First, I looked at Jamie's blog, because I know she always has a really clear outlook on things and expresses herself eloquently. She wrote about how she liked the use of blogs this year, and hopes that they would be even more drawn into the curriculum next year. I commented:

"Jamie- I really liked a lot of the comments you made about blogging. I completely agree that it would be beneficial to do "prompt-free" blogs, because they would really inspire more creativity. I think it's great that your chemistry class really utilized your blogs. Our teacher asked us to make them, but we really have only had a few posts and never did any sort of follow up on them. I also like your idea of getting feedback from our teachers on our blogs, although I know it would be difficult for one teacher to read about thirty blogs. Maybe they could read and comment on a few blogs per week, then gradually end up ready some of everyone's."

After looking through a few more blogs, I decided to hit up Dylan's. He's always very animated and enthusiastic in class, and after translating through his thick accents, he makes great contributions to discussions. His blog also sang the praises of blogging in general, and discussed how they make it easy for one's own unique voice to be heard. I commented:

"This is a great post. And I believe Mr. Allen would agree, because you really epitomized "form is content" :]. You wrote in your own way and your voice clearly shines through, and that's also what you decided you liked about the blogging process itself: how you can write exactly the way you would speak, if you were just having a conversation about blogging over coffee at a trendy cafe (that's where I assume you'd be discussion this).
I understand what you mean when you talk about how the blogs just "flow" easily onto the screen. Because they are a much more casual form of writing, usually it's much easier to get your inner thoughts out into the open."

Metacognition: Blogging

Throughout this year, in English, we have been writing on our blogs a few times a month with different prompts, usually pertaining to things we are doing in class. I think this has been one of my favorite English assignments, for a few reasons. First of all, blogs don't require extensive research, the need to form complex theses, or making flashcards. They are not extremely time-consuming or tedious, and are usually very enjoyable to write. This is because blogs are like personal diary entries (with a theme of course). Within reason, one can write about whatever they need to vent, advocate, rage, elaborate or think about. Blogs are one assignment that comes with few restrictions and offer a lot of creative freedom. That's why they are enjoyable for us to write, and I think worthwhile for Mr. Allen to read: because they are a true insight into our minds, without stuffy things like paragraph structure or strict organization (not that those things don't have a good time and place . . . somewhere out there). I liked my thinking during my blogs as the years progressed; I believe I began to appreciate the overall effect of blogging and the importance of seeing the thoughts of others, and my own ideas really bloomed and flourished through the year.

My blog has allowed me to gain more understanding and knowledge about English class in general. Specifically, the Blogging Around prompt encourages us to take a peek into the heads of our fellow classmates. Even though we only are required to comment on two blogs, at least for me, this prompt usually causes me to explore more and read many Academite's blogs. Other blog prompts, such as Connection, Dialectics and 360 Degrees, are interesting because they lead to new ideas as well as looking at accepted things in different ways. The Best of Day/Week blogs help me recap important themes and ideas from our class discussions, and many others advocate creative thinking and expression. I think the blogs this year have really been a great, informal outlet for creativity and exploration outside of the classroom, and have been effective in deepening our experiences in our English class this year.

Best of Week: Michael K as God

Overall, when I read/try to analyze books for school, I end up looking at the finer details, rather than the big picture. This happened to me earlier with Life and Times of Michael K, when we discussed how Part One was narrated in 3rd person, but almost had the verisimilitude of how Michael would narrate. That kind of went over my head until I took a step back and thought, "Oh yeah, now I see it." That happened again this week, and it really opened my eyes to a new aspect of the book. Mr. Allen pointed out the hints symbolizing Michael K as a god of some sort; how he had escaped the system of horror and warfare in South Africa. One particular instance was when Michael quoted the Burning Bush, alluding to God and the Bible.

A part of this insight connects to a belief I toyed with once about God, before I figured out that it's just better to leave it alone. For some time, I didn't really understand how there could be a God when there was still so much strife, pain and horror in the world. So in my mind I made up a theory that He created the world originally and put everything in it's place, and then just left, got sort of shut out. That was why all the bad things happened in the world: God was watching, chilling around the edges of reality, but for some reason, He couldn't help us; he'd just watch us mess everything up ourselves. This belief coincides with Michael, because he was very detached from the world and nothing really effected him directly. Yet he still inspired "religious" experiences in some of those around him (the doctor).

This insight let me discover another layer of the novel, which I originally thought to be much sparser. Coetzee really put in a lot of deeper meaning in his work, with supreme attention to detail. Seeing this really made me appreciate the novel much more. although I still don't absolutely love it. But I think that the depth and discussion we have inflicted upon it will definitely help me think more about the different layers of other novels that I read in the future.

360 Degrees: The AP Test

There are a few different kinds of testing: short answer, essay, multiple choice, classroom, and standardized are just a few. And then, there are the monsters, the tests that seem to make or break your future and your sanity. Those are the ACT, the SAT and the AP. These big three can have a huge impact on your future education and career, and honestly, I'm terrified even thinking of them now. I would like to think about the pros and cons of these tests, including the prices, stress, structure, etc; focusing specifically on the ghastly ogre lurking in my immediate path of life: the World History Advanced Placement Exam. Sounds horrendous, but it can also be amusingly abbreviated to WHAP. Hah. Just because you call something cute, like "Little Boy" for example, it doesn't mean it can't blow up and cause utter destruction to your world (or Hiroshima).

Colleges love for student to take AP exams, because they show the intelligence of the student as well as their desire to be perceived as intelligent. Unlike standardized testing and even the ACT or SAT, AP's are not required. So when taken, they show the eagerness and dedication of the student to increasing their knowledge. However, not all colleges accept AP credit for certain classes; they might only accept certain scores or they might offer elective credit, rather than core course credit. Most colleges would prefer to not lose money by letting you skip classes, so they could also just strongly encourage higher level classes.

But are tests like the AP's, SAT and ACT too strongly weighted for college acceptance? For students unsure of their future profession, it is important to have a decently strong background in multiple subjects, but for those, for example, planning to be an accountant or a make-up artist, do they really need to know much about Latin roots or geometry? (respectively) I'm not sure exactly how admissions are dealt with, but I definitely think that test scores should be held equally, if not less than as important as things like interviews, references and personal essays.

The ACT costs start at $31 without a writing portion, and $46 with writing. The SAT begins at $49. Both of these come with a multitude of "a la carte" items, including late registration fees, international testing fees, college reporting and many other options that add on the dollars. Each AP test costs $86. The first two seem pretty reasonable, if you register on time and don't rack up any additional fees, but the AP is a bit expensive. And taking all three types multiple times can ring you up a few hundred dollars at the book store. Most students usually end up taking the ACT and SAT a few times, to improve their scores, and some take many AP classes. I don't know why the price of the AP's are so precipitous, but what if there was some sort of system for the other two, where the cost was lowered after taking it multiple times? That would definitely ease of some of the pressure to get perfect scores after just a few tests.

These tests are an extreme cause of stress. I'm especially feeling the pressure right now. I feel like there is so much information that needs to be covered, and a sinking sense of hopelessness is descending upon me. I am not prepared and I feel bad wasting my parents money on this test. Many students are just giving up, trying not to worry and planning on disregarding however they do on the test. Maybe I'm just an overachiever, but regardless of how much preparation I do, I know I'll still feel horrible if I get a low score. So speaking of preparation, I'm going to go traverse the treacherous pages of my AP World book and try to cram about 10,000 years of history into my mind. Wish me luck.

Metacognition: Short Story

I'm really not sure how I'm feeling about my short story. I really liked it, until I had to put pressure on my main character, the mannequin. I understand that it is important to the story to challenge the characters, but I don't know if I accomplished this well. With this feeling of insecurity, I wrote the ending of my story. I tried to make my girl sound as confused, desperate and desolate as possible while also keeping rather cool, but I feel as if the ending is too abrupt. I also remember Mr. Allen telling us that the ending shouldn't really be final, but I think one could take mine to be either final or unfinished. Either way, I'm feeling very insecure about it. Because of this, I'm just letting my mind roam free as I write, and not really thinking extremely carefully about every word. (This could prove to be a good thing or a very bad thing)



I wish I could have discussed my ending with Mr. Allen individually, like when we talked to him about the middles of our stories. It would have been nice to have a little bit of direction; right now, I feel as though I'm just slinging words on the doc and seeing what sticks. I really hope my ending works. It would be a bother to rewrite it with little guidance. I'm also worried about the story in general. I know it would be nearly impossible for Mr. Allen to really look at every sentence in everyone's stories, but I almost feel as though my ideas might be good, but once looked at more closely, there will be many problems. I wonder if we'll have more time after this revision to focus on the smaller aspects, or if it will just be assumed that it's perfect, from the inside out?

Metacognition: Jane Eyre Writing Assignment

I really liked the idea of this assignment, bringing together characters and having them interact in new ways. I also liked how we could choose our own groups and topics that interested us most. I believe my group's experience was very different than other groups, however, because of our extracurricular challenges. The week the project was due was tech week for GBN's spring play, Cinderella, which Kyle, Melanie and I all had roles in. We asked Mr. Allen for an extension, which he generously granted us, but we really did not have much of a chance to work on the project during the week, with rehearsal every night until 10 p.m. We finally all got together on Sunday afternoon and spent quite a few hours adding, editing and finalizing our transcript.

It was a fun experience to create a discussion. Normally, when writing a paper, it's all from one point of view, very direct, and very structured. For this project, I tried to think of things from multiple angles; rather than just stating opinion or fact, I also made sure it fit with who the character was. For example, the views on feminism in 18th century could not really be expressed by our faux Academy student, and some of the Academy book connections would be better explained by the student, rather than Charlotte or Jane. I also liked writing it because there wasn't a specific structure that needed to be followed; we could just let the conversation flow, while also incorporating our connections and quotes. I won't really know how successful it was until we receive our grades, but if we did it correctly, I would definitely say that it was a much more enjoyable and free-formed way to reflect on a book read in class.

I liked the connections I made, especially with Sophie's World. I realized it's easier to connect two books with a pre-established theme, rather than to just try to find any similarities. I also especially liked when I read through the previous work and helped connect the sub-conversations while preserving the overall theme. I'm pretty happy with my work; I just wish our group could have met together more often, because on a collaborative project like this, it really does work better when the group members are physically together.

Captured Thought: Hands

I am a very touchy-feely person; I love holding hands and hugging and other things of that nature. Recently, I've been looking at boys' hands and mentally comparing them, and today, in Academy, I had an epiphany: all the hands of the guys I know that play volleyball have really square/circular palms, and their fingers are about the same lengths as their palm, and the hands of those that play basketball have thinner palms and long, thin fingers. Maybe this isn't the most astounding insight ever made, but I felt a strange but oddly satisfying wave of accomplishment hit me as I realized those connections. I'm probably not going to go around at do a clinical trial examining the hands of GBN's volleyball and basketball teams, but it would be very interesting to see the results.

Let's assume that my observations are true for all, or at least a large majority of these athletes. What does that mean? I'm not sure if it would be possible for a sport to alter the hands of a person; they usually seem to be something hereditary that can't be changed. Therefore, is it possible that hands could tell you something about your personality? Chiromancy, the art of palm reading, has been practiced for centuries, and involves evaluating the "lines" of the hands, characteristics of fingers, nails, fingerprints, skin texture and color, shape of the palm and flexibility. Among all the future-predicting/"psychic" arts, I almost think that this one makes the most sense, because rather than relying on crystal globes or tea leaves to predict things about your life, chiromancy is based on something that is inherently yours, that no one else can trick or beguile.


On a darker note, what if humans got this down to a science, and if, at birth, everyone was characterized with a list of possibilities for the kind of person they would become, based on their natural physical features? Or, if parents could be genetically analyzed to predict what kind of person their children would grow up to be? Our world has always been a mad race, a survival of the fittest; how soon do you think it will be until scientists literally take it into their own hands and choose to create the humans with the most potential, based off of their physical, inherited characteristics?

Dialectics: Romantic Love and Infatuation

(Note before I begin: Mr. Allen, I'm sorry if I do not do this blog correctly. And I'm also sorry that I partially am using one of your examples; I hope that's ok.)

"All You Need Is Love". "Can't Buy Me Love". "I Wanna Love You". "Love Is Gonna Save Us". Across every genre of music, from rock and roll to techno, Love is what it's all about. It's depicted across the silver screen and stage; it's what Romeo and Juliet died for, and the war of Troy was fought for. As a society, we seem to strive for it as much as we do for our own well being, education, or career. Marriage is thought of as a milestone in life, and the ultimate goal for a happy ending. However, modern television is full of secrecy, betrayal, infidelity and sleaze. In the US, approximately 45.8% of all marriages end in divorce, and are now much more casual and less binding as previous decades. Many of these rash decisions portrayed on the small screen and actualized in reality seem to me that immediate infatuation and gratification have replaced love.

And why not? Love takes time, responsibility, care. One can see how in a world of speed dating and one-night-stands, it can easily be bypassed. Infatuation can occur with possibilities of turning into love, but it might just be halted by outside factors like jobs or time. Even in the past, it was difficult to distinguish between true love and simple infatuation. Last year, while reading Romeo & Juliet, we had many discussions about the nature of love and if it really occurred in the novel. Some people strongly argued that they were not in love, because their obsession with each other was only for a short period of time, and they died before anyone could find out if they really loved each other. Psychologists say that a period of infatuation can last between 3 and 18 months, so many hasty marriagers (and teenagers in Verona) could be deceived into believing what they feel will last.

But then again, I would never argue that lasting love does not exist. The most supportive example to me was of my mother's parents; they were together for sixty-nine years. Although divorce has been an unhappy outcome to many marriages, there are still many that have stayed together successfully. And romantic comedies still seem to rake in millions at the box office, showing that although we love scandal, we still love happy ending just as much. I think my dialectic idea is that the most important aspect of separating love and infatuation is time, and also a healthy environment for that love to blossom.

Blogging Around: Leanne and Brandon

As soon as I knew we had to do a "Blogging Around" blog, I went to Leanne's page, because I remembered when I was looking around for inspiration for my last "What if?" blog, I was extremely amused by hers, about what would happen if the world was ruled by boys. After reading it again, I commented:

Leanne, this blog was extremely creative and funny, just like how you are everyday in class. First of all, I loved how, instead of going down the path of least resistance and talking about short stories, you picked a new, unexplored topic to talk about.
Your voice in this post was really captivating because from knowing you, one can tell how sarcastic you are. The last line especially really emphasized the irony of this whole rant. Isn't it scary how about half of the things you discussed are true? (or at least in many guy's minds)I would have loved to read your "upcoming" post about if women ruled the world. :]

I also read Brandon's blog about writing our story fragments. I really liked his insights because they also affected me when we first got this assignment. We were both a bit put off and nervous at first, but realized that it was actually very rewarding and helpful to write our fragments. I wrote:

I felt the same way when we started talking about writing short stories. When I was younger, I always tried to start novels that I thought would make me rich and famous. I had really big aspirations, but a very small amount of patience; most of these future Pulitzer winners never made it past a few pages.
I also really have enjoyed Mr. Allen's ways of writing, just freeing your mind, and then editing and going deeper later. I also love the feeling that we don't have to come up with a full story on the first try, it really making writing the whole story much more fulfilling and meaningful.

Best of Week: School Board Issue

One problem that Mr. Allen posed to us recently was that the school board was challenging his teaching of Cathedral, because it supposedly relayed the message that marijuana and alcohol are fabulous tools that help you have epiphanies. He asked us to think about what argument we would pose to break down that claim. I thought this was an excellent assignment because it really make us not just think about the story, but why it was an important story to read. Unfortunately, we have not yet gotten to really discuss our responses in class, but I think it would be great to hear different perspectives on this issue.

His situation made me think about how much outside information really affects a person's decisions. As Mr. Allen said, a school board might ban a story from being read in school, but they can't sensor the fusillade of images of drugs, drinking and sex that bombards students from every other possible outlet. Throughout the media, these are very common themes, and the most popular shows on TV are usually based upon the big three taboos. So would a school board really think that by outlawing one short story, they are making a difference? And ironically enough, Cathedral doesn't even advocate the use of booze or pot, it merely mentions them as a fact of life for the character. Earlier this year, we read the Kite Runner, in which a character attempts suicide, another societal taboo. Should that book also be banned, because it might encourage students to do the same? If this argument was applied to every novel, short story, movie or play we learned about through school, we'd be left reading Winnie-the-Pooh and Little House on the Prairie until we're of voting age.

I also think Mr. Allen's question helped us notice that those "inappropriate" elements were not the important part of the story; it put them in context, in perspective. Sure, as soon as we read about Bub toking up, everyone chuckled and nudged each other, "Oh boy, reading about drugs in school". But by addressing these issues and putting the spotlight on them for a moment, Mr. Allen showed how they weren't really important to the overall message of the story.

What if? : I was in the Matrix

This week, we took our Heart of Darkness test, which included writing a paragraph connecting it to the Matrix. Throughout this whole unit, the idea of a Matrix-esque society has really piqued my interest. The scariest thing about science fiction movies is that, since they are set in the future, it's much easier to believe they could happen, or in the case of the Matrix, be happening right now. I'm honestly not sure what I would do if I discovered my whole life was a series of numbers created by machines, using my very life-force as a Duracell battery.

First of all, like Neo, I would probably be stuck in denial for a good period of time. I'd also be freaking out because of all the creepy metal holes all over my body; I'm extremely squeamish about things like that. I'd definitely try to rationalize this, think it was a dream, and repeatedly try to "wake up". After numerous failures, I'd probably just have a breakdown. I really don't know if I could handle it: knowing that my life really wasn't my own, it was just a sham, a little cyberworld. Presuming that I am not the One, the person destined to save the world, I think I would much rather head back into my little fairytale world and forget about it. Especially since the only other option, living in the real world, entails living on a tiny little ship, on a decrepit earth with no sunlight, no civilization, no hope.

I wonder how the writers of the Matrix originally got the idea. Here's a nice "what if": What if we actually are all in the Matrix, but the machines created this movie to try and convince the rest of us, the nice little vegetables, that since it's a movie, it can't be true? It's silly, but can you ever really know for sure?

Connection: Mr. Kurtz and the Wizard of Oz

"What can you expect!" he burst out; "he came to them with thunder and lightning, you know-and they had never seen anything like it - and very terrible. He could be very terrible. You can't judge Mr. Kurtz as you would an ordinary man. No, no, no! Now - just to give you an idea - I don't mind telling you, he wanted to shoot me too one day - but I don't judge him."

This description of Mr. Kurtz on page 56 immediately caused me to picture the giant, looming head of the Wizard of Oz, his relentless power and control. In the story, a girl named Dorothy and her motley bunch of friends including a animated scarecrow, tin man and lion, go on a quest for the Wizard, because they have heard from others that he has magical powers and can grant their wishes. They proceed to go on a difficult trek in order to find him, and once they do, they discover that he is actually an ordinary man who is very manipulative and frail.

It's easy to see that if you swap Dorothy for Marlow and set the scene in Africa, it's almost exactly the same story. The natives (like the Munchkins) saw their idols as all-knowing and deserving of worship, because they had been charmed through their respective special talents. Since Heart of Darkness was written just a year before the Wizard of Oz, it almost seems as if the story is alluding to to novel.

This realization lead me to realize how disappointed I really was with Mr. Kurtz. Like Dorothy and Marlow, I though he would be this incredible guy with amazing insight and intelligence, but from the book, I really did not get that feeling at all. I felt like there was not enough textual evidence to convince me of his awesomeness, and that really lowered my view of the book. This made me to connect more with Dorothy, because she actually saw that the Wizard was this pathetic little man, while Marlow still thought of Mr. Kurtz as amazing. I thought, as the reader and not being Marlow, I did not truly get a feel of why he was so great. (This could also be because there was some evidence, but it was so deeply entrenched with ridiculous amounts of extraneous detail and hyphens that I could not find it.)