Choosing and Paraphrasing Cantos

            Last week was even less stressful than the last for class work and homework in ALA. Of course having another day off, Monday, was nice for this reason, but this past week was geared toward learning about our new unit and starting to research. On Tuesday, we went more into depth on Dante's Inferno, and looked at the nine Circles of Hell and the 34 Cantos. Not only were we completing the introduction to Dante, but we were introduced fully to our extensive Dante's Inferno project. From what it has to offer to make us suffer, it doesn't seem as hard as other projects we've done, just even more time consuming.  For me, even if a one-part assignment is academically harder than a multiple-part project, the multiple-part project will always be harder for me because my problem with projects is the amount of time it consumes. Projects such as the one we are given in ALA are my hell, because figuring out a balance of time consumption and working for hours on end is my fear and suffering of academics. Fortunately for me, the material and Dante's Inferno is somewhat interesting and almost fun to learn about, so I'll enjoy the suffering to a certain extent. Almost everyone in class, including me, wanted to do the "Dante's Inferno: 'what level of hell are you in?' Test" and I think I can stand for everybody when I say everyone was in hell, and most pretty deep, as I was. With that fun way to end Tuesday, the rest of the short week was to come, full of tiresome work time.

            In class, we were given Thursday and Friday to start researching our chosen Cantos and start/possibly finish paraphrasing that Canto into contemporary English. The Cantos I was interested in were more of the ones in the Fraud level of Dante's hell. The specific ones I wanted were 20, and 23-27. Luckily I ended up being able to choose Canto XXV, one of the ones I wanted. Canto XXV contains thieves and poetically explains their sins and deserved punishments. I finished paraphrasing this Canto only about half of the way through in two class periods, and that was the end of last week. I have yet to finish paraphrasing this week, and start working on research, my presentation, and my visual. The hardest part about this project is the amount of writing it requires, and is what stresses me out about the whole thing. I will start writing very soon, as it will take me an estimate of 10 hours I'm realizing. There is a lot of work to be done for this project, and I'm just glad I have a later Canto, because it gives me more time to work on this project. This week I will try to truly get started on the research and writing element of the project, and of course finish the tedious paraphrasing. The week of TCAPs is when I have to turn in this project and present, and until then, I have much to do for this project of hell.

Imagination's Darkest

            Last week in ALA was a nice one, and wasn't loaded with work compared to past weeks for different reasons. The main reason is because we didn't have school Friday so the week was shorter, but it was also because of the flow of our units, and that we basically ended one unit and introduced another. On Monday, my group and I for the tragic hero project watched other group's presentations, but class time ran out and we didn't present. Then on Tuesday, being the second to last group to go, we presented our poster and explained everything about Saving Private Ryan and Captain Miller, and how/why he was a tragic hero and how of course, we showed those elements through our poster. I think we did a great job on our project, from the writing to the poster, but maybe could've presented our poster a little more prepared. Otherwise I feel we deserve a good grade for all the hard work we put into it, and I believe every other group in our class deserves good grades as well. I'm glad to have been in a group with Ryo, David, and Tiffany, and am glad we based our tragic hero project off of Saving Private Ryan. On Tuesday we finished all the presentations, and basically concluded our tragic hero unit. To end off the week on Thursday, we were introduced to our new unit on Dante's Inferno.

            For our writing assignment, we had to write lengthy, essay based short answers to seven questions concerning hell. The first questions comprised into one, were general wonderings of what hell is, what it like is, what you believe in, etc. The next six questions are specific ones involving one's personal hell, what it would be like, what are the punishments, how can one escape, what's a symbol, and more. Out of anything, besides its length and time consumption, it was a fun writing assignment for an introduction to a unit, because it used imagination's darkest. The writing wasn't analytic or reflective, but rather a collection of intellectual and thought-out answers to the questions of one's own hell. I know I wrote a lot and spent a lot of time thinking about my personal hell, and my hell is pretty dark no doubt. I could've made it darker, but that would be gruesome and only scare myself. If I lightened up my hell at all, it would be too forgiving for the definition of a hell. Thanks to this assignment, I imagined my own hell for hell-borne souls realizing the dark side of my imagination, but also got an idea of what this next unit is going to present to our class. 

Face the Suffering of Hell

            Hell is a very large concept that is widely feared among all people, whether they believe in it or not, the idea of hell is a scary one. Hell is the place religiously where people go for committing many sins or very serious sins, instead of the afterlife paradise of heaven. This is the home of Satan, or the devil, and is believed to look like a fiery hole of pain, fear, and death. In hell, you are punished in severity according to your crimes/sins and usually involves torture in all forms. No matter what, if you go to hell after death, you'll be living in a place of pain, and your fears infinite. If I were to have a hell, my hell would be sectioned from bad people, to the worst, and the worst people would go to the place of worst torture. Whatever people believe hell to be, mine wouldn't be any worse, but about the same severity. I personally don't believe in a literal hell, mainly because I'm not religious in any way. I see where people believe in the concept of hell, and why it can be a smart concept and is supported, but I do not believe that religious afterlife, heaven or hell, literally exists at all.

            To get into my hell, you have to have committed sinful acts or crimes that are enough to make you a morally bad person. Some cases people commit crimes for their sake, and are not morally a bad person, but most crimes are morally bad and driven from greed, revenge, or from being psychotic or mentally disturbed in some way. All the people with bad morals and use it for the worse will fit perfectly in my hell. For example, if a homeless person steals a coat for the sake of their warmth on a cold winter night from a store, they will not end up in my hell as long as they don't do it again and realize that it was bad, even if it was necessary. Even if they steal something again for their sake, unless they have committed other more serious crimes, their moral is not very sinful, and with that they would go to the 'mildest' part of my hell, or not go to my hell at all. But any person who commits murder, rape, heists, genocide, homicide, or any other act of terror or intense violence will go to the darkest and most painful part of my hell, because they have no morals whatsoever.

            The punishments in my hell vary on the level of my hell. For the least sinful or least morally corrupt, their punishments will be only having to sit in a small closed-in room all painted red with no windows and only the light of a fire, for two days straight. For the most sinful, every person will be tied up, locked in a bloody room with intense heat, and have to hear the recording of a screaming person on infinite loop, and lastly have a mental replay as clear as watching TV, of the crime/sin they committed in their life on infinite loop in their head forever... Everyone in my hell will suffer for what they did in different ways, some worse than others through punishment, but everyone will suffer by just living there, either until they have suffered enough, or for always.

            In a dark place of only fire, the color of blood red, and the agony and fear of all the sinful souls, my hell is only a place of darkness. The darkness has to overpower the darkness pollution from the sinful souls, and so my hell only becomes a more deathly place with more and more sinners coming. There are elevated levels of my hell, and the walls are like those of a cave, but colored of blood and brightened by the intense fires. There are infinite levels, and the deeper the level, the worse the torture and the souls are. The deeper you go, there's less firelight, but more intense heat, and an increased choking darkness surrounds the little air there is. Also, no matter what level you're on, the sights and sounds of agony and fear are present and never ending, but the deeper you go in my hell, the worse it is to witness.

            There is absolutely no way of escaping my hell, only ways of rightfully getting out by learning of your sins in the cruelest way possible, which is noted considering you're in hell. It is not improbable to escape, but impossible to escape. To leave my hell, you have to 'pay off' the magnitude of your sin/s by suffering until you've learned the lesson and have suffered twice as much as your victims had during your lifetime. If one's soul doesn't really learn the lesson in the hardest way possible, then the pain and suffering is increased until the soul itself has no more will to struggle in this hell! If the lesson is learned and morals are regained, the person can be released from hell, but if they never learn before their soul gives up, they'll never get out.

            The symbol to represent my hell would be from the view off a cliff side, looking down into a bottomless abyss that only grows darker as you fall. This symbol makes sense as a representation of my hell because it symbolizes the idea of falling into a life of nothing; of death never ending. After death, a hell-borne soul is directed to my hell, which is no life on Earth or one worth living in the idea of afterlife. My hell, or any hell, contains only suffering no matter the severity, and the sinful soul doesn't know the pain they'll endure until they experience it. The bottomless abyss too has unknown pain of falling forever, until one falls into it, and can never escape, just like my hell. The infinite darkness is what they see while falling in the abyss, and is what they feel in my hell. The symbol of the bottomless abyss of darkness is analogous to my hell in every way I can think of, and is why it is the symbol.

            Besides the obvious hell-borne souls such as Hitler's or Stalin's, I cannot think of a lengthy and specific list of sinners that would go to my hell, but I can think of a general list of kinds of criminals that will be in my hell. The main list I can think of are firstly, genocidal people and terrorists, next serial killers and homicidal people, next rapists and molesters, and finally burglars, heist leaders, and other criminals on that level. Any person whose morals are legitimately evil or of wrong doing will go to my hell, and according to how bad their acts of violence or evil are, will bring them to the according level of suffering in my hell.  

            

 

Tragedy in a Poster

            The past week in ALA was an exciting, but it was a lot of hard work in and out of class. On Monday, Tuesday, and Thursday we were given all period to work on our tragic hero project posters. My group, Ryo, David, Tiffany, and I, all worked hard and did as much as we could to make a great poster for our presentation. I'm glad we got to work together, because no one slacked off, and I got to know each one of them better from before. Our group based our project off of the film, Saving Private Ryan, which is a WWII movie based off a real story. We agreed on this movie because Captain Miller, the main character, is a perfect example of a tragic hero, and his character includes a lot of potential analysis which I think we all as a group, analyzed him to the fullest. I am glad we chose this movie because first of all, it is a spectacular picture and is totally worth seeing, but it also contains scenes that are easy to tell what element of the Greek tragedy it is. I wrote my essay on the tragic element of hamartia, and having watched the movie only one time through, I already knew what to analyze and what specific parts showed Captain Miller's hubris and other weaknesses. I may have only watched the movie once, but the scenes I found to show his hamartia I have watched at least five times each, over and over again. The rest of the elements of tragedy in the movie are obvious too, and I know that my group chose the right scenes for analysis as much as I did.

            Our poster is comprised of a few simple things, but all relevant to the tragic hero, the movie, and the elements of a Greek tragedy. For all 10 of our pictures of the scenes according to each element, we placed them on red paper backgrounds, to show pain, blood, and death as the pictures fall down the poster. For a boost in showing the element of blood and death, we splatter painted red paint all over the poster, representing blood itself. Also, we drew and cut out a tank and buildings, normal and burnt, and for the ground of this cut out scene, we attempted to make sand out of brown sugar and glue. Lastly for the big symbol, we made a giant replica of Captain Miller's gravestone, and over the arms of the cross we wrote his full name. Everything we put on the poster has meaning, metaphorical or literal, having to do directly with the Greek tragedy or our tragic hero and the movie. The poster in my opinion turned out great, and even though it may not be completely perfect, it shows the elements and every meaning we want to bring across to our class well enough. We didn't have to present on Friday, but we are ready to present for Monday next week, and I am excited to show all our hard work and eventually find out how we did on the whole project.

Experiencing Fun, Feeling and Watching Tragedies

            The last weekend of January was nothing spectacular, just of pure relaxation. The big event was winter ball, and I was planning to go with my friends, except none of them wanted to go this time because they thought it wouldn't be the greatest. Fortunately, they were right and I'm glad I didn't buy a ticket, because winter ball was apparently a disaster. It had a lot less people than homecoming or any Club Mo, and they ended up having to end it early due to the lack of people. From not going, I basically hung out with friends and family, and relaxed. The past week had more of a work load than the previous week, but still less stressful than three weeks ago. Monday started off with a blast of homework from basically every class, leveled out over the week, and increased in homework for Super Bowl weekend. Rehearsals for Rent went well again, and on Thursday we got to play a few songs with the whole cast, and it was epic! Already I can't wait to perform and see the turn out, but I still have a lot of practicing to do. In ALA class, we worked on our Tragic Hero project the whole week, and for our group on Monday we chose the WWII movie, Saving Private Ryan. Tuesday and Wednesday I spread the movie out to watch, because it is a long and very violent film. The movie is spectacular in my opinion, on every level a film can possess. It also works well for our project, so it's good for that too. Thursday and Friday I just got more stuff to create our poster, and that was it for this class. Currently this week, our group will be putting everything together and writing all the essays we need to. I know this week will be more stressful for our project and include more work, because the whole assignment is due this upcoming Friday.

            Besides finishing the past school week off with more homework in this class (and for every other class), this previous weekend was eventful. Friday I got a cold, but luckily it wasn't anything to worry about, because I had to wake up bright and early Saturday morning. This was for the BVSD chess tournament held at Louisville Middle School, which I had been preparing for the past few days before Saturday. Two months ago my friend, Chris Scott, started up a chess club for MHS and wanted me to join. Back in November I hadn't known how to play chess, but since I joined, I've learned how and think it is quite fun, considering that I thought it wouldn't be at all. A couple weeks ago, our club reached out to the district through our principals' permission, and the district created a BVSD chess league with tournaments for all the schools in the district, all because of our club. The reason why Fairview, with their massive chess club that somehow never decreases from graduations, didn't try to create this league first is unknown to me. The first tournament was held at 8 AM the past Saturday, and we had to be there by 7:30 AM. Instead, we thought it would be fun to go to I.H.O.P for breakfast beforehand, so we had to wake up even earlier! Not only that, we had to suit up for the tournament as well, so because of all the preparation, carpooling, and breakfast, I had to wake up at 5 AM. The tournament was a great experience, and was indeed fun! I didn't get home until 2 PM, and after waking up so early and with all the chess, I only had a few hours to do my weekend homework, because before 5 PM, I went to the mall with my friends, and slept over with all them after. Sunday morning, having lack of sleep two nights in a row and being mildly sick, I unfortunately had to finish the rest of my homework, because there was a Super Bowl to watch! Of course, as everyone in Colorado knows, the Super Bowl was a bust; embarrassing and depressing. I just watched it at home with my family, and I'm glad I didn't go to any Broncos party, because it would have been even more devastating to be with so many more fans. Cancelling out sickness, tiresome, and the Super Bowl loss, this weekend actually was great! I know this school week will be more stressful than the past couple already, but here's hoping for a better week, and even better weekend to come.