Metacognition: QE Essay

I pretty much wrote my QE essay in a couple of days. I didn't do the first section of it, and I half-assed the second section in one day. I definitely had the time to do it, but procrastination always gets the best of me. My thought process through the whole process was, "I'll do it tomorrow, naww I'll do it tomorrow, oh shit...". Again, as I've said in previous blogs, I wish I could concentrate on one thing for an extended period of time and avoid procrastination. Of course, this isn't going to happen any time soon.

Blogging Around

I commented on one of Rayn's posts about the Susan Sontag essay. It basically said that American's were ignorant and that Susan Sontag is the man.

My response:

Hey bud. Since you commented on one of my little ditties, I thought I'd return the favor with a comment or two of my own.
Comment the first: I understand and agree that the media skews a story in order to get the people believe what they want them to believe.
Comment the second: It isn't purely an American thing, though. This happens all around the world, in all countries. The way I see it, most news stations, newspapers, magazines, etc. are not there to give people the facts. They are a business, out there just to make money. It doesn't matter what they say, so long as they get a good buck out of it. Example: the Mosque on Ground Zero. It is neither a Mosque, nor is it on Ground Zero. But that's what the media says so that we can get a kick out of it and get all pissy.
Comment the third: There are three sides to a story: your side, my side, and what really happened.

- Seacrest Out

I also commented on Liz(zie's?) post about the big transitive property that you've introduced us to with the whole "being inside someone's mind who was in someone else's mind" and whatnot.

I said:

I thought I'd return the favor.

1. A while ago I was thinking about the question, "Do we ever cease to exist?". I will explain why this is relevant; hold your horses. My answer was no, the reason being that in one way or another, we've all impacted someone's life in some way. This influences who they are, even in the seemingly most insignificant ways at times. If we are able to shape people's thinking, beliefs, etc. then there's no way we can cease to exist. Basically, it's the transitive property. Being inside someone's mind who was in another person's mind who was in another person's mind, is the same thing that I was pondering a while back. And yes, what you said made sense.

Comment the second: Thank you for commenting on my blog. I actually really appreciate it.

- Seacrest Out

                                                                                                                                                    - Seacrest Out

- Quote of the day: "Interpret the law as aging with its eyesight failing"

Metacognition: Junior Final Exam Essay

I'm not really sure that I have a coherent thought process to explain to you, but I shall try nevertheless. One thing you have to understand about my mind is that I don't understand it. It just plays leapfrog with all the topics swirling around in there. The frequency of the leaping depends on how invested I am in a certain topic at a certain time, and most of the time I'm not very invested in anything (except for the ladies, that is something which I work full time), thus the number of frogs in which my mind leaps are not few or far between.

by the way: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wnp-23dyKR0

I've noticed that my posts have been rather serious or bitchy lately, so I'll try to make this one a little more fun (hence the link). I'm actually sorry about the amount of bitching I've been doing lately; I've been on my period.

Anywho, I should continue on about my thought process. Yes. Well. Okay. Hmm. Got it. Sooooooooooooooooooooooooo, with all things I tend to procrastinate. This was no different for my final exam essay for English, my junior year. It was the typical bull shit where you have to relate three of the books you'd read that year in English and tie them together to one central theme.

You know what? I'm tired and don't feel like blogging anymore. You've seen how my mind works. This should suffice for this assignment. I guess the only thing I'd like my mind to do is to be able to focus on something for an extended period of time, regardless of my emotional attatchment to it.

By the way I've seen four skunks this weekend. I ran away from all of them.

                                                                                                              - Seacrest Out

Quote of the day: "It's true that tactless teem totem-poles turn tolerence to tired tabboo"

Best of Week: Creativity

Writing this little ditty once or twice a week is cool with me, but it's not cool when the topics suck. If anyone is reading this (which I doubt), let me explain. I'm not blogging for the joy of it, or to relieve myself of some stress which can only be conquered by therapeutic writing. I probably (no, definitely) wouldn't be doing this unless I had to. As part of my Humanities grade, I'm required, by law, to post a blog somewhere between once and twice a week about some predetermined topic. I don't get a whole lot of choice on what I get to write about. Today, I get to write about what the best/most interesting idea was in class this week. The thing is, I don't want to write about this. It's not that I don't want to write altogether, though; I'd just rather write about more important things on my mind. Dear God, this post is brooding and full of angst! Enough of this; on to the main course.

Okay, so this week we learned a lot about creativity. I find this a bit ironic, because I've always felt that creativity wasn't a learned skill, I thought people just had it. Let me rephrase that. It's not so much that we've been learning about creativity, so much as how to be creative. I'm pretty sure learning how to be creative defeats the purpose of being creative entirely... If everyone "learns" to be creative, then who will actually be creative? Will we all be? Or will the original creative people have to step up their game and try to out-create the rest of these learned creators?

I apologize dearly for the length of this entry, but I didn't find anything to be the best of the week. I just found a little something that I could potentially bitch about.

                                                                                                                   - Seacrest Out

As promised, your quote of the week!

"I see that twice a day, every five minutes"

Wrap your brain around that one.

Connection

Gather ‘round children!      

With the passing of the nine-year anniversary of the September 11 attacks on the World Trade Center, I guess it would be an appropriate time to reflect. No?

            In Humanities class, this is what we’ve been doing for the past week or so, and it’s raised some questions. Before I ask away, though, I feel it necessary to tell you what led me to these questions; without this information I’d leave you all wondering what the hell I’m talking about, and in the process fail you as your lord and blogger.

            In class, we were given a packet full of articles written one week after the horrific events of that day, nine years ago. All of them attempted to explain what happened from each of their respective perspectives (is this redundant?), most of which had a tone of grieving disbelief of the mass murder committed. There was one article, though, written by Susan Sontag, which had a tone of disbelief not that of the mass murder but the idiocy and ignorance of Americans.

            Nine years ago, we believed these attacks were completely unwarranted, that these attacks were random deeds of the evil Islam. A week later, Sontag proposes that this is untrue, and that we provoked these attacks with the bombings of Iraq and our abuse of power in the Middle East. How dare she criticize our government? How dare she criticize us? We could not have possibly provoked this, and we most certainly are not stupid. America is the land of opportunity and freedom. This has to be the most unpatriotic individual America has seen since Benedict Arnold.

            I’d like to put a little spin on this, if I may. Yes, Susan Sontag was labeled unpatriotic. Was this true? Absolutely not (well, this is just my opinion; feel free to feel however you feel). What the pilgrims came to America for was freedom of religion; and what the First Amendment was made for was freedom of speech, to be able to criticize the government. We pride ourselves on those freedoms today, still. What Sontag did was not unpatriotic at all; in fact, it was the most patriotic thing someone can do. She called us out on our ignorance, and what did we do? We called her out on her patriotism and we denounced it. What she did was both incredible and brave; she was able to assess the situation within a week of the terrorist attacks and let the world know how she viewed it. She let us know that the terrorists weren’t cowards, that we weren’t so innocent, and from what I’ve been able to conclude is that the word “terrorist” is not the right word. If anything, they should have been hailed as heroes. I mean, we consider the Founding Father’s heroes, when technically they were terrorists as well. It seems to be that we only use words that are convenient to us, and not the words that truly describe what is really happening (one day I will hopefully have a rant about words, but for now I must stay on topic and continue with this blog). Long story short – Susan Sontag was the most patriotic person at the time.

            Nine years later, a pastor named Terry Jones decides it’s a great time to be intolerant. September 11, 2010, Burn a Quran Day. I hope you know about this, because I’m not going to talk about what happened specifically. Basically, he didn’t go through with it, but I was more interested in people’s reactions. Right away, it made me think of Susan Sontag, the way he was basically demonized by Americans and Muslims alike. I got to thinking then, are we jumping to conclusions like we did nine years ago? Is he actually being patriotic? He was using his right to free speech, and freedom of expression. The thing is though, that there’s a point when freedom of speech and expression goes too far. That point is when it violates other people’s rights. I mentioned that the pilgrims came to America to fight religious oppression in England, earlier in the essay and this is where it comes in. What Jones was doing, was attempting to abolish Islam by saying it was “the work of the devil”. He was denying Muslims of their right to practice their religion; this is unconstitutional and unethical if you didn’t pick up on that. If you’d like to talk about this with me, feel free.

             I connected these two people because they were both heavily scrutinized about something that stemmed from the same thing. Unfortunately, Jones was being extremely unpatriotic and intolerant, while Sontag was the opposite.

            I’m tired, and I’ve been tired for some time now. I apologize if the second half of this blog wasn’t up to par, but I got sidetracked for about an hour and lost my train of thought. This is when I became tired and getting the infamous “writers block”. Again, sorry.

            Well, I shall leave you with this: Merry Christmas and to all a good night!

-          Seacrest Out

P.S. – Starting with my next blog, I will start posting quotes of the week. I will choose these quotes from wherever I find something interesting. Hopefully you’ll enjoy them.

Carry It Forward: Pass the Plate, Mr. Feynman

I plan on making this a short entry because I’m a little short on time due to my chronic procrastination (really, this is becoming a problem).


Today I was reading, Pass the Plate, Mr. Feynman, from Things I Overheard While Talking to Myself by Alan Alda. It seems to be an autobiography of sorts; in this section he explains his curiosity stemming from his childhood and growing into adulthood with the same, if not greater, sense of curiosity. In a specific part, early in the reading, he writes,



“Allowing this childish curiosity to continue on through my whole life has given me satisfaction and maybe even a sense of meaning. It stimulates a part of my brain that registers pleasure; and whether it has meaning or not, it feels as though it does. No matter how old I get, I have the feeling that if I can keep this curiosity flame lit, I’ll see the world in a way that never gets stale. Life will have a taste that delights. Maybe that isn’t actual meaning or purpose, but somehow it sets that worry aside. And I don’t want to lose it,”.



This reminds me of my English teacher, just trying to get the most out of life and trying to have fun. Honestly (not trying to suck up here, I swear), this is something I admire because it’s almost as if there’s something reminiscent of childhood there, which many people my age have already lost. It’s something that I can feel slipping, and something that I want to catch and hold on to ‘cause growing up sucks. Reading how Alda found so much happiness just watching clouds go by makes me miss childhood so much more. I want to go back to when pinky promises were sacred, when I could use words like never, and never ever and really believe them, when summer camp was the bees knees and not just a summer filled with drinking and “partying”; I want to go back to the time before puberty and pimples and girls and pointless, teenage drama; I just want to go back to when all these thoughts and questions of loss and heartbreak and happiness and guilt and shame and just plain, old sadness, that are far beyond my understanding, weren’t an issue. I miss being happy for no reason.

As a part of growing up, I’ve taken it upon myself to figure out who I am as early as possible. And for the most part, I’d say I’ve been pretty successful. But what do I know? I’m seventeen. Maybe I think I know who I am, and maybe I think I’m right. I’ve examined that most teenagers think they’re right, though, and they often turn out to be wrong to the max. Yeah, I said to the max. Anyhow, from this chapter/article/essay/whatever-the-hell-it-is, I’ve decided to open up myself to new things and interact with the things that interest me. I mean really interact with them and research them, instead of just shrugging things off like I normally do. I’m going to do this, and hopefully it will open up my mind to new things, and give me some new insight as to who I am, who I want to be and who I will be.



- Seacrest OUT