I CAN READ

So I made 5 mistakes in about 5 minutes and 15 seconds.

NO EXIT NOTES

Here are my "No Exit" reading notes. Props to you if you can make sense of this example of how my brain works! 

THINKING OUTSIDE THE BOX

"No Exit" Jean Paul Sartre

1. Think about the place you have chosen as your hell. Does it look ordinary and bourgeois, like Sartre's drawing room, or is it equipped with literal instruments of torture like Dante's Inferno? Can the mind be in hell in a beautiful place? Is there a way to find peace in a hellish physical environment? Enter Sartre's space more fully and imagine how it would feel to live there endlessly, night and day:

-Hell would be a place where past mistakes and events constantly haunt you. This place can be ordinary or extraordinary but doesn't have to be equipped with literal torture instruments. It would be a place where all of the things that have happened to you that you've tried to forget are constantly being displayed in front of you and never disappear. The mind can be in hell in a beautiful place. It is the past that is haunting you regardless of the environment. The only way to find peace in a hellish environment would be to accept that there is nothing to be done about past events but even then peace would be difficult to achieve.

2. Could hell be described as too much of anything without a break? Are variety, moderation and balance instruments we use to keep us from boiling in any inferno of excess,' whether it be cheesecake or ravenous sex?

-Variety would make hell somewhat less hellish. Variety offers new experiences and keeps life interesting. We've all learned that there definitely can be too much of a good thing and having variety in our lives allows us to enjoy good things without overdoing one certain thing. Without variety we would overdo everything and enjoy nothing.

3. How does Sartre create a sense of place through dialogue? Can you imagine what it feels like to stay awake all the time with the lights on with no hope of leaving a specific place? How does GARCIN react to this hell? How could you twist your daily activities around so that everyday habits become hell? Is there a pattern of circumstances that reinforces the experience of hell?

-The characters converse a lot and that's really all that they have available to do. Garcin is surprised by the room and has many questions and seems unwilling to accept his predicament. I would be easy for me to create my personal hell in my own life. Living in the past is something that unfortunately a lot of people do. It takes a conscious effort to not let past experiences run your present life. It would easy to relive past traumas and live in hell but I choose not to do that.

4. Compare how Plato and Sartre describe the limitations of our thinking and imply solutions to the problem. Be sure to analyze their literary techniques, especially their use of allegory and extended metaphor.

-Both Plato and Sartre focus on the significance of the ability to learn new things. In The Allegory of the Cave Plato showed that one must consciously leave the cave to gain knowledge. Sartre is essentially saying that in hell you cannot leave the cave of misunderstood knowledge and therefore if someone escapes the cave, going back would be their hell. Potential solutions would be to live your life in a way that you are able to learn and reflect on your experiences. The extended metaphors that both use show how people go from ignorance to understanding. Going back to the cave would be hell because you know too much and in ''No Exit'' hell the understanding that they now have doesn't make them happy.

So pretty much the "hell" in the play isn't a hell defined by physical torture, it is defined by the people. The characters are in hell because of the people they are stuck with.

Irony: The characters accuse each other of being torturers when really they all are.

BRAIN WITH [6] LEGS

My group chose to read Great Expectations for our literature circle. We will have to read about 41 pages a day to keep on schedule. We will be communicating through Facebook message and we each have designated jobs. I, for example, am the connector. We also intend to create a Facebook group for ourselves where we can post our work and collaborate and eventually publish the work we put on the group once we've completed the book.

ALLEGORY OF THE CAVE SONNET

The cave is place you don't want to be
Though some occupy that cave forever
your view of reality is severed
It is a dark place where you cannot see
Your view of the world is small in degree
You have no want for outside endeavors
Truly a place you want to go never
Escaping these mental chains is the key

Luckily for you there is a way out
You can choose to leave the confining cave
Knowledge is the answer to gain the truth
The light will give you answers beyond doubt
Choose your own path you don't need to be brave
Leave the cave and abandon the untruths

BE GRATEFUL FOR EVERY DAY

This video is awesome and can really change your perspective on life and happiness! Plus this old man is totally awesome! Watch it here.

PLATO'S ALLEGORY OF THE CAVE

1. According to Socrates, the Allegory of the Cave represents the chains that people allow themselves to be fettered by while others choose a life of knowledge.

2. The key elements of imagery are the cave, which represents the knowledge that is directly fed to us. The light which could represent the abundance of knowledge that we must search for. The sun is the knowledge that we must seek for ourselves and discover.

3. The allegory suggests that we sometimes allow our knowledge to be controlled. We often accept what we hear and don't question it and don't search for other possibilities. We can only be enlightened if we seek outside knowledge.

4. The image of shackles represents the narrow mindedness of the prisoners. They are essentially chained down by their limited knowledge. They are missing out on so much because they lack so much knowledge.

5. I think that traditions can shackle us in some ways. We are so used to doing one thing and believing what our parents believe that sometimes we don't go seek new knowledge to form our own opinions.

6. The freed prisoner is enlightened and understands the world on a different level while the chained prisoner doesn't even have enough knowledge to leave the cave.

7. Lack of clarity can occur from either coming out of the light or going into the light. If you come from the dark cave you will be blinded by the light (knowledge). If you come from the light into the darkness you will not be satisfied with the dark.

8. Prisoners become free when they decide to leave the cave. The knowledge outside the cave is readily available but the prisoner has to gain it.

9. I agree that their is a distinction between appearance and reality. Appearance can be influenced by personal judgments. Also, just because you can't see something it doesn't mean it isn't real.

10. If Socrates is incorrect, then people will continue to be shackled because they will continue to view appearances as reality without questioning it. People will draw false conclusions and have a narrow view of the world.

CHECK IT OUT

Over the summer I began an internship for the REACH Program which is a part of the Orfalea Foundation based in Santa Barbara. They decided to an article on their interns for their online magazine. It was a pretty cool experience so here is the finished product. The Orfalea family does a lot of great things with their wealth (Mr. Orfalea created Kinkos) so they're definitely worth checking out!

WE HANG TOGETHER

The Role of Interdependence in Strategic Collaboration Notes:

• Business world was previously focused on models of competition but later focus shifted to corporate strategy and association.
• Strategic alliances can be any kind of collaborative relationship or endeavor. Strategies of isolationism are falling out of favor.
• Pundit: (noun) a learned person, expert, authority; a person who makes comments or judgments
• "Only rarely does a company's vision focus on a competitor's failure."

SURVIVAL OF THE INTERDEPENDENT 

• Darwin's theory shows that the fittest are not the most self-sufficient, but they are the most adaptable and interdependent.
• Trust and communication play a significant role in successful interdependent efforts.
• Test alliances by conducting organizational audits to evaluate human factors. Must understand working relationships.

AMERICAN CULTURE AND THE FALLACY OF "GOING IT ALONE"

• Individual quests are encouraged from a young age.
• Self-sufficient human being is an unattainable goal.
• Successful presidents have had strong cabinets.
• A collaborator must be able to describe benefits of the partnerships or the unfavorable ramifications of a lacking partnership.

VALUES OF STRATEGIC RELATIONSHIPS

• The value of a strategic relationship is things like reduced costs and economies of scale. The values of a strategic relationship are more personal attitudes like integrity, quality, and trust.
• Medieval guilds are an example of relationships with trust and personal bonds.
• Social trend towards selfishness makes business relationship less loyal.

CAPACITY BUILDING AND COMMUNITY

• Perhaps companies would hold more trust if the people working for them were allowed to reach out and show the human side of the company.
• Successful companies have community projects.
• Altruism: (noun) the principle or practice of unselfish concern for or devotion to the welfare of others.

THE TECHNIQUE OF THE MARKETPLACE

• We need each other! 

A POETIC INQUIRY

I am not making any changes to my Big Question because it still has relevance in my mind and I'm still looking for steps to the answer. My question was basically "why do we have so much and allow others to have so little". I found this sonnet that ties into my question:

Truth that is masked by the heart of a man

Can only explain the start of a lie

A lie so heavy, it spits on your plan

Left with emptiness, your soul on crows fly

Lost while still young, forgotten by the path 

Living with shame, that no longer gives pain 

Held at the throat by the questions wrath 

How dark was made, that ignorant stain 

Now you delve into knowledge left by the wise 

In order to uncover a truth that was hidden

Burdened with sorrow whilst the nurser cries

Hindered by usurpers who have want of no lesson 

Hold on to the railing, prepare a strong mind 

For never you know what's out there to find

I liked this sonnet because I think a lot of the time people will choose to ignore the truth. We know that bad things happen but we block them out and ignore them because they don't directly affect us. I've always wanted to know the truth about everything, whether it's good or bad and this sonnet seemed to summarize the strong mind I strive for. In my big question I ask why we put up with the unfairness and a reason is because we ignore the truth but we need to challenge ourselves to search for the truth. We don't have to be ignorant so we shouldn't choose to be. 

The sonnet is from Jordan Dickinson on this website.

SONNET ANALYSIS #1

Sonnet notes: 

HAMLET REMIX

Since I spend so much time in the studio and dance is something I really enjoy I made my essay into a dance. I did this choreography partially in my head as I was driving and the rest of it kind of just happened on the spot.
The song plays a lot this time of year and it reminds me of Hamlet for some reason. I'm not sure exactly why but if I was scoring a film adaptation of the play this song would probably make it in there. It just fits.
Our words can be more than words and our movements can be more than movements. Obviously I am focusing more on movement here. The movement displays the topic of the essay. I'm not just blindly doing movement, it means something. You can say words and have them mean nothing but when you say certain things they become action. I can do movement that people tell me to do, or I can my own story through my own sequence of movements. I was trying to show that at some points what you're expressing is slow and it isn't having much of an effect but at other, more intense moments, you have all of this meaning you're trying to express and turn into action.

HAMLET ESSAY

       We spend a large part of our day speaking but we don't always realize the effects that our words have on ourselves and on others. In Hamlet, the conversations that he has and the soliloquies that he makes give us clues to his actions and feelings. Hamlet's words show the reader the kind of person he is. His soliloquies give us the opportunity to really understand what is going on in his head and his words with other people give us insight into his plans and schemes. This carries over to real life as well. Our words can be more than words. They are often a call to action that we don't even realize when we say them. Words have the power to be more than simply words and through Hamlets words we can see him develop his plans. This is similar to real life: The words that we utter can mean more than we think.

       Performative utterances are words that change things. They have actions behind them and behind Hamlet's performative utterances the reader see Hamlet's sense of action. In Act III Scene II Hamlet is giving the actors advice on how to portray the characters in his play. He is being somewhat harsh to the actors with his advice. He says "O, itoffends me to the soul to hear a robustious / periwig-pated fellow tear a passion to tatters, to / very rags, to split the ears of the groundlings, who / for the most part are capable of nothing but /
inexplicable dumbshows and noise: I would have such / a fellow whipped for o'erdoing Termagant; it / out-herods Herod: pray you, avoid it.". His advice to the actor has a double meaning. He is telling the player to make his acting realistic without overdoing it or not giving it too little attention. While reading this section I was wondering if Hamlet's advice was for the actor or if it was really for himself. Hamlet is doing some serious acting in this place and must have to work pretty hard to stay convincing. His words to the actor are more meant to convince himself to keep up his acting to make his sub rosa schemes successful. Hamlet's soliloquies offer us an insight into his mind. In the famous to be or not to be soliloquy, Hamlet deals with a lot of big life questions and these soliloquies show us the real Hamlet. In his conversations with other characters we can't always tell if he's acting or not or what he is really thinking but in his soliloquies we know exactly what he is thinking and feeling.

       I find examples of self-overhearing in my own life as well. I experienced it especially while memorizing to be or not to be. When I started memorizing it, the soliloquy sounded like a bunch a strange words clumped together that didn't really mean anything. As I read it out loud more and more times the words started to have meaning. I began to relate to different lines of the soliloquy and words were more than words. My life is fairly consumed with college applications right now and seems like endless pages of questions and personal statements. Things change though when I talk about it out loud. When people ask me where I want to go to school and what I want to do with my life my words become more than lines on an application. My words make me excited for the future and I can see it coming together when I talk about it. Hearing myself talk about the future makes it that much more tangible.

     The power of words bringing action is something we don't always realize even though it has large implications. Hamlet is an example of this power. His performative utterances give us insight into his actions and they help to convince Hamlet himself of his plans. The words that we speak can help us envision action and motivate us to bring those words to life.