Lit Terms 3

Exposition: Literary device where background information is introduced such as setting, characters etc.

Expressionism: Literary movement that rejects naturalism and realism seeking to achieve psychological or spiritual reality rather than external events.

Fable: fictional story, in prose or verse, that features animals, mythical creatures, plants, inanimate objects or forces of nature which are given human like quality, and gives a moral quality.

Fallacy: a mistaken belief, especially one based on unsound argument.

Falling action: Part of a literary plot after the climax wrapping things up

Farce: a comic dramatic work using buffoonery and horseplay and typically including crude characterization and ludicrously improbable situations.

Figurative language: Writing appealing to the senses

Flashback: A scene that takes place at a time earlier than the main story

Foil: Characters that are opposites

Folk tale: a story originating from oral tradition

Foreshadow: a hint or warning that something will happen in the future

Free Verse: poetry that doesn’t have rhyme or regular meter

Genre: a group of compositions with similar characteristics

Gothic tale: story combining horror, fiction, and Romanticism

Hyperbole: Exaggeration or overstatement

Imagery: visually descriptive language

Implication: the conclusion that can be drawn from something, although it is not explicitly stated

Incongruity: inconsistent throughout

Inference: a conclusion reached on the basis of evidence and reasoning.

Irony: the expression of one's meaning by using language that normally signifies the opposite, typically for humorous or emphatic effect.

My Masterpiece: Senioritis

I never used to understand senioritis. I never could understand how people could lose so much motivation for school, life, whatever in such a short time. I used to look at seniors and think "You spent nearly thirteen years of your life in school. This is the last little stretch and you're just going to give up?" But today I had an epiphany.

I woke up late this morning and it was beautiful outside. But I couldn't enjoy it. I looked at the giant list of things I had to do from chores to homework to scholarships and gazing out the window I felt absolutely zero motivation to do any of it. It's now about 4:30 and I've still done nothing. About 20 minutes ago I decided to take a break from all the homework I wasn't doing and went outside. Even though the sun is setting in about an hour it was still nice out. I thought about how much nicer I would have been to have gone to the beach, or gone for a hike, or even just a short run, just to get away.

There is so much to do senior year. Even though I only have four classes and am done a noon, I'm more busy than I ever have been. These are the four most demanding classes I've taken, so it's really not any sort of break. On top of that there's college and even though I've finished all my applications I'm no where near to being done since I get emails every day from colleges asking me to do this that and the other thing, plus there's financial aid and scholarships to do. Applications where such a huge deal that now that they're complete I feel like I should be moving out already. The applications got me so excited and feeling so ready that when I had to go back to school after winter break it didn't seem real. This is senirotitis.

I've applied to college I'm ready to move on with my life to potentially move across the country and start off on my own. When you think about how crazy that is in the grand scheme of my life so far physics homework seems trivial. Why should I spend my time doing homework on such a beautiful day when I could be off having an adventure with my friends just enjoying the outdoors and the last few months I have living at home as a kid. Having all this homework to do has caused me to have the feeling that I have wasted a day, potentially one of my last days living around here.

This all comes back to what I want to do for my masterpiece. Lately all I've wanted to do is have adventures seeing new things and enjoying old things I've been doing for years like surfing and hiking. For my masterpiece I want to do all this with a group of friends or whoever wants to come. I've also really enjoyed film, editing and making videos with music, and I happen to own a GoPro. The company GoPro makes really amazing short videos of people doing fun things like I've explained, so why not start a YouTube channel where I can post various videos of my adventures with my friends. Also I want to have friends post/ make videos of all the cool things they get up to even after we all move away to show what we are all doing with our lives, and stay in touch.

Siddhartha Questions

So I've been searching for questions for about twenty minutes now and all the questions I found are either on someone else's blog already, or they are so basic and based on the plot and text that they aren't exactly "AP" material or worth my time or yours to even read let alone post about.

Hacking My Education

Today reminded me of a few things:
1. There's a lot of things about the way high school works that I don't like.
2. Waking up early sucks
3. I didn't really have a "break" because I was still at school for four hours nearly every day for wrestling and traveled every weekend to compete so I'm coming back to school more tired than I did when I left.
Today's conversation on Siddhartha was interesting and I learned a lot about Brahmins and finding your inner peace, but I made a connection that I think most students did that we didn't really talk about. What Siddhartha is going through is what we are all going through. we've spent our whole lives in school and now most of us are getting accepted to colleges, finishing up highschool, preparing to leave our families.. so it's at the point now where we are all feeling "ok.. now what.. what do I do and why do I want to do it..." It's time for us to start our lives and it's scary and exciting at the same time which is what we discussed was how Siddhartha was feeling. The piece really showed why seniors get senioritis.

Harvard Interview Video

Today I was interviewed by a Harvard Alum as part of the application process and I was instructed to bring pictures and projects that I had taken or made that represent my life or give insight to who I am or what I do. So instead of being boring and showing her a few pictures I decided to make a video so that I could share my life and my skills at making videos, so I would share it with the open source learning network. The interviewer liked it a lot so clearly remixing makes things more interesting...