Author Archives: Olgi Qendro

House of Cards

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House of Cards

I revolved my digital essay around building and destroying. The lyrics have a piece that say, “the infrastructure will collapse, from voltage spikes.” And from this i decided to make my video. I used “light graffiti” and “stop motion.” The point was to show how two cards come together with different suits, and than the card with the same suit as one of the cards disrupts the building pattern and ultimately destroys the creation that the other two have conjured. It is a means to resemble how it takes time and patience to build something, and than is can be so easily destroyed. I had a fun time with this and it was a cool experience learning to use my camera and my laptop even further.

 

 

 

 

house of cards and instability

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What I chose for my poem was a song by Radiohead talking about marriage. The song is called House of Cards, and it is about a man asking a women to leave her failing marriage to be with him.

For my digital essay, I am considering 2 things. One was to build a house of cards and fast forward the process then blow the cards away in one video. Showing how it is so difficult to build, yet so easy to destroy. My second idea was the same process, however in pictures, and including some light graffitti (where you draw a picture with light).

Both are just proposals at this point, and my ideas could change along the way. A stop motion video was also one of my considerations. But it would be more difficult because i have never done one before.

not meant to be deciphered

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I read the first poem several times, and I could not figure out what she meant by it. It was frustrating nonetheless, and I was a little worried at how it would be discussed in class. What i found interesting reading other people’s blog posts, was that even though a majority of the class said they disliked it, most people followed Gertrude’s style and created pieces very similar to hers. Clearly, it is a very fun task.

I do not however, feel that the poem was made to be a puzzle that the public should figure out. Rather, it is a simple thought and collection of what Gertrude was thinking at the time, and because it is so unique it is regarded to be a great work. With that taken into consideration, we need to stop, or I do rather, thinking about what the words mean. I dont feel we will come to a conclusion.

The poem leaves you hanging, because you do not know what you just read. After reading it many times, you are just left with hints about what she might mean, but not really what she actually means. We discussed that she wanted to be famous and well known, maybe that is why the poem is written this way? I would hope not, it would be very disappointing. So I can continue to appreciate the work, I will imagine that it represents her thoughts and her aspects about people in her life, and I think that is what poetry is all about.

Forgetting

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I am glad I was not the only one who felt that way about Gertrude. As i was reading it, i couldn’t help but be frustrated and confused. I was about to stop reading it, but realized that it wouldn’t hurt. In the midst of the reading and a job interview I was having anxiety over, I forgot about the blog post I would have otherwise remembered had my schedule not been so cluttered.

The interview went fine, the new shoes were hurting my feet, and I wasn’t able to eat anything until now, 5PM. Now all I need to do is wait, and I am glad it’s over because I can finally go back to worrying about school. It is funny how much of a stress school is, but when you overcome something even more stressing, it almost becomes pleasant to go back to.

This will apply to many other things. I realize that when I occupy my schedule and juggle more, it makes the little things easier. However when my mind was only occupied with school, it seemed like the biggest chore. I realized the more you do, the more fluently you can do them, and the easier it becomes along the way.

With that said I am still not going to go out and take 6 classes next semester, work a full time job, and do countless extracurricular activities. I will however keep it in mind the next time I feel I will come across stressful obstacles and realize that all i need is a plan, and eventually it all works out in the end.

Winning does not make your wife a saint

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Best In Show did not really pose any plot but instead had just one agenda. The film is obviously intended for a certain audience: dog lovers. And not much more than that, people who love comedy and love dogs, and it worked in that sense.

Any person with a love for their dog can see themselves in any one of the owners. Whether is be the crazy couple who drove each other mad trying to buy a bee toy, or the humble man with the bloodhound who had a quiet yet passionate love for his pet. The main function is to relate people who own dogs to the people in the movie, and I feel that to a degree the movie did a great job with this.

It presented a bond that people have with their pets, as well as a very rewarding activity: the dog show. I don’t feel the director really had a “message” per se, rather just to have the viewers call favorites from the beginnings, and hope that their favorite dog/owners won the trophy.

The comedy aspect plays an excellent role in this type of movie. It would be mocked had it been a drama, with people going “It’s not that serious, guys. It’s just a dog show.” With this in mind we can not really take the comedy out of it, as it gives it the backbone, and room to see that the characters involved are made fun of all throughout the movie do to their own actions.

From my experiences, I can’t really say I am a dog person. Nor can I say that I would ever consider getting a dog and taking it to a dog show even after I’ve watched this movie. However that is not the point. The point is to get a laugh out of the situation, and to add comedy to the crowd of people who really do take this type of activity like their lives depends on it.

The point is to show us how irrational we can get when it comes to attempting to achieve our goals. And at the end we learn that losing doesn’t mean an end to your passion for your dogs, and that even winning doesn’t change the sad truth about your marriage.

Our Presidents and Precedents

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The one thing that did not make sense to me when reading Daniel Gilbert’s Immune to Reality chapter was his one quote, “But siblings and presidents are ours, for better or for worse, and there’s not much we can do about it once they,ve been born or elected.” (201) What confused me about this is the fact that Gilbert writes just before this, “Friends come and go, and changing candidates is as easy as changing socks.”

I feel Gilbert presents a sense of bias here and at first I thought he incorrectly used the word “president” to mean “precedent”. Not only does he undermine the importance of friendship, which many would compare to the warmth of a sibling relationship, but he also acts as if our president will stay and haunt us forever. What made me go “Huh?” was his use of someone who is in power for a short amount of time and possibly criticized throughout his or her term to enforce his idea that the mind tends to cope to things inescapable. I understand our society to function in a way where we would not have to feel oppressed by our leaders, and for Gilbert to use this example poses many problems with his credibility.

Using the word “precedent” on the other hand would make more sense. George Washington set a precedent that no president should serve more than 2 terms to avoid corruption of power. A precedent is a law that is set over the course of time. When we hold these truths and they are voided, then we have an inescapable outcome. So rejecting a value that we hold dear would trigger our psychological defense more than would a politician who we know can be easily replaced.

I do however admire Gilbert’s use of survey’s and studies to make his other points. It clarifies his theories by using factual evidence to support his claims. I also appreciate his adding humor to his work in between evidence. It balances the work to include some ease to it, making it more than just a serious read.

Erased Memories

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Previous knowledge of Frued allowed me to go into the text seamlessly. I have always enjoyed reading about his theories on dreams and the subconscious, and he makes some interesting points throughout his writing. One excerpt that I likes read, “We frequently encounter the same repetition-compulsion as a therapeutic obstacle, when at the end of the treatment we wish to bring about complete detachment from the physician; and it may be supposed that the vague dread with which those who are unfamiliar with it view analysis, as though they feared to wake what they think is better left to sleep, is at root a fear of the appearance of this daemonic compulsion.” I can see how this relates to my life in many ways. For instance, I cannot tell you what is in my subconscious, as Freud himself says, it is there for a reason. But I do believe that we avoid certain things in life because we have something in our subconscious telling us not to go there. When I was a toddler, say about 2 or 3, my mother told me I used to be so afraid of the doctor that they would have to forcefully bring me inside. Now I do not remember this, even though I remember certain things from my childhood, this may have been one of the things suppressed. So how I related this to Freud, as Freud says in this excerpt, until today I still do not wish to go to a doctors office. And the only few times I have gone was do to some serious illness that would not go away on its own. I dont do standard checkups, and the smell and ambiance of a hospital doesn’t sit well in my conscience. As I do not wish to awaken what made me fearful 17 years ago, through irrational thought I currently avoid what will at one point be inevitable.

Dialectic and Interpretation of Sciences

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What I found intriguing when reading Book Seven was the discovery of the word dialectic. In the past I have always incorporated the word dialect to mean variance within one language. Through reading Book Seven I thought that dialectic was the same thing except applied to an individual, meaning an adjective. It was not until later on in the book did I realize it meant something completely different.

I continue to enjoy the way Socrates uses theoretical scenarios that he creates in his head. The man in the cave that cannot look in any direction has to use his imagination to establish a world, not knowing that he is completely misguided until he finally sees what lies outside. At first I was not sure what he was getting at with his example, until he brought up the point of sciences.

To fully be aware of the real world, one must follow certain sciences. The Socratic method makes sense in this case because Socrates manages to find examples within him to prove his point. He talks about why astronomy cannot be one of the sciences to bring about dialectic in a man, because astronomy is only concerned with illusion, one cannot fully know astronomy as they do not possess the tools to do so. Anyone who studies astronomy will get nowhere because it does not represent the fundamentals such as arithmetic or geometry. Bringing up the point of soldiers and combat, arithmetic help in the case of war, astronomy does not.

So what I understood, even though there was no mention of “happiness” in this book, I feel it can be linked to the notion of deciding reality from falsity. For one to be happy, one must first have ground on what is real and what he is dealing with. The example of the adopted child that Socrates brought up is one that proves my interpretation. The child is happy until he discovers that the whole time he has been unhappy.

– Olgi Qendro