Found That I Never Did.

Day 1: Write a poem where each line starts with a letter from your first name (an Acrostic). It can be about anything, but it should not be about you or your name.

Day 2: Who was the last person you texted? Write a five-line poem to that person.

Day 3: Find the nearest book (of any kind). Turn to page 8. Use the first ten full words on the page in a poem. You may use them in any order, anywhere in the poem.

Day 4: Write a haiku (a three line poem where the first line has 5 syllables, the second line has 7 syllables, and the third line has 5 syllables). Haikus are often about nature, but yours can be about anything.

Day 5: Write a three-line poem about lemons without using the following words: lemon, yellow, round, fruit, citrus, tart, juicy, peel, and sour.

Day 6: Write a poem of any length incorporating every word from your latest FB status update in an order.

Day 7: Take a short walk outdoors in your surrounding environment. When you find an object you identify with, write a poem using the image as a metaphor for yourself or your life.

Day 8: Write a Cinquain on a topic of your choice (1st line = 2 syllables, 2nd line = 4 syllables, 3rd line = 6 syllables, 4th line = 8 syllables, 5th (final line) = 2 syllables).

Day 9: Quickly jot down four verbs, four adjectives, and four nouns. Write a poem utilizing all 12 words.

Day 10: Pick a one-line song lyric to serve as an epigraph to your poem. Then, write the poem to accompany it. The poem need not be directly related to the song.

Day 11: Write a list poem.

Day 12: Tell your life story in 6 words (see smithmag.net for more on this … ).

Day 13: Write a short poem that a child would like.

Day 14: Write a bad poem; make it as lousy as you can, do everything wrong. Let yourself be awful.

Day 15: Rewrite (“regenerate”) any poem you wrote in the first two weeks of the 30dpc. (see rigormort.us if you’d prefer to regenerate someone else’s poetry…).

Day 16: Spend some time with a favorite poem (written by someone else). Write a poem in response to (or in dialogue with) that poem.

Day 17: Write a poem that employs a rhyme scheme. It can be a poem in verse or not. “Tell it slant” or not.

Day 18: Write a poem without any end rhyme, only internal rhyme.

Day 19: Imagine yourself performing any household task/chore, then write a poem using what you’ve imagined as an extended metaphor for writing: an Ars Poetica.

Day 20: Write a narrative poem detailing a specific childhood memory.

Day 21: Select one of the poems you’ve already written as part of this challenge and revise it by choosing all new verbs.

Day 22: What is the first car you bought/drove/remember? Write a poem about it.

Day 23: Write a seven line poem that begins with “it’s true that fresh air is good for the body” (from Frank O’Hara’s poem “Ave Maria”) and ends with “this is our body” (from Gary Snyder’s “The Bath”).

Day 24: Write a poem that’s different in some way from anything you’ve ever written. Take a chance! Be wild!

Day 25: Write a poem that includes all of the following words: pistachio, ink, pebble, weather, varnish.

Day 26: Gather some magazines/catalogs you don’t mind cutting up and spend 10 minutes flipping through the magazines/catalogs looking for words/sentences that spark your interest. Cut out the words as you go. When the 10 minutes are up, arrange the words to piece together a cut-up poem.

Day 27: Write the poem you’ve been too afraid to write.

Day 28: Visit a virtual museum gallery and take a look around until you find an object that intrigues you. Write a poem inspired by the artwork.

Day 29: Briefly research a poetic form of your choice and write a poem according to the rules of that particular form. It can be a received form or a nonce form.

Day 30: Write a poem employing extended metaphor to illustrate the experience of the last 30 days as you were participating in the challenge.