Invent Your Own Spirit Week!
POSTED AT 09:22 PM

black_wings

Well I am just bored and trying to avoid doing some things so I thought I would update you guys about what is going on in my life. Well the Taylorsville Debate Tournament (warrior wars) was a big let down for me. I lost 2 out of 3 rounds, I only won one. I don't know what I am doing wrong but I need to fix it before region (like 3 weeks away!) But at least we have a great topic.

I also wish to talk about Spirit Week. So it is Spirit Week at my school, and may I say the days are once again crap. Monday=Bling Bling Day Tuesday=Cowboy Day (How big is your belt buckle?) Don't ask me why they decided to do that after Brockeback came out buy it made for some good times. This one kid Sean forgot it was Cowboy Day, so he just through on an old gym shirt and wrote "Brokeback Mountain" on it in sharpie. Another kid Nash wrote "Heath" and drew a heart around it. Don't get me wrong, I loved that movie (JACK!!!! *cries) Wednesday=80's Day Thursday=Formal Day and Friday=Green Day.

Well my friends and I decided to do our own spirit week, only we have only done two days. On Wednesday (80's Day) My friend Megan and I declared it "Japanese Street Fashion Day" that was pretty fun. May I say we both looked smokin hott! Tomorrow is "Green Day" Some kids are taking it as wear all the green you have (our school colors are white and green) or dress up like members from the band.

My friends and I say different however (except Lada who is a major Green Day fan, so we are giving her a break)  We have declared it "Crazy Toga Day!" Come we are the Titans! How can you not have crazy toga day?! Well for my crazy toga I am wearing a twister bed sheet (my sister used to have bed sheets that look like a "Twister" board) So I am wearing that and a band of fake grape leaves around my head. Damn I should be in charge of spirit week! It is always the same 5 genenric days. I should complain. Next year my friends and I will totally be ready with our own ideas everyday.

 Lada and I are goingn to skip the AM Spirit Day assembly tomorrow and walk over to Albertson's. Then we were all going to go to Arby's for lunch, in our crazy togas! I'm so excited! XD Well gtg. *poofs*

TOGA! TOGA! TOGA!

Reading: Dracula by Bram Stoker
Listening to: Us Or Them by The Cure
Feeling: TOGA PARTY!

Garden State
POSTED AT 06:04 PM

black_wings

I just saw Garden State and I give it two thumbs up and 4 stars. Kudos Zach Braff for writing a great script and making a kick ass movie! Go see it you guys!
Listening to: The Cure

I'm on the verge of a nervos breakdown!
POSTED AT 09:59 PM

black_wings

ARGH! I HAVE HAD A TERRIBLE DAY! FELT WON'T SIGN MY THING FOR AP AMERICAN HISTORY NEXT YEAR! I DO NOT UNDERSTAND ANY OF THE MATH AND I HAVE A TEST ON IT TOMORROW! I HAVE A PHYSICS TEST THAT I REALLY HOPE I DON'T FAIL! I DON'T WANT TO GO TO DRAMA! WE DON'T DO ANYTHING! I DON'T WANT TO GO TO BAND BECAUSE I HATE BATEMAN WITH A FIERY PASSION THAT CONSUMES MY SOUL! MY SCHEDULE FOR NEXT YEAR IS STRESSING ME OUT ALREADY! REGION FOR DEBATE IS COMING UP AND I HAVE NO IDEA WHAT I AM DOING! I JUST REALLY WANT TO CURL UP WITH A NICE CUP OF COFFEE AND READ MY GIRL MANGAS AND WORK ON MY STORY AND READ MY BOOK! IS THAT SO MUCH TO ASK FOR? IS IT?! *cries*

GOD DAMNIT AND NOW I HAVE THE HICCUPS! ARGH!

O.o but I am loving the different choices of emoticons! Hey that just put a spark in my day!

Listening to: Timeok End of Summer 2005 Mix
Feeling: about to breakdown

Just ignore thi
POSTED AT 08:38 AM

black_wings

Just ignore this you guys, it is for my own benefit. I just really don't want to print it out and the stupid school computer won't let me access my e-mail. Once again, just ignore.

In 18th and 19th century Scottish common sense philosophy, the term "active powers" refers to the capacities of impulse and desire which lead to or determine human action. It is distinguished from intellectual powers which involve the capacities of reasoning, judging and conceiving.

The distinction is derived from Aristotle's analysis of the capacities or powers of living beings into nutrition, appetite, perception, movement, and reason. Of these, reason is held to be peculiar to humans. However, in humans, appetite (including desire, sensuous impulse, and will) partakes of reason in the sense of being able to obey it. For Aristotle, the distinction between moral and intellectual virtues rests on the distinction between appetitive and purely rational functions of humans. Aristotle's fivefold distinction of powers was adopted by Aquinas, but he discussed in detail only the intellectual and appetitive powers - the latter including desire and will.

Thomas Reid gave currency to this dual division in the late 18th century, especially in his two books Essays on the Intellectual Powers of Man (1785) and Essays on the Active Powers of Man(1788). Under the heading of "active powers" Reid further distinguished the will from principles of action, the latter of which included (1) mechanical principles of instinct and habit, (2) animal principles such as appetite and desire, (3) and rational principles such as duty and rectitude.

 

The author of this article is anonymous. The IEP is actively seeking an author who will write a replacement article.

Explaining the nature of consciousness is one of the most important and perplexing areas of philosophy, but the concept is notoriously ambiguous. The abstract noun "consciousness" is not frequently used by itself in the contemporary literature, but is originally derived from the Latin con (with) and scire (to know). Perhaps the most commonly used contemporary notion of a conscious mental state is captured by Thomas Nagel’s famous "what it is like" sense (Nagel 1974). When I am in a conscious mental state, there is something it is like for me to be in that state from the subjective or first-person point of view. But how are we to understand this? For instance, how is the conscious mental state related to the body? Can consciousness be explained in terms of brain activity? What makes a mental state be a conscious mental state? The problem of consciousness is arguably the most central issue in current philosophy of mind and is also importantly related to major traditional topics in metaphysics, such as the possibility of immortality and the belief in free will. This article focuses on Western theories and conceptions of consciousness, especially as found in contemporary analytic philosophy of mind. The two broad, traditional and competing theories of mind are dualism and materialism (or physicalism). While there are many versions of each, the former generally holds that the conscious mind or a conscious mental state is non-physical in some sense, whereas the latter holds that, to put it crudely, the mind is the brain, or is caused by neural activity. It is against this general backdrop that many answers to the above questions are formulated and developed. There are also many familiar objections to both materialism and dualism. For example, it is often said that materialism cannot truly explain just how or why some brain states are conscious, and that there is an important "explanatory gap" between mind and matter. On the other hand, dualism faces the problem of explaining how a non-physical substance or mental state can causally interact with the physical body. Some philosophers attempt to explain consciousness directly in neurophysiological or physical terms, while others offer cognitive theories of consciousness whereby conscious mental states are reduced to some kind of representational relation between mental states and the world. There are a number of such representational theories of consciousness currently on the market, including higher-order theories which hold that what makes a mental state conscious is that the subject is aware of it in some sense. The relationship between consciousness and science is also central in much current theorizing on this topic: How does the brain "bind together" various sensory inputs to produce a unified subjective experience? What are the neural correlates of consciousness? What can be learned from abnormal psychology which might help us to understand normal consciousness? To what extent are animal minds different from human minds? Could an appropriately programmed machine be conscious?

 

cog·ni·tion

shn)
n.

The mental process of knowing, including aspects such as awareness, perception, reasoning, and judgment.

That which comes to be known, as through perception, reasoning, or intuition; knowledge.

The field of ethics, also called moral philosophy, involves systematizing, defending, and recommending concepts of right and wrong behavior. Philosophers today usually divide ethical theories into three general subject areas: metaethics, normative ethics, and applied ethics. Metaethics investigates where our ethical principles come from, and what they mean. Are they merely social inventions? Do they involve more than expressions of our individual emotions? Metaethical answers to these questions focus on the issues of universal truths, the will of God, the role of reason in ethical judgments, and the meaning of ethical terms themselves. Normative ethics takes on a more practical task, which is to arrive at moral standards that regulate right and wrong conduct. This may involve articulating the good habits that we should acquire, the duties that we should follow, or the consequences of our behavior on others. Finally, applied ethics involves examining specific controversial issues, such as abortion, infanticide, animal rights, environmental concerns, homosexuality, capital punishment, or nuclear war. By using the conceptual tools of metaethics and normative ethics, discussions in applied ethics try to resolve these controversial issues. The lines of distinction between metaethics, normative ethics, and applied ethics are often blurry. For example, the issue of abortion is an applied ethical topic since it involves a specific type of controversial behavior. But it also depends on more general normative principles, such as the right of self-rule and the right to life, which are litmus tests for determining the morality of that procedure. The issue also rests on metaethical issues such as, "where do rights come from?" and "what kind of beings have rights?"

Feeling: pissed

Update On My Life
POSTED AT 07:05 PM

black_wings

Well this week has been a little crazy, not too bad though, I've had worse. Lets see, probably the biggest event of my entire week (so far) has been Valentine's Day...which I hate. Hmm...where to begin with this story?

Well so you all know I am in debate, and if not you do now. I do LD (Lincoln Douglas) and there is this other kid on the team Mauricio. Well my friend Max (who also does LD/Public Forum) told me about a week ago that he though Mauricio was going to give me a rose for v-day. My school was doing the whole, "Buy a rose for somebody" thing. You buy somebody a rose at lunch and they deliver it to them in class. Max just told me as a heads up so I wouldn't be in complete and total shock. I had been getting the vibe that he liked me, and so had Max so he just wanted to tell me.

So we were in the middle of our warmup in debate and these two guys come in to deliver roses. I started to panic, Max had said he though Mauricio was going to do it. He wasn't sure. Then of course when I don't want something I get it...I got a rose and it was from Mauricio. I immediantly knew of course, recognized his handwriting and initials right off the bat.

I didn't thank him that day, or the next because I really don't like him like that. I just thought of him as somebody to talk to more, a somewhat friend. Well today at lunch I finally thanked him and this is how the convo went...

Me: "Thank you for the rose Maurcio I thought it was very sweet.

Mauricio:"Yeah. I Really needed to give you memo, everthing wouldn't fit onto the card. I only got you the rose to say sorry that I kicked your butt in debate."

Me:...*gives him the finger*

(We had debated about 3 weeks ago and it was really close, I don't think there was a very clean cut winner personally. People do say that it was leaning more towards him though.) Well of course the second he said that I immediantly went into shock. I couldn't believe what he had just said! 'What an egotistical bastard!' I thought. I am still in complete shock and so were Lada and Matt when I told them.

I am currently still pissed about his comment. Lada, Matt, and myself think that if he does like me (Lada said he told he did) he is just having trouble showing it. Matt thinks maybe he is trying to impress me, to which I replied, "Well he hasn't! He has just succeeded in pissing me off!"

Still fuming, oh and I smashed my head into my house today sledding, my house is made of brick. It hurt

Oh crap I got to go! The Olympics are on! MEN'S FREE SKATE BABY ALL THE WAY! GO JOHNNY WEIR!!!  Even though you are flaming gay I still love you!

Listening to: Slipknot

Update On My Life Part 2
POSTED AT 09:24 PM

black_wings

Wow sorry I haven't updated in so long you guys! Before I forget it was my birthday last weekend! (Sat. Feb, 18) SWEET SIXTEEN AT LAST! ^ ^ It was a blast, for my party we rented a limo on President's Day and went down to Benihana's, this japanese resturant downtown where they cook the food in front of you, it was a blast. Then we went back to my house and watched movies.

Today was region for debate. It went both well and bad, I personally failed. I got my ass kicked, we did four rounds of LD and the only round I won was my last one where I didn't have an opponent! I was the only LDer from our team who didn't place (there are only four of us) Max got 10th, Gus got like 7th, and Maurcio got like 5th. It sucked ass, I was seriously about to cry.  Then I got my ballots and I saw that I lost all three rounds where I actually debated, I felt like shit. My first round I understand and was expecting to win, I got my ass kicked. Second round was really good and too close for my to tell, third round I swear I had the kid because the judge was really looking at value criterion debate so I tried to focus more on that. The judge even said in the oral critque that his value wasn't a value and that his criterion didn't really fit with his value. She said she loved my value and criterion so I was 99% sure I had the kid. Guess not.

But it was good for our team as a whole, we placed third over all and our entire team gets to go to state. I am close to positive I am going, I will either do LD (which I really do not want to do, there is so much shit I need to work on before I go to a varsity round again. You see I am a novice but for region they get rid of the novice and varsity sections and just throw everyone into varsity) or Public Forum with my friend Lada. You see Lada's partner...um...sucks. She cannot debate worth crap and writes really bad speeches. She allows herself to be cornered in rounds and it just sucks. But the thing is she may be busy on March 10 and 11th (which is when State is) so if that is the case I told Lada I would be more than happy to jump in as her partner.

I really do not want to debate this resolution again, the problem with me is I can't cross ex to save my life. I guess I am also not specific enough with my arguments because I attack all of their points (at least 99%) but then they say I didn't. I guess that is because I just assume it is obvious what I am attacking I say, "I will now attack their idea of blah blah" half of the time I don't specifically state "I will now attack their Contention 1 Sub Point C" or whatever, I just think its obvious. Also I guess my reasoning is just totally fucked up because my cases and arguments make perfect sense to me but I guess they don't to the judges and my opponent. I am super pissed I lost my third round because the kid wasn't even debating a real value, the judge even said so! Argh!  I just need to practice my debating skills because I really want to do well in LD. It really pisses me off that I don't, it just doesn't make sense to me that my arguments aren't logical and I don't see how they cannot be to the judge as well. But I guess I will just have to drill that for next year. I am also pissed that when I talked to Maurcio yesterday he asked me if I had my cases done and I said,

"Yeah I do."

He said, "Wow really?"

"Yeah, don't you?"

"No, I haven't even opened up the case work yet"

"..."

I was in shock, as far as I know I was the only LDer to give doherty a copy of my speeches, or even write my speeches before the day before the tournament. Max hadn't written all of his speeches, Maurcio had done absolutly nothing, and I don't know about Gus. But that just pisses me off that Maurcio doesn't do anything until the last minute and then he places in the tournament. LD is just really stressing me out. And I don't want to stop because I really enjoy doing it, I think it is fun, but I hate losing and I don't understand why I lose so much. It just doesn't make any sense to me.

All I have to say is if Gus/Maurcio/Max try to talk to me about the tournament I am just going to say I don't want to talk about it because I don't. I know what I am doing wrong, I don't understand why it is wrong, but I know it is and I know what I need to drill. And if Maurcio starts talking shit about me I am going to confront him (to see my further rant about Mauricio please read the below entry) He is just getting too cocky and to place above Gus who is LD captain only succeeded in further boosting his already titanic sized ego!

So yeah, I don't want to do LD again this year, Lada doesn't want to debate Public Forum with Alexis, I do want to debate PF with Lada at some point in the year. So I told I would be happy to jump in and I would talk to Doherty about it. I told her to remember I am a first time Public Forum novice going to state with her and she was like, "Right now I am willing to take anything" Plus she said we could work with Katie and Katie (who are amazing at PF) and they could help me cross ex and shit like that.

Oh also the Congress round were totally rigged, one of the judges was from Cottonwood and ranked his own daughter first in the rounds. She won first place in Congress. There was more too, it was just completly biased judges and shit, it was completly rigged. Quigley was super pissed about it and out for blood.

Yeah on a personal level this tournament was shit and I want to leave it behind and never think about again. But for our team it was great, it was the best we have done in five years. Go Oly Debate Team! Kick Ass At State!

Then after the tournament Lada came over and we both vented our frustration for like a half hour, went over to Sara's to wish her happy b-day, and then came back to my house and watched Donnie Darko. Jakey Gyllenhaal I love you!

Reading: Interview With The Vampire by Anne Rice
Listening to: Weird Science by Oingo Boingo
Feeling: super uber frustrated