more humanities stuff

Analysis draft 2

CJ Harrison

I want my poster to have an effect on the viewer by saying Germany had a really powerful army in skill with weapons but they didn't have a lot of people like other countries. Also, I want this to effect the viewer using Germany's war symbol (iron cross) was actually pretty frightening to some countries. The main effect that I wanted was to make people think that the symbol is on top of the flag which says that the army had power over Germany. I also wanted it to be kind of a little less forceful than that and I made the slogan a little less harsh but I made it so that it was mean but not nice sort of like telling people to do something in a mean voice but not mean it to be mean. I guess you could say it would be sarcastic in a way. But I wanted it to make the viewer think that it was a harsh picture but the slogan lightens it a little bit.

This poster fits into the historical content of WW1 by the symbols I used because those symbols that are kind of smooshed together were basically the Germany's main symbols they used for war but I had just put them all together to make one image. The flag in the background was Germany's flag colors in WW1. I had basically translated the slogan so that people could understand what it was saying.

Most propaganda today is that people don't really agree with a lot of things for example people put Obama's head with a knife through it and said “don't join the US army because you will die” so basically propaganda can make anything look bad or good like in the Obama example. The worst part about Propaganda is that it targets certain things but usually most propaganda is based toward negative things because the main goal is to base it towards another country or another cause that created conflict between those two things. So overall I guess propaganda today bothers me because they make things so negative so that is what I'm trying to get at here.

WWII Propaganda

What I really took from this project was that war is something that saves people from certain disasters. For example, getting killed by other countries who were either mad at your country or just wanting to gain more land. You always hear people talking about the bad side of war and why war is bad because of all the killing. But you never honestly hear why war helps our country to fight for it's freedom and keep their people alive.

Roots of war

This project was really interesting to me because we got to learn all about war and the different things that caused war in most countries. What I really thought was cool was when we learned about how different countries were partnered and how they became traitors and what they did to get out of a partnership. Overall I thought this project was really cool and fun to learn about how the whole thing of war really worked because I never really knew what it was about, I was only told stories.

Deogratias

One thing about this book that I really enjoyed was that it was a picture book that gave a story about genocide. I really learned from this book because I hadn't really understood racism until I read about the two races in this book. I remember reading the page where the teacher said something and almost everyone raised their hands, the teacher asked another question and only one student raised his hand, which was Deogratias. The book also had images of people going and killing others and I got to experience what it was like to kill someone by looking at pictures and not actually being there. Lastly I really thought this was something that I liked because I don't read often and to read this book was really interesting.

Slaughterhouse 5

While reading this book I really felt bad but I felt like I could really connect to how Billy lived after the plane crash. The main reason being is that he went into a different world because of the aliens and was in the basement a lot where he didn't have to speak to anyone. I felt like he had gone into the same thing I had gone threw when my parents split. I also feel like Billy had a lot of perseverance because he had published his stories to the public and never gave up on it which was really cool to read about. Overall, I really liked this book because I made a lot of connections with it.

Dulce et decorium

This poem really struck me because it was nothing like I expected. It was really sad at some points but at others it was really interesting. My group and I had a lot of fun saying this poem out loud because we added different tones and Duke with his creepy Hitler voice. The thing I got from this poem is that it was very jumpy in imagery but it made a lot of sense. I had thought about this poem when I had made my poem because I wanted to create different scenes that were all incorporated in the same topic. All in all, I really took away from this poem because I had new ideas to incorporate for my poem.

work from the past semester in Humanities

I have already posted stuff for my genocide project but her eare some of the other things i have worked on.

Poetry project:

War and it's Treacherous Ways

CJ Harrison

As I Stare at my gun before battle

I'm Gathering mags and extra ammo boxes,

Load and cocking my gun for action,

Attaching my sling to the sling mounts,

And throw my gun over my shoulder

As I walk my gun bumps up against my body after every step

My hands touching the smooth fabric of my desert cammo pants

My face with a scratchy feeling with the desert sand flying up toward me

The friendly greet of my general and his firm hand shake

My parents breaking into tears before leaving for the military

The smell of dust rushing up into my nose

like the burst of my skis brushing through the powdery snow

The car filtered with a pine tree dangling from the mirror

The fresh breeze reminds me of when I was a child playing in my yard.

The smell of fear and worry coming from my parents as I walk to the car

The car engine starts up with a loud disruptive noise

like a disc spinning in a disc tray

rocks hitting the mud flap during our trip

as if billions of flies are hitting the windshield

And finally, the car comes to a stop, were here

I put my hand on the window and look at my parents

Click, I open my car door and stand up to an astonishing sight

bullets whizzing by and my partners are falling with blank stares

I can feel my heart beat faster and faster as each body crumples to the soggy sand

As I get out, I am amazed by the horrid smells that surround the air

Going def from all the loud explosions and bullets being shot

I run out into the battlefield hoping the best for myself and my country

Breaking into tears I let go of my old life and approach the new one

My parents breaking into tears before leaving for the military

The smell of fear and worry coming from my parents as I walk to the car

I put my hand on the window and look at my parents

Breaking into tears I let go of my old life and approach the new one

CJ Harrison

My poem was pretty much chosen really quickly because I didn't want to spend a lot of time thinking of what I should base my poem off of. I finally decided I was going to base it off of dulce et decorium. So I thought of an idea I was thinking of, which was my uncle and how he went to war because his brother died and he was drafted from that. So I thought I would ask him about his experiences and what he went through. I was also interested into getting some poetry from a poem that we read in class. When I started my poem I already some inspiration from 2 sources that I could use and put them together to make the piece in front of you.

How I wrote my poem was definatly hard to figure out because I had to play with a couple different ways I could have written it. For example I wanted to use the idea from the poem, dulce et decorium. I didn't like it so I tried rhyming it but I didn't like how it turned out either, so I decided to try to make a story and then cut up the lines to make a poem. I liked it so I showed it to my teacher and she gave me an outline to follow so I did. I played with the font to make it less boring than just having the text be all the way to the right. I also had an idea where I had put flashbacks at the end of most of the stanzas to make it feel like he was remembering his past and what he was leaving behind.

How I am presenting my poem is by me speaking it so that it has more of a personal feel to it and that I can have my voice express the feeling of the poem. With kinetic text you can do that but it's repetitive with the same tone of voice as where if I feel like I need to change the tone I could do that without having to go back and record and put it in the text. I also wanted to get the feeling myself because I feel like I can present it really well if I am the one speaking so that I can give it emotions and have hand signals so that it can feel more emotional to the listener. So when I present my poem I want it to effect the listener not only by the voice but by tone and motion.

Socratic seminars:

Being Peace Seminar Pre-write

CJ Harrison

1: I would have to agree with this statement because I really don't ever think about it. I know that when I get bored I always want something to do so that I'm not bored so I find something to do that entertains me like video games or drawing or just sitting on the couch reading a book. I guess what my point is, is that, as a human being who has a hard time even sitting still in my chair, I find it quite impossible to be able to relax and calm to find my inner peace/ inner touch with myself. So basically, in order for me to stay sane, I need to be doing something that requires moving so that I don't go crazy. All in all, this basically means that you don't need something to do in order to be doing something, for instance, instead of playing video games I could be finding my inner self and seeing who I truly am but instead I decide to push that away and do something I like to do.

2: I would have to agree again mainly because we, as humans, have a purpose and we control our own lives. We also plan for our future and what we can become so that we become either successful or unsuccessful. I know that I want to be an astronomist, ya that's idealizing what I want to become, it's just the doing and problem solving that I have to get there. I also agree because we are more of a person, of a living thing than just ideology or doctrine, were also respectful, passionate, loving, thoughtful, integrating, etc. So overall, we have more qualities than just ideal and doctrine.

3: I think the thing I am practicing the most is the sixth mindfulness training because if I'm angry I wont make friends and people will not want to be around me. For example: I have been mean to my brother over the last few years and it's gotten so bad that the only time we really ever notice each other is when he comes to my school and when we eat dinner, other wise were both at opposite ends of the house doing things.

To me, the tenth mindfulness training is the one I am practicing least because it's more of a “in general” type of idea. For instance, when I see someone being mean to my brother I know that's not ok and since I'm older, I kind of make myself feel like super man and I feel all strong and muscular. So I go over and I can tell their pissing my brother off because of the tone in his voice and I basically say “cut the crap and pick on someone your own size or it's going to get really ugly” and I really don't say that just to fight, I say that basically to intimidate people because it's not hard to do that when your like, 4 feet taller than that person. So the usual response I get is “ok man, I'm sorry Sean” and that usually settles it. So overall it's basically something that you do naturally whether you know it or not. Basically like a natural instinct, or a reflex per-say.

 

Omelas Seminar Pre-Write

CJ Harrison

1: I would say that it was so descriptive that it seems more of a fairytale but the opposite, like a bad dream. I would also say that it feels like it is too much detail and it doesn't feel like it would be real and more of imaginary. Kind of like a play or an act of someones dream that they had. I could even say that she might have said all this in her dream for all that i know. She really doesn't describe how she came up with this theory or actual thing. She kind of just explains it and makes it so that you can understand what Omelas is about and how horrible it is. Basically it is told in the context of a dream to me so it doesn't seem real to me.

2: I would say that one literary device i would use is gloomy because it talks about a boy who has blisters all over his hips and is extremely skinny. To me that's really dark and sad. It also says that people also look at him but don't help and that really reminded me of my 6^th and 7^th grade years of middle school because I had come to Durango rite after i had broken my leg and i was an outsider and no one helped me and for a year and a half i sat at a table alone and talked to absolutely no one. So it really hit me hard because i felt like that when i was in my wheel chair and it ticked me off that no one helped him. If i were there i would have busted that window open and told him to get out here and live with me and feed him more than a bag of corn. So overall, this section I would say is really gloomy.

For another part of this article I would say is guilty/reflective for the last paragraph. I say this because it is saying that people leave the town and go up into the mountains and live in a different kind of life style. I thought this was really cool because I like to go in my room and get away from all the crazy stuff and the annoyance from my brother. When I'm in my bedroom it's my time and no one can get in and I can think and clear my head of all the threats or madness that I have and calm myself down. So all I would say for this is that it is great to get away from every bad thing and be free for a little while, especially for the people of Omelas

3: In the last paragraph of the article it tells you about people leaving and going up in the mountains for something other than hatred which I just summarized. I think people would do this because as I said in the last paragraph, I explained that they would do this to be free and I still agree on that but if I were to put in a more detailed response I would say; In the city of Omelas, there is a lot of hatred and torture and it's not a fun place to be in. they harass children and cause children to be depressed. When they get older and they have enough freedom to do what they want, they can choose to go into the mountains or run away and be freed. I do believe that people could have started a city up in the mountains and are able to spread the word about the city. If I were in Omelas, I definatly would have left and went to the mountain because I would have bee tired of people making fun of me and hurting me both physically and mentally. Overall, I believe that people from Omelas would run away to the mountain to get away from this big cluster of evil and violence.

Salvador Dali Seminar Reflection

CJ Harrison

As I lay there and wait for the strength to be able to move. As I grow bigger, the stronger I grow and the more I start to struggle to get out of this place. After growing into my late teens to my early twenties, I create a crack in the shell that I was domed in. With my heart racing, I can feel the cool breeze on my shoulder. All I know is I try and try but I keep failing as if I were trying to crack a rock open with a marshmallow. My arm and legs struggle as I give all my power into them and reach for solid surface to push against but it forms to the shape of my hand. Determined to get out my head is slowly creeping out as I yell at the top of my lungs to get my adrenalin rushing. I finally get my head out but I realize that it just got so much harder than it was. I think to myself “oh why these troubles, why do I have to work so hard to get out of something so simple. Although I try ant try as hard as I can I find it almost impossible to get out. Every time I try to lift up with my foot, it just sank in. my hands dive in as if they were to go swimming in the ocean. Without help this seems impossible.

As I stand there with my feet sinking in. I realize that if I believe everything is possible. So I focused my strength and my thoughts and reached out and grabbed the edges where I had cracked open the dome. I start pulling up and the edge crumbles under the weight of my hand. I quickly realize that the secret to getting out this whole time was the edges of the crack. As I struggle to stay upright, I quickly begin to pull on the edges. The light starts coming in and I get curious as to what it pulling my down. I quickly look down as to not waste much time and all I see is this black hole of gooey black oily stuff and I decide to start getting back on track and finish tearing apart the shell. A couple minutes later I had finished and my arms barely sticking out I quickly grab a twig sticking out of the ground and pull my self out. I stand up and look around to be amazed at this hologramic world surrounding me. I put my arm forward and part of it disappears. I pull it back and the rest appears to be fine. As I examine my arm I hear screams and I quickly realize something is happening. I ran through the hologram and enter a battle field in a city where gun shots are being fired and I don't know where their coming from. I hurry my body as fast as it will go into the building across the street. I duck under a work desk where I found a women and her child sitting with a huge fear in their eyes. The kid is shivering and I can tell that his mind is going crazy and he starts to hyperventilate. I found a paper back on a shelf with food in it so I take the food out and give it to the child. As the child is breathing in and out and explosion from a grenade explodes across the room and stuff flies at us at rapid speeds. I grab the women and his son and take them out of the building to find another hiding place. We found this place under ground and I see a small holographic globe laying on the floor. I pick it up and look at it for a second. I look back up to tell the woman something but I notice that I am in a totally different place.

Wondering where I am, I turn around and there is the world sitting rite in front of me with a not that say “control is a privilege, use it wisely” then I grin and say, “take care mom”

Genocide Exhibition

One aspect of my project was the removal of the puzzle pieces to view what had happened during the Armenian Genocide. When you flip the right hand side of the comics up you find what one Armenian had done after surviving the death march which was when the Turkish soldiers took groups of armenians out into the desert. After a while they shot and hit the armenians upside the head. On the right hand side of the box i told the story of the Armenian that had survived the death march.

CJ Harrison     

Armenia Box of Horrors

Back in 1915, the year the genocide happened, a man named Talaat Pasha which was a leader in Turkey, had feared that the Armenians were going to join the USSR during WW1. So he told troops to go kill the Armenians to make sure they weren’t going to join the USSR. So the troops went out, arrested 250 Armenian leaders, and killed male Armenians along with sexually abusing the female Armenians.

When I came across the idea of my first comic, I had looked at this website that I really thought was an interesting which is “theforgoten.com”. If you go to the survivors I had looked up a couple peoples podcasts and one had talked about how it started and how they took groups out and killed them in the desert which is now Syria. I had taken this hardly because it was painful to listen to the way she told the story so I instantly said I have to put that in my project. So the reason why I had made this comic is because of this person’s story.

In my research I had come across this website called “Armeniahouse.org”, which gave me a very long article on the trail of Talaat Pasha. I had been reading this article and after a while I had come across this part where the man says “, I crossed the street behind him and followed him for a while, once I came to the best place and time I pulled out my revolver and shot him”, which gave me the idea of making The second layer of the comic to give an overview of Talaat Pasha.

I guess what I’m trying to get you to think is that this genocide was full of horrible things. First it was a person who didn’t want the Armenians to join the enemies. Soldiers went out to stop them from joining the enemies. Abused the female Armenians and killed male Armenians. One survivor killed Talaat pasha. Finally, all the Armenian leaders were hung for good measures.

You may be wondering how I got the whole box idea. Well I had originally said I want different layers with the different stages of this project. I had changed my idea to one layer that was a puzzle and you have to take the pieces out to see the comic. Then I thought OH! I could put a box with a door, you open it and there’s the puzzle. Then I thought that the comic wasn’t enough so I added the part on how Talaat Pasha was killed and agreed to leave it like that because I really liked it.

Genocide Project Reflection

CJ Harrison

During the making of my final product I had come across some difficulties and I had to re-cut my wood but unfortunately I didn’t have any more material for that specific type of wood. I had gone to home depot to try to find that wood but they didn’t have any so I was getting very worried and I didn’t know where else it would have been. So when I got home I looked through all the wood I had and I still found nothing of that sort so I just got a random piece of wood and cut it out to be the bottom of the box because no one is going to be looking at the bottom so I wasn’t too worried about it. During exhibition no one had noticed the bottom when they flipped over the cartoon so I was glad that it wasn’t a big problem at all.

If I had one more week to work on this project I would have done so much more. First off I would have gotten some light wood instead of cardboard to glue my cartoons on. I also would have done a way better job of being able to flip up the cartoons to view the person who killed Talaat Pasha by putting string instead of a piece of paper that was hot glued to the paper. I also would have added the Armenian flag before the Turkish flag, tell the story of the Armenians and then you lift that up and it’s the Turkish flag and you take out those pieces and there is the Turkish story and then flip the over and there is the Armenian who killed Talaat Pasha.

In my final product I felt like I had done an amazing job because it was very engaging for the audience and everyone who looked at it was having fun taking the puzzle pieces out and reading about each individual comic strip and what happened during the Armenian genocide. I also had one person almost cry because they were heart broken and she told me about how heart breaking that was and how it is a horrible thing and that were lucky to not have been in a genocide were we live. Overall I think I did best in the category mainly because a lot of people were having fun moving things and learning about it in different ways and two completely different stories during the genocide.

The weakest part of my project I would have to say is the professionalism because I still had some parts where I still needed to erase the pencil marks. I also could have done a much better job on the title which was on the cover of the box because it was really choppy and didn’t look good and could have been neater like adding a second coat of paint to cover up the smudges. I also could have glued the left side of the comic so that people didn’t lift up the whole comic to see what was underneath the whole thing instead of just one side. After all, my project turned out good it was just the small things that I could have fixed to make my project that much better.

For all the categories I would have to give myself a B, 85%. I think this because I worked really hard to think of an Idea and put it together because I needed my dad there to help me use his tools to cut the wood and get everything rite and he usually doesn’t get home till 6:00pm. So I spent from 6:00-8:00 every night working with my dad and figuring out how to put everything and the size of the puzzle which I messed up the coloring and had to figure out how to fix it without smearing the paint. So every day I basically got home at around 6 and worked until I had to go to sleep except for when I got the puzzle pieces done then I just got time to mess around because I was practically finished with everything. For my final grade I would have to give myself a B+, 88%

Roots of War

Root of War Seminar Reflection

By: CJ Harrison

#1: Reaction

During the seminar I really liked how Nollie said at the end of the seminar that there is beauty in the forest because there is no social stuff or there is also no really society where everything has to be like what we do and have people running around and yelling, it's just all quiet. I thought that was a great way to get away from beauty because thats when your all bye yourself and you can actually think and be alone without people bothering you or having people get in your head and make it hard for you to concentrate on one thing. For me the forest is a way to get away from everything that's bothering you so that you have time to think about things by yourself in a lonely place where there's no noise.

#2: what is the relationship between beauty and risk?

For me the relationship between between beauty and risk is that you risk beauty when you love something so much that you would die for it like the moth. The moth risked all of his life for one moment of beauty and said that they are like humans and their society is like ours which is really hard to believe because were nothing like the moth. Most human beings have common sense and tend to use it in times like what the moth is doing. We stop and think of the consequence instead of going full on and letting that thought pass right through our brain and go for one moment of beauty. Or as I should say is that we tend to think of the “risk” and make sure we do or don't want to do that thing that pulls us in. For example: doing drugs like cigarettes, people like to pull us into that because it makes you look cool but the risk is that you have a really high chance of getting cancer and loosing your life to it. So that's what I think the resemblance between beauty and risk.

#3: React to the last stanza. Do you have a passion like this? Why/why not? Pros and cons.

I think the last stanza is saying that when the moth is doing it's best to get a moment of beauty and die than to live a long time, when the moth dies the cockroach wishes he had something that bad that he would die for it. I would have to say that I don't have a passion like that. The reason why I don't is because I haven't figured it out yet. When I have found the object, thing, bug, maybe even species, then I have that passion. Finally I would have to say that having this passion is a really good goal to get to, but at the same time if you die for that thing then your throwing your life away for someone else. I mean it's awesome that you would want to do that but if you were a homeless person you might die for a nice house, and frankly that''s not a good thing cause your dieing for someone else to take your home on earth that you died for. So there's always an up side and a down side to dieing for something you want so much.

#4: who do you agree with more? The cockroach or the moth?

I would agree more with the cockroach because unlike the moth the cockroach has common sense. If you think about it the moth is dieing for beauty, which may be a good thing and some people might agree with that depending on their personality and what they think of the story. For me, I want to live life at the fullest because I like the way I live and I like being alive and doing things outdoors and indoors. And some people would rather die because they've made horrible decisions in their life and the only way out of it is to die, they think. But life is full of surprises and you have to live to see them. For example: the cockroach thinks the moth has no sense when the moth says “I would rather die in a moment of beauty, than to live for a long time” which I think is a bad decision because your throwing your life away to die for a moment of beauty. If you were to think deeper about it, you could make having beauty a long term goal or a short term goal, however long you want to make it and once you've accomplished that goal you don't have just one moment, you have the whole rest of your life to enjoy it and use it however you want. And that's why I agree with the cockroach, and just to through this in there, in the very last stanza, the cockroach says “but at the same time I wish there was something I wanted as badly as he wanted to fry himself” which I think is a perfect goal to get to beauty cause that sets a goal for him to want something that badly then he can stick with it and when it comes to the time where he gets too old and dies then that is the perfect time to wish for that cause you already lived your life at the fullest and you still get that wish that you wanted. So in the end, that's my overall agreement with the cockroach.

About me

Hi, I'm CJ Harrison. I'm 15 and 6'2. My favourite hobby is football, you can even ask my friends. On my free time I like to play call of duty modern warfare 1 for the Wii. Although I'm getting my Xbox 360 soon, I like it better for the Wii because I have gotten really good at it. Every few weekends a couple friends and I get together and play a game of airsoft which includes usually around 10-15 people. So that's pretty much all about me so now you know =)