I Am From

I am from the wood burning stove,
from sunscreen and ponytails.
I am from sunny yellow paint
and splintered dock boards.
I am from algae
the monkey tree
whose lightning struck limbs I remember
as if they were my own.

I'm from green milk and blonde hair,
from Michael Allen and Patti Jo.
I'm from leaf piles and Mickey waffles
and from candlelight.

I'm from Czy nie ma zadnych uszy? and No whining at the beach!
and you are my sunshine.
I'm from streamer canopies.
I'm from Ceder Rapids and Lake Charlotte,
hot dish and strawberry jam.
From Silver Bridge,
and one red rose.
Pictures of the past,
In dusty frames along on the wall.

I am from memories.

Writers Autobiography

We all have those certain stories. The ones that make us stop and think, that change our view of the world. The ones that reach out and connect with us.

Words are so indescribably powerful. I’m not sure when I started to recognise the vast effects that words can have but since then I have been slightly obsessed with that effect.

I wish I could create meaningful stories. I want to create the stuff that makes people think, that makes them feel something. I just think it would be so incredible to open someone's eyes or connect with them so soundly through words.

I respect authors so much. I have too many thoughts that I could never dream of putting into words. If you can do that, and express yourself in that way, you are so cool.

I guess that’s where I want to be as a writer. But here is where I really am.

My Brother

Once upon a time livd a girl named Lily and a boy named Tyler. Lily was 6 Tyler was 9. Lily wantid to be a fairy princess but tyler thout that was just stupid.

(A telling piece of writing from my third grade journal)

For a long time, writing was more of a chore than anything else for me, just another homework assignment. Maybe that’s because until recently, my writing had no meaning.

Writing in school seems to be normally centered around just getting words down, no matter what those words mean. From this idea emerges the dreaded writing prompt (at least dreaded for me). Writing prompts are busy work. I never understood what we could ever get out of “ Write about what you did over the weekend.” and “Write about your favorite season.”

In some grades of elementary school we had a different writing prompt for every day of the week. Let’s just say that this did nothing to improve my view of writing. I would huff and write another meaningless paragraph.

As I got older, the writing slowly changed. In late elementary school we did mini book reports, not a whole lot more exciting in my opinion. Rewriting a book in a few sentences requires no thought, so I had no interest.

It wasn’t that I didn’t like to learn, I love to learn by reading, but when it came time to write, I got really bored really fast.

In middle school the writing got harder, science fair and history day challenged me to write longer papers. Once again longer papers did not correspond to more thought, it just made for more busywork.

In seventh grade we had to write short stories. These stories could be about anything you could possibly think of. Mine ended up being about a drawing that came to life. This just goes to show my lack of creativity when it comes to writing. There are so  many other stories about the exact same concept.

This is just another one of the problems I have with writing. I’m not good at thinking of original concepts for stories. Maybe that’s because I only ever write research papers or maybe it’s just because I am not creative.

In eighth grade something odd happened. We got an assignment to write a 300 word blog. For one thing, 300 words was outrageous at the time, I had no idea how I was supposed to make it happen. Then we were told that the topic was truth. That was all. It was so odd to get to write about something so unspecific. There are so many different ways you can go with just one word as the requirement. I had never experienced that kind of freedom in assignments before.

The blogs continued and I realized that maybe, for the first time ever, I was proud of what I was writing. I feel like the less structured requirements gave me room to think and put something into the writing that I cared about.

Writing became more exciting when real thought was finally involved. Research papers can help you learn but they don’t seem like real writing to me, chewing up and spitting out other peoples ideas and facts can only get you so far.

Once I figured out how to put my thoughts into words and put what I’m passionate about down, that’s when I started getting writing that I was proud of.

Besides the blogs, I also realized that I like writing poetry. I know that most people really hate it but I like the way that poetry can be more emotional than regular writing. I like the imagery in poetry and the way it flows. This is the only kind of writing I have ever been able to do for fun.

I realized that the best way for me to write is to put feeling into it. Just like it’s easier to talk about things that you are passionate about, It’s also easier to write when you are feeling something. I have grown so much in my writing in the last few years, hopefully I can continue to improve and create something that connects with others.

Are you you?- Hamlet Blog

Who are you?

This is an extremely simple question with an extremely complex answer. How are you supposed to define a person's entire existence in one short response? You may not even fully know who you are, that makes explaining it to another person that much more difficult. If you're not sure who you are here's a little tip.

You are not you. Yes, you read that right. You are not you. Well, you are partly you. Actually, maybe you are even mostly you. But not really. Never really you. This may seem like a depressing Dr. Seuss poem but it really does have a point.

You must be wondering by now, 'If i'm not me, then who am I?'.  Your personality is a patchwork quilt of all the people you are close to, care about, and look up too. If you see them do something admirable, you want to do that too. And if they tell you to do something differently, you obey, because you want to please them.

Sometimes the things that others tell you to think conflict with what you would otherwise think. These ideas create a contrast in your personality. Sometimes these conflicts are small. Other times they are more consequential.

Like in the famous play Hamlet by Shakespeare. It is in (Extremely) short, about a boy (Hamlet) trying to find and kill the man who murdered his father.

Hamlet faces plenty of struggles but many of them stem from the fact that he has so many people telling him what to do and think. Hamlet conflicts with his mother. He is still grieving for his father, but his mom wants him to stop wearing black clothes and get on with his life. He is also suspicious of his uncle, the new king. His mother disagrees and marries the uncle.

The ghost of Hamlet's father visits him and tells him to get revenge. Hamlet must kill his father's killer. This is the source of lots of the internal conflict Hamlet has.

The problem is, Hamlet thinks too much. Or he thinks too much to kill a person without reason. He likes to really think things through before proceeding. That's a problem because it's hard for him to think through killing someone and end up with the impression that it's a good idea. He is disappointed with himself because he wants to do this for his father, but he is having trouble.

"Why, what an ass am I! This is most brave,
That I, the son of a dear father murdered,
Prompted to my revenge by heaven and hell,
Must, like a whore, unpack my heart with words
And fall a-cursing like a very drab,
A scullion! Fie upon 't, foh!"
(2.2. 560-65).

Hamlet starts to interpret this indecision as cowardice. He thinks that the reason he is having a hard time killing is because he is afraid. He begins to dislike his thoughtfulness. I think that he starts to think that his emotions and thought are more of a barrier than a helpful thing.

"Give me that man
That is not passion's slave, and I will wear him
In my heart's core, ay, in my heart of heart,
As I do thee"
(3.2. 64-67).

He also compares himself to a prince from another city, Fortinbras. Fortinbras is Hamlet's same age but is seemingly much more successful and more of what you would expect a price to be. He is recklessly brave, the opposite of Hamlet, and what Hamlet wishes to be. Hamlet wishes he were braver so that he could kill the murderer and not end up feeling guilty or afraid.

"Rightly to be great
Is not to stir without great argument,
But greatly to find quarrel in a straw
When honor's at the stake"
(4.4. 52-55)


Indecision comes from others more than yourself. It's too easy to doubt yourself when someone else questions you. Conflicting elements in your personality are often between your own opinion, and what others are pressuring you to think. Hamlet dealt with this pressure from others badly, and he ultimately became someone he was not.

Found Poem- These Are Our Kids

Forced

Bullied

Homeless

These are our kids

forced to fight

9 million dollars

to find something better

to take real action

These are our kids

support extends

Caught in the emotion

we are absolutely

grateful 

Original article

Justice

Remember when you were little and you drew on your brothers face while he was sleeping (because it was going to be so funny!) but then you got caught. You had to sit in the corner for like 5 minutes and it totally sucked. Your mom tells you to be good and then lets you go play again.

As soon as you are old enough to really understand anything, your parents want you to know the importance of being good. To do this, they simply punish you for being bad. That is the mini justice system within your family. As your life continues you are told more and more often to be good. And soon it's not just "be good.", it's "be good or else.". 

If you keep being bad the punishment gets worse and worse. The small justice system of your family turns into a national law so that now if you break the rules, you face jail time instead of the corner. 

This is the type of justice that is most familiar to me. Be good or else. In Plato's The Republic the idea that "Justice is the art that gives good to friends and evil to enemies." seems like a simple (and more perfect sounding) way to describe our system. Our society mostly focuses on the punishment part of the statement. We give evil to enemies (bad people) but we don't really give good to friends (good people.)

Does this system of punishing the bad work all the time? No. But I don't think any system really could. True justice can never be truly achieved. What one person believes to be just and true can be totally different than what another person believes. No justice system could ever work flawlessly because no two people could ever agree on what is just. 

But even if we can never achieve true justice, we could definitely get closer to an ideal. 

For every dollar a man makes in the united states a woman makes only 77 cents. Two people are doing the exact same job, they have the same level of expertise and education, but one of them gets payed 23% less. Because she happens to have one more X chromosome. What's worse is that a colored woman gets paid even less. Hispanic woman are paid at 53% of white men's wage. That doesn't sound so just to me.

I can't pinpoint the precise definition of justice, but to me it has a lot to do with fairness. Nothing about this system of payment seems fair.

So society teaches us all our lives to be good and if we don't, we will be punished. This system stays with us our entire lives. Our parents were taught this way and their parents were probably too. Because there is no perfect way to achieve justice we just have to keep expanding and get as close as we can.

What I learned this year

I learned some stuff in english this year. It was pretty cool.

First I found out how to make a website and embed links, a bunch of computer stuff. I learned that truth is different for different people. My values and upbringing are different than yours so my truth is different than yours. Happiness and success are connected. The ultimate success you can achieve is happiness. I learned how important it is to enjoy and cherish your life. "Live deep and suck all the marrow of life" I didn't even have to hide in the woods to figure it out. 

I learned that we definitely need more slacker teachers, (I also learned how to use satire). I learned how to use logical fallacies (If anyone has ever called you a stupidhead bologna face you are a victim of Personal Attack!). I learned how to use sources to back up my arguments. I found out that we are all going to fail in life without weighted grades (yay). I found that a good man is hard to find. I learned that leaders are absolute pigs (Mostly Napoleon but, you know).

I learned that power can be very dangerous and can change a person. No matter how good the leader, there will always be people uncontent. "Ye gods, it doth amaze me" how much one can learn in one year! I realized that dystopias are scary and sad, mostly because of the truth in them. I also saw how much power books, or the knowledge within them hold. "(Books) stitched the patches of the universe together into one garment for us." I learned that our own thoughts are gifts and our self awareness is crucial.

I learned that there are no perfect utopias, and that there could never be one. I learned that first impressions are really inconsistent and that humans are very judgemental creatures. I learned how to do good firsthand research and work hard.

I learned so much. But the most important thing to me was that I learned how awesome english can be. I have always loved english class but this year was really the best I could imagine. I really love being able to look deeply at things and find hidden meanings. I learned how amazing class discussions can be when everyone is thinking freely and talking about it together. I learned that really cool things happen when we are allowed to just think, and voice our opinions.

I learned how much I love my Quest class and all the people in it. It's a place where I actually fit in. I am going to have a really hard time leaving it all next year. I learned how much of a difference a teacher can make. Because McCallum is kind of amazing. He makes class so much fun, it's somewhere I want to be. I don't even know how to put it into words. Thank you Mr. McCallum.

So, I guess I learned some things. I also learned that I am really cheesy. Sorry.

First Impressions

 The idea that you can tell a lot about a person just by looking at them is very interesting to me. How can you gather so much from just appearance? Does our appearance say more about ourselves than we know? That is why I decided to research: How accurate are our first impressions?

My opinion on the topic before I started my research was mixed, I couldn't decide if I thought that these impressions could be accurate. It seems like our impressions can be right sometimes, but other times they are completely off. 

To start my research I looked up what the main factors are in making first impressions. I found that we make decisions about people within 7 seconds of meeting them. Our impressions are based mostly off of non-verbal cues. Appearance can quickly outweigh anything that you say. I also saw that bad impressions make a much more lasting impression than good. So if you meet someone new who is really mean, it would take a lot of niceness from them to win back a good reputation.

The reason we make first impressions goes back a long time. When ancient humans met new people, they had to decide very quickly if that new person was safe. Our judging instincts now are from survival instincts back then. 

Online sources conflicted on how accurate our impressions are, so I decided to do some of my own testing. I showed a group of test subjects an image of a person and told them to write down their first impressions of that person. I did this twice with two different images of two different people. 

My results were mixed. On the first image less than 1/3 of the assumptions made were accurate. The test subjects described this person as wild, uneducated and a creeper. In reality this person has two design patents and has designed for Master Lock and General Motors. It seemed like everyone was describing the opposite of what this person was really like.

Image 1

Image 2

 On the second image more than 3/4 of the assumptions were correct. She was described as friendly, outgoing and athletic. That was correct. In this round almost everything that was said about her was true.

After the confusingly inconclusive survey, I went to ask some experts on their opinions. Jeff Erickson and Barb Peterson both do job interviews as part of their jobs (in separate businesses). I interviewed them because first impressions play a big role in their jobs. You might only meet a person briefly before deciding if you are going to hire them or not. This makes the first impression you make really important. Both of them told me that they tried not to rely on their first impressions too much. 

"I believe the more time you spend with a person, the more you will get a complete picture of their thoughts, character, ability, etc. "

~Jeff Erickson

"The method I try to follow is - keep an open mind and learn more about the person. There is a lot of truth to 'looks are only skin deep.' "

~Barb Peterson

So, from what I looked at our first impressions can be very inconsistent. We will probably always make first impressions, it's an instinct, and it happens automatically. Even if we can't stop making these impressions, we can stop relying on them so much. If you give people a chance and get to know them, they could be very different from what you originally thought they would be.