last one of the semester!

Finally we have come to the end of the first semester of our senior year! It has gone by super fast, i can hardly wrap my head around all the stuff that has gone on over the past four months. From college applications to learning calculus and economics my brain has constantly swamped with new foreign information. So I am excited for this opportunity to take a couple weeks off to let everything sink in and give my poor brain a nice little reprieve from the stress of school work.  I hope all of y'all have a Very Merry Christmas!

p.s. congratulations and good luck to those graduating early and moving on to college! 

Project

Finding a way to help or improve peoples lives. Sounds pretty easy just do a little something here and a little bit over there and presto you have accomplished your goal.  This is the attitude that I had going into class today but by the end of class, that attitude was turned completely around. Our project of finding a goal that will improve society turned out to be much harder than I anticipated. As we were brainstorming all of us in the group found it difficult to come up with an idea that was practical to help society and yet still be something that we could possible impliment or pursue. 
 So as I was sittinng there racking my brain for ideas, I suddenly realized we were facing the same problem policy makers face (on a much smaller scale of course). As citizens we see problems within society and we expect congress to address and fix the problems we see yet it seems the true problem is never fixed. This had always been a mystery to me why seemingly simple problems could never be erased, but after class today I now more fully understand the logistics congress men/women face when trying to impliment programs.  
Now im not totally letting them off the hook for not always getting necessary items taken care of but I am more conscious of how much of a pain in the butt it is to try and be helpful.... no wonder why it is not as prevelant as it was back in the good old days.

Break

Finally some time away from school! These past few days have been a great change of pace. I have not had to worry about college applications, or any homework besides reading our wonderfully confusing Crime and Punishment. But instead I finally got to turn off my alarm and sleep as long as I wanted, then once awake, it has been a joy just doing things for the heck of it rather than always having to get one thing done and then move on to another. This free time has been great and I hope everyone gets some good opportunities to kick back and reflect on all the things you have to be thankful for this Thanksgiving!!  

Test: past, present, and future

Test days come to quickly so we never feel as prepared as we should be but yet when it is all over the relief of not having another night of cramming brings such joy that it compensates for not feeling like a test went well.  However the severity of feelings of unpreparedness and then relief have changed much over the years. Back in elementary school I hardly even cared what a test was let alone study for such a foreign thing, so the stress before hand and relief afterward meant nothing or very little to me at the most.  Then we took the big scary step from elementary to middle school. Now as the classes were filled with more specific information and specialized concepts, all of a sudden test did not just fit in with the rest of the boring day, but were something occupying the back of my mind until it was all over.  
Now as a senior, test are a source of great stress and worry, and instead of occupying a small space in my brain I find myself constantly thinking about what I should know compared to what I actually do and trying to figure out ways to get as ready as possible for the test throughout the day.  This year more than ever I have noticed people devoting an entire class period during the day top accomplish last minute cramming totally oblivious to what they are supposed to be accomplishing during the class.  So it has been interesting to look back and see how the importance of test has grown and almost I would say start to consume our way of looking at school.   
After seeing test this year and how they have driven me crazy with worry, I can only imagine how much "FUN" it will be to prepare and take test next year in a college environment. But I guess I will survive that like I have the rest of school (or at least I hope so). 

Timed Writing

Alright so the essay topic today in class was a joy to write about.  I had really enjoyed the book I read but when I was finished I could not figure out why I had liked it so much, but I found as I was writing today that the book was so enjoyable because of the examples that we had to use to prove the unsettling and pleasurable parts of our books.  I realized that I enjoyed our outside reading book so much because the intermixing of pleasurable and unnerving elements was so well done that as a reader I never noticed my changing emotions.  While writing I suddenly figured out the book actually took the reader on a similar emotional roller coaster as the main character. So seeing that I don't like actual roller coasters but enjoy the feeling afterward, it only made sense that I liked the book because I went on a roller coaster without even knowing it.

College Visits

last Friday and Saturday I was lucky enough to be able to visit the Colorado School of Mines, to get a feel for the campus to see if it fit my idea of what college should be like.  So we get to quaint little Golden, Colorado and find some place to park and start an adventure.  We walk around campus looking at all the buildings and at the mountains in the back ground. after killing a couple of hours, we got the chance to watch a swim meet. While watching the meet i came upon a sudden revelation that just like needing to see the swim team in action to determine if i would like what goes on, i also would like to be able to witness what goes on in the class room at the school too.  But to my chagrin I had not set up any appointment to sit in on a class.  So if any of you go to visit a college I would HIGHLY suggest you ask for an opportunity to sit in on a class because I think that it could be valuable in helping you determine what college really fits what you want. 

Wake Up Call

Today as I drag myself through the door to English class after practice, I am greeted with this my poetry essay from uhh what was it two weeks ago or last week? apparently time flies when your having fun. so anyway I get my paper back and look at the grade and am stopped in my tracks.  After I recoved from my initial shock of my grade not looking so hot I, being the competitor that I am, started looking around at the papers of other near me and was astounded by how it seemed that everyone did not quite write up to their ability.  I mean last year when we would do AP writings all that I basically felt that I ever did was try to be straight forward and simply answer the question and would get a 7 or 8, and that's what I felt that I accomplished  on the poetry essay as well, but I guess I was sadly mistaken. After reading the samples, I realized that this year in order to succeed, it is going to take a greater deal of depth that demonstrates an understanding of more than words and devices but the entire landscape  that the words and devices create.  Today even though it was not the most exciting thing that we could have done, I welcomed the HUGE wake up call to what it will take to get to the next level this year.  

Another Day, Another Dollar

OK so let me start off by saying that Senior Days are totally awesome!!!!!!! and now on to the stuff that may be at least a little more relevant....
During our silent reading day on Friday, I noticed that quite a few members of our class  were not taking advantage of the free time that was given to us.  While sitting there attempting to read Crime and Punishment I could not help but feel that some of the people that were not using that time to read, would be the ones later that have either not finished what they were assigned. By not finishing the reading, they are either gonna end up trying to fudge their way through the timed writing we are given or if they do not get part one of Crime and Punishment  read they will not be able to add to the class discussion on the book. So they will not only be hurting themselves but also the rest of the class because of the loss of another peers perspective that could have helped us all understand a very (in my opinion) complicated book. So i hope this is not what ends up happening, but i needed some material to post so sorry if I just criticized someone unfairly. 


p.s. I actually thought that the class discussion going on during our silent reading was quite entertaining, so i have no real beef with what was going on.

Crazy Comparisons

OK so for my outside reading I chose to read An Arsonist Guide to Writers' Houses in New England (omg that is a mouth full) and thanks to not having much homework lately, I have been able to read the first hundred pages of the novel and am thoroughly enjoying it. When we received our copies of Crime and Punishment on Monday, I started to read it during my off period and I could hardly keep the books separate in my mind because of how similar they are.  First of both main characters are a bit deranged and outcast of society, they are also both males wondering around not knowing what to do in life that are scared of interacting with the rest of the world. There are so many other comparisons that I could make, but i would probably confuse myself even more so I will just say that the only difference i have really found so far is that Crime and Punishment is much much much harder to read and understand because of the prolonged descriptions. So I hope these books begin to differ soon because if not I am gonna be doomed when we take a test over Crime and Punishment.

Another One Bites the Dust

With another week of school finally in the record books it is time again to give my view on a topic.  The assignment that we got to work on in class this week in groups that involved looking at how authors deviated from the "norm" was very insightful and fun to me.  Having to look closely at every detail of the sentences in order to find the deviance's did much more than make me take more time to read.  It helped me see more of the imagery and connotations in the words that the author used, thus giving me a better feeling of the tone and meaning of the passages that we read.  The assignment was also fun because we got to create our own version of what the authors said, which allowed us to use some of our own creativity and also see the creativity in our groups members that we may not have known about. So even though there was quite a few passages to work on, the work was well worth the insight into literature and our classmates. 

The marvels of the application process

Since we did not do all that much in class this week i figured i would talk about the one thing that i do remeber doing and that was filling out an application to temple college.  The application that we were made to fill out (which i think is very very wrong) was focused on everything a college should not be looking at.  IT had no questions of grades, gpa, class rank, it hardly even cared if you had graduated or not. However the application did spend too much time on what race i was and if i had any disabilities or other such conditions that would put me into special consideration for acceptance.  This application was so dumb to me becasue our society no longer cares about accepting the best people for a position but rather making sure it is "fair" and that we give everybody an equal chance. And after this enlightenment, people still wonder why our society is crashing in on itself, and i say hum good question, why ddont you think about that a little bit.  and so the days go on with nothing being fixed or improved because of our concern for being "fair".

Life and the Titanic

The poem "Titanic" by David R. Slavitt first got my attention with the rhetorical question in the second sentence. "If they sold passage tomorrow who would not buy?" This provoked the thought of who would willing go sail off to their death and this thinking instantly drew me into the poem.  After reading and re-reading the poem, Slavitt organizes his poem in a series of contradictions going from a sad sentence to painting the pictures of a glorious and welcomed death.  By doing this Slavitt not only makes readers connect with the poem because the emotional roller coaster he puts them on but he also brings out the universal fear that people have of dying and being forgotten. The glorious picture that Slavitt paints of dying part of a legacy with words that have mostly negative connotations is awe inspiring. The tone that is created with connotations that are usually more closely aligned with a sad rainy day rather than glory really made the poem very unique and i throughly enjoyed reading it.  Also the fact that Slavitt brought up a fear that is often not discussed openly and showed the extremes that people will go to in oder to not be one of the forgotten, really made me sit back and evaluate what I want to accomplish with my life so i am not one of the forgotten dead.   

What do you mean I'm stuck for life?

    Lets start off with saying that I hope everyone enjoyed their Monday off and the torrential downpours we got on Tuesday and Wednesday.
    Now on to the business at hand, I found the story "Clothes" very intriguing because it brought up the topic of arranged marriages, and how foreigners view our society.  Since I'm curious does anybody know how the tradition started?   Anyhow besides that while reading this this story, I could not stop thinking about having to get to know a person after you have already committed your life to them. To me having the knowledge in the back of my mind that I have to live with person for the rest of my life, I would feel smothered and restricted in my ability to be myself because I would want to make sure and try to please my spouse in order to eliminate squabbling at home.  Do these people that are in arranged marriages change who they are after marriage just to try and please one another to make the marriage work? If this is true then does that not take away from the whole point of marriage, which is all about two people pledging to be with the very person that they have fallen in love with. 
 I know this is a lame example because it comes from tv but in the show Royal Pains, a doctor is in an arranged marriage and she met her future husband at her engagement and did not feel the excitement that is usually associated with getting engaged and after getting engaged, this doctor treats a patient and they make a connection and so now the doctor is trapped between her heart and her native customs..  Is this trapped feeling common among most couples in arranged marriages?
 I dont know if any of that made sence at all but it was just something that I found contriverisal and interesting, so i decided to ramble about it for awhile. 

Week Two... and still LOST!!!!!!

This whole blogging thing is new to me and I'm still not exactly sure how this is supposed to work but i am gonna go for it anyway.  On Monday in class when we started to talk about the short story "A True War Story" I was instantly intrigued.  While reading the story, I found it very hard to follow and that usually ruins a story for me, but something was different about "A True War Story". Despite being confused throughout the piece there were always lines that would come along that came flying off the page at me and kept me reading on.  The lines that struck me were the ones that talked about how do we really know if something is "true" or is it just a figment of the imagination. This is a very interesting concept to me because today a  lot of students and people in general have no desire to do their own research or get two opinions on a specific topic, however they hear or read something once and accept that as the absolute truth.  If every one's opinion or story of an event like the the author hinted at because of the fact that we do not always see everything in stressful situations or in class we also said that stories differ because what people see in an event is different based on that particular persons perception of the event is different, how can we ever be sure that we can trust almost any story we hear with out having to investigate for ourselves? With the complacency that has infiltrated our culture today we do not like to hunt around for the real truth. I mean that's why wikipedia is so popular right? Because of the lazy nature of today, how does our society ever come to settle even some of its more minor differences if all the stories on the same topic are consistently different where ever you go. The personal nature of story telling combined with the nature of our society today in my opinion will lead to more rifts in our society and we will continue down the path of not being able to think as individuals. We hear one story and one group will follow it like a mob while other go galloping off with another version and nobody bothers to combine or at least hear out both and make a choice for theirselves of what is accurate.  If this continues I forsee a continued loss in critical skills that help us through out our lives and therefore a loss in the over all quality of our lives. Just my thoughts and sorry if i rambled, sometimes its much easier to think about things than explain them so I hoped that had at lest a little bit of logical thought.

What is Story Telling?

In this day and age with all of the reading we do over the Internet, I feel that today storytelling is just simply our daily recitation of events that we may or may not embellish a little while we are having conversations with friends.  But before this age of technology storytelling was a valuable part of every culture.  Ancient cultures used story telling to continue and pass on the traditions of the past in place of the horrible history books that we have to read today.  Some of the stories that these cultures passed on became so magnificent that they have become immortal and are continued today in the formed of legends. So in essence story telling can be no bigger than the simple relating of events but yet can grow into the backbone of a culture.