Masterpiece Academy Question

Rucker 1

Daniel Rucker

Professor David Preston

AP English Literature and Composition

31 May 2014

The Masterpiece Academy of Open Source Learning

The universe is delightfully evolving around us.  Life, language, and the make up of our galaxy are all changing and expanding the diversity of the universe.  Something far less concrete than these - man’s view of the world - can also evolve, just like the connotation of the word espouse.  As students in this class, my classmates' and my views have evolved from a standard mundane appreciation of learning to an espousal of learning. 
         From the beginning, we have had the freedom to customize this course to how we want it to be, much like one would customize an iPhone or a bedroom.  This represented trust from Dr. Preston that we deserved, although it was unexpected, as all humans are individuals, and should be given the freedom to choose their surroundings.  Sadly, we did not learn to completely honor this trust until the end of the year, when most of us realized that learning was for us, and we fully decided to do what we want to as a class.
        Our time in this class has made us a hero, collectively.  Our class embodies all of the positive aspects of modern society, as well as our ideals.  We have athleticism, bravery, kindness, intellect, and many other traits that are epitomized by our society, to what heroes are.  Due to the fact that we are a class of heroes, our journey throughout the year, which started in May-June of last year, and is now coming to a close, we have gone on a heroic journey.  This journey started with the threshold of us creating our blogs, came to a climax with our masterpiece, and is now resolving, making our journey come full circle, as we are back home, due to the fact that we will return to traditional learning next year, and that the circular calendar year is over, and we have worked in this course from last June to this June. 
        Looking back on the year, our heroic journey was mapped quite neatly, with Beowulf at the beginning of the year subtly foreshadowing the journey we had ahead of us; the acquiring of our heroic qualities, such as understanding, by reading texts such as A Tale of Two Cities and Great Expectations, which gave us the quality of understanding and empathizing with the human condition; and ended with a course in Poetry which caused us to reflect upon what we have done this year.  These reflections lead us to the climax of this year and our journey with the Masterpiece Academy presentations.  We showed our reflection and appreciation of knowledge in a variety of ways, from Lisa's new-found understanding of empathy, Melissa's hard work and passion for the class trip to Yosemite, and Allyson's yearning for knowledge of the biological sciences.  In all of these projects, we saw possibly the most important personal quality in modern society: passion.  In every presentation, such as Edmond's writing, and Zach's desire to help people through physical therapy, we see passion.  Passion for our masterpieces has drawn us together as a class, and made us finish our journey, as we had found the trait that we set out on our journey to find.  
        Personally, passion has not been incited in me by the course to learn more or otherwise, as I already had that, but it definitely has given me a passion towards humans, as I was inspired by the vast amounts of passion around me.  I have always been passionate about learning, but seeing this passion in the people around me makes me passionate to better society for the people around me.  I have begun to do this in a variety of ways.  My favorite is suggesting songs and television shows for people to watch, as I full-heartedly believe in the healing quality that comedy and music provides through laughter and passion.  Before, I have kept these techniques to heal myself to myself, but this class has inspired me to pass it forward. 

Masterpiece: Connections

Everything on planet Earth is connected to one another, and although us humans like to separate everything into categories, like subjects, cultures, et cetera, the world does not do this.  For instance, there are many things in Earth's many cultures that are very similar to aspects of other cultures.  I question why these similarities arose, and try to find where they come form.

The Firebird Myths: firebirds are found in many cultures, and are often though to signify the sun, and    rebirth, due to the sun's "birth" and "death" each day.  The sun is also thought to be the basis of all rebirth ideologies and myths, from the Hindi caste system, to the resurrection of Jesus Christ.

The Greek Phoenix 

The Slavic Firebird

The Witches:

Lloyd Alexander's
"The Black Cauldron"
which depicts the three witch
myth in the Celtic regions of Europe.

There is a common myth about witches in groups of three throughout the different indo-european cultures, I wrote about them here.

Shakespeare used this common
mythical form in his play "Macbeth"

A painting of a clock modeled after the
Baba Yaga's house.  This painting was
painted by Viktor Hartmann, and served as the
inspiration for the ninth movement of
Mussorgsky's Pictures at an Exhibition
Suite, The Hut on Fowl's Legs (Baba-Yagá).

The Krampus: A christianized tradition.

Thousands of years ago in pre-christian Europe, there was a germanic goddess who is known as the germanic equivalent to Greek Hera.  In northern regions, she was known as Frigg, in central Europe, she was known as Holda, and in the southern, alpine area of the germanic peoples' land, she was known as Perchta.  Perchta had a very important task at the Yuletime celebration- to scare away the evil spirits that roamed Earth in the "darker half" of the year.  The germanic people of the alpine regions would celebrate this in Yule celebrations by doing what Perchta did: dressing as a mutilated goat and scaring the spirits away.  When the christians came and converted the germans to christianity, they forced them to give up their old beliefs, but some lived on- Yule as Christmas, Samhain as All Saints Day, and Perchta traditions as Krampus, St. Nick's companion, and punisher of naughty children.  This also connects to the witches, as Baba Yaga myths first appeared in slavic areas in the alpine regions.  Was the slavic fear of the germanic tradition of perchta what caused the Baba Yaga myths?

Other than Mythology:

There is far more to these cross cultural connections than in just mythology.  Almost every aspect of our culture is mirrored in other cultures, and there are far more connections between the people of earth than just culture, such as mathematical concepts, science, art, and simply how we think.  I feel that it is due to human nature.

One fun example of similarity is the Sandwich! If you think, most cultures have a meat that is wrapped in bread, and they did this without communication: tacos, sandwiches, gyros, falafels, dumplings, and many many more...

Macbeth Character Map

Normally I do not use Cliff Notes, but this map was a very good representation of what I needed:

THE CROSSROADS BETWEEN SHOULD AND MUST

I am really not sure about this crossroads concept.  I am a major planner, and I plan things years in advance so that I will not ever have to be caught off guard with a big decision.  My mind is generally mad up in advance.  I already know what my "must" is, and I follow it.  If I did not, I would not be at all be as driven with my work.  I tend not to do things that I do not consider musts, I just push them aside and out of my radar.  They have nothing to do with what I want to do.  This way, I truly only do what I want to do.  I study out of school because I want to.  I research because I want to.  I take AP courses because I want to.  Do you see me partying? No, because I do not want to.  I am lucky to like what society wants me to do, so most people's shoulds are my musts.

10 Commandments of AP Literature & Composition

Hey, guys! I found this resource on the internet that someone was not showing us!  I think it would be very helpful for all of you to read it!
http://drprestonsrhsenglitcomp.blogspot.com/2012/02/10-commandments-of-ap-literature.html
Thank you for this resource, Dr. Preston!

AP Questions for Macbeth

1) Pick a novel in which friends become enemies.  Explain how the author uses characterization and the plot to make this happen.

2) In great literature, no scene of violence exists for its own sake.  Choose a work of literary merit that confronts the reader or audience with a scene(s) of violence.  In a well-organized essay, explain how the scene or scenes contribute to the meaning of the complete work.  Avoid plot summary. (actual prompt from 1982 that I felt would work well)

3) Pick a novel in which a character's actions make him commit similar actions in the future.  Explain how this makes us sympathize the character, while at the same time making us disagree with them.

What about my masterpiece?

    I have been struggling with the whole masterpiece thing, as Dr. Preston wants us to do something, and I am just trying to learn a lot, not thinking that I have the skill set to do what I want to do yet, as I really want to learn about the world and research at a university and be a professor, while the people around me want to go into music and cooking and other things like that.  I was trying to get by by studying the world, but I do not think that that will work as a masterpiece.
    Recently, a friend who has a rare and largely unknown disease that doctors are trying to learn about using this person as a test subject, as this person is the only one to have it.  This person was wondering what the medications that helped their disease had in common, so I was given the list of medications, and am going to look at the structure and function of these medications to see what is actually helping or hindering this person's disease.

Meet Macbeth

    In the opening of the play, Macbeth is introduced through indirect characterization by a soldier talking to his king.  In how Macbeth was introduced, Shakespeare drew from the medieval germanic/norse epics in order to incite the time period in which the play takes place, and the culture it comes from.  In this introduction, the audience learns about how brave a warrior Macbeth was, and how he slay the rebel leader, ending the Scots rebellion.  Even though the audience is told of his great deeds, they are meant to be unsure about it, as the witches warned that things that might seem good would be bad.  This meant that the witches also characterized Macbeth just as much as the wounded soldier at the beginning, but their lyrical way of talking gave their version of characterization a very nebulous tone, which meant that Shakespeare could tell what was going to happen, but be so roundabout about it that the audience only got a taste of what was to come.  This characterization also tells the audience how Shakespeare felt about his character:  he is initially good, but his deeds and remorse blur this line and make him spiral into insanity.  Macbeth is shown as a valiant soldier and a ruthless killer, and these will stay with him until his death.

YOU'RE ALWAYS A WOMAN TO ME

Macbeth sees his wife as a person who is looking out for his best interests, and to be more exact their best interests as a couple.  He sees her as a person who is trying to encourage him to do things that will better himself, and that will help him grow as a person.  In actuality, though, Lady Macbeth is just a power hungry, back stabbing hag who wants to rule Scotland, and she does not really care about people, only her wants.

The Witches

The witches in Macbeth might seem very familiar to many of you.  They might remind you of many things in your life, such as the faits from the Disney movie, Hercules.

    The concept that our fate is controlled by beings is very common in Indo-european cultures.  In the hindi culture, the gods Rta in the vedas control the fates of people.  In Europe, this figure is often taken in the form of three evil witches.  This includes the greek Moirai, the northern germanic norns, the germanic Matres and Matrones, the slavic Boba Yoga, and the greek Moirai.  In these cultures, witches generally work in groups of 13, but these groups of three are the most common interculturaly, and all have the same purpose in culture.  Shakespeare was drawing from this continuity in culture to give meaning the the three witches that he would not have to explain to his audiences (this same thing was done by Lloyd Alexander in The Black Cauldron).  This means that the fates of Hercules are the same as Macbeth's witches, as they are the Moirai.
    Another continuity in cultures I found was that Christianity is ruled by the Holy Trinity - The father, the son, and the holy spirit.  Does this draw from these same historical continuity? I am not exactly sure, as I have not studied the middle eastern cultures, from which the monotheistic religions like Christianity come, but if anybody does know, does this rule of three apply here too? What about in America and Africa?  I wonder how far back this rule of three goes, please leave your knowledge in the comments!
    I also wonder if this has anything to do with the strength of the triangle.  The triangle has long been known to be the strongest of the figures, and is an engineering shape used throughout the history of man: ancient nomadic structures resembled triangles, all pyramids use triangle, et cetera.  I feel this is what our american fore-fathers also drew upon to create a stable government, as the three branches form a stable triangle of checks and balances.  Did ancient cultures put our fates in the hands of three people for this reason?

PS: When the when in Act I, Scene III of Macbeth, when the second witch says "I'll give thee a wind,"Shakespeare is directly referring to the witch from the Moirai known as Clotho, or The Spinner, as she spins and winds peoples lives, which was the Greeks' explanation of why nobody could have an all around perfect life.

SEEKING MENTOR

To get a mentor, I will need to ask many questions, such as if they will look at my work, and if they could give me suggestions.  Luckily, I think that it will not be to difficult to find a mentor, as everyone in my field works at a university, and thus has a university email.

The Difference

In AP Physics, we are learning about the difference between Electric potential, Electric potential energy, and Electric potential difference.  Here are two links to places that explain this:
http://www2.cose.isu.edu/~hackmart/electrical_potential_genphys.pdf
http://ubpheno.physics.buffalo.edu/~dow/lectures/phy102/ch19_print.pdf

MST3K Mr B Natural

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This is a great video for people in marching band to watch!

UC Acceptance Dates

I have been following a UC information blog, and it has been very accurate.  To day it released a list of dates when each UC will send out its decisions! Good luck, only ten days until the most important one!

10 Questions

I have already been talking to experts in the fields that I am currently studying, and I have also been talking to experts about college, so I am just going to state questions that I have already asked.
1) How difficult is it to transition from UCLA to Cambridge.
2) What is it like working as a university professor?
3) What are your current studies?
4) What kind of music do you like?
5) What could I read to help me learn about this topic?
6) Have you seen, or do you know anything about the cricket club at UCLA?
7) Please tell me about your time at UCSD.
8) What inspired you to research this subject?
9) Could you look at my [random project or area of study], and give me feedback on it?
10) What is your favorite thing about what I am asking you about?

Cosmos: A Personal Journey

Again, I felt that I wanted to expand upon my earlier post about humanity that stemmed from a discussion about Brave New World.  This time, I would like to expand on the importance of Carl Sagan's original Cosmos to progress my argument about human nature.  

The Gods Must Be Crazy

I felt that I wanted to expand upon my earlier post about humanity that stemmed from a discussion about Brave New World.  The Gods Must Be Crazy is a South African cult film released in 1980, that shows the interactions between the Bushmen of Africa, and the South African city dwellers.

In Class: Brave New World

In class we decided to show that we had read Brave New World by posting about it:
The biggest thing that I got from this book was how society and human nature do not change.  This morning, I talked to my father for about two hours about the world, and how we view it, and I wish that I had this conversation to put up on this blog, as it was very enlightening for a variety of reasons.

Resource of the Day: Cambridge Department of Pharmacology

This site greatly helped me understand what I have in store at Cambridge in four years, and what I will need to do to be accepted into the department: http://www.phar.cam.ac.uk

Benchmark

Although I still do not completely understand this project still, I am going to give you an update on what I am doing, and what is to come with this project.  So far, I have generally been studying the my plans after college.  While most people are starting ventures that are in their general field of study for later in life, I cannot do this, because I intend to go into Pharmacology, which you can really only do with many years of higher level schooling.  As this will be my way to change the world in the future, I must study everything I can now, so that I will be ready for the schooling ahead of me.  I have reached out to many of the people I listed earlier in the post "Super 5," and the ones who wrote back have been very helpful, especially a man named Daan Frenkel.