September 2010 - Mimi Mika

The MotM is an interview that the team does at the end of each month. It's a fun way of finding out about respected members of the community.

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Dypo deLina
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Re: Member of the Month: September 2010

Post by Dypo deLina »

She was browsing C-R. 'Twas in the interview.
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Mimi
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Re: Member of the Month: September 2010

Post by Mimi »

In the interview, I mentioned Court-Records. I wasn't really considering making a case at first, but it seemed quite fun.

However, when I downloaded Py Wright and all of those programs, it just didn't work out. So I scrolled down until I found Ace Attorney Online. And then I was like "oooooh!"

And there you have it. The little history.
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Unas
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Re: Member of the Month: September 2010

Post by Unas »

Mimi Mika wrote:However, when I downloaded Py Wright and all of those programs, it just didn't work out. So I scrolled down until I found Ace Attorney Online.
It's true that I don't keep the AAO topic up the page, seeing as I almost never post on it :-P
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Hodou Okappa
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Re: Member of the Month: September 2010

Post by Hodou Okappa »

E.D.Revolution wrote:
Meph wrote:But I thought being able to read basic music scores was part of the national curriculum?
Not in the US, Meph. That's more of a choice kids make (or rather something parents force children to learn, anway :twisted: ) Some of the schools in the US do not offer the arts (and I'm talking about primary school-high school).
In any school worth sending your children to, yes, it is part of the curriculum. Thanks to a grave misunderstanding of the differences between socialism and communism, as well as a mass decrease in the national IQ, many schools have been forced to make huge budget cuts and regrettably needed to cut programs; thanks to the fact that many schools are run by money-grubbing imbeciles, the arts are generally the first thing to go. It seems rather easy to make a despicable error and assume that knowledge in maths and sciences is globally more useful and well-respected than knowledge of arts and culture when, in reality, the former requires only a basic understanding at best while the latter takes years of dedicated study and practice, all while proving far more useful in the long run.

TL;DR: Every day I am more astounded by the idiocy of the country I live in. Schools got budget cuts so some of them can't teach music anymore, even though it's actually more important than many of the other things we're taught.

Anyhow, being part of the curriculum does not guarantee that children will retain the knowledge. I understand the basics of reading sheet music, but since I've had no actual instrumental or vocal training I have a lot of trouble trying to translate it into sounds.
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Re: Member of the Month: September 2010

Post by Unas »

'kappa, you've just made an enemy of me with this :-P
I quite approve these "money-grubbing imbeciles", because for the most part I think art cannot be taught to everyone. Let me explain. (warning : huge tl;dr ahead !)

I had to study arts and music for 4 years, as any middle school student in France, and I never saw any purpose in this. If some people do, it's good for them, but I certainly don't think that studying in these fields can be in any way as useful as studying science in general schools.
(By the way, in music classes, I didn't even really learn to read a score; I know the basics, but it requires a lot of time and effort for me to decipher a sheet)

Let's develop the example of literature, since it's the only "ancient" form of art that I know well. I distinguish three parts in it :
- The language. This is the support of the whole work, and learning how to write properly is kinda like learning a science : you have quite precise rules, basic cases to associate, etc. It is mostly objective - even though there might be debates on very specific points between linguistic experts, just like in science. As such, the basics of it can easily be taught and learnt.
- The meaning. This is for a part an extension of your mastery of the language, for the meaning of a text should always be expressed in the words and sentences. It is more subtle though, as it implies considering a whole context. And therefore, there is a time when you come to interpreting rather than understanding; in particular when you try to understand the meaning of a text "given its cultural and historical context" and so on. Interpretation is subjective.
- The aesthetics. This is purely subjective, so I don't see how anything could be taught except just presenting various works with different styles and let the pupils decide what they like.

This distinction between the technical, semantic and aesthetic aspects should stand for most types of art, I believe.

Well, as far as I'm concerned, I believe the two most important parts (meaning and aesthetics, the ones that make art different from science) cannot really be taught in general schools, mostly because they rely too much on personal feeling and interpretation. How can you give a grade (and give an unbiased justification of it) to a pupil that doesn't find as many hidden meanings in a piece of art as you do ? And to a pupil that considers Picasso's best known works to be ugly (which is my case, by the way) ?
Also, these require a much higher interest from pupils. I mean, technique is quite mechanical at the start : for my 4 years of middle school, in language classes as well as in Science, it was mostly applying rules and methods. This requires the mind to focus and trains it to logical ways of thinking, but it doesn't require the pupils to develop a personal opinion or be creative.
In arts, on the opposite, creativity and personal opinion are the core of the subject, so asking uninterested people is rather useless. Except for a basic presentation trying to raise pupils' interest and encourage them to specialise in such fields afterwards, I hardly see how school can help. And even that doesn't really belong to school, as the whole school system is built on grades and this cannot really be rated. I'd rather see that as part of personal of familial education, than something for school to focus on.


By the way, talking about teaching arts... During high school I had literature classes : I enjoy reading and writing, but I've never considered anything as pointless as the over-complicated analysis of literary processes used by the author and the far-fetched assumptions on what he could possibly have wanted to express - finding in a text things that the author himself probably didn't even notice. I don't know if literature classes are as "technical" in your countries as they are in French high schools, but it really impresses me how studies can focus on completely useless things.
The following two years (the ones that would correspond to a BSc in Maths and Physics for English students), I still had literature classes but it was more interesting, as it didn't focus on such trifling details... :-)


Anyway, in short for those who were frightened by the tl;dr : :mrgreen:

I disagree with okappa; art isn't really supposed to be taught in general schools and is the most logical subject to delete from the curriculum if a deletion is needed. :)
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Re: Member of the Month: September 2010

Post by Hodou Okappa »

You see, if more people presented their arguments as logically as Unas we could be an awesome country again. But you don't really GET that kind of thing any more -- it's so much easier to appeal to emotions.

As far as the debate, I can't really argue with Unas. His points are as good as mine, and I did always agree that the way literature is taught is a bit absurd -- although in college, I'm taking a literature class that is designed just to open our eyes to authors we otherwise would never have heard of rather than over-analyze everything.

We'll just have to agree to disagree, I think. XD Every time I've seen arts taken from a school, it was just because it was the most expensive and "least important" thing to keep going.

Anyway back on topic, Mimi, have you ever recorded yourself playing piano? that would be awesomes.
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Dypo deLina
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Re: Member of the Month: September 2010

Post by Dypo deLina »

Hodou Masaka wrote:that would be awesomes.
OMG no capitalization JK.

QFT! :awesome:
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Re: Member of the Month: September 2010

Post by Unas »

Hodou Masaka wrote:We'll just have to agree to disagree
Agreed :awesome:
Always a pleasure :XD:


But yeah, Mimi, I want to hear you playing as well.
After all, I have to know more about my future challenger as ruler of the world...
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Re: Member of the Month: September 2010

Post by Meph »

Unas wrote:I don't know if literature classes are as "technical" in your countries as they are in French high schools...
They're actually even more technical! :P English language is mad, but that's actually good, because it makes it very flexible.

But that's a story for another topic. :P
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Re: Member of the Month: September 2010

Post by Mimi »

I've tried too, but my camera doesn't work and recording the sound doesn't seem to work on my phone either. Since it's a digital, I thought I could somehow play it and stick it into the computer, but I lost the manual. :random:

Maybe I can use the recorder or something... :awesome: I've always wanted to release a CD or something... even though I'm worse than an amateur. My dynamics are terrible and sometimes I play too fast.
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Re: Member of the Month: September 2010

Post by Meph »

This month's interview might be slightly late, because I will be leaving for three days after Sunday.
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Re: Member of the Month: September 2010

Post by Mimi »

:O It's coming? OH NOES!

So anyone has anymore questions? This may be the last chance to know ALL ABOUT YOUR AWESOME FUTURE UNIVERSE RULER...
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Re: Member of the Month: September 2010

Post by Admiral Canuck »

Mimi Mika wrote::O It's coming? OH NOES!

So anyone has anymore questions? This may be the last chance to know ALL ABOUT YOUR AWESOME FUTURE UNIVERSE RULER...
Okay then, I'll ask a simple question.

What other overlord-type rulers do you receive your inspiration from?

I'm difficult to find on the forums these days, but if you do see me, I should be easy enough to talk to.

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Mimi
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Re: Member of the Month: September 2010

Post by Mimi »

NONE. I AM THE ONLY SUPREME RULER HERE...

Mimi's RL Friends: HEY!
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Re: Member of the Month: September 2010

Post by E.D.Revolution »

One of my female karate partners gave me this question for the school newspaper and the response I gave for the paper was actually published in the school newspaper. So here's my question:

Do you think the recession is over? And how much of an effect did it have on you or someone you know?
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