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WSS linked to global issue

This fragment shows discrimination, racism and violence, as the group of drunk black people set fire to the family’s house because they were not black enough (creoles). So violence because of ethnicity. It is definitely still relevant today with plenty of xenophobia seen everywhere, not even racism based on skin colour, but white people against white people because of prejudice and stereotypes, etc. There is a lot of racially motivated violence and apart from arson we have murder so I would say it is very relevant.

sorry if this is messy, i am very tired

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This is one of my favourite Cavafy poems.

It is deeply emotional, but it also represents some of my deep thoughts on death. I always felt like death is something to be faced with dignity, not fear.

In this poem we see "advice" on how a ruler should face death- without mourning his inevitable failure, without trying to cheat your perceptions and change what your intuition tells you, let yourself feel deeply and with gratitude and peace for all that has been say your goodbye- die. I think this makes death seem like a natural process, peaceful, sad, but not dramatic and tragic. Or at least that is how a ruler should view death and how I see it too.

That is why I could relate to this poem and find some calmness in it. I also like the sadness it carries; generally Cavafy's gloomier poems are more to my liking.

(I found this in my drafts and I dont know why so I will post it now in case I forgot to in the past,,, 07.03.2023)

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Reflection on a cartoon

I cannot use the image because I don’t want to be sued for copyright violation, but I chose the ‘why china’s carbon footprint is so large’ cartoon.

The cartoon focuses on the issue(s) of well um consumerism, global warming, hypocrisy, capitalism, ignorance and I suppose that’s it.

It shows a factory in China and lorries coming out of it straight to ‘the west shopping mall’. There is a lot of smoke coming out of the chimneys of the factory and a string of cars between the buildings. This directly shows the pollution, while ‘the west’ is an allegory for western consumerism (’the west’ usually refers to USA I think). It shifts the blame that is put on China by the West to the West because they are the ones, who drive China’s huge manufactory business (that’s why I said it’s about hypocrisy too).

In general, the cartoons talk about several global issues, mainly consumerism and pollution.

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IO

The conversation about reproductive rights is an ongoing very polarized fight affecting people all over the world. There is a lot of violence coming from the abuse of power to control women’s rights, in it reproductive rights. Both Barbara Kruger and Margaret Atwood represent these issues well, with the first one tackling present day issues, while Atwood creates a world where women’s rights simply do not exist at all. I enjoy learning and talking about types of violence, e.g. symbolic power, as I did that for my Polish IO and found it very interesting. Plus, it is a discussion that includes me as well. 

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Wide Sargasso Sea notes

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The Frida Kahlo painting of the suicide of Dorothy Hale.

It represents a very important global issue: suicide. Here, however, it also represents the fatality and results of a woman’s hopelessness when she has lost her public reputation, cheating and betrayal, and financial trouble. Moreover, in her world, a patriarchal crooked world, Hale was advised to find a husband as that was supposedly her only way to save herself. It depicts a few of very common issues people have to face and the tragic consequences when they are unable to deal with them. So maybe the GI could be specified to: suicide as a result of women’s value in a patriarchal society.

I find it appealing (welllll...) because I think these are problems everyone faces (more or less): betrayal, cheating, failed love, financial trouble, having rely on men in a patriarchal society, public image issues. And the lack of awareness, help, understanding that leads to helplessness, inability to cope, and in the worst case scenario: suicide. 

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A bunch of random annotated pages from A Dry White Season

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A scene from Brink that I like:

Talking about identity, how we create ‘in groups’ and ‘out groups’ and function in those. Here, the character has a crisis as he is discovering a society of people who he was never taught to affiliate with, finding himself creating new bonds, a new definition of ‘my people’

The mention of ‘another dry white season’ is significant to the title of the novel and symbolises that identity and value crisis, as Ben redefines himself upon the new information he keeps learning, new people coming into his life.

It talks about what criteria we use to create our identity and find ‘our people’, but also about differences between classes, whites and blacks, about poverty, etc.

I find the reflection on what makes us ‘us’ and what we define as important appealing in this scene. I like how the character is going through changes and realisations influencing his values, as we constantly do throughout our lives. I also enjoy the description of a variety of people’s lives, which feels like a reminder that we all face different circumstances and all live separate lives so used to the idea of who we are and who our ‘in group’ is that we forget about others, to even contemplate that the values we were not might not be actually good and forgetting our privilege. 

Update: GI: Culture, identity, and community: Facing an identity crisis as a result of redefining one’s belonging to a community

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MOCK IO AND OUTLINE NOVEMBER

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Paper 2 advice for september

Paper 2:

Too many words, not enough thoughts; put as many thoughts as you can in as little words

In the intro signal what aspects/treatment of the topic you will be analysing

Identify author, genre, and date, good to narrow things down (e.g. dystopian novel, Jacobean drama)

Work-- consciously crafted, authorial choices, result of someone’s effort—have to refer to it as such

 Main body:

First sentence: a mini introduction to the work; three settings and main conflict (when first introducing the works); In the introduction it is good to provide info about the setting (temporal, geographical, social) and main conflict of the work, some context; appreciated by the examiner

Then topic sentence and analysis

Linking devices: each time you introduce a new work, paragraph or character you have to link them back to the previous one and that is what linking devices are for

Must be comparative; when you talk about a character, explain who they are in relation to the protagonist

Give information as if everybody knew what you are talking about but you have to remind them

 Onset = beginning,,, onset of a play, onset of a novel

No comma before ‘that’

Anachronism—see someone in a historical setting that is doing, wearing or whatever something they should not be for their time; anything that is atypical for the time of the work (whether too forward or backwards for its time)

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connotations: freedom, power, masculinity, typical image of the stereotypical perfect American man, liberated and in control = result of smoking Marlboro cigarettes

people stuck in corporate jobs wanted to be independent and self-reliant; it was also attractive as it depicted a symbol of American masculinity that everyone wanted to be (or at least as part of conforming to expectations pushed on men they felt they wanted to be that); people valued the rural nostalgia, wanted to be with nature and feel the past, which the adverts promised

I do not think the adverts would be successful today, because social norms have wildly changed, plus people know the effects of cigarettes, so those who want to smoke them will do that despite anything and those who do not, because of health concerns, etc. will not be convinced by an ad (I think a lot of people would rather be enraged at cig ads)

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Paper 2 thoughts

To be honest, I am not sure I have any fears for now. I am generally anxious about everything, because there is simply too much of it, it does not seem manageable, but I am doing good enough and trying, so I will figure it out anyways.

I suppose I am worried I do not know the historical contexts of the works enough, but that is something I will have to catch up on, since we do have sufficient materials.

I suppose to help, we just need teachers to expect less of us or at least be more flexible with deadlines, accepting late work. I mean, it is a little (little being an understatement) annoying that we are expected to write 5 tests in 5 days, hand in 20 assignments most of which are IA topics that need a lot of thought, but then teachers check our work in two months anyways, move dates that do not suit them freely (e.g. mocks) when we cannot do the same, do not show up on lessons giving us too much work to finish during the lesson when they naturally would have done like 1/3 of it. 

I think the educational system is simply bad and outdated. It does not consider students as humans, especially not yet developed humans who instead of being socialized into conforming to unrealistic pressure on productivity, working 24/7, etc. to be later able to make ‘money’ actually need to explore their own passions and more freedom. I do see that the biggest dream of every teen I talk to is to not have to conform to the society’s expectations (which are based on what suited colonialist white old rich men so obviously it is not appropriate for most people) and I think that is quite interesting, as it shows that the system we live in is simply not good...like at all.

Yes okay, thank You, that was a ride, hopefully You do not actually read it, I just had to get some of the anger out to an actual adult because it seems like we are ignored over and over again, but everybody knows no teacher will actually do anything about it, since it is a systematic problem and would need someone who would give up their comfort to speak up for others and it is understandable that most people do not want to do that, as they had to go through the same thing and found a way to adapt while retaining their happiness and some freedom (I think?)

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Global issues: division of roles and hierarchy of women, use of religion to justify human rights violations, ways to enforce conformity in totalitarian states, public executions...

Relevance: salvagings: one of the most important events in the book, a lot of information can be taken and analysed, shows many global issues; emotional and terrifying

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MOCK IO OUTLINE AND EXTRACTS

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KRUGER PRESENTATION

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OTHELLO NOTES 

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Milk documentary:

59:23-1:03:25 -- Silent crowd in front of City Hall after Moscone's and Milk's deaths, candlelit march

We first see the silent crowd gathered in front of City Hall after Moscone's and Milk's deaths were announced. Then Bill Kraus talks about the candlelit march that was to follow these tragic events. The march is shown with music by Mark Isham and voiceovers by Anne Kronenberg and Jim Elliot. That is briefly interrupted by an interview with Tom Ammiano and Sally Gearhart, then coming back to footage from the march.

Notes (again small and messy so rewrote them):

Elderly, gay couples, people of all races in front of City Hall

Community!

Important quotes- "Feeling of such a loss," "seemed proper to do it as this internalized thing," "one of the most eloquent responses to violence a community had"

Diversity of the people being shown -> shows how effective Milk was at mobilizing people of all backgrounds

Link to global issue:

Firstly, we see the culture, identity and community GI- how vast in number supporters of the deceased are, how diverse in culture, and how unified in the values they supported. The scenes show such a great sense of belonging and this huge pain of an entire community (makes me cry every time). Everyone is mourning and they're showing it in a very specific way. Instead of violence which often follows violence, there's peace and quiet. Most people react in a similar way and it shows that they all felt a similar way too. Again, a thing of a big community, not affecting just individual people like friends and families of the deceased.