Martin Luther King Jr., Hairspray, The Beatles
I’ve always believed, and I’m sure many people have said this before, that man is never contented with anything that they have. There’s always that certain sense of dissatisfaction in their lives and that longing for change. When people write articles and essays about this topic, they always refer to the idea that because of man’s desire for constant change and innovation, various discplines evolve and progress in such a way that new discoveries are being made, lives are being more connected and many different things have now becoming more accessible. What many articles fail to mention though is that this constant dissatisfaction goes two ways. As mentioned earlier, one would be based on the future and the curiosity for more. Another way it could lead to is the feeling of nostalgia, going back to the past. Because we are dissatisfied with our present, we feel that it’d be better to go back in time, which is exactly how the movie Midnight In Paris puts nostalgia, the “denial of the painful present.” When I finished watching the movie, I didn’t know what to decide – whether or not nostalgia is a positive or negative state. Just like Gil Pender, I find myself fascinated with an era in the past, particularly the 1960’s in America. Basically, I’d love to go back to this era because it was a time when the youth predominated the 1960‘s culture. It was a time when people wore colorful clothes, women had such puffy hairstyles, black people had an afro hairstyle, and so many other funky and groovy trends. Other than that, in general, the 1960’s was really a time when people were becoming more liberal and less traditional or conservative. So many revolutionary ideas evolved in the 1960’s, particularly one on racism, the idea of treating the colored people as equals with the white people. It was during the 1960’s when Martin Luther King Jr. delivered his speech “I Have a Dream,” which was a very pivotal moment for American culture. I’m not exactly sure with why I have this inclination towards the 60’s, but as I ponder about it, I guess it’s my personal desire as well for change. The 1960’s was really a time for change. The 1960’s also saw the rise of The Beatles to success. The songs of The Beatles are really timeless, in which they were one of the few artists who introduced a pop kind of rock and roll. No one, to this day, has beaten their record of holding 20 No. 1 singles and 19 No. 1 albums. Going back to the issue on racism and the speech of Martin Luther King Jr., what also drove me to be so fascinated about the 1960’s is the musical-movie Hairspray. This movie is set in the 1960’s and shows us the triumph and acceptance of the colored people. My favorite song in this movie would still be Run And Tell That because it’s such a hip and genuine song. What really struck me are the lines “The blacker the berry, the sweeter the juice …. The darker the chocolate, the richer the taste.” Aside from the fact that the melody is such a fun tune to listen to, the lyrics of the song make such fine comparisons and sincere expressions. One can really empathize with what the colored people are feeling, how they may be criticized and lambasted by the white people, but they still stand loud and proud. In a more technical aspect, the presentation (being a musical) is what has really drawn me to love Hairspray even more. Everything depicted during the 1960‘s in that movie seemed to be so fun, and everyone seemed so cheerful. I understand that it’s merely a movie, but it’s also one of the things that things that really attracts one’s attention. The 1960’s was really a time to evolve conservative ideas into more liberal ones. With Gil’s fascination of the 1920‘s in Paris, this led him to go back in time to meet several famous people. I would love to do that as well. Meeting the following people would be such a treat for me: Elvis Presley, The Beatles, Martin Luther King Jr., Marilyn Monroe and Julie Andrews. For Julie Andrews, since she’s still alive now, I could actually still possibly meet her, but if I were given a chance to meet her in the 1960’s, I think that’d be fantastic!
As I notice from all the reference I made in reasoning out why I am so fascinated by the 1960’s, they were all in the field of art. The effect of these different art forms on me, like the speech of Martin Luther King Jr., the music of The Beatles and the musical Hairspray, is really powerful. Being exposed to the artistic interpretations of the 1960’s, this drove me to love this era. I guess this further affirms that it is through art that we learn and appreciate things much more. There’s that certain appeal when things are expressed through art, so much so that facts are now turned into truths in our lives.
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“Golden Age Thinking,” as mentioned in the movie Midnight in Paris, is a fallacy. It is when one has an “erroneous notion that a different time period is better than the one one’s living in.” The movie continues with one of the characters saying, “it is a flaw in the romantic imagination of those people who find it difficult to cope with the present.” I feel that with this kind of thinking, the limitation is that when one is fascinated with another era, it seems as though everything is already better during that era. I don’t think we can generalize that there is such a thing as better art just because it comes from a better era because there could be art from the 2000’s that is better than art in the 1980’s and vice-versa. Not necessarily all art from a certain era is better just because one feels that it’s the better era.
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A few links to some of the things I mentioned:
(“Run and Tell That” – Hairspray)
http://www.archives.gov/press/exhibits/dream-speech.pdf (“I Have A Dream” by Martin Luther King Jr.)
Synthesis Reflection on Faith as a Way of Knowing in Religion
One way of knowing in Religion is the use of faith. This is actually a very difficult topic to discuss as there will always be senseless criticisms and ignorant prejudgments with the use of faith. Despite this, I’d like to share with you something I read from an article where it presents Aristotle’s categorizations for how we know a truth. It’s sort of like another version of the ways of knowing we learn from Theory of Knowledge. The 4 categorizations are the following: Techné (skill), Epistemé (science), Phronesis (practical reasoning), Nous (intuition). The thing with faith is that it can be said to be a Phronesis, that it uses practical reasoning and wisdom. With faith, it is actually a type of reasoning. When we reason, the result is many different possible answers depending on the circumstances. What we do in faith is that we just use our practical reasoning. For example, religion teaches us to forgive our enemies and help the needy. Practical reasoning would tell us then that it is not bad to forgive your enemies and to provide assistance to those in need.
Faith as a way of knowing is also very applicable to the other areas of knowledge. In the human sciences, one example would be the Theory of Evolution where it still remains as a theory, which means, our justification for our belief in this theory very much is faith. We have faith that the theory is true and it happens in our daily lives. Faith is used many times in our lives. We have this natural faith in which we accept something as true because it was said by someone who is well-informed regarding the subject, is believed to be honest, and we can relate to what was said. In history, people put faith on different historians on their philosophy and the contrasting views that they have about a certain issue. We have faith in those who have authority, and these people are those who have made a large impact to history. In the field of art, we put our faith in those esteemed and great artists who say that this particular artwork is beautiful or that particular artwork is meaningful and very representative of humanity. With our faith in them, the course of how we deal in the purchase of these artworks is affected. When these artists say that this artwork is beautiful, instantly, both the popularity and the price of the artwork would increase. In ethics, more often than not, we put faith in ourselves, in the moral values that we live by, to be able to guide us in our life experiences.
First Semester Evaluation – IB Chemistry HL
One won’t really feel how rigorous the IB curriculum is until he experiences it first-hand. The first semester of IB was really a struggle for me, especially in Chemistry. It was really difficult for me to fully grasp the different topics because the pace of the lessons was really quicker as compared to the regular Xavier curriculum. I probably had most difficulties with the topic periodicity because I couldn’t understand the reasons why the electronegativity increases from left to right or why the atomic radii increases down a group. Only until towards the end of the 1st semester that I understood that unit. The topic I was most comfortable with was bonding because I think that was the topic I got to understand relatively quicker than the others.
I really searched for videos on youtube to help me understand the lessons better because reading the book alone was really not enough for me. Since those videos worked out, I think I’d continue watching them. Since I could barely understand the Oxford edition of the Chemistry book, I was lucky enough to get the Pearson Baccalaureate edition of the IB Chemistry book. Maybe that would help me better since I’ve heard many IB students use it before and said that it’s really useful. Probably another problem during the first semester was that I wouldn’t do some advance reading for the new lesson, so maybe that’s what led me to not picking up the lesson right away unlike in the regular curriculum, wherein I would more or less understand the lesson already by simply listening to the teacher. When I started advance reading, it was too late already in the 1st semester. I would then do this for the 2nd semester to further improve myself. Attending the extension classes would actually still be something I’d take for this 2nd semester. I still really need to adjust better.
In Chemistry, I learned too how all the topics we’ve discussed are all dependent on each other so it is important also for me to be able to remember all the lessons in the 1st semester and bring it with me in the succeeding semesters. Maybe another strategy I could do is going back to the old lessons from time to time to refresh them and be able to see the connections with the new lessons that will be taken up this second semester.
As a teacher, I don’t think there really was a problem in your teaching. In fact, I’m so grateful for the extension classes because they really helped me understand the lessons more. I just have a problem at times when we’re asked to learn on our own. I myself admit that I’m still not so used to the student centered learning, but I’m starting to like it, how IB is treating us because it makes us more independent, so everything’s good with the way you’re teaching. I just really need to study harder, and I guess find more ways in other resources how to understand the lessons better. I really like too how IB is offering us to have an extra hour to have class. It will help us a lot.
Marshmallows or Molecules?
First Model
Second Model
Third Model
Fourth Model
Fifth Model
Sixth Model
Seventh Model
Eighth Model
Ninth Model
Tenth Model
Eleventh Model
Twelfth Model
Thirteenth Model
These are the different shapes/models of molecules. In Chemistry class today, I learned that molecules have different shapes based on the number of atoms. They come from the VSEPR theory.
Where there is love, there is life. 