We have started the trilogy The Lord Of The Rings. The first part is titled The Fellowship Of The Ring. The trilogy is inspired the book series written by J.J.R Tolkien and tells about the exciting adventure the main character, Froddo, takes in hopes of destroying an evil ring. In the first part, the team that will be assigned to help Froddo destroy the ring was established. The team is made up of an elf that is an expert in archery, three other hobbits, a ranger and a troll. The plot is packed with mythological creatures and action. Saramon, an evil wizard, makes sure he does everything he can to impede Froddo from reaching success. The nail biting conflict although is not whether or not Froddo will reached his destination but whether or not Froddo will be consumed by the greed to power the ring causes people to have. The theme of the trilogy is along the lines of this topic. It's human nature to want power even though we perfectly know no on is capable of handling excessive power. 

I think that this trilogy has amazing trailers and graphics. Check out the trailer of this movie. It's EPIC.


Jose. 

I don't really watch a lot of science fiction movies except for movies like Twilight and The Hunger Games. In class we watched The Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy, the movie version of the book series by Douglas Adams. The movie was funny and entertaining but I found it to be hard to follow. I think its because so many creatures were introduced that I got kind of lost. Regardless, I learned a really important literary term. The literary term is satire, which means using humor, exaggeration, and irony to ridicule a topic in society. Now the term sounds like a powerful tool that an author could use to voice his/her opinions but I don't think the movie got the point across. I appreciate although the opportunity of exposing me to this type of movie but it's not my favorite. 

What was your least favorite movie? 


Jose.

The poetics of Aristotle are distinct from any other. Along with an assigned group, I took notes of the key ideas and concepts Artistotle kept in mind when reading. Our chapters were 10 to 15.  

In Plots, Aristotle thought that there were two types: Complex and Simple. He believed there were only two types because he though real life actions showed this distinction and as literature works were meant to imitate life than these two categories were needed to take into account when writing. In Simple Plots, the change of fortune takes place without any form of irony or reversal of situation with no recognition of it. In Complex Plots, the changed is accompanied by a reversal of situation and/or a recognition. I even learned the following latin phrase:  


Post hoc ergo propter ego means after this, therefore because of this, iis a phrase that is used to think about the probable causes and results of actions. 


In my notes, there were a few key terms. 

- Reversal of Situation
- Recognition 
- The Scene of Suffering

Reversal of Situation refers to a change by which action veers round to its opposite according to the rule of necessity. I think or reversal as the same to situational irony. Recognition is a change from ignorance to knowledge, like an epiphany. The recognition produces whether or not you'll love the person destined by the poet for good or bad fortune. The Scene of Suffering is probably my favorite only because they are the most fun to act out. It's a destructive or painful action, such as deaths on stage. A good example is Jocasta's suicide in Oedipus Rex. 

Characters also have certain requirements. They must aim for a constant speech and actions that maintain the moral purpose of their characterization. If the character is bad, then only bad actions the character will commit. Characters must also be accepted by the standards or morals of society. They must be true to life and at above all must be consistent to their nature. The authors should aim to avoid any Deus ex Machina, which means events that lie beyond the range of human knowledge. 

It's really fun to learn about what authors go through when writing a story. It's tough work. 

P.S Aristotle was about that life!

Jose. 

The Joy Luck Club is a touching movie. The plot inspired by the book written by Amy Tan follows the life of Chinese families in America and shows the conflicts their second generation encounters. I believe this is probably the most important movie we have seen so far just because it educates us in a culture that is very unique and rare. Chinese culture is one of those that you don't get the chance to experience or come across with but it is just as important as all of the others. In the movie, there 4 main characters named June, Waverly, Rose and Lena. They are all daughters of mothers raised in China. The four main characters have conflicts that primarily start because the American culture clashes with the traditional Chinese culture. Their mothers lived a tough life in China. They had to respect and learn the value of honor and sacrifice in a way much tougher. In America, there are not such strong emphasis on these values. So the second generation has it a bit easier yet at the same time a lot harder because it is up to them to find a balance between two worlds.

Coming from a Latino-Hispanic background, I too was raised to understand the meaning of respect, sacrifice, honor, and family. They are strong values of my culture as well. When Waverly was trying to break the news she was living with her soon-to-be husband, you could see that her mother's opinion was taken very seriously and even though she hated her mother's way of showing her love at that moment, she wanted to please her because she respected her. This example shows every single aspect of this movie. Waverly fell in love with an American man. This meant that her family would be fused with other people with different cultures. The mother felt that the man Waverly liked was not good enough for her partly because he was ignorant of their culture and she has experienced personally hardships that she promised herself her daughter will not go through them. It's really important for a person, no matter of what ethnicity, to be educated and civil. It tears my heart how people make horrible comments about cultures they don't know about. In the movie, Rose was at social event where her boyfriend's mother told her she could not be with him because of the way she looked. I was disgusted. The biggest irony of the movie was the situations the mothers wanted to avoid, unfortunately, happened in America. When balancing two cultures, it's easy to loose your identity and until you find it, you'll be in control of your life.

I am very glad I watched this movie. I feel I know more about myself and other cultures. I applaud Amy Tan for picking such profound themes such as the strength of a mother-daughter relationship is strongest connection of all, the sacrifices taken help you find yourself, and the mixture of cultures causes a person to be stronger. 

Do you consider yourself to be educated about other cultures? 
I have a lot more to learn.

Jose. 

Cesia and I decided to show Les Misérables for our movie presentation. The movie entails the story of Jean Valjean, a prisoner of the French Revolution trying to reach a better place for himself. After serving his time in prison for stealing a loaf of bread to feed his sister's son, Valjean has to face society's contempt towards "Criminals." No one is willing to hire nor help him until he runs into a Priest who welcomes him with open arms. The Priest sparks the turning point in Valjean's life where he decides to forgive himself for his past and start a new life. Valjean was no longer. His new name was Mr. Lameur, mayor of his city. 


The story contains lots of characters that are opposite of each other but emphasize a certain situation that everyone can relate to. The most tragic character is Fantine, a mother who has to sacrifices herself for her daughter's well being. Stressed and worried about her financial situation, she eradicates all the things that make up the identity and confidence of a woman. She sells her hair; a symbol of pride and beauty; and her body, which represent the holy temple of your soul lies. Her sacrifices were not vain. Cosette, the daughter of Fantine, is adopted by the wealthy and renewed Valjean. Cosette grows up only to fall in love with the dashing Marius, a revolutionary leader fighting for equality. While being raised by horrible foster parents, Cosette grew up with a girl named Eponine, who adds an emotional level to the movie as she showacases what its felt to be in love with someone you doesn't love you back. I am very impressed and applaud Victor Hugo for creating this eternal story. 

P.S Check out Lea Salonga, broadway actress of Eponine, sing On My Own. She is also the voice of Disney's Princess Jasmine and Princess Mulan. 

Jose. 

Mental illness is a social taboo. Yea, we all joke around like when we say someone is "crazy" but do we really know what that means? In my life, I have never met anyone with a mental condition or illness and I'm glad the movie One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest brought this to my attention. As a growing enthusiast, I realized how important this experience is to my life. Directed by Milos Forman and based on the 1962 novel by Ken Kesey, the movie exposes the life of a man named Randle Patrick McMurphy and his  experience at a mental hospital. Randle is a middle aged man who sees life from a different perspective than what other believe is "normal". Running away from trouble and jail, Randle sometimes faked having a mental illness and usually this was his way of confronting the consequences of his actions until he got reffered to a hospital. There he met many patients, all voluntary, and Randel's positively outgoing, yet raffish, acts brought a lot of confidence to them, notably in the character named Chief. I was really touched by the different point of view. Who would ever think to make a movie about what happens in a mental hospital? The main belief I had of them was the one portrayed by modern horror and suspense movie, the one that causes fear but that notion is completely shattered now. My fear was ignorance and after watching this movie I am no longer ignoring the fact that mental patients are not different from the rest of us. They, too, crave freedom, love, affection, tranquility and self actualization! My favorite part? The way Kesey chose to transmit this story. Very impressive and truly life changing. McMurphy will now stay in mind and will take me one step closer to becoming a human with a broad level of understanding and tolerance. One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest is a legend and like all legends, they are never normal and always defy society. 

Jose. 

Expressionism is a modernist movement that started in poetry and painting. I was so excited to learn about this movement. Expressionism originated in Germany at the beginning of the 20th Century. As you can see from the painting to the left, Expressionism deals with expressing yourself through distorting reality according to emotions to create a unique perspective that will send a desired mood or message. Can you guess what is the mood received from this picture? I get the sense that Edvard Munch wanted to show how a person can feel over whelmed that a physical activity must be incorporated to unleash the tensions. Analyzing this painting according to the definition, I find it to be a perfect example. All of the colors used evoke the same feeling. The unleashing of emotions should be expressed with fiery reds and shades of oranges. The shades of blues and grays also show the darkness of emotions. 

The main goal of Expressionist artists was to express what it is felt inside instead of the reality of the outside. What is unique about expressionism is the fact that what is felt inside could very well be abstract. It is not bound by the rules of sense and laws. It completely unchains your talents and allows you to be as crazy and over the top as possible. Painters like El Greco, who was reference in many literary works like The Great Gatsby, is considered an Expressionist along with Mexican painter Mathias Goeritz. 


Expressionism was so influential in the arts that the movement expanded to other subjects like Literature, Dance, and Cinema. Everyone was on board with this movement. I thought about the short stories that I've read in class that could be analyzed with this idea exposed by expressionism. I think that Miss Brill by Katherine Mansfield, A Worn Path by Eudora Welty are both example of expressionistic literary works. In both stories, reality is altered to successfully transmit the emotion of the main characters which could be how the author feels about a certain topic. Katherine Mansfield could feel a certain sympathy towards the elderly that are slowly excluded from society and Eudora Welty passionate about the emotions felt by determined human beings so they decided to alter reality through their stories by using a stream of consciousness point of view. It's really a deep topic that could be talked about for hours. Let's just remember that expressionism is about expressing the inside meaning and emotions one feel instead of the reality. No one likes a normal piece of art.

Can you think of any works that could reflect aspects of Expressionism?
Check out this online documentary on Expressionism.

Jose.  

Don't you think the comic strip above describes The Butterfly Effect beautifully? The Butterfly Effect is a well known concept. It states that even the flapping of a butterfly's wing can change the weather in another part of the world. What a lot of people don't realize is this is meant to be understood as a metaphor to the power the small things have. They can change greatly a situation. A good personal example is when students take a test. The difference between an F and an A+ could be if you grab that bagel that morning or even if you set your alarm clock the night before! Its kind of scary thing to think about. The smallest thing could decide whether something tragic or magical happens. The reason why the tiniest change has a large effect on nature is because nature is constantly balancing. If one thing changes, such as the particles pushed by the wind off of the flapping of a butterfly's wing, will cause the system to rebalance and as The Chaos Theory states, the system could either reach a never even Strange Attractor or a normal Attractor. The Butterfly Effect and The Chaos Theory are intertwined with each other. 

Jose. 

The mysteries of life are heady to humans. We crave to solve them. We crave to know their origin. We crave to understand them. I like to think that scientists have a list of puzzles they see as a challenge to resolve and right at the top, there 's the most unsolvable. Nature is just one that will never be completely understood. It's unpredictable and because we are not allowed to understand is the exact same reason why we want it.

Edward Norton Lorenz, an American mathematician and meteorologist, was fascinated in figuring out if the weather could be predicted. He started to play around with a computer program in which created replications of weather to a certain formula that you would input. The program would give certain outputs of numbers in a certain sequence and he copied the middle of one run and inserted into the computer. Instead of starting from the beginning, the assimilation would start from the middle of a run. He thought this change wouldn't affect anything and expected the same weather from the run starting at the beginning but found the weather was totally different than before! 

Now, The Chaos Theory is what attempts to explain this. The Chaos Theory is a mathematical sub-discipline that studies complex systems. A complex system is defined as systems that contain so many motion or factors that make its behavior impossible to predict because there are so many things to take into account. Weather is a complex system and part of the reason why weather predictions are often wrong is because there are so many factors that influence the weather and change it every second. Regardless of the many factors affecting a complex system, Lorenz found that complex system all seem to seek an equilibrium of some sort called an attractor. Even though complex systems are unpredictable, he believes there is a way to make a approximation of the unknown. 


As a summary, the main key points of The Chaos Theory are: 

1.  A tiny difference in initial parameters ( conditions ) will result in a completely different behavior of a complez system.
   
2. Complex systems seek an specific situation or equilibrium that can be either static ( Attractor ) or dynamic ( Strange Attractor ).
3.  The Uncertainty Principal prohibits accuracy. 

The smallest change can have a large effect. Hm... I wonder where have I heard that before? Oh I know. Remember those science fiction movies that taught you that if you ever were to travel back in time you should not change anything because that will change the present? Yea... Makes me wonder how many works I've read without even realizing this theory was applied. 

Jose. 

Playing games is always fun specially when it makes new things easier to learn like how to change words when writing a literary thesis. In class, Mrs. Fassbender told our class to split into 2 teams with three groups within. Each group was going to go against a group on the opposite team and whoever came up with the most synonyms for your assigned word won. The team with the most wins would be the on to get the World Champion Belt. I was in a group that got assigned the word "show/shows".

Here is the list of words we came up with.
- implies
- demonstrates
- paints
- displays
- portrays
- draws
- parallels
- emphasizes
- unmasks
- exposes
and more. 

Whenever you are writing a thesis statement avoid the writing the reader and says/said. I think I'm getting better at writing Thesis Statements. 

Jose.