Fun and Frustration

Fun

On Monday in class I was so excited to learn more about coding. From 2010-2012 I used to write for an online magazine. I wrote articles like, “Top Ten TV Prom Episodes” and other fun, silly things. I felt so professional, and like a true writer.

Then, one day, my editor asked if I could begin coding my own articles. I wrote back to her saying that I didn’t even know what that meant. However, the next day she sent me a video like this, which sort of helped. I kept doing research until I learned the basics. stewie

Frustration

So when I sat down to write this blog post, I immediately knew what I wanted to write about! I wanted to post some sassy article I wrote when I was 15 and dazzle everyone with my 10th grade vocab skills. HOWEVER when I went to the website, I was so annoyed to see that all issues before 2013 were taken down. Those fiends!

      • First I tried using the wayback machine and dig up old issues that way. Yet, Portrait Magazine wasn’t on their database.
      • Then I simply tried to go through my old emails and see if (somehow?) I could find some weird loophole to an old article of mine. Of course that plan failed.
      • Finally, I emailed my old editor and asked her if she can put older issues up.

I don’t know how this story will end, but hopefully one day I can share my “That’s STILL So Raven” article with everyone here.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2KdDTjhogsY

Hey guys!

So I’ve been transitioning to using Markdown instead of Word’s Notebook Layout View to take my class notes.

So, here’s some of my html-coded notes from my Eighteenth-Century Lit class this morning, transcribed from Dr. Paku’s (written) explanation of how to talk about rhythm in poetry.

Greg

Terminology for discussing rhythm

  • From Abrahms:

    • Prosody: the systematic study of versification in poetry
    • Versification: the principles and practice of meter, rhyme, and stanza forms (and sometimes of sound patterning like alliteration or onomatopoeia)

    • Meter: the recurrence, in regular units (like across lines), of a prominent feature in the speech sounds of a language: more commonly, a recurrent pattern of stresses on a recurrent number of syllables, a.ka. “accentual-syllabic meter” or “stress and syllable.”

      • most often it is useful to talk about meter at the line level

      • Stresses: a.k.a. “accents”–the more forcefully uttered and hence louder syllables. When we recognize a pattern to the beat of the stresses, we have a rhythm.

      • We typically distinguish only strong (/) and weak (x) stresses, though those terms are relative and can be decided in combination with surrounding words, not absolute values (for example prepositions and pronouns and articles).

        • note that this is already a binary

      • A recognizable combination of stressed and unstressed syllables gives us a foot, which is the measure we use to make up the metric unit of a line.

      • We can describe that foot, and then describe how often the foot occurs. These two measures give us the names we use to describe meter or rhythm.

      • The most common feet and the most common number of feet per line:

        The iamb, iambic x /
        The trochee, trochaic / x
        The spondee, spondaic / /
        The pyrrhic, pyrrhic x x
        (anapest x x / and dactyl / x x)

        tetrameter 4
        pentameter 5
        hexameter 6

      • When you scan a passage, you go through line by line analyzing the meter. A scansion is the end result of scanning a passage.

      • But: scansion is not a science. When you describe rhythm, you typically also take into account 1) word rhythm, 2) grammatical function, 3) rhetorical accent (emphasis), 4) intonation/dynamics, 5) length of syllables, 6) caesura, 7) syntax and semantics (phrasal patterns), 8) expressive performance.
        • Scansion is an interpretive TOOL, not a rule.

Katie’s Experiment

A few things that make me happy.

1. Cute animals

2. Colorful things

Like this color, this color, and this color.

3. My past & future home: San Diego, CA

Additionally where this little peanut lives, who I miss every single day.


[My adorable niece]

4. The SUNSHINE ♥

♠ ♦ ♣ ♥