My brain just stopped

Like, legitimately. I dont know what to say or think about this music video. Call it awe, call it distaste, call it "WHAT THE EFF". But I dont know what to think. So I'm going to ignore it until I have time to deconstruct it

My blog isnt letting me upload it, so here it is

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wV1FrqwZyKw&utm_source=youtube&utm_medium=watch&utm_campaign=LadyGaga_BornThisWay_INTL

It's "Born This Way", from Lady Gaga

HOLY SHIT!!!!!

So, last night, I was in my restless, listless, depressive mode. And now I'm not. Holy shit.

I forgot how much power energy and movement have to affect a persons mindset. Even now, I'm sitting in a study room, GETTING SHIT done because I'm in the correct mindset to do it - and Sunday Night coming out of Reading Week isn't really the best time

But yeah. Holy shit. Life is happening. This is fantastic.

I'm a happy Barry now

Essay from Grade 12. Lolz

So I just discovered this. With my (newfound) background from HI398 - Historiography, I'm laughing at my answerse. Although, I did do well in this class

Assignment: Read the handout (not provided here) and interpret each of the given perspectives in your own words. select one of hte quotes to guide your response to the following question: "How/why is history an important subject to study in a soceity that is increasingly centered on science and technology?". Answer this question in a concise (500 words or less ) persuasive essay giving clear examples to illustrate your point. The essay can be informal

NOW ONTO THE ESSAY

What is History? Barry Torch

"Who is more ignorant? The one who cannot define lightning? Or the one who cannot understand its awesome power?" - Dan Brown

In our world of science and technology, we tend to migrate towards the objective studies such as mathematics and science. It has come to a point where we have many weapons, many strategies of war, and much more technology than we did in the past. But just having the ability to destroy large amounts of life in a second does not necessarily mean you should. In our world of numbers, microchips, and technology, history performs a vital service to our society. It helps us learn lessons from the past, so we do not make the same mistakes in the future. The quote by cicero, "not to know what happened before one was born is to always be a child" definitely exemplifies this point. This quote means that while only children think in only the present, it takes a mature mind to comprehend the past and apply it to current events

Historically speaking, the Russian Army has a very effective tactic to deal with foreign invaders. Whenever a country invades them, the army moves into the heart of Russia, scattering villages, burning crops, leting animals loose, and making sure that it is very hard for the invading army to get sustenance from the land. Therefore, when winter comes in, the invading army has a hard time surviving on their diminished supplies. One of the best cases of when this happened was during the Napoleonic Wars, when Napoleon Bonaparte, Emperor of France, told his troops to invade Russia. The Russian Army destroyed the supplies, and Napoleon lost the war, contributing to his later defeat at the Battle of Waterloo. According to Cicero, perhaps we could consider Adolf Hitler childlike in his intelligence. Adolf Hitler was by far one of the most destructive men in the history of humanity. He created a society that was based on attacking the Jews, Homosexuals, Gypsies, and other recognizable minorities in society. He put them into concentration camps and forced labour, and, with the aim of creating a total master race, exterminated those who did not fit. At the start of World War II, Hitler made a pact with Josef Stalin of Communist Russia that they would not attack each other. However, in 1942, he invaded Russia, calling it Operation Barbossa. Again, the exact same situation happened. The Nazi's invaded, the Red Army retreated, but fought at St. Petersburg. Hitler found himself fighting on two fronts, and that led to the dissolution of the Third Reich, and of Germany as a world power. If Hitler had learned from military history, perhaps he would not have invaded Russia, and the world would be radically different.

Unlike Hitler, Winston Churchill, the Prime Minister of England from 1940-1945, was a student of history. While Hitler was making a decision to invade England, called Operation Sea Lion, Churchill was busy studying military maneuvers to try and find a way to beat Hitler. Churchill understood the power of propaganda, and at the start of the Battle of Britain, he made his infamous "We Shall Never Surrender" speech over the radio. To make sure that England would not lose the Battle of Britain, he looked at historical military strategies, and, using a technique devised by the Athenian General Pericles, decided to fight with what the British people were strongest with: The Royal Air Force and the Royal Navy. He would send these divisions out to attack the Nazi onslaught, and while doing so, kept London on full alert for falling bombs, much like Pericles did with Athens while the Spartans were attacking. Due to his efforts, and the skill of the Royal Air Force and the Royal Navy, England held out long enough for it to gain two important allies - the United States and Soviet Russia. If Churchill had not found Pericles' ideas, and used them to London's benefit, Hitler would have invaded England, and would have won World War II. Cicero, in his wisdom, would consider Winston Churchill a mature adult, as he not only learned from history, but applied it to modern day, and in a way that saved a nation

Despite new technologies or sciences, history is and will always remain a true testament to how our world is run. Yes, our world can be broken down into particles, protons, neutrons, and the like, but the true art is in seeing and understanding  the ramifications of such ideas. And that is why history will always remain relevant to humanity

Note: all spelling errors are done in transcribing my paper essay to the web. Comments on the original paper? "Very well thought through". I may disagree now

TL;DR - found an essay I wrote in grade 12. Am laughing at it, but am also secretly impressed

I miss her

Gotta love the end of the first half of the second semester.

Everybody's so happy - you can feel the energy buzzing on campus as people are winding down classes, essays, and exams, and ready to go home for Reading Week (aka sleep week).

I'm going home to my family tomorrow. However, I'm too busy stressing over this stupid Reformation essay which I should have gotten done earlier (but I didnt because I'm a tool like that) and now, at 11:57 on Thursday night, fresh from writing a midterm.... I miss her.

Her. My girlfriend. I'm not going to say her name, but you probably know her. She's an amazing woman who is off doing her double degree in Israel. Been gone since December 19, comes back May 26.

I'm not sure how much she knows this, but I do miss her. This last couple weeks has been... rough. We missed Valentine's Day together, I had class all day, and I made her upset because I didnt want her to waste money on balloons when she's in Israel. I just hope she remains in love with me, because I love her so much and want her back here. Safe.

Anyways, I should probably be getting back to my essay. Or getting drunk. Probably the first one...

Here. A picture of a happy face to cheer us all up!

Have a fantastic reading week all! I'll probably be happier come when I spend time with my family =)

Barry

Well, there goes my job.

So where do I put my retired degree? If "The Book of History" is already written, now what?


Lol. I giggled when I saw this in the library.

140 Characters or Less!

Here's a fact. When I want to be motivated by humanity, I go to Twitter.

While the vast majority of the time, Twitter is filled with celebrity fans, badly-spelt updates of less than 140 characters, and random stuff like "Its bedtime! Mwah! I love you followers!", sometimes, it can be absolutely amazing. Like today.

Now, I'm not the most politically aware. I know Mubarak is the President of Egypt, and he did a LOT of shit. My friends rant and rave about it, and would probably hurt me if they realized how ignorant I was, but realistically, I have no clue - one of my few concerns is what will happen in Israel (my girlfriend is there).

However, I do realize that Mubarak is a shit dictator - and thanks to the Tunisian uprisings, Egypt decided to get rid of their president/dictator too, and there have been horrible riots and destruction there. And Mubarak, on Feb. 10, decided to address the nation. For whatever purpose. I'm not watching the speech.

That being said, I'm just absolutely amazed by the show of support on Twitter. With the hashtag #reasonsmubarakislate being the in the top 5 tweets in Canada, it says how smart, funny, and in some cases, caring, Canadians can be.

Good job Twitter World. Way to respond to crises in the best way - the Internet. Its been said hundreds of times, but the Internet Revolution is here - you can't stop the common people's voices anymore.

Minuscule Update

"Truth" in Advertising

The “Romantic” University is dead.

The idea of professors giving clandestine knowledge to students (many of them from wealthy families), educating them in the classics such as Plato, Aristotle, Machiavelli, and the like, then these students leaving and becoming leaders in their communities is an idea that hasn’t applied since World War Two. Since then, the world has seen more and more students pursuing post-secondary education, more and more students graduating with degrees that would take them nowhere, and more and more students going onto do what they normally would do, only a couple thousand dollars poorer.

Now, with people doing university because its the “next step”, with more and more people considering graduate work because its something to do after an undergraduate degree, and with more and more people focusing on “useful” degrees rather than the Arts and Humanities, it is time for the Faculty of Arts to redesign what it is all about.

Coming from a history/philosophy major, I think that the Arts and Humanities in general need a complete overhaul. Again, I’m not a person who thinks these very important fields are useless; rather, they need to be reappraised to find out their real worth to today’s growing world.

Rather than having professors lamenting how useless history is to the modern world, how such-and-such a politician is bastardizing history by using it for their own propaganda, or how such-and-such an author is destroying a very important historical field by putting their own ideas forward with shoddy academic claims (yes, you know who you are), people in the academic world need to move forward past these childlike accusations to find what is the real heart of the problem - and that is in advertising.

We see it everywhere. We mock it, we destroy it, we pound on our desks in frustration of the idiocy of some claims - but in reality, it works. We all know the jingles, we all know the commercials, we all know that if we use a certain shampoo, our hair will be silky and shiny on both the inside and the outside due to certain ingredients which do such and such. All of these commercials are doing the same thing. Selling us a product.

Here’s my claim: The Arts and Humanities (as well as Universities) are (unfortunately) now a consumer product. They’re FANTASTIC products, but the truth being said is that they are a consumer good that is sold for profit.

So if we want to do something about the lack of respect for the Arts and Humanities, dare I suggest that we “sell out”? “Give in to the Man”? Realistically speaking, its the only way that we can continue to do what we love, to continue to expand the academic world - because as of right now, very few of the proletariat are caring about the academic world that will have no direct effect on them, which is why engineering, business, science, and all the “useful” majors are expanding quickly. If the Arts and Humanities want to keep up with them, we need to market ourselves as being useful.

The University as a basic institution is at its heart both a business and an institution of higher learning. There has been too much focus on the “higher learning” part than the “business” part from the Arts and Humanities - and that pillar is slowly collapsing. The Business and Institution rely on each other, much like an arch relies on two posts to continue holding itself up. If we support the business side for once (the higher learning side has, if anything, been almost over-saturated from academia), there is huge potential for people to realize the worth of our fields in real life.

We can do it. We’ve held through till now, we can continue - its just a shift in perspective we need.  And lets be honest – we’re fairly good at that in the arts.

TL:DR - The Faculty of Arts needs a shift in perspective in order to survive. Lets try better advertising

Remember those walls we built? Well, they're still standing

SHORT PSEUDO-EMOTIONAL BLOGGING PIECE

Acting as a pillar sucks. However, when its necessary, it can make someone's day. Thanks to all who helped me out this past month - you all are rock stars. Much appreciation goes out to ALL of you.

You all are just as amazing and strong as these rocks. Preferably with bigger hearts though.
Thanks for being there

Epic. Epic. Win

Essentially, one of the best images I've seen in a while.