Six word paper? I wish

Pick your poison, both mean stress.

Genius? Not So Much

       The thought was, quite simply, that it might not be going to far to say that Clive was... an idiot. An idiot. It was a term he had applied to many others in his lifetime, most recently his former best friend. A word he had never dared associate with himself. But now, looking back on all he had accomplished in such a short time, idiot really seemed like the appropriate word. Not so long ago Clive had lived a simple and happy life; working on his latest masterpiece whilst enjoying the spoils of the cultured class. But it had not been enough. He wanted a higher status, a greater legacy. He wanted everyone to remember his name. And maybe they would now, just not for the right reasons. He thought of his house which might appear in a documentary film someday. An expose about how the desire for fame leads to ruin. Or perhaps how a relatively stable man managed to go down in flames in a matter of days: "The Clive Linley Story: From Composer to Clown."  Looking back, his errors seemed rather obvious. If only the average person was blessed with foresight, rather than hindsight. He had known that the tune at the end of his symphony sounded familiar. The echo of something greater. Something, he assumed, that he would create. That he would will into being. Too bad someone had beaten him to the punch a few centuries ago. At the very least, he would not have to bear witness the public reaction when they heard Clive Linley's pathetic Millennial Symphony. But why, oh why, had he not found his final interaction with Vernon suspicious? He thought it only natural that Vernon, the flea of society, would want to reconcile with the man on the cusp of icon status. He had been so very eager to enact his own plan of vengeance that he had ignored the very obvious signs of Vernon's identical plan. And now he was dead. Dead. With no one to care that he was. No friend to retrieve his remains. No one to write his biography. Yes, idiot sounded just about right.    

 Beethoven who?

Dear Anyone...

        Text messages are great: convenient, simple, and to the point. Can you believe that people used to talk to each other? Or worse yet, write letters to each other. Yeah, I know, gross. So when I found an old shoebox containing letters my grandfather had received in the 1950s and 60s, I was naturally curious. How did these poor people communicate back in the Stone Age before texts? You can imagine my surprise when I found that the letters were funny, interesting, and touching, even decades later. For instance, Mike, one of my grandpa's college friends, worked in the Marine Corps. In a letter dated June 2, 1957, Mike wrote, "Professor Ed Paul once stated that our class had only two interests- sex and athletics. At the time I wittingly suggested that we really didn't care for athletics." Despite the fact that this letter is more than 50 years old, I still laughed out loud when I read it. And even though Mike was clearly trying to be funny throughout his letter, he still managed to sound deep and profound without really trying. He described his training for the position of first Lieutenant and said, "I do have 44 men to lead. Or should I say experiment with. They play victim while I learn to be a leader of men." The phrase "leader of men" really struck me for some reason. Beneath Mike's joking exterior, I could sense he felt a lot of responsibility in caring for his men. Another one of my grandpa's friends worked at a Goodyear plant in Java, Indonesia. At the time, the Indonesians wanted to annex West New Guinea which the Dutch has possession of, thus leading to fighting and riots. Fred wrote of the events,”So we now have a country that is potentially the third richest country on Earth facing hunger and political chaos. Also I'm a little angry that the U.S. abstained from voting in the U.N." I had never even heard of this event before. The last place I expected to learn about an important international incident was in a letter to my grandpa. The first hand account is so much more affecting than the impersonal news stories that dominate the news today. Reading all of these letters made me sad that letter-writing seems to be a dying art. I am sure the rate of correspondence was a lot slower than in today's age; however, a letter conveys so much more depth and personality than simply shooting someone a text. A person has to actually sit down and plan out what to say and how to say it.

Song Banter

    For those of you who froze in terror when Ms. Serensky announced her new song policy for the Blog Banter Show (and I know there are a lot of you), I have the solution. Like anything in English class, avoiding embarrassment only requires a little preparation. I have adapted a few lines of five popular songs into a blog-appropriate format. Feel free to use any of my suggestions. And if you have any additional ideas please share for the good of the AP English community.

 

1. "Boys Boys Boys" by Lady Gaga

"Boys boys boys

We like boys in ca-ars

Boys boys boys

Buy us drinks in ba-ars"                                          

     
Blog Version:
"Blogs  blogs blog
Listen to Blog Banter
Blogs blogs blogs
Wednesdays and Frida-ays"

2. "Yellow Submarine" by The Beatles

"We all live in a yellow submarine

Yellow submarine, yellow submarine

We all live in a yellow submarine

Yellow submarine, yellow submarine"

Blog Version:     

"We all live for Bobbie's Blog Banter

Bobbie's Blog Banter, Bobbie's Blog Banter

We all live for Bobbie's Blog Banter

Bobbie's Blog Banter, Bobbie's Blog Banter"

Or if you prefer:

"I can't believe you are making me sing

Making me sing, making me sing
I can't believe you are making me sing
Making me sing, making me sing"

3. "Beverly Hills" by Weezer
"Beverly Hills - That's where I want to be! (Gimme Gimme)
Living in Beverly Hills...
Beverly Hills - Rolling like a celebrity! (Gimme Gimme)
Living in Beverly Hills..."

Blog Version:
"Bobbie's Banter-I want her to mention me! (Banter Banter)
Blogging for AP English...

Bobbie's Banter-Hope she thought that mine was funny! (Banter Banter)

Blogging in Chagrin Falls schools"

4. "Don"t Stop the Music" by Rihanna

"I just can't refuse it
Like the way you do this
Keep on rockin' to it
Please don't stop the
Please don't stop the
Please don't stop the music" 

Blog Version: 

"I just can't stop typing

Gettin' carpal tunnel

Must get on the banter

Please don't stop the
Please don't stop the
Please don't stop the blogging" 

5. "Crazy" by Gnarls Barkley

"I remember when, I remember, I remember when I lost my mind
There was something so pleasant about that phase.
Even your emotions had an echo
In so much space [...]

Does that make me crazy

Does that make me crazy

Does that make me crazy

Probably"

 Blog Version:

"I remember when, I remember, I remember when I wrote my first blog

There was something so special about that day.

Even dared to use passive voice once

With so much freedom

I just like to write blogs

I just like to write blogs

I just like to write blogs

So crazy"

 

 

The Blogging Chronicles

        As the blog project nears an end, I cannot help but feel a little nostalgic. I expected this “fun” assignment to act as another form of AP English takeover in our lives. However, this experience really has been fun. I found it extremely interesting to see how everyone slowly grew into their blogs. We all started off rather self-conscious, but then people found some angle that worked for them and started to write truly intelligent and witty pieces. But on a more personal level, the blogging felt like a sort of cathartic experience for me. It gave me a place to rant about a topic that I felt passionately about (see the Demitri blog). If I did not understand some concept, I could work through it with my writing. Not all of my blogs were exactly stellar. Some of my posts, especially the earlier ones, felt forced and did not sound like me. However, as time went on, I grew more comfortable and familiar with the format and my blog took on a somewhat quirky tone that I think suits me. Furthermore, I tend to “over think” everything, so this project gave me a chance to get my ideas down simply without over analyzing every word. Most significantly, I think the project has taught us how to apply what we have learned in a more real world sense. Like it or not, the world is becoming more and more virtual. We read newspapers online and carry around electronic books. The future of writing is blogging. Bloggers are quickly turning into our generation’s satirists, comedians, playwrights, and bestselling authors (Julie and Julia started as a blog). We have slaved over the application of literary devices for a year and half, but the average American does not want to read the quote-analysis-quote-analysis format. Therefore, our blogs take what we have learned about analysis and combine it with a creative twist. Maybe none of us will ever go on to sell our blogs for millions or dollars, but you never know.  

Can't Escape

Spoiler Alert: Do not read this blog if you have never the movie Psycho and wish for the plot to remain a surprise.
             Insanity follows me everywhere I go. Over the past few weeks my life has been filled with discussion of insanity through One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest and Shutter Island. Simultaneously, I myself get closer to insanity with the data sheet and the approach of semester exams. Perhaps I have some subconscious desire to keep the insanity theme going in my life, because I decided to watch the movie Psycho on Friday night for the first time ever. Despite knowing the ending, the movie still held some terrifying twists and Anthony Perkins delivered the performance of a lifetime with his creepy, unstable, and truly sick character. Although the plots of Shutter Island and Psycho have virtually nothing in common, the main characters could not be more similar. Teddy, or Andrew, found his three children dead and then killed his wife. He could not live with the guilt and sadness of the situation so he invented an entirely new scenario with himself as the hero. Norman Bates, a young man who runs a small and lonely motel with his "mother," faced similar circumstances. He lived alone with his demanding mother for the majority of his young life. However, when his mother took a lover, he could not deal with the jealously so he killed them both. Unable to bear the truth, he recreated his life with his mother. He used her actual skeleton and dressed it up in her clothes. He would imitate her voice and have conversations with himself. And whenever Norman felt attraction to another woman, his "mother" would take control. He would dress up as his mother, grab a giant knife and slaughter the innocent female. Both characters had very serious mental problems. Both of them did something terrible that they could not live with, so they both made alternative realities to live in. The major difference involved how the characters ended up. Andrew seemed to come out of his delusions more or less. Although one could interpret the end in multiple ways, I think he seems to realize that he is a menace to society and willingly walks off to his death, or at least the death of his conscious self. Norman, on the other hand, allows the insanity to completely engulf him. The mother persona overtakes him so much that Norman "no longer exists," as the psychiatrist explains. The final image of Norman with an unbelievably creepy smile suggests that he will never again come close to sanity. Both the movies left me with unsettling feelings, but for entirely different reasons. I could not believe that I had grown to trust and believe a character that seemed so completely unstable. It really warped my perceptions and left me confused. In Psycho, the fear comes from the fact that no one can ever get through to Norman. His insanity runs far too deep to ever be saved. I feared him and found him extremely creepy, but I could not bring myself to hate him. He did horrible things, but he truly did not seem to understand because he had genuine mental problems. This movie truly made me realize that there is no easy solution when it comes to dangerous mentally ill people. How can you punish someone who does not understand why they are being punished? The only option to keep others and themselves safe seems isolation from society, but we have already seen that that leads to inhuman treatment. So what can we do?
  Norman in his final scene
  Norman's mother

Why Am I Scared?

         I will probably never visit a remote island where the entire population consists of mental patients and staff. I do not plan on working as a federal marshal or with the criminally insane. I cannot realistically see myself in any situation presented in the movie Shutter Island. So why do I find this movie so disconcertingly real? First of all, the whole "who can you trust?" and "what is actually real?" theme really messes with my mind. But that did not disturb me most of all. Whether or not Ted turns out to be a mental patient trapped in his own delusions, the movie still introduces the interesting concept of mental bias. People who have mental illnesses (or if others claim that they have them) have virtually no reliability in the eyes of society. As soon as someone calls another's sanity into question, they immediately lose some, if not all, creditability. A group of physiatrist with clipboards is significantly more dangerous than most weapons. Weapons can physically harm you; however, if someone starts to doubt your sanity, then that calls everything else into question. Friends, family member, and even you may start to believe you are insane. I cannot imagine a lonelier feeling than knowing you are sane when everybody else disagrees and will not even take you seriously. In One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, the reader gets to know their characters personalities. We did not think of them only in terms of their mental illness. I never doubted the truthfulness of anything Harding or McMurphy said. Bromden has delusional episodes, but one could easily tell when he entered that state. Shutter Island shows us the patients from an entirely different point of view; insane, dangerous, and difficult to trust. And it also challenges the audience to decide who to trust and what is real, leading to some pretty confusing questions: What if this happened to you?