English 201 for ... now what?

Although class is officially over, and this post could technically serve as the first on my blog that is nonacademic, I had a few lingering thoughts about English 201 that I wanted to express, even though most people from the class will not be reading them anymore. After listening to other people's comments in the discussion today, I realize that the course was organized in a manner where we moved from more traditional, Romantic writting in the begining of the semester. Writting the first paper and reading more complex, philosophical authors was probably the largest contributer to this factor. The focus, assignments, and discussion gradually progressed to the less traditional as we went from ghostwritting to plaigerism to sampling and remixing. In doing this, our collective view of the modern author was constantly challanged, for just as we became comfortable with a less conventional view of the author, the course moved a step further and we had to revisist the view of the author in a new, even less traditional light. I realize now that this factor kept me engaged and interested in the course throughout the semester. Just when I thought I'd figured out who the modern day author is, my view became skewed and I had to reconceptulalize my ideals.

Overall, I was very suprised with this course and my own enjoyment of it. I came into the semester thinking that I would have to write four or five formal essays and was pleasantly suprised to learn that our focus would be the opposite of this. Learning about new media forms that influence the present author not only gave insight to the course focus as a whole, but also introduced me to new technologies and writting mediums that I can use and still be an author. As I have never been a blogger before, my first experience with it was a learning one. I kind of knew that I would enjoy blogging even before I began it for the class. For this reason, I titled my blog "english 201 for now" with hopes that I would continue blogging after the semester is over, change the title, and make it more personal. With 15 weeks of blogging behind me, i now know that I would like to continue posting my random thoughts on a personal blog. From this point forward then, I will alter my "English 201 for now" blog to,... well I'm not exactly sure. English 201 is done...now what?

REmixed

So I decided that I still had more to say about my cd project. After looking at some of my classmates reflections on their projects, I have decided to post my tracks and liner notes to give a better picture of what exactly my project was all about. The theme of my cd was the impossible relationship and the things that complicate a relationship that could be, but doesn't work out. I titled the cd "Faded" to help depict an image of a relationship that can no longer exist for some reason or another. I wanted to title something short and seeminly simplistic to allow me to expand on it and further explain this broad title throughout the cd. The album artwork is also simplitic and portrays the image of two hands. There is a gap between the two hands suggesting that they either once were held together but have seperated or that they are reaching for eachother but are unable to connect. I think that both of these interpretations of the image contribute to my theme and what I am trying to convey.

This project was a good opportunity for me on many levels. I was able to turn in a piece of work to be graded even though i completely enjoyed the experience of creating it. I make cd's for my friends frequently, and this was an opportunity for me to share some of my music with the class. Also, making this cd was a learning experience, as it allowed me to critique my own compilation methods based on class readings. I learned new rules for creating cds and had to put more of a focus on transitioning between tracks and genres within the cd. Parhaps most important though, my completed cd allowed me to convey something about myself to the class using an untraditional writting and composition style. I think that in order to complete this assinment, I had to be a writter and not simply a mix artist. I picked a message and theme for my cd and consequently, used each track and transition to tell a story. When I started making this cd I decided to cater it to one of my friends who was just getting out of a serious relationship with one person and starting something new with me. My intention with this cd was not to come off as pessimistic or portray a sense of doom, but rather offer comfort. A lot of times, even the strongest and most promising relationships don't work out. Instead of dwelling on the past I wanted to express my belief that you should take the past as a learning experience and keep an open mind to something new that could come along in the future.

Adding a little mix

The mix tape assignment was an interesting one for me. Not only was this project much different from anything I have been expected to do for my previous classes, but it was also somehting that I very much enjoyed doing. I frequently make mix cd's for my friends and am constantly arranging new playlists in my itunes library. To be able to do this and get graded on it was a rewarding experience to say the least. Aside from the fun that I had putting together this project, it also served as a learning experience as it taught me about writting and composition that is present within music. In this case, I realized that mixed cd's are comprised of writting within each individual track and their arrangement into one collective whole helps tell a story. For this reason, mix cd's are dominated by writting by the artist on an individual song level and exhibit the writting, ideas, and composition techniques of the person creating the mix tape as this person conveys a message within their finished piece. In order to help better tell the story, I think that writting the liner notes contributed to effectively getting across any points or songs that the listener could be confused by. For me, the liner notes offered an opportunity to justify why I chose to include the songs that I did along with offering an interpretation of their meanings as they pertained to my overall theme of impossible relationships.

I tried to focus my cd on different things that complicate relationships, often causing them to fail. It was important to me that we were able to chose our own topic/message because I was able to pick a theme that I am genuinely interested in and knew I would be excited to craft a cd around. This aspect of the project helped me realize something that we've been discussing all year. Anyone can be a writter. I initially thought that I was just going to be throwing some songs onto a cd and turning it in, taking a few minutes to do the entire project. After spending several hours thinking about and working on the cd though, I realized that my passion and interest in my theme drove me to be a writer here. I spent so much time thinking about the best way to convey my message through the selection and arrangement of my song that I ended up not creating a cd with a bunch of songs on it, but rather a story that links very closely to my personal experiences. Overall, I realize that being passionate about my topic for this assignement allowed me to compose it from the perspective of a writter and not just a person randomly throwing some tracks together.

All cut up...

My experience completing the cut up assignment was certainly an interesting one. I never imagined it being so easy to create a new writting piece by simply rearranging my old writting. For the assignment I used four different papers I have written this semester and took a section of each of them. When chosing these selections, I based my decisions on what fit together best. For example, a page with a lot of indentations in it left gaping holes in the middle of my final piece, so I tried to shy away from using these and instead used ones that looked better. In general, I see the cut up style of writting as more of an art form than a writting assignment. Perhaps this is a result of the non-traditional style of writting that this utilizes. On another note we talked in class about writers who use the cut up as their predominate writting form and do so by writting an essay or story with the intention of cutting it up later. Although this is both adventurous and creative, I could not see myself actually writting something and putting time into it, only to later cut it apart. I guess that since I used old papers I had previously written instead of papers I wrote specifically for the purpose of this assignment, I had a more possitive experience with it than I may have otherwise. That said, here is an excepert from my cut up which combined a CommArts essay about film, a paper about education in the US, a Sociology paper about gender portrayal on reality television and a reflection on my ghostwritting experience for this class:

"Not only is it critical to identify the lear placement of each character in relation to one an essential to explore where that style stems from who shamed such gender relations, imposing legas an individual. The second writting sample is enforcing abandonment from the community. To class. It was a useful sample piece to use because alternative genders is fairly common among NatiWorld television show that the paper is based on."

Clearly, any individual reading this that was not already familiar with the assignment would see it as being nonsense. It is pretty obvious where the cut up pieces come together, as the topic of writting shifts from one thing to the next with no clear transition. I guess that if you sit down and try and analyze this piece by piece it is possible to make some sense out of it and generate a meaning using a large ammount of creativity. Luckily, I did not have too many words that blurred together. Though this makes each word easier to understand, it is also more of a challange to determine where the writting splits are.

After transcribing this passage, I have decided to change my mind and say that if I were to do too much more cutting up in the future I would not be philisophically inspired or feeling more creative. Instead, I think I would go through my writting with a massive headache.

Giving Spooky a second chance

So, after leading discussion on Monday, my thoughts about this book have changed slightly. I got the impression that most people in the class had at least some confusion surrounding what they read, which was comforting to me. Also, once I gathered my thoughts together and actually settled on my main discussion points, things got easier. I think that part of understanding this writting style and content is merely getting used to it by reading a portion of it even if you don't understand what you are reading. I found that after a certain point in my reading, things got easier. Also, I decided to pull out the few points that I really felt comfortable with and just focusing on those. As I continued to read, I was able to expand my knowledge of these points and slowly gained a further understanding of those and the reading as a whole. Part of the problem with this text is that it is written in such a unconventional style. The sentences are fragmented and Spooky jumps from one point to the next, never clearly connecting them together. Perhaps this is intentional. Just as sampling is utilizes a musical style that is artistic and abstract, perhaps he intentionally wrote this way to give is readers a taste of what it is like to sample. Also, I think that sampling is something rooted in creativity, and likewise, this writting hinges on the same creativity. Spooky might not one, common interpretation to surface from the text and so he wrote it to have some ambiguity in attempt to foster multiple interpretations of it. When I read further in the book I think that I will keep these things in mind. Instead of stressing about whether or not I am pulling the intended message out of the text, I will just try and pull some interpretation out and try and think of other possible ones that could be present. Also, if DJ Spooky reverts back to his writting style of chapter one, I am going to try and avoid becoming overwhelmed. I don't think you need to gather meaning from everything he says. Especially since we will discuss the reading in class and everyone can bring something different to the discussion, I will try and focus on the things that I do understand rather than feeling overwhelmed with the ones I do not.

Failing to find the rhythm or understand the science behind it

So, I am supposed to do a short presentation in class tomorrow based on our first reading assignment from DJ Spooky's "Rhythm Science". Before we try and grasp some understanding of it as a a class, I thought it was entirely necessary to express my complete confusion regarding everything I just read. The look of the book is deceiving. It is thin, there are pictures every other page, and there is an unavoidable hole in the middle of each page. The unique design and overall look of the book is not only fascinating, but also mislead me to believe that this would be a quick, enjoyable read. After reading only a few lines, I knew that all of these preconceived notions were inaccurate and that I was in big trouble. I read the first page three times and had my friends do the same, each of us trying to grasp some sort of meaning embeded in the text. Unfortunately, these efforts did not lead us to any sort of understanding of what Spooky is trying to convey. At this point, all I am thinking is that perhaps this is the point of the text and it is only going to continue in this same direction. Maybe it is supposed to be just as complicated as we perceive it to be. Just as art, entertainment, muisc, sampling cannot be clearly described and portrayed through a few simple sentences, maybe Spooky is making this writting exceptionally hard in an attempt to portray the complexity of each of these other media forms. Right now, I am comfortable with making this assumption even though my initial assumptions regarding the ease of this read were undoubtedly proven to be wrong to me over the past hour. Even though this first page was a challange to even get trhough, I thought that, perhaps, the read would get easier and more understandable once I got into it more. Once again, I was proven wrong. I spent so much time trying to make sence of the fragmented sentences and seemingly disjointed thoughts that I fell short of ever seeing the big picture of the argument, if there is even on that exists here. Basically, all of this has lead me into a state of complete and utter panic. How am I supposed to present and teach the class about what I read when I have absolutely no clue what I read? How do I summarize the overall argument made here when I cannot even disect the meaning of most given sentences or sets of them? At this point, I am thinking that perhaps the best thing to do is give Spooky a rest for awhile and give it another look in the morning. If this does not solve my problems, I am very afraid that the only thing I am going to be able to convey to the class in discussion tomorrow is my unending confusion and overall frustration with what I read but failed to make any sort of sense of.

These are the images that i created for my sampling assignment. the first one is the one that I developed utilizing copyrighted material while the second one relies on my own original work. This second one consists of photos that I have taken at concerts and images that I drew using different computer programs.