Who wants to be a millionare

So that was the first week of us doing the final project, and that was kind of hard to go through it, and luckily that we are doing it by a group of three but not alone ( thanks god). The script and idea was quiet tough to write and think of the story line, because it is from an Indian movie, which commonly has messy story lines. And the story is pretty broad too. The whole line is too long for us to put in the limited size for the final project, so the work of cutting line and trying to make the line seem complete is quiet hard, too. The story is about how a "chaiwala" (tea sever) went to a famous tv show "Do you want to be a millionaire" and finally won his million rupees prize. The story is basically about his life with his brother and so many struggles that he went through, which gives him power and experiences to be knowledgable for those tricky questions. The purpose for him to achieve is to find the girl that he loves when they knew each other from young ages. He thought if he won the game in the TV show, the girl would see him and find him. He successfully did, with the sacrifice of his brother. I am the brother in the script, and the story line was shown from they became homeless to how they went through all those struggles of life being starving, badly treated, kidnapped and so on. So although the whole story seems dark, but it is a comic ending. The hard parts of performance is still, the story line is too messy, for only 3 actors. It will be so hard for audiences to understand it, but we are trying, to make it better. I am Joseph, and I prove this message ))  

About the final

We have been going through for a lot of projects and staging performance works this whole year, and we have finally finished the IB exam, which lasts us only one work before the last month of our school year, the final project. So this time our topic is free and open minded, that we can choose whatever we want as scenes and content. Any kinds of books (appropriated) are accepted. So this is a kind of good news, but also a bad news in some way for some certain kinds of people. For example, me. I have limited imagination and I really have a hard time to think about topics and ideas when it is open for us to find. So this is 12 o'clock in the "morning" of Monday, and I just came out of an idea. Although this idea is not quiet solid and completed, but I am still proud to say that it is from my true heart.

So the book that I want to choose is Persepolis. This is the book that we have learned last year, also from Ms. Guarino's class. That is the first book that I really liked and payed a lot of attention on reading it since I started to read English books. So that should be the top choice which gave me a a strong impression. Although I know that mostly the choice for staging should be more comedy like, or at least not a heavy topic in order to let classmates to come and participate. But this is the topic what I love to talk about, the unfortunate mixture of politic, time period, religion, and the chaos of homeland. That topic is heavier than everything that we can think of, but also that is really valuable to make literature product. 

That book brings us back to the chaos of 1979 the Islamic revolution of Iran and how the author's life changed, as a participant, a watcher, and a 9 years old young girl who even did not quiet understand what have changed for her life, and homeland. 1870-1980 is the time period of chaos in worldwide, and people had to fight against the struggles from governments, or even stronger powers. And that is life. The whole book tells the story from when the riot against the Shah, the last dynasty of Iran, and then the Islamic revolution started, when the main character was a 9 years old girl, ends up f or her adventure in Europe which her parents sent her to there, Vienna of Austria. They were worried for her safety. The author is also the narrator, which makes this comic book more like an autobiography. The "camera" is always on the moments of life on Marja, the girl who suffered from life. 

I believe that book is a wealthy choice with so many possibilities to stage for, although I do not have a clear idea for them.

In the end, I want to quote from her comments for the book.

"I know, when I choose to tell this story, I can not go back , forever. My homeland, Persepolis. The Mountain Alberz with shinning snow, and the smell of jasmine from my grandma. 

However, I choose to tell you the story, from Persepolis of the Ancient Persian civilization, to the mysterious scarf of Iran in nowadays. I remember my grandma's words forever, "Do not forget where you are from. "

That is my pure childhood within the revolution, my vagrancy of my love in my youth.

This is my Iran, my homeland.

This is my Persepolis. " 

Exam

Just couple days before, we had our biggest test all over the year,  the final exam of IB. We had two papers, that includes the stuff that we have learned lately from the book The whale rider. The next part is about analysis of two poets and several of their poems that we can choose to mesmerize and analysis from them. For the "bigger" picture, the book of The Whale Rider is more question asked the analysis for staging much more than plot. That was the paper one and also, the second part of the name of our class, performance of "IB English Literature and Performance", which we have worked on a lot from the whole year. We did at the first the adaption of the script for Romeo and Juliet by Shakespeare. Then we did the book of my love my love, which was the performance work for the IB. That was I had most improved for, performance, it also encourages me for doing drama as afternoon activities to gain experience and practice, participate in the world of performance. But writing and analysis are still my hard time of English, basically in any classes. This hurts my grade a lot, in any cases, even towards to my ACT exam. The analysis of poems are really hard to understand and take place for me to write them down, about the thoughts. I guess, the understanding is the biggest challenge for the way of learning English. It took me a lot of time to try to outline them into a specific, solid essay. I had the notes and prepare for the work of the exam, but when I get into the questions, I got really bad on it. I did not know how to clarify my mind. I guess, the best way to figure this out is only by practice, and more practise.  This is the only way to figure out.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                         

Note

Nature is what we see - Emily Dickinson

- The three factors: see hear how

- Short poem with structure (3 steps of metaphors) 

- the rhythm (see eclipse and so on )

- heaven and harmony - connection and meaning

Blood

- Connection with Arabic culture

- connected with mother nation

- sterotype and how the poet trying to explain

- tradition to characteristics

- nowadays situation

- tragedy 

- her goal (wave the flag of stone and seed, peace and neutral)

- questions to all around the world

- the judgement of being "civilized"  

- sadness

- wish of peace

- how her father cares and how proud for themselves

Nature is what we seeee

Natural is what we see. In Emily Dickinson's poems, a lot of them contains about natural. Due to her own experience, for example, she lives alone in a place which is far away from populations and communities. So she has a lot of chances to find the special meaning of nature to her, and take adventure for it. So this poem is about both in realistic that the beauty of natural, but also the metaphor from the the description of nature. 

This is a short poem, with only a single stanza and 12 lines, with her unique settings of dashes and non title poem, but meaning instead of the size. She goes really straight to it to give us her definition of natural. " "Nature" is what we see—The Hill—the Afternoon— Nay—Nature is Heaven— Nature is what we hear— Nay—Nature is Harmony— Nature is what we know—Yet have no art to say—" Natural. From anything listed with time, (afternoon), metaphor (heaven), harmony (description). To be surprised, normally her poem has double meaning, one positive and one negative. But this time she wrote anthem for the natural, like worshipping the god. As a great poet, her poem in physical shaped well too. For example, the rhythm is really beautiful. For example, the ending of the lines are connected with words "see, eclipse, bee, sea , say , simplicity" with "c" sound. And nature (nay) with "heaven, hear, " and so on.   

Analyzing the poem

The poem that I am choosing from the first line with "I dwell in Possibility - ", also as the title of the poem. This is the unique part of Emily Dickinson's poems, which she does not write the title for her poems, and to be respected, we do not use any adaptations, so directly we put the first line of the poem as the name. There are also something else that are famous for how unique they are from her poems. For example, the several " - " as the ending in her poems. Then the last thing which is quiet important to talk about, is the implications that she has in her poems. Just like a typical female, always has "words under words". 

  This is the topic of possibility, which is complicated and have so many changes itself already. For example, the line "A fairer House than Prose- More numerous of Windows - Superior - for Doors- " In any cases, windows and doors are the entrance for living things and air. Door is opened to outside, a brand new world waiting to explore, which means adventure and future - that is the representation of possibility, which is connected to the topic "possibility" itself.  Window has the similar meaning. Because window is facing to the fresh air and the sky outside, every thing new comes from window - sounds, air , smells, even sometimes birds would fly to the window as a guest. For those we are not familiar with, or "opened" things are all considered as possibility in the poem from Emily Dickinson. And mostly she chooses to write in a quiet positive way. 

She uses a lot of metaphors in her work, and mostly they are not so direct. For example, another metaphor for possibility is she used for roof and sky. They are connected really tightly. Roof is the way to reach sky, sky is what makes roof wonderful and attractive. And both of them as I mentioned, they all mean and related to the word possibility. In the end of the poem, she tells the positive meaning sneakily. "For occupation - This- The spreading wide my narrow Hands To gather Paradise - ". The destination, or definition of possibility towards to paradise. 

Take me to broadway

This Wednesday, we went to a 10 hours long field trip to New York city to watch a play in broadway, and the theme of the play is the indicate of the curious dog. It was a book that we read long time ago, and I was surprised that it can be adapted by performance. As the time that we entered the theatre, it was really brand and good looking from the outside decorations. But the central part which those actors took place to perform look a little bit simple, or poor. That was the first impression for me to the theatre. But later on, when it uses the sound effects and light effects, I was amazed by how fancy and creative the technology using by it. Then when the actors directly opened the hided boxes under the floor, and when Christopher climbs on the wall, the train coming on the rail way, and train station and so on effects. Especially the digital projection, which is just mentioned in class how we can do it. This impresses me a lot. It is just like having a great meal, and the harvest is put by steps, from when I just sit in  the theatre I did not feel anything special, but the feeling of admire increases by time. Since I started to do drama as afternoon activities, I started to know how to analysis or understand the staging and quality of practise of working in pairs. The only comment I have is they are professional. I do not really like that character Christopher, because of his behavior of being annoying, but I have to say that that leading actor is really good at it. The autism kid acting is really realistic. I think I have a lot of things to learn from them, in order to improve my performing skills.