This fine morning, I departed English class promptly and began descending the stairs towards my mathematics class. As I walked, the thronging mass divided itself into tributaries and I endeavored to ensure that I had discovered the correct one. Eventually, the lethargic crowd awoke and sorted themselves into their respective destinations. I entered my classroom, the second to arrive, and immediately began transcribing a copy of the night's assignment. Soon, the rest of the class entered and seated themselves in their desks, and the lesson commenced
The lecture shed light on the division of polynomials, and stratagems to use when pursuing the quotient, such as synthetic division. Although dull at times, I ensured that my eyes remained focused so as to be prepared for the toil that was to come. After a half-hour of explanation, the toil in question began. I am now led to believe that sadists locked up in some godforsaken asylum were the authors of my textbook, as the difficulty of two of the problems bordered on the ridiculous. Although the concept that these writers sought to explain was simple in nature, they attempted to include every possible complexity. Soon, the class ended and I was forced to complete the assignment elsewhere.
Wednesday, October 27, 2010
Friday, October 22, 2010
Tides
A duet I wrote over the summer and only got around to uploading now. I'm sorry about the MIDI quality and editing. Blame laziness. Oh, and if someone knows how to embed YouTube videos, please say so.
Most Interesting Writing
I have written enough in school and on my own that thinking of my reactions to my own writing is a bit of a challenge nowadays. However, out of the work that I can remember, my short story in 7th grade stands out.
A bit of background: in 7th grade, my English teacher taught a unit on short stories. We read The Necklace, The Lottery, The Tell-Tale Heart, and many others, and discussed their elements, plot arcs, and characterization. To finish off the unit, we each had to write a seven-to-ten page short story, and as you may have guessed by this point, this is the piece of writing that I am referring to.
Unlike most things I write, which I can usually sort by whatever had been read recently, and therefore heavily influenced by, I'm not entirely sure where my story came from. It featured a 14-year-old girl named Aura, her linebacker older brother, her rather average parents, their infant son, and very little else. My entire short story literally took place throughout the course of one day inside a rather ordinary house. The country that the house was in, which I took great pains to avoid identifying, was about to be bombed back into the Stone Age by a similarly unidentified aggressor.
Most of my short story, I realized now, consisted of various ways my protagonist attempted to distract herself from the approaching bombs. Morbid? Definitely. Suspenseful? Occasionally, which was why I enjoyed writing the story. The tension and the constant thought that in a few hours, everything that the characters were seeing would be blown to ashes made the writing process entertaining. And the little touches that I tried to add (a computer game, her older brother's football injury, the doting parents) made the story of better quality than most things I had written up until that point.
At the same time, my writing was nowhere near perfect. One of the parts that I take the most issue with is my attempt at some sort of climax for the story, which ended up being rather flat and dull. My attempts to avoid the aggressor country and the bombed country verged on comical. The ending also was very vague, and the question I received most from those who read it was "Did they die?" followed extremely closely by "Why didn't you kill them?" Still, overall, I consider my 7th grade short story my best piece of writing.
A bit of background: in 7th grade, my English teacher taught a unit on short stories. We read The Necklace, The Lottery, The Tell-Tale Heart, and many others, and discussed their elements, plot arcs, and characterization. To finish off the unit, we each had to write a seven-to-ten page short story, and as you may have guessed by this point, this is the piece of writing that I am referring to.
Unlike most things I write, which I can usually sort by whatever had been read recently, and therefore heavily influenced by, I'm not entirely sure where my story came from. It featured a 14-year-old girl named Aura, her linebacker older brother, her rather average parents, their infant son, and very little else. My entire short story literally took place throughout the course of one day inside a rather ordinary house. The country that the house was in, which I took great pains to avoid identifying, was about to be bombed back into the Stone Age by a similarly unidentified aggressor.
Most of my short story, I realized now, consisted of various ways my protagonist attempted to distract herself from the approaching bombs. Morbid? Definitely. Suspenseful? Occasionally, which was why I enjoyed writing the story. The tension and the constant thought that in a few hours, everything that the characters were seeing would be blown to ashes made the writing process entertaining. And the little touches that I tried to add (a computer game, her older brother's football injury, the doting parents) made the story of better quality than most things I had written up until that point.
At the same time, my writing was nowhere near perfect. One of the parts that I take the most issue with is my attempt at some sort of climax for the story, which ended up being rather flat and dull. My attempts to avoid the aggressor country and the bombed country verged on comical. The ending also was very vague, and the question I received most from those who read it was "Did they die?" followed extremely closely by "Why didn't you kill them?" Still, overall, I consider my 7th grade short story my best piece of writing.
Wednesday, October 13, 2010
The Count of Monte Cristo
My novel that I am currently reading is The Count of Monte Cristo, by Alexandre Dumas. The novel was written two hundred years ago, and is set in post-Napoleonic France. The story started out slowly, laying out exposition about how great a person Edmond Dantes, the protagonist, is, and how many of his peers are jealous of his good fortune, only for Dantes to be sent to prison. Dantes promptly breaks out of prison, discovers an enormous fortune, and adopts the identity of The Count of Monte Cristo. All of this, the back of the book could tell you.
The story centers around Dantes, but it seems more like there are two main characters. Edmond Dantes is naive and believes the best of everyone, quick but not educated. Then, after the events listed above, he is practically replaced. Instead, the mysterious, powerful, wise Count has taken his role. No one recognizes him, and he is practically a new character. On one hand, this is a welcome relief from the slightly two-dimensional character of Dantes, but one almost feels Dumas is setting up a plot twist. At the same time, the story is, if not full of action, at least constantly moving, with plenty of murders, vendettas, bandits, kidnappings, and intrigue to keep the plot going.
The author's characterization of people, relying on sharp contrasts and descriptions through dialogue, creates very interesting characters. On one hand, one can name a character and immediately think of a defining characteristic. Yet the characters rarely move beyond that. Even our protagonist, Dantes, is infrequently characterized beyond what he begins as, and when he becomes the Count, it feels like a tectonic shift, character-wise.
Easily, I can compare this book to Les Miserables, another story which I read last year. On the surface, both are quite similar. Both concern a Frenchman in the early 19th century who is injustly imprisoned, and both have an inordinately long length. If one compares the two, there are significant differences. Les Miserables was essentially a character-driven story, its plot consisting of the emotional conflicts of its protagonists and antagonists, and the actions by which these conflicts were displayed. The Count of Monte Cristo is a very different novel, in that it, for better or for worse, tells much less about a character, even as the characters do more. Comparing Edmond Dantes and Jean Valjean is ridiculous; they begin similarly, but soon diverge into completely different plotllines.
For a creative project, since very few guidelines have been given at this point, I am still slightly lost. Still I think it would be interesting to write a piece of music consisting of themes for the main characters. I have already composed enough music to believe that I could accomplish this, and given my lack of artistic abilities, it would be the highest quality product I could produce. In order to make the piece more understandable, I would include annotations so that a listener could understand when the piece changes.
Thanks for reading
-Sherwin
The story centers around Dantes, but it seems more like there are two main characters. Edmond Dantes is naive and believes the best of everyone, quick but not educated. Then, after the events listed above, he is practically replaced. Instead, the mysterious, powerful, wise Count has taken his role. No one recognizes him, and he is practically a new character. On one hand, this is a welcome relief from the slightly two-dimensional character of Dantes, but one almost feels Dumas is setting up a plot twist. At the same time, the story is, if not full of action, at least constantly moving, with plenty of murders, vendettas, bandits, kidnappings, and intrigue to keep the plot going.
The author's characterization of people, relying on sharp contrasts and descriptions through dialogue, creates very interesting characters. On one hand, one can name a character and immediately think of a defining characteristic. Yet the characters rarely move beyond that. Even our protagonist, Dantes, is infrequently characterized beyond what he begins as, and when he becomes the Count, it feels like a tectonic shift, character-wise.
Easily, I can compare this book to Les Miserables, another story which I read last year. On the surface, both are quite similar. Both concern a Frenchman in the early 19th century who is injustly imprisoned, and both have an inordinately long length. If one compares the two, there are significant differences. Les Miserables was essentially a character-driven story, its plot consisting of the emotional conflicts of its protagonists and antagonists, and the actions by which these conflicts were displayed. The Count of Monte Cristo is a very different novel, in that it, for better or for worse, tells much less about a character, even as the characters do more. Comparing Edmond Dantes and Jean Valjean is ridiculous; they begin similarly, but soon diverge into completely different plotllines.
For a creative project, since very few guidelines have been given at this point, I am still slightly lost. Still I think it would be interesting to write a piece of music consisting of themes for the main characters. I have already composed enough music to believe that I could accomplish this, and given my lack of artistic abilities, it would be the highest quality product I could produce. In order to make the piece more understandable, I would include annotations so that a listener could understand when the piece changes.
Thanks for reading
-Sherwin
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