Virtual Insanity

As I was perusing through the other blogs, I noticed a lot of people made connections of song lyrics to poems. I believe that this connection is valid, since the right song lyrics contain a meaning as deep as certain poems. So, for this blog, I want to analyze the lyrics of a song that I believe has great lyrical value - Virtual Insanity by Jamiroquai.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4JkIs37a2JE

While the video is visually attracting, what I want you to focus on it the lyrics, especially the chorus of the song, which is as follows.

Futures made of virtual insanity now

Always seem to, be govern'd by this love we have

For useless, twisting, our new technology

Oh, now there is no sound - for we all live underground

I believe that this chorus has great academical potential and is worthwhile to analyze, just like a poem. Now, I would like to break down this poem, line by line.

The first line indicates that our future is totally corrupted, in that it is composed of "virtual insanities". I believe that this virtual insanity is symbolizing our new technology that we keep developing, which is mentioned in the third line. Jay Kay, the writer of the song, I think believes that the new technology is corrupting our society and also our future, which I totally agree. While technology is useful and makes life more efficient, it also has a lot of negative consequences which the general public usually does not notice.

The second line states that while our future is full of technology that corrupts us, there is love that governs us all. I think Jay Kay is trying to say here that no matter how much we become corrupted by the virtual insanities, there would still be our fundamental love towards each other that would regulate our actions to a certain degree.

The third line links with the first line in that the virtual insanity points to the "useless, twisting, new technology" that humans keep developing. This corrupts our society, along with our future.

Finally, I believe the fourth line describes the consequences of the virtual insanity. Humans will be corrupted, and society will not function. Thus, there would be no sound since society is not functioning properly. The second part of the line about where it describes how we all live underground now, I think this is showing that humans are now living differently than before and now technology is on the ground while humans are underneath it.

While I only focused on the chorus, the whole song contains lyrics that is worth analyzing and makes you think. I would recommended everyone to go listen to Virtual Insanity by Jamiroquai since their music is awesome, and their lyrics are highly worth analyzing!

My Thoughts on E-Readers

http://cdn.pocket-lint.com/images/CmPW/no-kindle-fire-touch-uk-0.jpg?20110929-092519

I am a technology person. I love the gadgets that make my life more entertaining and make tasks easier to do. Recently, I have noticed a lot of people utilizing e-readers instead of actually carrying a book in print. While I do love technology, I am not fond of the concept of e-readers.

I do understand that e-readers have their benefits. They are compact, in that you can store hundreds of books in a small device. It is also thin, making it easy to carry around and hold it in your hand. Additionally, some e-readers are capable of accessing the internet and playing games, making it seem like they are tablets.

The biggest thing that bugs about me about the kindle is that it doesn't give me the feeling that I am reading a book. The other day I tried using my dad's kindle to try to read, but I was not able to handle it. I physically need to flip through each page of the book to feel like I have actually read through the book, even if the text is the same. The action of sliding your finger across the screen is convenient and efficient, but for me it doesn't suffice.

Our society is continuing towards absolute technopoly. This would of course affect books in that basically print would be gone, and then everything would be web. While this would save resources, readers around the world would be depressed and then not be able to read since they would not be able to handle e-readers. So, I hope that in the future printing books would still be a thing, and not everything go digital.

Definitions of Poetry

And so it has begun. Poetry, the unit that I have been least looking forward to in this class. I do not find appreciation in poems, and I only like poems that rhyme (for now). I was looking forward to reading Wuthering Heights in the class, but I guess we need to save the best things for last. Looking through the vast list of definitions of poetry in class yesterday, I thought I would reflect on some that resonated in me.
The definition that resonated within me the most yesterday and thus the one that I wrote about in the warm up was #12, where it describes poetry as " a kind of ingenious nonsense". Noticing that it came from the great scientist Sir Issac Newton, I could have not agreed more with the physics genius. To me, poems are a jumble of random words that might rhyme from place to place, and might tell a story or portray a scenery  It also seems like it describes the same thing in 20 different ways. Even elementary school kids can write poems that rhyme, and that is why I agree the most with Newton's definition of a poem.
Another definition that I liked alot is #32, where it describes poetry as anything that calls itself a poem. Poems have many formats, such as haiku and free verses and rhyming poems. This definition struck me since it allowed me to realize that a piece of literature can be classified as poems for the majority of times. I have once read a book about 200 pages that the book itself was one large poem. I have also seen poems that the layout of the words illustrated the object that is describing. Recalling these examples, #32 struck me as true and a good generalized way to describe poetry.
After looking through the list one more time, a definition that stood out to me was #47 where it describes poetry as an "orphan of silence [and] the words never quite equal the experience behind them". This quote struck me as significant, since for some poems, the poet writes about his or her experience in a couple of lines. Compressing all the thoughts, observations, and senses during the experience into a couple of lines do require skill, and however good the poet is, there are still going to be information left out. Definition #47 has allowed me to realize how experienced skilled poets are, being able to describe their experience in a couple of lines.
I still hate poetry, and I am not looking forward to this unit. However, I do hope that this unit will allow me to encounter poems that I will be able to enjoy and assist me in discovering the beautiful aspects of poetry.

Thoughts on A Tale of Two Cities

I am halfway into Charles Dickens' masterpiece, A Tale of Two Cities. The story takes place in London and Paris during the revolutionary period (1775 ish) and illustrates the story of the citizens during this time period. While the story itself is only 364 pages (1/3 the length of The Count of Monte Cristo), it feels like this book is longer than the mentioned title. I believe there are several reasons to this.
To be honest, I am not liking A Tale of Two Cities very much. One of the main reason that I think is making this story not interesting to me is the story itself. Before I started this reading, I did some previous research on the internet and gained from it that this story will be interesting, since it is one of the most sold piece of fictional literature in history. I also gained from my research that it will have essences of revenge in it, a element that is important for my research inquiry. With high expectations, I started reading. I am currently half way into the book, but it has been extremely boring for me. There has been maybe 3 pages concerning the topic of revenge, so it has not helped me at all in the terms of my research paper. Along with these factors, the time period of the story makes it hard for the reader to relate to the story.
Another reason I believe that makes this story hard to read and delve into is the way that Dickens writes. He writes in classical English, and the syntax makes it hard for the modern reader to comprehend his ideas. Also, the amount of characters that he includes in this story makes it hard. While The Count of Monte Cristo had the similar amount of characters (even more), the development and length of the book gave each character a unique feel which made it easy for the reader to differentiate between the characters. However, due to the limited length of the book along with the various characters in the book (lots of sub characters), the main characters are not fully developed in A Tale of Two Cities, which makes it hard to read and understand the story. I am having to refer to sparknote after finishing each chapter to understand what happened in the section.
Overall, the reading of A Tale of Two Cities has not been a pleasure so far compared to the previous reading that I did. I hope this situation improves, and that more instances of revenge comes up so it has some merit to my research.

Beloved Reflection

It is finally over. No, I am not talking about the 6 week robotics build season that just finished with two all-nighters (stayed at school until 1:30 a.m. on a school day), but I am talking about Beloved by Toni Morrison. I saw its academic values, but, to be honest, I did not find the book to be amusing at all.
I believe the main factor that made this reading seem forced and not enjoyable is Morrison's writing style. She makes things complicated, and writes in such a unique way that it makes it hard for the reader to comprehend what she is trying to tell. I was one of these such readers who was totally confused, since it took me a good hour to read 30 pages of the novel and feel like I the majority of what was written in the section.
Another factor that contributed to this novel not amusing to me at all is the plot itself. While I do understand the subject matter of the story is important, the plot seems too slow to tell anything and events that happen are minor. If you would recall The Road by Cormac McCarthy that we read before this, that novel at least had a decent story-line, even though it seemed like it was repetitive. The events in the story made it somewhat interesting to read, and I was continuously curious what was going to happen to the man and the boy. However, in Beloved, I did not get a similar feeling toward Sethe and Denver as I did for the travelers. I could care less what happened to Sethe and everyone else, since it seemed like everyone in the story was self-centered and did not care for the people around them (Sethe leaving Paul D in the rain after flirting with him, and so on).
To summarize, I did not enjoy the book. I am glad that I do not have read this book anymore, and I hope the next book that we will read in class be more enjoyable. I have high hopes for the next book since it is going to be Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte, a story about revenge that I was going to read for my research project but got shot down by Mr.Mullins since we are going to read it in class.

Thoughts on Standardized Tests

I loathe the concept of standardized tests. I do see its benefit that it allows for easy comparison of standard academic abilities between the students for universities. However, I believe it plays a far crucial role than it needs to, since these test scores basically determine which university you will be attending.

Standardized tests do not successfully reflect the student's full capacity. Just like the student mentioned in the article, some gifted students are not capable of performing well under pressure. This should not be the reason that a talented young individual be barred from further education. Just like the student in the article, I do not perform well academically under stressed situations. Things tend to escape from my brain, and I am not able to show my full skills to the colleges. For example, I have a 35 in the ACT Math section, one point below the perfect score. If this is not under testing conditions, I am confident that I will be able to get a perfect since then I will be relaxed and will not make stupid mistakes like I do on these standardized tests.

I also do not understand why these tests needs to be timed. I do see that if there is no time limit, then some students will sit there for hours and even days to finish their test. However, I believe that these time limits are unfair to students that are slow readers or others that take time to comprehend the material. Just because a student can solve a reading passage in 15 minutes compared to another students 20 minutes, does that mean that the faster student is academically superior to the slower student? I do not think so. There are multiple types of gifted students, and being a fast problem solver is just one of them. Being this gifted type of student should not be the sole reason that they get into their desired college and the other types of gifted students not.

To summarize, I believe that standardized tests are not an accurate representation of the students academic abilities and that colleges should not use this as such an emphasizing factor. Instead, I believe colleges should focus more on daily grades, which really shows the brightness of the student.

Themes in Video Games. Part 1

After a long day of Robotics, I am sitting here trying to come up with something to write for my blog. I only have 30 minutes left, and I have came up with nothing to write about. Trying to get my brain thinking, I put my iPod on shuffle. The first song that came up was part of a soundtrack for the video game Final Fantasy X. I thought back about this game, and noticing it has lots of themes worth mentioning, I decided to write about it and how its worth playing.

Final Fantasy X is a RPG game developed by Square Enix and is the 10th game in its series. This specific game has been one of the highest selling game in the series, and also regarded as the best one in the series.

I would like to describe the story, but to describe it just enough so people would understand it, it would take a couple blog lengths to make it understandable. So, I would have to skip this part and go on directly to the themes of the game. (Summary of story: http://finalfantasy.wikia.com/wiki/Final_Fantasy_X#Story)

As I mentioned previously, while this games purpose is totally commercial, it holds literal values just like a good book. While there are many topics worthwhile to be discussed, I will focus on one theme specifically. The literal value illustrated in this game is the concept of Gnosticism.

For those that do not know what I just said, Gnosticism is a belief that human existence itself is sinful and that the spirit world should be embraced. This idea can be seen throughout the game, such as with Yuna's summons (Aeons) and the setting of the world itself (Spoiler, so will not mention).

The antagonist believes in Gnosticism  and to make an extremely complicated story simple, the protagonists are trying to stop the antagonist from eradicating physical existence. This epic struggle between the characters makes the player think deeply about our own human existence, and just like the manga that I mentioned in last blog (Kiseijuu), the purpose of human existence.

I am running low on time here, so I will need to save additional discussions for a future blog. I STRONGLY recommend EVERYONE to play this masterpiece. I am a pretty hardcore gamer with experiences in a variety of games, but this game definitely makes it into my top 3. The story line is great, the music is great, the game play is great, everything is great about the game. Again, I wish that everyone would play this game to appreciate the grandness of this masterpiece of art.

P.S. - I legitimately cried at the end of this game, it is that good.

P.S.S - If you are not a gamer, give the music a try. Nobuo Uematsu is a charisma in the field of game music, and he did it once again in FFX. His music significantly amplifies the game experience.

Some samplers: 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oxRd_5ERYKw

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1xRCjjiTR7I

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C34BzC7rnos