Blog Post #6: Self Evaluation

            Throughout my time in English 15s, my writing and appreciation for the arts both definitely improved and became a greater focus in my academic life.  However even beyond academics, this whole semester has taught me how fast things fly by and how I have to make the best of my time here at Penn State and succeed as best as I can.  I feel like it was just yesterday I was walking into the classroom for the first time, and now the semester has come to an end and a new one will be starting in just a few weeks.  It’s one down, and only seven to go (hopefully!).  Because I know it is going to go so fast I cannot wait around and hope opportunities to succeed come to me, I need to go out on my own, find them, and capitalize on them.  When it comes to English 15s though, the class has certainly improved both my writing and my appreciation for the arts. 

Throughout all of high school, I would always write essays with the state of mind that my teacher is my only audience.  English 15s taught me that I should be writing for a greater purpose, and as if many people will be seeing my work.  In this class that was true because of the blogs, group project, and peer editing sessions.  The class has also helped me improve on my basic writing skills, such as essay structure, not using cliché statements, and using details to further connect my work to my readers and show in more depth about how what I write about affects me.  This class was definitely different than my high school English classes because I felt they never stressed these points enough.  Those classes were much more concerned with very little things such attention getting statements, and not using “be” verbs (I always hated that rule).  Overall I really do feel that as a writer I have become much more mature due to the teachings of this class.

Other than how to write essays, this class exposed me to more of the arts than I have ever seen before.  Prior to this class, I had never visited an art museum, seen an abstract play, or even gave the arts much thought other than music.  By visiting the Palmer Museum of Arts, I was able to experience works of art of would otherwise not think much of.  The works I saw in the museum were truly amazing and unlike anything I have ever seen.  The viewing of In Red and Brown Water was also a very unique experience because before that the only play I had seen was Your Welcome America starring Will Ferrell.  Needless to say that was not nearly the cultural experience I received from In Red and Brown Water.  The play showed me a look at a type of life and culture I was not used to, being from a middle class Long Island suburb. 

This class was probably one of my favorite of this semester because it was not just another lecture hall.  I felt like I received my individual attention and the overall experience was much more personalized.  This class also opened me up to experiences that no other class this semester did.        

The Art of Poetry

            Experiencing The Art of Poetry presentation was very unique to me because I am not very familiar with poetry and abstract art, especially putting the two together.  I felt that Sheila and Paul’s work greatly reflected each other and provided for an interesting model of how collaborating two different types of are can work.

            The way in which the pieces were created was very interesting to me.  The idea of the painting being created, then poetry being written to reflect the painting only to have the painting change to reflect the poetry is very unique.  The constant bouncing back and forth seems like if would be difficult for the artist to agree, but they were able make it work.  What interests me though it how the poetry no longer exactly reflects how Sheila feels about the painting because Paul had the last say with changing the painting.  This process seems to really let the art develop into something both unique and relative. 

            This was almost overwhelming to me because of how unfamiliar I am to these two types of arts.  At first I did not know how to look and the two to relate them.  However after seeing a few different examples it became easier to understand the process and how it created the final pieces.  I believe anyone can be interested in this type of art if given enough time to think about it and understand it.  

Movie Review: Shawshank Redemption

            What could be more interesting that seeing what the majority of people do not get a chance to experience: Life inside a maximum security prison?  Shawshank Redemption, starring Morgan Freeman and Tim Robbins, shows a look at how prisoners survive when almost their entire lives have been spent behind bars.  Andy Dupree (Tim Robbins) is given two life sentences for supposedly murdering his wife and her lover.  Once he arrives at Shawshank prison, he immediately has to start adjusting to life on the inside.  For the first couple of years he gets brutally assaulted by both guards and inmates, but soon finds his place with a group of people including Morgan Freeman’s character, Red, a man who can smuggle and reasonable item inside of the jail.  He tells Andy, “I’m a man who knows how to locate certain things from time to time."  

            The acting in this movie is some of the best I have ever seen.  All of the main characters are very developed and each one has their own unique and important characteristics.  This keeps the movie very interesting considering the majority of it is filmed behind the dull, gray walls of a jail cell.  Andy and Red’s relationship is especially interesting because their roles to each other switch throughout the movie.  At first Red seems to look out for Andy and help him adjust to the life of a prisoner.  As the movie goes on though, it appears that Red begins to follow Andy’s lead.

            The best audience for this film would be anyone that is taken in by interesting dialogue and relationships between people, not so much action and violence that typically grabs people’s attention.  Overall this is a classic movie that I feel anyone can enjoy.

English 15S

English 15S

Template:  For the template I wanted a "less is more" kind of feel, which is why I chose a plain background with not many designs.  I did not want the blog to look too busy.  However I also wanted to have a spot for the school I love on the page, which is why I chose to put a Penn State picture on the page.  The template also makes it easy for me to create new pages and add more to my blog.

Title:  I wanted to make the title have a reference to Penn State while still being clever.  This was the most difficult aspect of the blog for me to make because I had a hard time thinking of names.  We Are....Blogging was the most clever one I could think of, and I liked it, so I decided to stick with it.

Font:  I definitely wanted the font to be easy to read, and I am not a fan of the crazy looking fonts.  A lot of those just look silly to me.  So I chose a plain one for my posts so they are easy to read.

Color:  When debating about what color to use I realized I wanted to use a darker one, or at least plain.  I simply felt the blog looked better with a dark background.  The other colors on the page I actually made by accident, but I enjoyed the way the colors made it look, so I kept them.

Pages:  I included an English 15S page so it would be easy for viewers to find where my work for this class is.

I enjoyed making this blog, even though I did find it difficult.  I found myself confused while trying to edit the pages and colors, which is why i stumbled across some of the colors by accident.  I believe it represents who I am because it shows my love for Penn State, however I will probably mess around with the colors and add a few more pages and see what else I like.  This blog will be a great tool to use in English 15S because it makes it easy to turn in work, see examples that our professor puts on her page and make it easy so see what our classmates are doing with their blogs.

Palmer Museum of Art

Palmer Museum of Art

         The piece of art I chose is the Blackfoot Delegation to Washington.  This sculpture was created in 1993 by Marisol, because the Native American leaders of the Blackfoot tribe requested an artistic work created for the world's fair in Seville, Spain in 1993.  The piece is a wooden sculpture where five Native American men are looking straight ahead.  Three of them are sitting down and have a tool in one of their hands.  The three tools are different.  There are two more men standing behind the three sitting down.  Their bodies are made out of simple blocks of wood with little detail added to them.  The faces are carved into more detail but still do not look that realistic.  Their hands are the only part of the sculpture that has great, realistic detail.  Everything down the veins are sculpted out, and they look almost out of place and eerie compared to the simple wooden body.  The three men sitting down are also wearing hats.  One looks like a crown, while the others are not so recognizable.

        The rhetorical situation of the piece is that the Blackfoot tribe wanted their culture represented in an art festival.  The sculpture is based off of an old picture from 1916, where five leaders of the tribe were going to Washington and negotiating a land settlement.  The faces look very serious and dignified, for they were obviously a proud tribe who wanted to keep their land.  However, their faces also look disappointed,  most likely because they were being forced to leave their land.  This connects with my emotions because the Blackfoot tribe appears to be full of pride and history, so it is rather sad that these people were forced from the land that they loved.  If I was forced from my home I would be furious, because it is where I grew up and it has a very special place in my heart, just as the Blackfoot tribe's land is to them.  The artist creates credibility because next to the exhibit there is the picture that this piece is based off of.  There is a clear resemblance of the real people of the photograph in the wooden sculpture.  Marisol is also a respected artist who has created many well known pieces.  The claim that Marisol was trying to make is that this tribe is very connected with nature.  He makes this claim by portraying their bodies as simple blocks of wood.  The people in the sculpture also do not have anything flashy or unnecessary with them.  They get what they need from nature and do not waste anything.  

        The trip to the Palmer Museum of art was an enjoyable one.  I am not typically a museum go-er but many of the works at the museum were quite fascinating to me.  However I do not see myself going back.  As much as I appreciated some of the works in the museum, paintings and sculptures do not grab my attention as much as other works of art such as music.  With that being said, the trip was definitely a good experience and it opened me up to other forms of art.

The Arboretum at Penn State

The Arboretum at Penn State

                The Arboretum is one of the most beautiful aspects of the Penn State campus.  The endless amounts of exotic plants and flowers is enough to keep anyone entertained for at least a little while, even if they are not a nature lover.  Some of the sights at the arboretum are unlike anything I have ever experienced; such as the map of Pennsylvania engraved into slate, or the pond filled with lily pads and some of the most unique flowers I have ever seem.  Witnessing all of these sights was definitely a great experience that I would recommend to anyone.

                I have never actually been inside the botanical garden at the arboretum.  I have passed it numerous times but never taken the time to see what was inside.  The sights were definitely more interesting than I expected.  Nature has never really grabbed my attention because when I think of nature I think of a boring forest or a simple lake.  These are not very exciting places to be which is why I have never gone out of my way to experience the arboretum.  However after walking around the arboretum for a few minutes, I realized that this was easily more captivating than what I anticipated.  The map of Pennsylvania was the first thing to catch my attention.  It was a large map engraved into a slate with detailed rivers, and names of towns all included.  This blew my mind because I have never seen anything like this before, and I was also amazing that someone was able to create such a detailed and accurate map like that while engraving it into a slate.  The next thing that caught my attention was the different types of plants they had there.  Many were flowers I had never seen before.  They almost looked fake because that’s how colorful and exotic they looked, and many of these flower also felt very hard, which made them feel even more fake.  One of my favorite parts was the little wooden shed/walkthrough that had giant squash hanging from the ceiling.  This was certainly very aesthetically pleasing to walk through because it was a beautiful sight that is hard to find anywhere around here besides the arboretum.

                The arboretum was unlike anything I have ever experienced before, and I would definitely recommend visiting it to anyone.  Everyone should experience the sights there at least once, because it is the only thing like it around here.  The different types of plants could not be found anywhere else.  I certainly have never seen anything like it before.  However, I am not sure if I’ll ever take the time to go back.  I probably wouldn’t go out of my way but if I’m free for an hour or so and my friends wanted to check it out I would without a doubt go.  The reason why I wouldn’t go out of my way is because I have experienced it before, and it’s not like they are going to change the plants or exhibits.  It will remain the same, and one experience is sufficient to me.  However the arboretum was still an excellent place to go to experience how beautiful nature can be.    

Blog Post #4: Good Will Hunting Review

Since a young age, we are all told to do the best we can and achieve our full potential in life.  The question is who would not want to accomplish as much as they can?  Who would want to slip through the cracks and be a no body for the rest of their lives?  The answer to all of these questions is: Will Hunting.  Will Hunting, played by Matt Damon, is a simple man who is gifted with a genius outlook on math, but has no inspiration to pursue it.  This lack of inspiration is felt by many college students, which is why this is such a relatable movie and one of the greatest college movies ever made. 

                What makes this a unique college movie is that it doesn’t focus so much on the stereotypical aspects of college that typical college movies do.  For example partying and drinking do not play much of a role in this movie.  The movie focus more on what college is really about: finding yourself and who you want to be for the rest of your life.  Will Hunting is unlike his other friends such as Chuckie Sullivan, played by Ben Affleck, and Billy McBride, played by Cole Hauser.  His other friends are not very bright and will most likely work construction for the rest of their lives, and they understand this.  Will, on the other hand, is an extremely bright math student who simply believes it is ok to work as a Janitor instead of realizing his full potential as an intellectual.  This role could not be played better by anyone else besides Matt Damon.  His performance throughout the whole movie is spectacular.  It is hard not to feel his emotion when he is dealing with his problems.  Some of his friends, such as Billy McBride, don’t have very unique characteristics throughout the movie.  While this makes his character seem undeveloped, it also can further emphasize how much brighter Will is compared to his friends.  Overall, however the acting was superb. 

                While I believe everyone would enjoy this movie, the most appropriate audience for it is college students and college faculty and professors.  Any college student can relate to Will’s situation of finding out what he wants to be, while college professors can relate to the adults in the movie trying to influence Will and make him a better and more successful person.  However with acting and a plot as good as this, it would be hard for anyone not to be intrigued with almost every scene.