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Schindler’s List

Schindler’s List is a 

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What about faith in Night?

I was raised in the Catholic faith, my parents have always made it important and a priority for us to believe. Nevertheless, time, experiences, and knowledge have made it more difficult for me to keep on believing in something that is supposed to be kind and good, but yet allows such suffering to happen. I have lived it through experiences like my grandmother getting cancer, or one of my cousins being diagnosed with some illnesses even before his birth. For me, the pain of seeing my loved ones suffer is unbearable, and one way or another, these people have got through it.

When I thing about it, it is very logical to think that living the horrors of the concentration camps, really puts your faith to a great challenge. personally, it would have made me a very distant and cold person, making it impossible for me to keep on believing that there is greater power with greater reasons above us. The horrors of the Holocaust do not have any excuse, not even faith. I can only imagine how difficult it was for people to keep on having the same kind of faith after they had to go through such intense experiences, they were put to their limit, not knowing whether they would get to live the next day or not; not knowing if they would see their loved ones again. All of those things change a person to his or her root and I don’t think there is any way back. You find yourself in that situation and you doubt everything.

Faith will always be relative to the experiences we live; it changes throughout time: it strengthens or decreases its power and influence in your life.

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Night and Fog Reflection

Why is it important to keep a record of events? What would be different today if we didn't have the films and records of the Holocaust?

To keep record of events means to avoid letting go of something that was important, to have the memory present and know what happen to avoid repeating it. The case of the holocaust and how we have come to know it in the contemporary world, would not be the same if people had not kept record of what happen inside those concentration camps. It is important to remember that while these horrors were happening, people around the world did not really have a clear idea nor dimensioned the seriousness of what was going on. That is one of the reasons why it kept going for such a long time with nobody really intervening. Years later, we now have graphic images, videos, written reports and evidence that gather the real consequences of what the Holocaust was and meant to the Jews. 

It is important to keep track of events, but not only for the sake of satisfying morbid thoughts or for the sake of watching it with no conscience at all, but rather to really think about what these events were, what their origins were and why it is so fundamental to avoid a tragedy like that to happen again. It also helped to punish and make trials to eventually punish and process those who got away with their actions without demanding chance within the Nazi community. 

If we did not have those film records of the Holocaust, the world would not believe the atrocities that were committed inside concentration camps. The inhumane way in which Jews were treated would be unbelievable to the general public and those things would only live in the memories of the victims, rather than in the thoughts of the world. Thanks to those records, is that nowadays we have museums, movies and books to really make conscience of what the Holocaust period meant, and that is the only what in which we can assure that something similar to it is likely to happen, and if it does, we now have the weapons to fight it. 

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Lady Windermere’s Fan Representation Reflection

¿What themes are present in LWF?

Lady Windermere is, as many other plays written by Oscar Wilde, full of themes that make the reader reflect themselves on the stories.

For instance, we can clearly observe the importance of appearances in the development of the play. It is practically based on the routine of the Victorian Era and how mucho of these “values” solely relied on appearances and not sincere and honest circumstances. It is truly the characters` purpose to maintain these appearances and be faithful to them despite everything.

Another theme that can be identified is motherhood- how Ms Erlynne was not  the perfect example of a good mother for the fact that she left lady Windermere when she was just a child. This also shows how the Victorian Era mothers prioritized more banal things rather than looking thoroughly to their children’s education and raising.

Friendship is another theme that shapes the play itself. This is the basis for a lot of the relationships among characters. For instance, we can easily identify friendship as one of the core themes because Lady Windermere herself throws a birthday party and invites all of her social interests. Although most of the interactions are based on appearances and convenience, this sense of friendship and the sense of belonging shows itself gracefully throughout all of the play and how characters carry out their interactions and social life. 

Lady Windermere is a play full of themes, which enriches the work and makes the final objective be clearly shown throughout the use of different literary resources.

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Academic integrity reflection

Academic integrity is fundamental.This is because even when you give credit to the ones you inspired or based your work on, you are also strengthening your own knowledge and capabilities. If everything we did was just as easy as copying information from anywhere, nothing would be intellectually stimulating. As students, future workers and citizens, as human beings, we need to learn to think for ourselves and develop our own critical thinking. This is what will differentiate us from the rest. Most people are used to having things handed to them easily, but they are the ones who will always stay right near their comfort zone, without a real possibility of development, just a chance of staying the same, just like the next person. As students, we also need to learn about respecting other people’s work and contributions, as well as the effort they put into one or another academic paper or work. We need to learn to give those people the credit they deserve without owning something we have not worked for. 

The importance of academic integrity should be acknowledge by all academic institutions, always looking for the well-being and effective development of the human beings they are responsible for. Integral, honest and respectful young people are the ones who will change the actual paradigms of the world, and it is in the hands of the regulators of education to enhance all of these values and provide the elements and tools needed to do so.

Another important thing to point out, is the need to care for academic integrity in these days more than ever. Why? Because in the era of accessible information, literally al information becomes accessible. This makes it imperative for all countries to seek and look for the integrity of their citizens, looking for making a respectful academic environment exported to an international perspective.

As IB students, faithful to all of the principles and characteristics that make up  the students’ profile, academic integrity is one thing we should not forget about.

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Reflection 3

Reflection 3: How is A Midsummer Night’s Dream different from other Shakespeare plays you(we) have read?

A Midsummer Night’s Dream is a play that drastically differs with other plays from Shakespeare but also is a lot a like in other aspects. For instance, one of the difference that I can observe is the need for it to be humorous. I had never read a play from this author with this structure. They are mostly written in serious tones and really do not leave any space for entertainment that has to do with something even remotely funny. This is because most of them are tragedies and touch very strong topics. Nevertheless, when you really get closer to the themes used, it is very evident that there is a connection among Shakespeare’s plays that represents that the use of these resources is very alike and one does not differ much from the next one. Some of these common denominators are love, revenge, jealousy, treason, etc. Most of these are present in A Midsummer Night’s Dream but are approached from other points of view and tones. Love is for example, present in Hamlet and Ophelia, Othello and Desdemona, but also between Hermia and Lysander. The big difference lies on the use of these resources and the diversity that Shakespeare achieves when writing his plays. I have always been a fan of his work, maybe this is the main reason why I can appreciate the creative things he did with AMSND, but still, I would consider myself as a traditionalist in the matter: I like the serious note and enjoy it more when his plays are written like that.

Another thing that is important to note is that for me, AMSND has a timeless use of themes, but a use of humor that is not current up to our days. Because of these themes that we can relate to, is that this play has transcended into new generations, but I think the job when reading it will be to identify the importance of the artistic and literary values in the story rather than analyzing if it appeals to us or not.

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Reflection 3

Reflection 3: How is A Midsummer Night's Dream different from other Shakespeare plays you(we) have read?

A Midsummer Night’s Dream is a play that drastically differs with other plays from Shakespeare but also is a lot a like in other aspects. For instance, one of the difference that I can observe is the need for it to be humorous. I had never read a play from this author with this structure. They are mostly written in serious tones and really do not leave any space for entertainment that has to do with something even remotely funny. This is because most of them are tragedies and touch very strong topics. Nevertheless, when you really get closer to the themes used, it is very evident that there is a connection among Shakespeare’s plays that represents that the use of these resources is very alike and one does not differ much from the next one. Some of these common denominators are love, revenge, jealousy, treason, etc. Most of these are present in A Midsummer Night’s Dream but are approached from other points of view and tones. Love is for example, present in Hamlet and Ophelia, Othello and Desdemona, but also between Hermia and Lysander. The big difference lies on the use of these resources and the diversity that Shakespeare achieves when writing his plays. I have always been a fan of his work, maybe this is the main reason why I can appreciate the creative things he did with AMSND, but still, I would consider myself as a traditionalist in the matter: I like the serious note and enjoy it more when his plays are written like that.

Another thing that is important to note is that for me, AMSND has a timeless use of themes, but a use of humor that is not current up to our days. Because of these themes that we can relate to, is that this play has transcended into new generations, but I think the job when reading it will be to identify the importance of the artistic and literary values in the story rather than analyzing if it appeals to us or not.

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Reflection 2

Reflection 2: How can character analysis help me understand a play/work better? What are the lessons (whether intended or not) behind the Barabas character in The Jew of Malta? Was there any truly virtuous character in the play? Why do you think so?

Character analysis is fundamental to really getting who your character truly is. After doing this analysis on my character, I could see the real difference between connecting on that level with your character and not doing so. Last semester, I participated on the play Buenísima Sociedad for the anual contest in high school. As actors, we never did this analysis with our characters and we had a hard time getting to know the person we were portraying. Some of us didn’t even get their true essence. Now, when I get to know the method and importance of analyzing fictional characters’ personalities, I’m willing to do it in order to learn the internal and external aspects of this non existing person. 

The character analysis method is based on describing seemingly insignificant details of the character. These do not necessarily come in the description inside the play, but most of them are inferable by already having knowledge of other key aspects. You can simply analyze them and then based on your thoughts, fill in the other details that you are asked. Another part of the analysis is based on what the book establishes, like the general objective of the characters, their obstacles, hopes, turning points along the story and other important aspects that construct the character itself. 

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Reflection 1

Marlowe is similar to Shakespeare in the sense of style. Nevertheless, I have found it much easier to read Shakespeare, let it be Hamlet, Othello or Romeo and Juliet, I find his way of writing much more engaging and somehow makes me want to know more and more. Although this may be true for me, it is adequate to mention that both authors do have some highlightable similarities. One of them is the themes touched. For example, revenge and validation are recurrent in Shakespeare´s stories, and Marlowe expresses those kinds of feelings too. But can we really state that they are similar to each other? We actually can. For instance, both of the authors were alive approximately at the same time. Renaissance in literature, in my opinion, came to be a breaking point in history. The development of culture and the way authors reflected human nature throughout their texts, changed drastically along this lapse. Authors like Shakespeare and Marlowe came to notices that a very important thing while writing their texts was to describe and reflect what human nature really was in an alternate way. How was this achieved? Through literary resources that made the reader much more akin to each and every one of the characters. Also, character development was a key aspect in the plays. A round character with a relatable personality is much more likely to be approximate to normal people; in that time and up to our days.That is why both, Shakespeare’s and Marlowe’s themes are timeless and adapt to ourselves: human essence remains the same and out deepest conditions, behaviors and conflicts are inflicted on us. Both authors help us cope with those demons in the most abstract way.

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Final reflection

Margaret Atwood was a completely new reading experience. Until now, I had not read one author who was as honest as her. She really is something.

Even though I really enjoyed her, as well as her colloquial way of addressing the reader or the character in her stories, I think she is not an author who can suit and fit each and every one of the traditional tastes. I really think that many of the conventional and comfort-zone-lover readers would try to pigeonhole her into one of the classic categories, but they would fail terribly. Atwood is not one you can fit into anything. Postmodernism is where she belongs, but her essence goes further than what any division could handle. Her unique way of writing would be one you could recognise in a moment.

I liked that she does not accommodate into the social constructs, she defies all of the prewritten conventions. She addresses and challenges the classical character who no one ever before even dared to touch. She makes us question what we all know and accept as correct. She reaches the problematics and vanguardist topics and touches them with a little bit of sarcasm and much irony. She likes to bet for the better version of each and every story. She is confident that there is another side to everything and does not hide from it, but rather embraces it amen makes it her own and gives it a pint of her style.

These are the reasons why even though I loved reading and getting to know Atwood, I would not recommend just anyone to read her, as she may even make the traditional sort feel uncomfortable with unbearable truths.

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Blog entry 13

The play is perhaps the most challenging experience I have ever lived in terms of teamwork and exploring new aspects of myself. At first, it was very difficult for us to get a consensual opinion on how would the play need to be organised in order for it to work out just as it was expected by the standards the school established for us. Personally, I would have wanted to be the director, but I don’t think I could have put up with the internal and external pressure that role implied. So I then decided first to be an actress, as some friends hd told me that it was an experience from which I would truly learn and enjoy as well. I auditioned and got the principal role, so this really got me excited and ready to start working. As actors, we started reading the original script because it was not adapted at the time and we had to start putting all our efforts in character personalities and development. At first I really did not consider the possibility of being a screenwriter because I knew hat it would be a tough deal to adapt the whole script (the longest was assigned to us) into something that lasted only half an hour to 50 minutes, and I consider that I am better at writing from scratch than from something that has already been done. Despite my preferences, the directors thought it would be a good idea to have me, Kevin and Daniela write the play, so I accepted and worked with them. Throughout the whole process we had our ups and downs -which by the way were pretty low-, but in the end I can proudly say it all worked out well. We were nominated to a lot of the awards and got into the final, with a last result of being in second place.

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Blog entry 12

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Blog entry 11

John Donne’s poetry is appealing, but not in the conventional way. It takes you to your own limits and tests your own tolerance to what may seem different or abnormal. In spite of this, John Donne puts into an unconventional way, the most conventional and natural feelings that the human being tends to manifest. We may think it is weird, and at some point vulgar, even not as poetic, a pink and romantic as popular poetry. Truth is, John Donne had a very mature sense of establishing things: saying them and expressing them without really getting to say them explicitly. Maybe that is what poetry is all about: finding your unique style, and Donne, even considering his temporal placement in history, had a very advanced mind. He knew how to remain elegant and subtle, not giving much away, at the same time in which he spilled the beans completely. That is what is so appealing about Donne; and maybe it is a guilty pleasure to like him or find him so interesting, it brings out another side of us that we do not so willingly accept. Still, nowadays we read him, because his writing applies in the contemporaneity, because human beings have not changed one bit. We always seek for the truth, and we find shelter in telling our true feelings, it liberates us, but we do not always have the guts to say it out loud. The message and learning we should take from Donne, is that even though our way may not be the conventional way of expressing something, we should still strive through the difficulty of being ourselves.

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Blog entry 10

I learned about Iago in a different way that in the read one. Staging a trial and accusing the a character, with the possibility of him defending himself, gives a whole other perspective to the way you interpret and take someone into account. Really, Iago confirms what we think about him: he is the poisonous being that is described throughout the whole story, but we get to see the side of him that triggered from the very beginning. The trial gave us a lie and direct way of seeing and perceiving Iago’s resentment. It is in no way possible to justify the fact that he killed people and motivated the killing of some others through soft power, subliminally showing who he really was: a hypocrite at its climax. Still, he was a human being who was driven mad by his own self, he was auto-destructive, and in asome sense of the word, he got to even kill himself. His bad, jealous thoughts, took the best of him (side which he really had) and that was his core motivation. He reached unimaginable levels under the premise that human beings are born good, and society is what corrupts the. Under the premise that the human being’s nature is t be naughty and selfish, we could really say that Iago responden to that nature, but the trial confirmed one of  them as we got to see Iago in person for once.

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Blog entry 9

Shakespeare, through its many metaphoric ways of putting the simplest nature of the human being, has managed to make Othello timeless, despite of the development of world literature over time. What makes Othello endure, has been the crude but at the same time euphemistic way of describing the deepest and most complex behaviours of human nature. For instance, one of the themes in this work, is Othello’s jealousy in its most unadulterated exposure. But beneath that jealousy, there is a sensitive, insecure human being that has come through a process of self-acceptance. His status has somehow made him secure of himself, but in the seemingly simplest aspects of life, he still needs to be put through the real trial. Iago’s influence over him proves that he is not prepared enough to face adverse situations, not even trust his own wife before a third party. Othello’s jealousy is capable of turning meaningless happenings, into the key for breaking his own madness. Othello can be applied to our daily lives: we MUST see ourselves through him. The nature of the human being may have changed through time. The crudest instincts have changed into being parts of a well-mannered society, but our essence continues to be the same. We are victims of the same insecurities and slaves of the same thoughts. If we really think about it, we have not changed that side of us in a drastic way, on the contrary, they may even be accentuated. Or maybe we are returning to the times of Shakespeare, or maybe even to the times in which his mind flew and he knew a man capable of murdering his wife out of jealousy. For example, infidelities cases in marriages in the past century were not frequently a reason for divorce. People held on a little tighter, even if the water got rough. In contrast, we are prospects of a contemporary society that is accustomed to breaking things apart and not even trying to put them back together. And maybe it’s for the best, or maybe evolution will take us back to the years of Shakespeare, when people were capable of killing one another without giving it second thoughts. Othello and the many themes through it are a real reflection of our actual beings. This is why Shakespeare, adapted through is place and time, manoeuvred to create a masterpiece that is able to adapt to any time and space.

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Blog entry 8

Reading Othello is somehow like reading other Shakespeare’s plays. Maybe the tragedy is what makes the so similar, or the authentic (in their role) characters that he develops. In Spanish Literature class, we read Hamlet. Comparing it to Othello, I am able to identify some similarities. For example, both of them have the iconic revenge thirsty character, and they are who change the course of both stories as a whole. On one side, we have Iago, who is driven mad by his envy and his jealousy. On the other hand, we have a resentful Claudius. The issue with this characters is that really, they only have place in their hearts for one strong feeling at a time. None of them really get to experience or demonstrate any feeling similar to love or respect for another human being, their one sided characters. And yet, Shakespeare gives them the power of having the plot motivated entirely by them. A recurrent behaviour in Shakespeare, is hat the good characters never really get to have a say in the development of the events. It is part of the tragedy to take and kill the best persons, and sometimes, only sometimes, giving the bad guys what  they deserve. Shakespeare is not for romantics, not for people who live in a fantasy world and believe in happy endings. Shakespeare is for the ones who know that life does not always turn out to be what one would hope or wish for it to be. Life, even if it is in other types of measures, has a way of accommodating things in an unexpected way, sometimes not in the one which would seem the most fair. That is the magic and the desperation a reader should get after reading and interpreting Shakespeare. Not really understanding the why to the events, but embracing their uniqueness.

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Blog entry 7

No Exit is a play full of existentialist conflicts within the characters and themselves. Due to this reality, trying to act any of the roles on the play, is a very tough work to do, because of the complexity of each of them all. In my case, taking over Estelle was difficult because I think my personality does not suit her well. I’m more oriented to Inez on some aspects, and Estelle is much softer and naive for what I’m used to being as a person, I guess my personality is harder. However, I had to learn to be another person, being the victim and at the same time not being it, because Estelle knew better but was desperate and did not really get the situation she was in.

In a play, you get to do what you will not be able to do ever in your life: literally putting yourself in someone else’s shoes. The audience will not care about how good you are as a person or if you were a Spelling Bee champion in Elementary school. People will only care about the person you are representing, and the tough task of bringing what may be a written story to real life. At this point, you have a responsibility with your viewer: you have to guarantee them that experience and do what is in your power to become another person. This does not have to be an unpleasant job, and it can be more useful than you may expect it to be. Acting forces you to be someone else, but at the same time makes you get to know other aspects about yourself, because you can idealise what you are personally, but also what you will never want to be. This can happen specially when your character is the exact opposite of what you are, like in my case.

Regardless of your view, if you know how to take the best from it, acting can leave you lifetime teachings that may even change your way of being.