Author Archives: Jori Happonen

Hi guys, here’s the instructions for the last blog.

due 12/7.

Please write a post of no more than 500 words about your favorite enrichment workshop that you had attended and why this workshop/program/experience was your favorite. Be sure to address the ways in which this workshop resonated with you from a personal perspective and, if applicable, inspired you in any way. You will have the opportunity to discuss your post in class on the last day that your freshman seminar class will meet.

Godspeed on devil’s thunder!

-Jori H

Due 12/03/2012, before class.

Instructions:

Create or find a photograph or some other image (a meme, an animated GIF, etc.) that represents in some way your experience at Baruch thus far. Embed your image in a blog post in which you reflect, in no more than 500 words, on your impressions of your first three months at Baruch. Your response should be personal and creative. If you use an image that you did not create yourself, be sure to credit the source with a name, if possible, and an URL.

Have fun with the assignment!

-Jori

For this assignment, you must:
1) post the monologue you’ve developed in your seminar AND
2) embed a self-portrait, which can be a photograph, an image, a cartoon, a drawing, or some other depiction of how you see yourself.

A monologue is a composition by an individual that has no set length, and it functions as a window into the individual’s personal look on life: it is a chance for a person to express their character and their voice. This means that there is an incredible amount of freedom when it comes to the content of the monologue.

For this monologue, you are encouraged to use the material in your free writes as a basis for what you’ll present. Your free writes will be given back to you during the mid-semester one-on-one meetings, for which the schedule has been posted on blackboard.

The best way to add the picture to your blog is using the “upload/insert” button and either upload it from your computer or from a website (just enter the URL under the right tab in the upload/insert menu). The picture can be a photograph, an image, a cartoon, a drawing, or some other depiction of how you see yourself. If you didn’t create the image, please also credit the author and if possible, link the source.

I look forward hearing your monologues on the 29th. good luck!

-Jori H

Click and play

Since the Baruch blogs don’t allow Grooveshark’s embedded playlists, linking to the playlist is about the best I can do. Also, the assignment word limit needs to be higher. I’m over 800 words, which means I fail my own assignment.

The songs are in (right about) chronological order of when I first heard them, with the exception of the last song. Also, another requirement for the song to be on this playlist is that it’s still in my cellphone.

So hopefully this’ll shed a little light on my history as well as my personality.

1)Stratovarius – The Kiss of Judas
Boy, it must be a good 17 years since I heard this song for the first time… Probably somewhere around the 4th-5th grade. Back when PS1 had just come out and I had a hard time leaving my room because I was busy playing Final Fantasy 7.

2) Nightwish – Wish I had an angel
I put both Nightwish and Stratovarius on the playlist because they herald back to the early days of me listening to metal, and are definitely lighter than most of my stuff these days.

3) Children of Bodom – Downfall
This is the first band that I started to listen to that was… growl-y, probably around 7th grade. I remember I had a really hard time adjusting to the singing style, but because the melody was just so awesome, I couldn’t stop listening to the songs either. Melody-wise, there is a strong resemblance to both of the earlier bands, but the singing is the real difference. It’s thanks to these guys that I’m now able to understand most metal band singers to a varying some degree. It really opened up a lot more bands for me!

4)Turmion Kätilöt – Verta ja lihaa
The name of the song in English is “blood and flesh.” This and #5 are on the playlist for the same reason.

5) Machinae Supremacy – Winterstorm
These two are definitely the first bands that I liked that incorporated metal and electronic music. I was introduced to both bands while I was in the Finnish defence forces (=army), which is mandatory for all men. Sitting in foxholes, getting sleep 3 hours/night, doing your business outdoors, disarming mines… army was an awesome time.

6) Tristania – Opus Relinque
The album I listened to before and after army for a long time. It’s as good as the band ever got, which is sad. I really seem to be drawn to bands that use lyrics with fancy and poetic words, this song being a prime example. “Challenge my own world to chaos/Thoughts to mind becomes my arch enemies.”

7) Cradle of Filth – Saffron’s Curse
I resisted liking these guys for the longest time. But after I borrowed this cd from the library in Finland (yeah, they stock a lot of metal music… pretty awesome) and heard this song, I couldn’t help but like them. It’s brutal, sad, angry, romantic and the lyrics are divine. link to lyrics: link. Even if you dislike the music, it’s hard to resist the lyrics, they read like Shakespearean odes.

“I wished Her back but the dead adored Her
Even wild winds sang in chora for Her
Saffron from my heart, from the start I swore
We’d be together more…”

8) Agalloch – …And the great cold death of the earth
Up to this day, this is the only American band that I like. I’ve always liked nature and anything naturalistic sounding, and these guys sure do deliver. I also like how every single album and song they do seems unpredictable in how they can change from black metal to acoustic guitars to ambient electronic music with ease.

9) E Nomine – Wolfen (Das Tier in Mir)
In 2010, I did a study abroad in Japan for two months for my minor. The program was full-on Japanese studying 5-7 hours a day, 5 days a week. I would have been insanely burned out by school and trying to survive in Japan (which of course was 24/7 Japanese studying) if it weren’t for this artist. Somehow I found that if I listened to E Nomine while studying Japanese, the studying came a lot easier. I think it may have been because listening to a guy sing in German (which I don’t understand) acted as a sort of a white sound that let my brain relax while the fast beat made me work faster.

10) Theatre of Tragedy – …A distance there is…
This song is an old favorite of mine. Mostly I just added it to the playlist because it’s pretty and to show that not everything I listen to makes you want to kill people (*).

Having looked at the whole playlist, I can’t help but realize that all of this music is ridiculously old -_- I mean, most of them HAVE done good recent work, but since I mostly went with songs that I either heard first or liked first, the majority of the stuff on this list is very, very old.

I’m depressed now,
-Jori

*I don’t think my music makes you want to kill people, but that’s what I’ve been told.

The blog is due on 10/1, before the start of the class.

Create a two minute video, an eight image slideshow, or a ten song musical playlist that represents who you think you are to your classmates. Embed your creation in a blog post and then write in 150-500 words how what you’ve created speaks to who you are. Here are some free tools that you can use for this assignment, but you are free to use whatever services you like:

• video editors:
• YouTube editor http://www.youtube.com/editor
• Image slideshows:
• Blogs@baruch built in galleries
• Flickr http://flickr.com
• Flickr Slidr http://flickrslidr.com
• Picasa http://picasaweb.google.com
• Image loop http://www.imageloop.com
• Musical playlists:
• Grooveshark http://grooveshark.com
• Spotify http://www.spotify.com
• Mixpod http://www.mixpod.com

Please make sure to embed it into the blog (most of the above links will offer you automatic embed links and directions on how to embed them) to make them easier for others to enjoy!

-Jori H