1st FAME essay

For your first FAME essay, please write on one of the following:

What distinguishes one culture from another?

How are religion and culture connected?

What are the consequences of technology?

This essay should follow the form in the 1st FAME essay organizer.  Christa and I will also be available for help should you need it.  After you draft your essay, please copy and paste it into Wordle.  Use the Wordle graphic as one of the 3 graphics in your blog post.  Don't forget to cite the sources you use.  Or, you could just post your Bibliography page you created in NoodleTools and link to it.  You may write on any aspect of your FAME culture, not just your GRAPES.  You may also draw on your knowledge of modern American culture.

This is an opportunity for you to share your thinking about your research.  Feel free to have fun with the writing.  Essay, graphics, links, and citations should be posted to your blog by 11:11, Wednesday, November 11.

Handtiegelpresse. Digital image. N.p., n.d. Web. 4 Nov. 2013. <http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/17/Handtiegelpresse_von_1811.jpg>.

Small Isfahan Tile. jpg file. 
     http://www.islamicstudies.harvard.edu/wp-content/uploads/2013/09/small-Isfahan-tile.jpg 
Stracovsky, Roy. FAME Essay #1. N.p., n.d. Web. 4 Nov. 2013.

just getting started

I have just started my research of the history of the steamboat; I am going to make a power point on the subject. I have held off starting some of my work for u while and I am feeling some of the pain but I think I can get back on top of it. I have started and I am almost done with a diagram of the engine of the first steamboat I found out it is very hard to find information on the internet about how the first steamboat engine works. I have used books and an encyclopedia to find the information I needed I am now almost done and done labeling the parts of the engine.

I have gone about my work by getting the smaller side projects done and the larger side projects done before I start with my report it has worked well but I feel I am in a little bit of trouble with the amount of time I have left, but if I am worried I guess that just means I care. I really am kicking all my effort into high gear, I am really pushing forward through the work I have left to get to my report on the history of the steamboat.

I have had some fun with the whole revolutions project, I have had fun learning about my religion and I liked righting movie notes it was a little annoying but it was still fun. I have always found the beginning of industrialism interesting and I am looking forward to study one of the most revolutionary inventions in the history of the U.S.A.. How ever I did not like to do learn about the European countries  it was dull and not interesting . this project really puts our planning skills to the test and it shows me that I need a little help but can depend on my self.

As I am writing this I am realizing that writing a blog is tedious, it’s a long task but like I said I really need to push through my work and get it done. I liked the lit packet because it really made you focus and understand what you are reading, I was the first person in my class to get the lit packet done and turned in. I am proud I was the fist person in my class to get it done because it made me feel confident in the project and it gave me a bit of a boost in getting more done.

I learned this year  that I am okay at seeing the big picture in what we are studying in school, I have had skills presented to me in this project and skills I have, have been tested a fair amount. I like to read and learn about what impacted the world and what it is today.  I am looking forward to the rest of this project and I am hoping every thing works out in my favor.

Gettysburg

            The battle of Gettysburg was one of the most substantial accidental battles. Both the confederate and union armies weren’t planning on fighting in Gettysburg. All the roads around Gettysburg go through Gettysburg. On a map it looks like a bicycle with the roads as the spokes. When the North ran into the South, the only option was to fight.

            Coming into the battle, the South was dominating their way up the south, and into the north. With the North on the run they were in hot pursuit. Following the roads, they ran into the North a little west of Gettysburg. After pushing the North into town, and then out into the mountain range, the South was unstoppable. Although they had a great chance of beating Meade and the North, they lost their chance and were crimpled. They were fighting for slavery and states rights, for the South. They were a group of states built on nothing but farming. To the South, The North was a bunch of snooty rich people afraid to get their hands dirty, but did they get that one wrong.

Day 3 of the Battle of Gettysburg

            After suffering many defeats in the south, the North was on the run. They were trying to make it back home, but ran into the South. They were outgunned and outmanned, which resulted in a hasty retreat. After they made their hook formation on the ridges, the North, under command of George Meade, knew that they couldn’t let the South into their homes. After some poor decisions from the North sergeants, the North almost lost, but just barely got by. They held off Picket’s charge, and kicked the South
right out of the North. After this slim victory, the North, who hadn’t been too engaged in the war, woke up. With help from president Lincoln, they came together and started to really turn the war.

            Gettysburg was a real turning point in the civil war. As one of the two battles fought in the North, the Union fought hard and strong and eventually claimed victory over their former brothers. With an end to the war, came changes. Three new amendments were instated: the outlaw of slavery, the establishment of citizenship and due process, and the right to vote for all male citizens. Only a short while after the war, president Abraham Lincoln was assassinated. Also post war the North was hardly touched, but after the charge to the sea, the South was a disaster. All the land and farms were destroyed. The South still has never forgiven the North for that.

            The Civil war really changed America into its current form. If it weren’t for president Lincoln, there would never had been the emancipation declaration, and without that there might still be slavery today. The Civil war was made up of many battles, but out of them the entire one that turned the tide the most, was the battle of Gettysburg.

           

            http://www.history.com/videos/the-battle-of-gettysburg#the-battle-of-gettysburg
Short Summery video of Gettysburg

Intertwined

"Do not wait to strike 'til the iron is hot; but make it hot by striking."
--William Butler Yeats 

Iron is embodiment of the oppressed, and heat is fire of revolution. Revolution is a constant in the universe. Revolution is the driving force in human development. Revolution also forms connections between peoples and nations. One of my favorite revolutionary connections

 is between the U.S. and France at the turn of the 19th century.  The fates of the French and American civilizations inexorably intertwine in the 50 year span of 1765-1815. The British colonies on the eastern side of the Appalachians both directly, and indirectly caused the abdication and restoration of the Bourbon monarchy.

Louis XVI

    It all began in the Seven Years War and Louis XV. Though this war took place in many theaters, one of its consequences was the loss of its holdings on mainland North America. In this theater, France was not only fighting with the British and the Iroquois Confederacy, but also the colonial citizens, who in this war, created new identity of nationalism that would arise as a new nation fifteen years later.This war also was first step for the future French Revolution. The loss of both the war and many overseas territories bankrupted France, causing the peasantry to pay much higher taxes. This not only caused a discontented populace, but also a starving one, the higher taxes on the populace meant less money for bread.

In 1775, the North American colonists, many of which had fought against the French in the Seven Years War, were taking up arms against their British overlords. Rebelling colonists only wish to have one thing, freedom from the political bands that bind them to their oppressors. This wish would soon take root in France, and set the world aflame.

The American Revolution had a rocky start, and quite nearly was ended at the battle of Saratoga. If They had lost this battle, the revolution would have ended, and the new king of France, Louis XVI, would not have committed the vast resources the Americans needed to win the war.

He committed a grand total of 2,000,000,000 Livres, enough money to feed and house 7 million french citizens for a year. This use of the money would later  come back to haunt the monarchy.

Though the war of American independence proved to be a improvement for the U.S., it created horrible financial debts for France. And, due to the way the French social pyramid was set up, the debt was payed off by, guess who, the starving peasants! This was step two in the sequence. The French peasants were broke, starving, and oppressed; the perfect ingredients for a revolt. Inspired and embolden by the successful revolution across the sea, in 1789, the people rebelled, and created their own revolution.

Although I would much enjoy giving a complete summary of the French Revolution, I don’t have time for that in a single blog post. I will instead jump ahead  23 years to 1812. Right now, Napoleon’s regular troops are fighting British and Spanish forces in the Iberian peninsula, Tsar Alexander I has broken the treaty of Tilsit and has begun trading with the British Isles, and American merchant vessels are being raided by English warships in the Atlantic.These infractions quite possibly led to the restoration of the French monarchy.

Due to the loss of trade revenue, loss of American life, and because the newly formed United States didn’t like being walked on, they declared war on Britain. Britain, anxious to settle the score with its former colony, committed soldiers, ships, and money, that was needed in Europe to combat the forces of Napoleon. Bonaparte, seeing the diplomatic tensions rising between the two nations saw it as an opportune moment to use the quarter of a million men he had been stockpiling in Poland to teach the Russians a lesson about breaking embargo treaties.     Though Napoleon invaded the country before he knew of the public declaration of war between the U.S. and Britain, he saw it as a diversion for the British the would lessen their threat in Iberia long enough for his six week war in the western plains of Russia. These were the two greatest mistakes of the French emperor; thinking the war with Russia would be a decisive victory in one massive engagement on the open plains of eastern Europe, and thinking that Napoleon’s veteran troops could hold off the “weaker” British forces until his return shortly after.

After Napoleon’s doomed march on, and retreat from Moscow, his invisibility was shattered, his grande armee was dead, and his security gone, within 2 months, Coalition forces had surrounded Paris, and Napoleon abdicated, giving rule of France back to Louis XVII, the surviving heir of the monarchy.  

Revolution is a self oxidizing flamed that cannot be extinguished and humanity is the iron that only through the heat of revolution can be shaped. As seen above revolutions can shape the world by accident through chain reaction. From Saratoga to Waterloo, Quebec to the Bastille, the revolutions in America and France created each other and resolved each other. They are linked in the eternal bond of history, never to be ripped apart.  If even one of these twin revolutions never took place, Britain would still rule the Americas, and Napoleon Bonaparte would be a worthless artillery captain with unused potential--not the Emperor who would set a spark to the kindling of the world.

Lost Stories of The French and Indian War

                           There are many things that are forgotten about the French and Indian war. Not because they're unimportant, but because focusing on them would take a whole other blog to talk about, this is that blog. This is also the blog which does not include the things that you can find on any random website, such as causes, battles, etc.

                            It is interesting why the French and Indian war was named so.In those times, wars in the new world were named after the monarch. So why wasn't this war not named King George's war after the monarch King George II, because there already was a King George's war ten years prior. The King George's war began after the War of Austrian Succession, a diplomatic war during which Britain's hostility with France grew, and these hostilities would soon lead to war. This was the first step to the French and Indian war, Britain besieged and captured Louisbourg, a big city in New France, and France replied by destroying the British city of Saratoga, New York and Capturing the British colony of Madras, India. The War would end when a treaty was signed to trade Louisbourg for Madras, and there was peace between the countries, until the French and Indian war started.

                Now we understand why they called it the French and Indian war. it was named after their enemies because there already was a war name after the monarch, but were the Indians their enemies. In fact, The Iroquois Indians were allies to the British, and the Colonists. While the french were aided by the Huron and the Algonquin Tribes. In the Queen Anne war, which was also a predecessor of the French and Indians war. During that time the Iroquois signed a peace treaty with France, but would take sides with the British and help them lead attacks at the French. After Queen Anne's war, the Iroquois hoped to keep peace with Britain. Soon, though, colonists would expand beyond the agreed land between the Iroquois and the British. Since the British did not have the military to forbid expansion, the Iroquois would be forced to keep selling their land until they were pushed back to the Tennessee river. The Iroquois joined the British when the Iroquois' enemy of The Algonquins joined the French, but it was also because they hoped to keep the British as an ally going forward. Later, during the American Revolution, the Iroquois would split up and join sides between the Colonists and the British, both of whom they fought with in the French and Indian war.

             After the French and Indian War, the main thing people focus on is Britain's expansion without having to worry about the French, but something might be even more important in history is the state of poverty France was left in after the war. France was bankrupt, it had no resources, and their population growing. Combine no money, no resources, and more people... not good. Above all that, the royal family was misusing their money which they didn't have. This started the French Revolution, which began an era of math, science, and blood. Unfortunately this is not the blog that talks about the french revolution. This is the blog about the lost stories of The French and Indian war, which I hope are not lost anymore.

     

The human brain: 100 billion cells
by Rubin

Ever think about your brain? Well, the human brain is a very complicated organ. The brain consists of many different parts, but we dont care about that, we only care about one part, the thinking part. The brain is one of the most curious mysteries to most, but once you know a little bit about it the brain make alot of sense. 

How the brain works

The brain is not a simple thing, 100 billion cells is pretty difficult to grasp. To help you remember how the brain works I broke it up into 5 main parts to make it more understandable.

1. The frontal lobe:

          In the red area of the brain, you can see the frontal lobe. The frontal lobe is responsible for controlling impulses, controlling judgment, language production, working memory, motor function, problem solving, socialization, spontaneities, planning, coordination, and executing behavior. This may seem like a lot functions for just one part of the brain, However after careful reading I realized a lot of the functions relate and overlap each other.

2. The parietal lobe:

          In the brown area of the brain you see the parietal lobe. the parietal Lobe is responsible for reading touch and body position. The parietal lobe receives the brain waves for for the nervous system. the parietal lobe combines nerv information from different modalities, mostly determining spatial sense and navigation. It is associated with movement, orientation, recognition, perception of stimuli.

3.The occipital lobe:

          In the dark green area of the brain you can see the occipital lobe. the occipital lobe controls our visual perception. The Prostrate region of the occipital lobe discriminates between colors and processes movement.

Visual perception is important because it stops us from running into trees and things infront of us, by triangulating with our eyes we can fing the distance of things by processing it with our occipital lobe.

4. The temporal lobe:

          In the light green area of the brain you can see the temporal lobe. The temporal lobe is responsible for processing sound. When a temporal lobe is not functioning It is impossible to understand someone with out reading there lips. The temporal lobe is very important in everyday life and it is used to decipher answers to almost 9,000 thousand words we say every day.

5. The cerebellum: 

          In the blue you can see the cerebellum. The cerebellum is responsible for controlling you coordination  balance, voluntary motor movements, sense of position of the different parts of your body, equilibrium, muscle tone, and your fine motor skills. These skills control your Ability to write and type as well as much more physical actions like shooting a basketball or catching a football. Next time you think you have a "bigger brain" than a "dumb jock" think again.   

Here is a video of the microscope embedded neurosurgical training system

The Effects of The Cotton Gin

            Change is inevitable in our world. People continue to invent great things that cause our world to change. Some of these inventions cause change for the better, and others cause change for the worse. Some inventors do both, without meaning to. When someone invents something revolutionary, they are usually trying to make life easier or better in some way. They have no idea that their invention could negatively affect peoples lives at all. 

One of those inventions is the cotton gin. When Eli Whitney invented it in 1794, all of the cotton owners agreed that it was a magnificent, revolutionary invention. It caused major changes in the cotton industry. People no longer had to pick the cotton seeds out of the cotton by hand, which was a very slow and tedious task. People could simply put the freshly picked cotton with the seeds in it in one end, turn the handle, and the cotton would come out the other end with no seeds in it! Although this may not sound very amazing to us, because of all of the incredible inventions from our time, this invention shaped more than just the cotton industry. Cotton could be separated 50 times faster with the cotton gin than by hand, which caused the industry to explode. 

For many families in the South during the 1790s, cotton was their livelihood. Children grew up on cotton plantations, and many would eventually become the owners. Families depended on cotton for their income. If I were growing up in a family like that, the cotton gin would have been an important, exciting invention for me. My family would be able to process cotton 50 times faster, and expand our plantation. But more cotton means more work. We would have to hire people to help us, and the only solution to that would be hiring slaves. 

    I and many other southern cotton owners were against slavery, but it was a tough decision to make. People had to support their families, and their only means of doing that was with cotton. Eli Whitney’s cotton gin caused such a massive explosion in the industry, that cotton owners had to keep up with everything by growing more and more cotton. They needed slaves to work in order to support their families. What would they do?

    Many people, even though they were against slavery, chose to give in and hire slaves in order to expand their plantation and support their families. More and more slaves were hired everywhere in the south. This affected all of their lives, and many people who were against slavery were forced to hire slaves.
     Although Eli Whitney’s cotton gin really was a revolutionary invention, there were some negative affects from all of this change. When Whitney invented the cotton gin, he most likely wanted to make it easier to process cotton. He did not expect that his invention could change so many people’s lives in good and bad ways. It is amazing that one invention could change so much. 

Occupy Protests

As most of you know, there was a protest called Occupy a little bit ago. Although many already know what it is, some do not. Occupy is a protest that argues about people and the economy not being equal. The first movement to have wide media coverage was Occupy Wall street. In a Occupy protest, people go to a place and protest about equal economy and people. The Occupy movement uses the slogan, "we are the 99%" which means that the top 1% of the money earners in the country are controlling the government and not paying their far share of taxes. This movement started this fall of 2011. Some of the famous Occupy protests in 2011 were the Occupy Oakland, Occupy Wall street, Occupy Portland, and manny more even outside of the United States. Occupy Oakland is a famous protest because it was a question of police brutality because of a viral video of a police officer going down a line spraying college protesters with pepper spray. Video found here:  The Occupy protests are also sometimes associated with violence because some of the protests have not been in a peaceful manner. These protests are also controversial because the protesters get out of hand, the police have to come in, and it costs the 99% more money.

 Here is another video about protesters in Portland, Oregon:  Right now I believe that the Occupy movement kind of makes since, but I think that there are many more ways to protest in much more effective ways because it seemed like the protests had a bad look and feel to it. Also in the Portland Occupy movement I think it attracted a lot of drugs and other bad things to the name of Occupy protests. I think on thing they could do is to have a organized group that could protest during the day and walk around the city streets and protest but then they would go home durring the night.

The War of the Revolutions Project

The War of the Revolutions Project.

When Paul first assigned us this project to my class, I was snowed in. I got really scared because I had sent an email to Paul asking what the homework was. His reply was “ read the green sheet”, that’s when I started to panic; because I knew that green sheets were big assignments. He told me where to find it. It was not there. As soon as that happened I called a few of my classmates and asked them where to find it. They said “ oh don’t worry about it you will get it tomorrow.” I calmed down when they said that.

             The next day, Tuesday, I was handed the green sheet. I look over it, and think oh this looks easy and fun.  During class we were told that we had to blog. This was very surprising to me, because I had never blogged before, after we were told that Paul had us draw cards from a deck, and then in random order he set dates for us to blog. After he set the dates, I was thinking, “shoot the day I have to blog is a Monday”. That’s when I realized that it was president’s day. That night I sent my blog proposal to Paul, telling him what I was going to write about in my blog. 

                                                                                   

            Right now in this Revolutions project I have about 10 out of 43 assignments finished. Which right now I am thinking “ Wow that is just pathetic”. I have almost finished the lit packet; I have four down five to go. This project has been difficult/frustrating at times because you have to organize your schedule, and tell yourself I am doing this tonight, and that tomorrow night, but you have to make sure you leave time for other subjects, so you are not slacking off, and just doing cultures.  

            Some of the easier assignments were the stained glass, the proposals, and the movie notes. Paul has now made the movie notes more difficult because he is now having us write a paragraph with a topic sentence that he gives us. Some of us don’t understand the sentence that he gives us, and we also don’t ask him what it means; I am one of them.  Another hard part of the assignment is the Teach a Class. Which I am doing with a friend of mine.

            Working with a partner can be a struggle, because you have to try to split up the work, and then your teacher is asking do you really want to work with them and do you think the work will be even. Personally I think that it is my choice to decide all of that, but my teachers can have some input in what they think. Currently I am doing my Teach a Class on Gertrude Stein. At a previous conference my teacher asked do you really want to do her? My answer would be yes of course because she was a very unique woman. The reason I think that is because she was a Lesbian, which was very risky at the time.                             

            Throughout the weeks we have had this assignment it has been a wonderful challenge, to organize, plan and work at the same time!

           
  

Thomas Edison

The revolutions project revolves (no pun intended) around the industrial revolution and the hight of inventing on a large scale. Some people take the industrial revolution for being all about the invention of mass production, but some extremely important things were invented in this period of time that have nothing to do with large quantities at. Now of course if something is invented, the point is to replicate it and to sell it all over the world, but that is besides the point. One of the most prestigious inventors of this incredible age was Thomas Alva Edison. He is most widely know for inventing the lightbulb, but he had countless other breakthroughs in his lifetime (a total of 1093 patents.)

Thomas Alva Edison was born on  February 11, 1847. He grew up infatuated with science and electricity, so much in fact that his mother forced him to move downstairs because he kept exploding things all around the house. At a very young age, Thomas read the full book, A School Compendium of Natural and Experimental Philosophy. This book was what fueled most of his experiments in his later life and was such an intense book that he was tossed out of his school for asking to complicated questions that the teacher couldn't answer.  (Thomas as a boy below)

Edison had an amazing number of jobs in his youth, the most prevalent problem being that he was always inventing easier ways to do things that corrupted the system of work. He mainly worked for telegraphing companies because he was a whiz at morse code tapping in messages. Most of his patents had to do with things that improved the slow process of telegraphing.

Thomas Edison started his inventing in Newark, New Jersey which would soon become the site for his famous Menlo Park Lab. Edison's first recognizable invention was the telegraph, which was the first device that could successfully record a sound and play it back. This invention started the idea of a telephone which Edison contributed to, though he is usually not recognized for his work in that area. This is the first ever recorded sound.>

Thomas began his work on the lightbulb in his Menlo Park lab and invented the term filament. This is the inside of the lightbulb that actually emits light. Thomas Edison experimented with over 1000 different materials for the filament before finding bamboo which was the first one that actually burned for about 20 minutes. He spent many careful years crafting and perfecting his precious lightbulb and the finished product could burn for as many as 400 hours. When he finished his lightbulb work, he began to produce them and sold them to the Newark city. The people were amazed when the first lights began to color the streets and keep the city from plummeting into darkness at night.

Thomas Alva Edison died on October 18, 1931 and when his funeral was held, the whole world was dark, remembering the man who brought just a little bit more lightness to this world.

Sources:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Edison
A book I read last year that I cannot find on the web

Genius is one percent inspiration, and ninety nine percent perspiration. ~Thomas Alva Edison

Remember this? A shocking story about our brains.

   What do you do when you want to learn something? Do you research it in a dictionary? Do you skim for it in a book? Do you look it up online?
   Studies by William Glasser show that people only remember 10% of what you read. That's it! A large majority of this project is reading, whether it's in a history textbook or an excerpt of a story. It's not your fault if you aren't remembering everything!
   However, it's a possibility that reading is the right way for you. Here are some ways to remember your reading:

• margin notes: write the key facts and main ideas of the text you're learning on the side.
• highlighting: (also a visual strategy.) Try not to use a lot of highlighters, because you're brain will be drawn to the colors instead of the text. *
• Don't read all at once: smaller passages are easier to remember.
• Try to find connections to what you're reading. Make mental connections between the book and another part in the book, the book and another book, the book and yourself, and the book to what's happening in the world today.

Here are some other techniques for remembering reading.

Remembering is one of the toughest things about learning.

   You may think that reading up on a topic is the best way to learn about it. It very well may be, but it's not the best way to remember what you've learned.
   Every person has a learning strategy that works best for them.

   Here, I'm going to share some learning and remembering strategies that have worked for me. Here's a quiz that determines your learning style based on habits.
   Which way do you learn how to do something? Those who are visual, then learn faster if they see it done. If someone could tell you how to do something, then you're auditory. If you are kinesthetic, you can learn by doing something. Here are helpful resources for each type of learner. When I took a quiz on how I learn, I actually got even amount of points in each of the three categories. You most likely don't use just one strategy all the time.

Sound: A Step Up

You remember more of what you hear than what you read.

   Though it's still a low percentage, you remember more of what you hear. Though none of these percentages apply to everyone, the average person remembers 20% of what they listen to. If you don't think that's true for you, maybe you're auditory!
   Here are strategies I've used to learn by listening:

• educational songs: Put what you want to learn into song. In 5th grade, my class listened to a song for learning the states and capitals. When you were in preschool or kindergarten, you probably listened to the ABC song. It's a very helpful method.
• audio books: If reading just isn't your thing, then maybe it would be better to hear the information spoken to you. There are lots of free and low-priced audio books about many topics.
• conversation: In class, a group conversation or a debate can help the facts stick in your head. At home, you can either talk about the subject or have a friend or family member quiz you orally. In fact, it is believed that you'll remember 70% of what you discuss!

Sight: Visualize Your Learning

Another strategy to learn is to see things.

The quote from Glasser says that people remember about 30% of what they see. Luckily, there are tons of great ways to learn visually! Here are my top picks:

• movies: Watch a movie or video about the subject you're learning about! There are plenty on YouTube, guaranteed.
• slideshows: These are easy to put along with a lecture. A popularly used program for making slideshows is PowerPoint. Also, Google docs has a presentation mode, if you have a Google account.
• flashcards: a rapid way for learning. For something like an language test, write a word on one side of a card, and the definition on the other. There's a really helpful site called Quizlet, where you can use flashcards, take tests, and learn.
• graphs: more for facts having to do with numbers. Bar graphs and circle charts (pie graphs) are good for visual learners.
• maps: If you're taking a course in history or geology, then you should look at a map of an area you're studying: you'll remember it better than reading about it.

Teach and Learn: The Best Strategy

Helping another helps you learn.

   Believe it or not, Glasser believes that you remember a shocking 95% of what you teach to others. So next time you're prepping for an exam, try helping someone else. While teaching another person, you're forced to think about and recall what you're telling them. A real live person will ask follow-up questions, which could lead to a conversation, or even a debate if you don't agree.

A brief video about how to improve your memory.

Note: I didn't mention all the percentages of what you remember determined by William Glasser. For more information about him: click here for a slideshow and biography. However, if you still remember this post, you know that you'll probably learn more from the slideshow.

Leap of Faith

Change; it’s inevitable. It’s hard to wrap your head around change, that this current moment will pass by, sweeping away all the excitement, anxiety, and jubilee that accompanies it. It’s easy to live within the box, restrained by the invisible, yet tangible boundaries that restrict, even constrict society and its individuals. Is it possible to live a self-fulfilling life in the box, where life is stagnant and unadventurous. Gary Ryan Blair once said, “Advancement only comes with habitually doing more than you are asked.” This reminded me of something: Change only happens when you think outside the box, when extraordinary becomes your everyday standard. To affect the world around you have to take a leap of faith, shouting “I’ll change the world today, cross over that bridge, and do something that scares me!”... Easier said than done. As people, we’re creatures of habit, and in some sense there’s an order to everything. Even if the days change, they’re all the same in a monotonic weird way. My blog post isn’t going to be an attempt to convince you to take leaps of faith or find that courage deep inside. I’m going to inspire you by writing about my favorite artist, who have already changed the art world in their own way.

Art. When I think of art, I think of painting, music and dance. But, what usually doesn’t cross my mind is its evolution. For example, the art of the 1860s is so drastically different from the art that emerged in the 1880s or 1900s, specifically in painting. It didn’t just change because some random guy with a fancy name said so; it changed itself by inspiring the younger generation to keep the revolution going.

Let’s start in the 1860s; this is when Realism begins, traits being formal lines, staged pieces, somber colors. This, the Salon loved. If you don’t read art history text books just for giggles, and trust me I don’t either, here’s the definition of the Salon: An annual art showcase in France with a jury that was very well respected; kind of like an Oscar for painters of that time. During the domination of Realism, Claude Monet came along.

Monet wasn’t your conventional artist. He used bold bright pigments and painted outside, which in that time was unheard of.  Monet, alongside Manet, Degas, Renoir, and others alike, became friends, and abolished the Salon. They created the “Impressionist exhibition” and changed the way art was viewed. Contrary to many Realism artists, Degas painted the dancers on stage or in rehearsal instead of the audience. There’s a beauty to dancers in rehearsal, contradicting the show feel with the makeup and picture perfect artificial look, in rehearsal there’s ease, you screw up, there’s still another shot.

The concept of Impressionistic Art is that moments are fleeting and trying to capture them as fully as possible. In doing so you end up with an almost unfinished quality and undone hasty sense to it.  Another door opened with Impressionism, nudity. In the past, people just didn’t make statues of naked people. It wasn’t social custom, but the Impressionist broke that, especially Rodin. He made sculpture after sculpture of people kissing naked, naked people parts, naked men. Nothing was too crazy, kind of a Lady Gaga of his day.

Bridges: They possess the ability to link one place to another. Post-Impressionism, a bridge between Impressionism and Cubism popularized in the late 19th century, connecting two entirely separate art forms. No one is ever satisfied, and once they are, they quickly become jaded by what had satisfied them just moments earlier. Paul Cezanne was the same way. He could be classified as a later Impressionist but his works don’t have the same look of nature. Cezanne, like Monet and many others before his time, changed art. He took the basic structure of Impressionism and stripped to it’s core: “Instead of painting what you see, paint the geometric shapes that make up what you’re seeing.” The one Impressionistic trait that he did keep was bright colors, not neon but still lively. Cezanne didn’t just paint nature. He also painted still life, similar to Realism, but he went about this in his own unique way. Alongside him were Vincent Van Gogh, a crazed but incredible artist, George-Pierre Seurat, a man with a keen sense of detail that is exhibited in his art and Paul Gauguin, who saw style in Paris and then moved to Martinique, giving the world tropical Post-Impressionism.

Unlike the Impressionist, the Post-Impressionistic artist were not colleagues. They didn’t conform to one style but to many. Seurat, instead of sticking to the quick strokes of Impressionism, made minuscule strokes of color, dawning the inception of Pointillism.

Dr. Seuss once said, “Being crazy isn’t enough.” Van Gogh relates to that, he was a loony and in less than 17 years he painted over 2,100 magnificent pieces. He started painting when he was 20 and shot himself at 37, in his short life, Van Gogh painted from inside his head. He traveled all over Europe, and settled in the south of France, where the bright colors pop in his work. In his later life, Van Gogh began seeing hallucination, his life was thrown into upheaval and he experienced extreme emotional suffering. Despite his pain, Vincent had his ups, and when he was in them, he painted with perfect insanity. Vincent Van Gogh may be considered the lone “insane” painter, but then again, the Cubists can be considered pretty crazy as well.

Pablo Picasso: Everyone knows the name, lionized for his outside the box, abstract strokes, absolutely defining the Cubist time of the 1900s. His art was filled with bold tincture and broad strokes. The public however thought that his work was unrefined and distasteful.  He was one of the most influential artist of the 20th century and an artistic genius to say the least.

Simultaneously during this period in Germany and Russia, a game-changer emerged: Vassily Kandinsky. His art was proceeding Evard Munch, who commenced Expressionism. Over the years Kandinsky changed, he acquired more wrinkles and he became a predecessor to Abstract Expressionism. His work was simple and organized yet bizarre and free. The formation and proper culture surrounding him in the 1930’s, Kandinsky wowed the world with his brilliance.

Anger. It’s powerful and crazy. Jackson Pollock was a man filled with anger. His art was all encompassing complete madness, anger as well as insanity. No one had ever just squirted paint everywhere and become so popular or successful. Hans Hoffman, Graham, Gorky and others alike were all influential artists of the Abstract Expressionism time, but not extreme boundary pushers. Robert Richenburg, though not as famous as the others, truly shaped the revolution following. Critics of 9th Street; a New York version of the Salon in the 1960’s, told him that his work wasn’t art but he didn’t make note of that and continued to produce modern works that influenced Pop Art which was the next big revolution.

Pop art, true to it’s name was very media supremacy weighed in and what artist did with that was sincerely gold. Golden Marylin by Andy Warhol, captures the media’s significance with new styles of art. Warhol made art out of Campbell’s soup labels. Roy Lichtenstein and David Hockney were also big contributors to this movement. Lichtenstein drew comics and was wildly popular because of it. Hockney painted with bold simplicity that looks so realistic, that it’s almost Impressionistic.

It’s hard to say what period we’re in now, the ever changing current is so hard to predict or even just see with the naked eye. The beauty lies within, and sometimes in hidden crevices, shunned from the light until one day, it leaps into your face with a leap of faith. Art critics, historians and others alike all have different opinions about where we stand currently, Modernism, Post-Modernism, Multi-media, Stage art, Installation art. I personally don’t want to label the time, I want the time to label itself. Choose it’s own title, identity, a way that the next generation can look to for a little inspiration for their revolution. A revolution that will change the world, again like so many others have before. Over this post, I’ve talked about the people who have inspired the art world, but not about myself. Personally, Kandinsky blows my mind, his out of the box thinking motivates me to try something new, though that fate is very scary I’m not afraid to take that challenge. To change the world you have to be extraordinary, and fully committed to think outside the box and in doing so this current moment will sweep us off our feet and into the next revelation.

Further Reading:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abstract_expressionism

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/13/obituaries/13richenburg.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Impressionism

http://www.arthistory.net/

http://www.tate.org.uk/modern/

Sources Sited:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abstract_expressionism

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/13/obituaries/13richenburg.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Impressionism

http://cdn2.all-art.org/impressionism/millet/12.jpg

http://cdn2.all-art.org/impressionism/millet/12.jpg

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http://static.ddmcdn.com/gif/vincent-van-gogh-paintings-from-arles-1.jpg

http://livelearnloveleave.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/04/47.PabloPicasso-Weeping-Woman-with-Handkerchief-1937.jpg

http://www.ibiblio.org/wm/paint/auth/munch/munch.scream2.jpg

http://www.abstract-art.com/abstraction/l2_grnfthrs_fldr/g0000_gr_inf_images/g029b_kandinsky_tr_ln.jpg

http://www.ibiblio.org/wm/paint/auth/pollock/pollock.number-8.jpg

http://www.thomasmccormick.com/resources/exhibitions/46/main/7364.jpg?1266005246

http://www.moma.org/collection_images/resized/222/w500h420/CRI_159222.jpg

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