It's MY Life?

Whenever people realize that I am a junior in high school the discussion always turns to college.  Where are you going to apply? Have you visited anywhere? Do you know what you want to study? What were your ACT and SAT scores? etc.  Those are probably the four most common questions I get, and of the four, only one of them seems really exciting to me right now.
Throughout grade school, junior high, and high school all of my classes have been chosen for me (except electives once I got to high school).  It seems to me that college is my first chance to choose to study subjects that interest me and that I am passionate about.  I understand that in order to find my passion I first have to get a general idea of potential options, and that's why my classes are very similar to most other juniors' in the country.  This brings me to a point I want to make about Doc Oc's most recent post How Many Light Bulbs Does It Take to Screw Up a School?  He opens it by talking about a lady named Diane Ravitch.  According to Doc Oc, Ravitch used to support standardized testing, but is now against it because she doesn't like the idea of a "one-size-fits-all test."
As much as I hated taking the ACT and will hate taking the SAT, I think that they are necessary.  It's clear that there isn't a "one-size-fits-all test" but there needs to be some level of comparison to differentiate between students applying to colleges.  I'm not saying it's fair to judge an AP Art student based on an SAT math score, but I believe that standardized tests are necessary and do a pretty accurate job in demonstrating potential students capabilities.
Even though standardized test and a typical grade school curriculum don't encourage that "out of the box" thinking that Ravitch is pushing for, they both provide an ample background for a student to find out what he or she wants to focus on.  Also, I think it is necessary that the standard classes persist through high school.  For example, in fourth grade the one class I hated more than anything was science.  Now as a junior, science is one of the subjects I am most interested in.  Continued exposure has allowed me to come to that realization.

World Wide Web

While trying to figure out what I should write my post on today, I visited the usual sites like Yahoo! AOL, CNN, FOX, etc.  But I couldn't find anything I wanted to blog about.  Then I tried looking at some classmates blogs, commenting on a few, but I felt like a comment was sufficient in most cases and I didn't need to make a whole post on it.  Then I saw the "Next Blog" button in the upper left-hand corner of the screen, and I clicked it.  It took me to a random blog, which I would link but something made me think twice about it.
I understand that the internet is the world wide web and that blogs can be viewed anywhere, but I felt like some of the blogs I viewed should have been more private.  There were family pictures and details of how and where Thanksgivings were spent, and there were teachers posting pictures of their students who were in second grade.  I wonder if those students parents know that there children's pictures are on the internet... Seeing that made me realize how people really do have to be careful about what they post on the internet.  I found this picture and it made me laugh, but it is also pretty accurate.

Lies to Protect

Why do people to lie?  It's a simple question with many answers.  To cover something up, to protect someone, or even just for the heck of it.  In The Crucible, Elizabeth Proctor lies in order to protect her husband and his reputation, because she doesn't know that he has admitted to lechery. We talked a little bit about why people lie about a month ago in class, but it's not really a topic that goes away.  In the book, Elizabeth is the image of purity and a saint.  She forgave her husband for cheating on her, she knows the 10 Commandments perfectly, and, according to her husband, she can't tell a lie.  But then she does.  And her whole image of being a saint should shatter, but when I read about her lying, it made me think of her as an even better person.  She was willing to protect her husband over telling the truth and hurting him.  The truth hurts, it's true, but a good person isn't necessarily someone who always tells the truth.  I think the lie that Elizabeth told was a noble one because of the way that she put her husband first.  But then again, had she told the truth and said she had known of her husband's lechery, then the whole plot of book would have changed.  Her solid no-lying status wouldn't have changed, her husband had already admitted the lechery, and the court's ruling would have most likely changed.  So maybe the lie wasn't a good idea...

Yale's Elect

The other day, while we were going over some background information on the Puritans in a Power Point, we talked about predestination.  The Puritans believed in this concept created by John Calvin which claimed that it was determined whether a person would end up in heaven or not before birth.  The way it was made known to the people on Earth if a person was part of "God's Elect", or one predestined to go to heaven, was known as the conversion experience.  A person would literally get up in front of the congregation, or the people who were already chosen as part of God's Elect, and present an enlightenment experience.  Then the congregation would vote on whether the person's experience represented the person proving to be a saint, thus joining God's Elect.

DocOC brought up a very interesting point in the middle of this, he compared the conversion experience to the college application process.  And after thinking about it for a few days, it makes complete sense.  In every single college essay, a person is writing a story about themselves, trying to explain what separates them and makes them unique.  If their essay is "good enough" (as well as other things like grades and standardized test scores) then a person is accepted into the college.  It's much the same with the Puritans conversion experience.  The Puritans would tell a story, hoping it would spark something in the minds of God's Elect, in order to allow them to be "accepted" as an additional member of God's Elect.

It seems that today a majority of students I talk to have been told that it's necessary to get into the "right" or "best" college because that's what is going to make their lives easier as they get older.  I think that people also seem to think that a person who graduates from Yale is much more respected than a person who graduates from a community college.  This is probably very similar to what the Puritans were told, or what they saw: that the lives of people who were part of "God's Elect" were superior to those who weren't, and that they were given more social privileges, like sitting in the front pews at church.  The fact of the matter is that there is more than one "right" college so one college's admissions board shouldn't determine your future, and "God's Elect" was a group of people judging another human being to determine his or her fate.

$20 Thermos?

The other day in American Studies, Mr. Bolos mentioned a website that we could go to if we didn't want to see all the annoying ads that are omnipresent on every website on the Internet.  I was thinking about going to check it out, but the particular website is only usable on Google Chrome or Firefox, and my computer doesn't support either of those browsers.  The idea of ad-blocking made me think of a few weeks ago, when an ad on the side of the site had been helpful.

I was on my Facebook, like the typical teen who needs to procrastinate.  I was just scrolling through my News Feed when, on the side of the screen, there was an ad for a water bottle.  I had seen this water bottle before because my friend had one, and she had been trying to get me to buy one.  Unfortunately for her, the water bottle costs $20, and being a person who doesn't like to spend a lot of money, I just laughed at the thought of spending so much on a water bottle.  I already have perfectly good water bottles at home, ones that only cost $5.  But for some reason, when I saw the ad on the side of the screen, I decided to click on it.

The link sent me to a page on Target.com.  And what do you know, I got hooked on the water bottle and bought one.  It is now the only thing I use. I put ice water in it before bed, and when I wake up in the morning, there is still ice!  It's incredible.  And here I am, someone who always complains about the ads I see everywhere, but for once, they did what they were supposed to do and encouraged me to buy a product.

Meta-Post

As I went back and read all of the blog posts that I have written this year I realized how much I actually enjoy blogging.  It gives me the incentive to look into current events and to dig deeper and make connections from discussions in class to my daily life.  I think that my enthusiasm towards blogging is shown in the range of blog topics I have had.  I have gone from race to politics to oral histories to analyzing pictures.  A variety in my blog post types has, in my opinion, been a strength of mine because I am exploring multiple paths that I wouldn't have if the topics hadn't been discussed in class.

I think that my writing style can be a little bit predictable because I seem to start off each blog with, "In American Studies this week..." or something along those lines.  My last two posts have held off on the connection to AIS in order for my posts to have some sort of hook to draw the reader in.  I think that is something I can continue to work on, even though it seems small, I think that a post becomes much more interesting and fun to read without a standard "what we did this week" introduction.

Another thing I need to work on is leaving my blog posts open-ended so that somebody else can respond and offer an opinion.  I have been trying to avoid using the ask a question method at the end of each post, but it's not really such an awful thing to do, and it's hard to end each post with an open-ended statement.  I think I did manage to do that in my post, "The Way She Was".  I was happy that I was able to present two sides to a topic that I was having trouble with as well as my opinion, but at the same time I must have left enough room for people to take the opposite stance.  This is shown by the comments on the post, when people said that they agreed but then also showed how taking the other point of view on the topic wouldn't necessarily be a bad thing.

In my opinion, the post that most represents my growth as a blogger thus far is Green Eggs & Ham.  I was proud of the way that I connected race to a childhood book as well as to an article that appeared on my Yahoo! e-mail homepage.  I don't think that I provided an arguable topic, but I think I left enough room for people to add their own opinions, because I had two commenters who agreed with me, but then added how they felt how the topic effects their own lives, or further justification.

My Diptych

I'm not a very creative person, but I decided to attempt to create my own diptych using images from the Internet.  In AIS this week, one of the things we did in class was to look at a diptych by Josiah Priest.  (A diptych is two pictures side-by-side).  One side of his diptych was captioned, "THE NEGRO IN HIS OWN COUNTRY" and the other "THE NEGRO IN AMERICA."  In class we made observations, inferences based on the observations, and then we justified our thinking based on observations.  I had a lot of fun coming up with inferences and then proving them with Priest's diptych, and I think it's fascinating to to try and figure out what the artist was thinking when creating the diptych.  So I thought I would try diptychs from the other side and try to be the creator...  I chose my images carefully, so hopefully my point comes across!

Right above this is my diptych.  If you can't read it, the title at the bottom says "my seasons."







Here is the diptych that we looked at in class by Josiah Priest.

"Green Eggs & Ham"?

As I was checking my e-mail today, one of the news stories that appeared was that a Florida company is introducing "red celery."  My immediate reaction was that it's disgusting.  I can't imagine eating ants on a red log, (that's celery with peanut butter and raisins for those who were deprived of this tasty childhood snack) or seeing red celery in my tuna fish salad at lunch.  The red celery is supposed to hit supermarkets in early December, in order to have a holiday appeal, which I don't completely understand, because green is already a holiday color.  Then again, neither red nor green is festive for any winter holiday other than Christmas.

The idea of red celery brought to mind a favorite Dr. Seuss book from when I was younger, Green Eggs & Ham.  In the book, the character Sam is trying to get a friend to taste the green eggs and ham.  The friend claims to not like them, and he won't try them "here, or there, or anywhere."  His mind was made up even before giving the food a chance.  But at the end of the book, he ultimately ends up trying the green eggs and ham, because Sam wears him down enough to the point of exasperation.  And, to the surprise of the friend, but not to Sam, he likes green eggs and ham!

All of the colors made me think of American Studies, and how we specifically looked at the difference between black, white, brown, red, and yellow, and how each of them seem to correspond to a different race.  It ties in perfectly with our study of Frederick Douglass and slavery, and how just because the slaves were a different race, they were forced into slavery.  And they were a different race, because their skin was a different color.  It's that same idea of not liking a food that isn't its "normal" color.  The white people thought that white was "the norm" and anything different was inferior.  Just like I immediately thought that red celery would be way worse than green celery, despite the fact that the article said that red celery tastes the same and has the same "crunch" as green celery.

It's all in your head.  Green Eggs & Ham is proof that just because something is a different color, doesn't mean it's any different.

Not Synonymous

In American Studies last week, Doc Oc mentioned how annoyed he gets when people interchange two words that are really, completely different.  He was referring to the difference between intelligence and being well-educated.  As I thought about it, I realized I agreed with him, and I decided to see what the dictionary said.  According to the Oxford English Dictionary, the definition of intelligence is, "the ability to acquire and apply knowledge and skills."  The definition of well-educated is, "having or showing a high level of education." 

So having intelligence means that a person has the "ability" to learn skills and knowledge and then use them.  And well-educated means that a person has been taught at a high level of education, an example being that a well-educated person has been through college.  It seems to me that a person who is intelligent has most likely been well-educated, but a person who is well-educated is not necessarily intelligent.  Just because a person went to college doesn't mean that he or she uses and applies what he or she learned there.  

It reminds me of how when I was younger I would tell my sister, who is four years younger than I am, that I was smarter than her just because I could do a harder math problem.  But she would always tell me that it wasn't true or fair because I had learned it in school and she hadn't yet.  She would say that if she had learned it she could have done it, too.  I guess that makes her the more intelligent one, because she realized the difference.

This One Time at Band Camp...

In AIS this week we have been talking a lot about race and how to determine race.  We have talked for multiple days and still don't have a solid answer, if that's even possible.  One of the possible ways to determine race that we came up with was "area that a person is from."  We categorized this as being from a continent or a country like "European" or "French."  In the world, people from the United States tend to be viewed as Americans, generally with a negative connotation.  But within the United States there are clearly multiple regions, and each region has different attributes and characteristics.

The summers after fourth and fifth grade I went to a fine arts camp for playing the flute.  I remember how on the first day I was so nervous.  I had a few friends with me, so I wasn't too worried about making friends.  But I had heard other friends at home talk about camp friends and all of the great times that they had with them and how much fun they were, and I wanted that kind of experience.  So I started to go around and talk to some other kids, while my mom went to go talk to a counselor or another parent.  I went up to this one girl, we exchanged names (I don't remember hers), and then she asked where I was from, just as her mom walked up behind her.  I explained that I was from the Northern Suburbs of Chicago.  There was no way that the mom or the girl would have known if I hadn't said it.  I wasn't dressed differently because we had to wear a uniform, I didn't have any fancy electronics with me, I looked like a normal fourth grader.  But as soon as I said the North Shore, the girl's mom looked me up and down and then told her daughter that she wasn't allowed to talk to me.

I didn't ever find out where she was from, I didn't even fully understand what had happened.  I still haven't really come to terms with the fact that the North Shore can have be viewed so negatively, to the point that a woman wouldn't let her daughter talk to me because I'm from here.

If You're On Time, You're Late

In American Studies this week, we talked about sidewalks and how they are straight.  It's interesting that sidewalks are straight when they could be curved, but of course there is a logical answer.  The straight path is the most direct, the fastest, the shortest.  But is that always good?  Everything is based on efficiency, in the work place people try and get as much done, to sell the most things, to make the most profit.  Even in a child's life growing up, every minute is filled with some activity whether a "play-date", school, sports, or fine arts.  Where is there room in our lives for a break from all that chaos?

Vacation.  It's such a nice word. It implies relaxation, rest, a break from day to day activities, and free time. But on vacation, I seem to find myself nearly as busy, if not more so, than when in school.  My vacation time is crammed full of everything I want to do that I don't get to do when I have school.  Things like going  to the movies, hanging out with friends, traveling, having a job, playing sports, spending time with family, etc.  There is always so much to do that the vacation ends up not really being restful and relaxing, but rather a different kind of activity from what I normally do.

So then vacation isn't really a break.  There is no time built into the American culture that allows for rest.  Over the summer, I went on a mission trip to Central America.  We were told that the bus ride from where we were staying to the village we were working in would be half an hour, one way.  The ride took two and a half hours.  On the bus, I was stressed, I hate being late.  I have always been taught "if you're on time, you're late."  But when we arrived in the village, even two hours late, it didn't even make a difference to them.  They were all just happy that we were there to help.  The timing was insignificant there, why isn't it more like that here?

The Way She Was

Over the past week we have been working on picking an interviewee for a project on oral histories.  The theme for the project is connection to society, and when we interview our subjects, we are supposed to slide that in somehow.  My immediate reaction was to do a grandparent, but it was ruled out because we aren't allowed to interview grandparents.  So then I thought of people like the minister at my church, my neighbor, a family friend, etc.

Then I found the perfect subject.  A good friend of the family, a mom, a successful business woman.  She is classy, intimidating, beautiful, sharp, iconic, unique.  She wears the right clothes and works out at the gym regularly. She was also diagnosed with breast cancer just over a month ago.  I thought it would be perfect.  The "before and after" that Studs Terkel used when interviewing average people in Chicago.  My event would be the diagnosis of her breast cancer, while Terkel's was World War II.

But then I put myself in her shoes.  If I had just finished my first round of chemotherapy and was just starting to lose my hair, and I was still getting used to the idea of being sick with a disease that could potentially kill me, the only person I would talk to would be a therapist.  Probably not even family.  So why would she ever tell me how she was feeling?  I'm just a teenager doing a school project, and that's her life.  Some might say that by interviewing her I would connect her to society, open her up and let her know that everyone genuinely cares and wants to hear her story.  But I think I would be doing her a disservice by singling her out, when all she wants to do right now is blend in and go back to the "before" when she was healthy.

Do I See It?

    In American Studies, one of the biggest topics we discussed this week was media coverage.  There is always a bias to media, and a lot of the time the media that is seen is a misrepresentation of what really happened.  It happens all the time in movies and television shows and magazines, the classic collage of mismatched pictures and words that totally twist what was initially said and is very clearly fake.   It may seem clear that it's not right then, because in that sense there is a comic spin to it.  Unfortunately, there isn't a comic spin to it when it happens in reality.

    Earlier today, my mom and I were talking, and I mentioned our media discussion from in class.  My mom and I then went on to talk about other things, when Bob Dold's name popped up. Robert Dold is a Republican candidate running for Congress this year, trying to fill in Mark Kirk's old position.  My mom told me that she had been talking to someone who had told her that while on his last bus tour, Dold had been followed by a Dan Seals’ volunteer with a video camera.  (Dan Seals is who Bob Dold will be running against this November). 

         The mention of video-taping a politician made me think of a video I had seen on Youtube of Bob Etheridge.  In it a student asks Etheridge a question about whether or not he “fully supports the Obama agenda.”  Etheridge immediately asks, “who are you?” multiple times, and finally grabs the student by the arm and refuses to let go.  He then takes the phone of the student and even grabs him by the neck.  To me, after watching the video, it looked and sounded like the Congressman had assaulted this student for no apparent reason.  But after thinking twice about media, I’m not so sure.

         As the audience of this Youtube video all I can see is the one-minute video that the person who posted chooses to show.  It could be that the poster of the video had been following Etheridge around for days.  It could be that those students had been sitting outside of Congress and Etheridge’s home, constantly asking him questions or trying to annoy him.  It could be that they were just waiting for him to lose his temper and do something like “assault” them, like what happened.  Or it could be the complete opposite, that they were innocent students who merely asked the Congressman a question after a tough day and he just blew up at them.  I have no idea, or no way of finding out.

   This is exactly what we were talking about in American Studies.  Just like Mr. O'Connor said in his blog post about the potential Koran burning, when he agreed with Jimmy Fallows, that the, "media corrupts political discussions by deliberately polarizing and thereby cheapening political discussions."  In this case it could be the students deliberately showing Etheridge in a bad light.  The media skews everything we see, all that we as the public see is that one-minute snippet.  How do we know if what we see is the truth?  

I Don't Like Cats Either...

Our first assignment in American Studies was to piece together the life of our "dead" teacher, Mr. Bolos.  But the assignment wasn't really about how much we could find out that was correct, it was more of how to do research and work together as well as back up the information we found with multiple sources.  As we were doing this, I wondered what it would be like if someone tried to piece together my life based on random possessions of mine.

As I was writing down that I should do some research on Mr. Bolos in my assignment notebook, I saw a doodle from when I had been bored previously that day.  It was of a dog, and it made me smirk.  I am not a good artist; it was a standard dog that my friend had taught me how to draw in second grade.  Just a few circles jumbled together with some lines for claws and half-ovals for eyes, and ears that look like hair from the 1960s.  

Anybody who didn't know me would have assumed that I am a dog-lover, or at least somebody who likes dogs, because what other kind of person would doodle a dog in their assignment notebook?  Maybe it was my dog, or a friend's dog, or a dog that I had always dreamed of having and hoped to get in the future.  So someone would have guessed that I liked dogs, based solely on the fact that I had drawn one in my notebook.

However, if that person were to interview my family or some of my closest friends, then that person would be beyond confused.  Because all of those people would tell you that I do not like dogs.  They wouldn't be able to tell you why, even I'm not quite sure.  It might be because I never had a dog growing up, or because dogs always bark when they see me, or maybe even because my cousins' dog bit off my favorite dolls' arm when I was little.  

The point is that you can't assume things immediately and know them to be correct when you're assumption is only based on one source.  I think that this is what Mr. Bolos and Mr. O'Connor were trying to show us with our first assignment, that it is necessary to gather a variety of sources to prove a point.

Duke Basketball

Both the men's and women's basketball programs at Duke University in Durham, North Carolina are well-known for being superb.  Most college basketball fans either love or hate Duke.  I am definitely one of the numerous people who loves Duke basketball.