Counterbalancing Modern Life

Life is all about balancing. We try and be dynamic students by balancing our academics with extracurricular activities, volunteer work, family, friends, religion, etc. and we try and be successful while managing all these different parts of our life at the same time as being successful in every aspect and every activity. Well, Modern Dance is a great example of that. I'm in five inch heels and a skirt; an outfit neither meant for dancing, nor balancing; however, dancers dance through life despite the circumstances. I have to find a medium balance between holding Katie (left) and Baily (right). This resembles my life and the responsibility and dependability expected of me as well as the rest of the world. I can't pull to hard on Katie or else she would fall forward and Baily would fall back. Yet, I can't give all my weight to Katie or else her lunge would turn more into a far portequor and Baily would be in the splits. God, I believe, gave us a population to live with. We are here to interact and celebrate together, in the glory of His name. We are meant to live by supporting one another while depending on one another through friendships, relationships, etc. No one is meant to be alone is this dance called Life. It's all about finding the balance and the beauty will display itself in the victory of your success.

Dance Spectrum 2015

I remember Mrs. Byrne asked my Honors English class whether physical pain hurt more than emotional pain. Dance, once again, has proven the answer to that one. Physical pain is nothing compared to emotional pain. My feet are just an example of the joy dance has served in my life. It's made an impression on my body, as well as my soul. How do we stay away from emotional pain? Is the only way by getting physically hurt? Not always. There are other ways to live happily and painlessly. A brisk hike early in the morning can clear your mind and ease stress. Maybe even just a deep breath can make that test-stress go away. For me, personally, dance has given me both pain and joy. However, knowing that Sunday was my last time performing at Allen Hancock College left me with the worst pain I've felt in a while. Could you imagine losing something that was once there for you through everything? That one person or thing that got you through the deaths of loved ones, breakups, friendship dramas, family fights, and never let you down. The one thing that let you be anything you wanted to be, do anything you wanted to do, and granted you the feeling of feeling the most beautiful... that was dance for me. I graduated from Dance yesterday and while my feet are bleeding, I'd rather my tears be from the physical pain than the crushing reality of losing my best friend, Dance.

Ballet Lessons... Life Lessons... My Masterpiece

This picture has many meanings. The little girl separated from the rest of the girls is little Sakoya. She's one of the best dancers in Beginning Ballet One. Her success often times separates her from the rest of the girls. She possesses a strong sense of maturity and poise. She learns quick, cooperates, loves her Mommy, and does what she is told. Most importantly, though, she has a passion that drives her and that is her love for dance. I find elements of myself in little Sakoya. It's easy to plan out her life and who she'll grow up to be someday. I was the girl in class who was attentive and wanted to learn as much about my body as was possible. This separated me from my age group. Not only was I surrounded by a home full of college students and teens, but I spent my extracurricular activities with them, too. This early maturity gave way to a new found respect and understanding of my body and life itself. Every movement brought beauty and a stronger mind, body connection. No longer was I simply standing in first position, but I was feeling my toes press through the floor, my knees lift, my circulatory system flow, spine elongate, and heart beat to the tapping of my toes. Dance brought a new feeling of life. In the end, I found the departure from my short-lived youth to be a graduation of a new life, new feeling that set forth my dancing success.

Vocabulary #4

 Interior Monologue: a form of writing which represents the inner thoughts of a character; the recording of the internal, emotional experience(s) of an individual; generally the reader is given the impression of overhearing the interior monologue.

Inversion: words out of order for emphasis.

Juxtaposition: the intentional placement of a word, phrase, sentences of paragraph to contrast with another nearby.

Lyric: a poem having musical form and quality; a short outburst of the author’s innermost thoughts and feelings.

Magic(al) Realism:  a genre developed in Latin America which juxtaposes the everyday  with the marvelous or magical.

Metaphor(extended, controlling, and mixed): an analogy that compare two different

things imaginatively.

Extended: a metaphor that is extended or developed as far as the writer

wants to take it.

Controlling: a metaphor that runs throughout the piece of work.

Mixed: a metaphor that ineffectively blends two or more analogies.

Metonymy:  literally “name changing” a device of figurative language in which the name of an attribute or associated thing is substituted for the usual name of a thing.

Mode of Discourse:  argument (persuasion), narration, description, and exposition.

Modernism:  literary movement characterized by stylistic experimentation, rejection of tradition, interest in symbolism and psychology

Monologue:  an extended speech by a character in a play, short story, novel, or narrative poem.

Mood:  the predominating atmosphere evoked by a literary piece.

Motif:  a recurring feature (name, image, or phrase) in a piece of literature.

Myth:  a story, often about immortals, and sometimes connected with religious rituals, that attempts to give meaning to the mysteries of the world.

Narrative:  a story or description of events.

Narrator:  one who narrates, or tells, a story.

Naturalism: extreme form of realism.

Novelette/Novella: short story; short prose narrative, often satirical.

Omniscient Point of View:  knowing all things, usually the third person.

Onomatopoeia: use of a word whose sound in some degree imitates or suggests its

meaning.

Oxymoron: a figure of speech in which two contradicting words or phrases are combined to produce a rhetorical effect by means of a concise paradox.

Pacing:  rate of movement; tempo.

Parable:  a story designed to convey some religious principle, moral lesson, or general truth.

Paradox:  a statement apparently self-contradictory or absurd but really containing a possible truth; an opinion contrary to generally accepted ideas.

Vocabulary #3

Exposition: beginning of a story that sets forth facts, ideas, and/or characters, in a detailed explanation.

Ex: Earlier, I alluded briefly to Dennis 's integration of his theory of verdict legitimacy with his exposition of the rules of evidence.

 Expressionism: movement in art, literature, and music consisting of unrealistic  representation of an inner idea or feeling(s).

Ex: Dance is a form of expressionism.

 Fable: a short, simple story, usually with animals as characters, designed to teach a moral truth.

Ex: All this appears in the ritual in the form of a story or fable, called an allegory.

 Fallacy: from Latin word “to deceive”, a false or misleading notion, belief, or argument; any kind of erroneous reasoning that makes arguments unsound.

Ex: It is also both bad manners and the ad hominem fallacy to impugn the honesty of a critic to avoid his arguments.

 Falling Action: part of the narrative or drama after the climax.

Ex: The falling action is always one of the more interesting parts of the storyline because you get to see how everything panned out after the climax.

 Farce: a boisterous comedy involving ludicrous action and dialogue.

Ex: The farce get more anarchic with every turn of the plot.

 Figurative Language: apt and imaginative language characterized by figures of speech

Ex: An example of figurative language is when Paula says to the singer that they sounded like Beyoncé.

 Flashback: a narrative device that flashes back to prior events.

Ex: Before I passed out, I had a flashback of my time in the Great Alps.

 Foil: a person or thing that, by contrast, makes another seem better or more prominent.

Ex: In other places the piano provides a foil to the bassoon, with sparkling arpeggios in a high register.

Folk Tale: story passed on by word of mouth.

Ex: My great grandmother had a million folk tales she would tell me that she remembered from her mother’s bedtime stories she’d tell at night.

 Foreshadowing: in fiction and drama, a device to prepare the reader for the outcome of the action; “planning” to make the outcome convincing, though not to give it away

Ex: Well, now I know that she will die in the end because that event in the movie is obviously being used as a literary device; foreshadowing.

 Free Verse: verse without conventional metrical pattern, with irregular pattern or no rhyme.

Ex: Walt Whitman’s “I’d dream in a dream” uses free verse.

 Genre: a category or class of artistic endeavor having a particular form, technique, or content.

Ex: My favorite genre of music is country.

 Gothic Tale: a style in literature characterized by gloomy settings, violent or grotesque action, and a mood of decay, degeneration, and decadence.

Ex: My favorite mystery books are often gothic tales.

 Hyperbole: an exaggerated statement often used as a figure of speech or to prove a point.

Ex: Don’t be scared. The world won’t collapse. They were just using that hyperbole to scare you.

 Imagery: figures of speech or vivid description, conveying images through any of the senses.

Ex: Imagery consists of the five senses and is used in every book in the world.

 Implication: a meaning or understanding that is to be arrive at by the reader but that is not fully and explicitly stated by the author.

Ex: His text message is an implication that he wants a burger over a taco.

 Incongruity: the deliberate joining of opposites or of elements that are not appropriate to each other.

Ex: Nothing is the same. It’s so incongruent and so, therefore, we will never agree.

 Inference: a judgement or conclusion based on evidence presented; the forming of an opinion which possesses some degree of probability according to facts already available.

Ex: From my inference, I know that he is the killer.

 Irony: a contrast or incongruity between what is said and what is meant, or what is expected to happen and what actually happens, or what is thought to be happening and what is actually happening.

Ex: Wow! It’s ironic to see you here. 

Vocabulary #2

Circumlocution: a roundabout or evasive speech or writing, in which many words are used but a few would have served

Ex: The con man tried to use circumlocution to avoid explaining his real intentions to the wealthy couple.

Classicism: art, literature, and music reflecting the principles of ancient Greece and Rome: tradition, reason, clarity, order, and balance

Ex: Like his beloved Italy his etchings are suffused with a classicism that nonetheless appeals to a contemporary esthetic.

Cliché: a phrase or situation overused within society

Ex: Come up with something new because your argument is just a cliché I’ve heard a thousand times.

Climax: the decisive point in a narrative or drama; the pint of greatest intensity or interest at which plot question is answered or resolved

Ex: The week came to its shuddering climax with President Bush 's speech to the UN General Assembly.

Colloquialism: folksy speech, slang words or phrases usually used in informal conversation

Ex: The Pelican has used an English colloquialism which has a similar meaning.

Comedy: originally a nondramatic literary piece of work that was marked by a happy ending; now a term to describe a ludicrous, farcical, or amusing event designed provide enjoyment or produce smiles and laughter

Ex: I don’t know if the comedy was actually funny or if the wine made it funny.

Conflict: struggle or problem in a story causing tension

Ex: The conflict of the story really drove the plot and gave the story such drama. I loved it!

Connotation: implicit meaning, going beyond dictionary definition

Ex: Increasingly it has acquired a negative connotation, implying excessive demand or pressure.

Contrast: a rhetorical device by which one element (idea or object) is thrown into opposition to another for the sake of emphasis or clarity

Ex: The true believer, in contrast, has eternal life and will abide forever.

Denotation: plain dictionary definition

Ex: We now work toward a theoretical description of the denotation of the sentence as a whole.

Denouement: loose ends tied up in a story after the climax, closure, conclusion

Ex: And that's obviously what the denouement of the film is about.

Dialect: the language of a particular district, class or group of persons; the sounds, grammar, and diction employed by people distinguished from others.

Ex: The kind of old English dialect the characters spoke made the setting really come to life.

Dialectics: formal debates usually over the nature of truth.

Ex: Dialects of Scots Scots has a wide range of dialects.

Dichotomy: split or break between two opposing things.

Ex: This dichotomy has recently been questioned by some linguists who have argued that the distinction is an artificial one

Diction: the style of speaking or writing as reflected in the choice and use of words.

Ex: Tired diction here, inappropriate register there; natural, unforced cadence here, resonant phrasing there.

Didactic: having to do with the transmission of information; education.

Ex: The aim of the periodicals was didactic, but it was a broad-minded type of didacticism.

Dogmatic: rigid in beliefs and principles.

Ex: The author 's dogmatic assertion of his hero 's heterosexuality gives some idea of the respect accorded homosexuals in the West.

Elegy: a mournful, melancholy poem, especially a funeral song or lament for the dead, sometimes contains general reflections on death, often with a rural or pastoral setting.

Ex: This completed, twelve chieftains rode around the barrow, reciting an elegy and speaking of their heroic king.

Epic: a long narrative poem unified by a hero who reflects the customs, mores, and aspirations of his nation of race as he makes his way through legendary and historic exploits, usually over a long period of time

Ex: The Nine Sisters and the Axis Mundi New ideas on the axis mundi in northern epic tales by Alby Stone.

Epigram: witty aphorism.

Ex: The moral aspect has been given by Mr Swinburne in an epigram: - " Alfred was a terrible flirt and George did not behave as a perfect gentleman." 

Welcome Second Semester!

I had so many ideas of what I wanted to focus on this semester and I got completely sidetracked with college acceptances, my new job as a ballet instructor, dance grants, rehearsals, dance performances, my music, etc. Now that things have calmed down, I'm ready to fully invest myself in my masterpiece. From this point on, there will be new transitions. Righetti's Graduating Class of 2015 will be transitioning into summer with a broad spectrum of new opportunities including internships, volunteering, traveling, maybe some tutoring to help prepare for college... who knows? After summer hits the next four years that will create our entire future and career. As we wait anxiously to fulfill our dying wish to explore and adventure out into the world, I want to give some guidance as to how to make that transition healthy and beneficial for our mind, body, and soul. For me personally, my goal is to dive into educating myself more on the Bible and Catholicism, my religion. I'd like to fully invest myself into a healthy diet that will be easy to maintain while transitioning into college. This will consist of new, easy recipes that I will be able to bring with me to college since I can't bring Mom to college with me. Along with a healthy diet, comes physical activity (aka: work out sessions) that I will need to dedicate myself to when dance eventually ends. A healthy mind and body will do great things for my academics and I hope that I will inspire and help guide my former "co-workers" (aka: classmates) with a healthy transition guidebook, if you will.