Joseph's Blog

So this is supposed to be like some advice on how to survive this class. I’m not gonna lie, i can only help you so much. Basically do your work, and i suppose you should be fine. I’m worthless at english, so i don’t really know what to tell you if you’re looking for english help. I suppose since this is a class you’re not gonna be doing anything you want to, so get over it. The best advice I can give to you is find some way to motivate yourself to do what you need to do, and don’t fixate on how much what you’re doing may or may not suck.

Mrs. Duke always says “fake it ’till you make it”…. and I guess that could work for some of yall…. It just made me wanna punch babies, which kinda ties into why some people may not have achieved all they wanted in this class; a major character flaw that would lead to this is pretty much basic apathy towards everything. If you’re one of those people who doesn’t do homework and doesn’t need to study, but can test well enough to make the grade….. that doesn’t work…. and I’m pro at that, so take it from me. So here’s the summary: read your crap, do your crap, don’t give Mrs. Duke any crap; and your grades won’t be crap.

reading through 73. This portion pefectly matched up to the discussion we had in class… which im assuming is why we had it… anyway…. I thought it was pretty interesting how we shared similar opinions of the current situation hamlet’s in, as Ros and Guil. The reading cleared up their intentions behind their actions which deffinitely helped me understand why they’re doing the things they are to hamlet. Today during class, I was kind of under the impression that they might somewhat be betraying Hamlet, but really now their actions make much more sense. I kinda like Ros and Guil, they’re the most entertaining characters. Haha i kind of dont want them to die, some im just reading along waiting for their impending doom. Fun Stuff. Go download the live version of S.T.P. by Sublime, it’s legit

^^^^^^^ that was my James Hetfield. Spring Break…. yeah, went to disney world… Woohoo. Rode some rides, ate some $12 hamburgers and stuff. I was with the EHS band, so did some EHS band stuff. Took my ACT, not fun. Did some english projectin. Wrote some songs. played some video games……. Thats about it.
Unfortunantly all things good must come to end, so back to school it is. Minus one best friend, + 100% more physics project……. cant wait.

So the group finally got together over the break to get some work done…. and we got some work done. I’d say we’re about 1/3 of the way done, so i’m proud of our group. we’re throwin all the cards out on the table and puttin it all together.

And I’m not gonna lie, as much as i hate to admit it, i have learned some stuff while doing this project. We have a ton of neat findings and tidbits to share with the class. And if you wanna sneak peak, well thats too bad. you’re just gonna have to wait till we have class again. Word up!

the only irish author that i somewhat know about is Bram Stoker. He was the author for the original Dracula, which was pretty sweet. His version of dracula might not have been the most critically aclaimed but nonetheless it was an excellent work of literature. Like the typicall creature story it tends to follow a cliche plot. What is even more surprising is how much it resembles the original Frankenstein, by that it introduces plot aspects with letters between characters.

over the last 200 years Bram’s work has proven to be a pretty influencial book. if it wasn’t for his book, society today would be lacking hundreds of adaptations of his work. Just think about how many vampire, dracula, and van helsing movies there wouldn’t be.

Music is good. We had the talent show this past Saturday. I’m not gonna lie, i was very impressed by the amount of talent that showed… this year. My little group (Jared C, Trenton D, Stolzle, and me) played a pretty good set. We opened with The Joker and The Theif by Wolfmother. Jared and I ran sound for all the other acts, so when we played no one ran our sound. So…. unfortunantly Jared’s mic was killed for the first half of the song. After Joker, we played our version of Voodoo Chile by Hendrix. That was awesome. I got pretty amped up and did my solo behind my back which everyone thought was cool. Unfortunantly we weren’t able to bring home a first place prize… again….. Secretly, i think we totes deserved it, and got robbed. But I’ll let everyone else be the judge….. What did you think?

Then this friday is carnival knight. And jared waited until a few days ago to let us know we’re playing a full set…. so i have no idea what we’re gonna do. We’ll probabaly just whip it all together at the last second like we usually do. I’m not worried about it.

The hero that i chose to blog about is Fa Mulan from the 1998 Disney film Mulan. Basically her whole heroic journey starts out when Mulan’s father is unable to enlist in China’s army due to an injury from a previous war. Having no male children to fight for him, Mulan takes his place. She makes it into the army under the disguise as a man, and learns to be strong as she trains with the soldiers.
Eventually she is discovered and brings shame upon her family. Cast out,she begins to return home when the Huns suddenly attacks her platoon. She rises to the challenge and successfully defends her friends, and ultimately goes on to defeat the Huns.
Mulan has most of the basic qualities of the average heroic story. I believe that every culture has similar heroic stories for the same reason. It is because naturally we as a member of a culture have a subconcious desire for a savior to save us from whatever negative situation that we may be in.

Probably the best contribution to British music, if not all music was Led Zeppelin. My personal favorite song of their’s is the song “Good Times, Bad Times” here’s a link to a youtube of the song. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZO2qO9FaIWU . Not only does this song have a kickin beat, a wild guitar solo,and a funky bass line but meaningful, relateable lyrics. I’ve had the lyrics to this song memorized before I could speak, thanks to the excellent taste in music of my parents. Basically this song is about growing up and dealing with new experiences, as well as fufilling one’s own life. Robert Plant clearly sets up a situation portraying not learning from one’s mistakes and being a slave to this flaw. But in the end the emotion in his voice shows that he believes the sacrafices and pain he experiences are worth it.
Led Zeppelin was big during the time right after the British Invasion, in the shadow of The Beatles. The hype around the Beatles was finally dying down making way for some real music. An american counter-part to Led Zeppelin would be Creedence Clearwater Revival, which is also an awesome band. Although their styles aren’t exactally the same, one will find that they share a similar fanbase. I feel confident that Led Zeppelin and CCR were major influential sources for over 80% of the music I listen to today, and am very thankful for their contribution to music.

Does anyone know when the talent show is? The guys (Myself, Jared,Trentumnus, and Handrew) have been practicin. I guess getting ready. I have a feeling that we never will be though. We can’t make up our minds on any songs to play. Plus i blew another speaker on one of my PA cabinets. Which may not seem like a big idea to you…. but to anyone whom visits the talent show, it may or may not effect you dearly. Why? you ask. because I run sound for all the bands, therefore; broken speaker equals no sound, no sound equals no bands, no bands equals (amount of talent show entries times 1over4)…. Therefore epic predicament. So for right now, I’m wiring up a temp replacement, and waiting on the right part to come in…… I’m not getting paid enough to do this. But i think i see some free prom tickets on the horizon or something…. Wait, do we even have to pay for prom, I can’t ever remember paying for it, I thought that’s what the talent show is for anyway. Man I’m confused.

So far I’ve deffinitely enjoyed reading Beowulf. I like reading the translation then looking over at the old english portion and comparing to see if I recognize anything. So far, not really haha. But I’m getting better at it.

The story deffinitely feels like it’s gonna open up to be very entertaining. I sense action and violence which for sure catches my attention. I cant wait to see what happens next. In fact I’m so excited I’m gonna go grab my book right now. Pce