I-days are in two days right now. For those students in clubs its a time of little stress and a lot of excitment. I've been at lane for four years now and it never ceases to amaze me how involved everyone is with the clubs they belong to. I also know that compared to other schools that have ethnic clubs and hold international days, lane definitely tops all of them. Only at lane is there a line out the door and past the stadium from the back of the auditorium to see 31 different dances that represent countries all over the world. that also goes to show the type of social environment we experience at school. I wouldn't be surprised if there was at least one student from every country in the world here at Lane, but I am surprised at the amount of different ethnic relationships there are. I remember in eighth grade I had three really good friends, one who was irish, one who was half chinese and half irish, and one who was ethiopian. My mom referred to us as "the united nations." It's funny because to us this type of ethnic cohesiveness is normal, but I know of so many schools where hispanic people only hang out with other hispanics, African-Americans only hang out with other african-americans etc. I'm not saying theres anything wrong with having friends who you share a lot of similarities with culturally but I don'tthink it't your view of the world to only your nationality.
ACT, SAT, ISATs, PARCCS, there are so many standardized tests now I'm surprised they can still come up with names for them. These last two weeks all the juniors i know have been stressed and sleep-deprived over the ACTs. Today I realized how scared I am to take them. When one of my friends asked me why my other friend chimed in "Because it's like your whole feature depends on one test. That's scary." That's when i realized how ridiculous it is; that where I go to college, which pretty much determines what I'll end up doing with my life rests on the score I'll get on one test. It's also kinda sad, that all these kids have been prepping for this one test, for months, some of them almost a year. I know kids who are sophomores that have been taking ACT prep classes since the beginning of January and they won't even take the test for another year. My mom, who's a teacher said that when it was time to take the ACT when she was in high school it was not nearly as big a deal as it is now. I attributed it to the fact that now, there is so much pressure to go to college and society makes it seems that that's the only way to do well in life. I understand how important the ACT is, but realizing how much of an impact it'll have on the rest of my life...that's the scary part.
Right now, I 'm sitting in A.P. Spanish class because i've decided to do my third blog for the quarter today and i figured why not get it out of the way right now? I really wasn't sure what exactly I wanted to write about. I mean it's only fourth period on a Monday and aside from the depression of being back in school for a full week and the annoyance I feel from having to deal with people in the hallway there's not much to write about. I could write about the song i'm listening to write now; it's called Dad Says and it's by one of my favorite artist Emily Kinney. I definitely relate to the song because she wrote it about the relationships she has with boys, but if you actually listen to the song she's really talking about the relationship she has with her dad and how she dreamed it was something it wasn't. I've never been all that close to my dad, just because his dad was very cold with and I was his first child so he also didn't really know what he was doing. I guess I understand the concept she sings about. About wanting something and thinking it's there, but then something happens and you realize it's nothing like what you dreamt it was. don't get me wrong I love my dad and I'm sure he's doing the best he can considering he's never raised a teenage girl before and that he only has two sisters who are a lot older than him. I love my dad, I really do, but I'm not a daddy's girl and my sister is, so maybe, subconsciously, there is a part of me that wants to be. But honestly, I really don't know what I want...
Today I was trying to help my friend come up with a topic for her satire and we started talking about the dress code. The dress code in itself is a whole debate; for the students at Lane it’s usually something along the lines of “It’s 90 degrees outside, my classroom is 100 degrees and there is no air conditioner, I should be able to wear a tank top without worrying about the width of the straps!” However, a lot of people think those dress codes with strap width requirements and hemline lengths perpetuate a male-dominant culture and the rape culture ideology “Well did you see what she was wearing?” I whole-heartedly agree that that logic is no excuse for rape and that a girl’s clothing does not always exactly reflect her behavior, this got me thinking about the argument that dress codes are sexist. Now yes there are dress codes for boys, but they are not nearly as long or specific as they are for girls. Just receiving the dress code sheet after buying turnabout tickets I immediately noticed that there were only three rules for boys: one of them was that they were not allowed to wear jeans. And while I agree that there are certain outfits you wear to a music festival and certain outfits you wear to school, why is it okay for a boy to have his pants sagging with his boxers exposed ( I’ve seen it in the hallway) but not for me to wear a skirt that doesn’t go all the way down to my mid-thigh?
Today in my APUSH class were assigned to read excerpts from documents discussing political machines and corruption in the mid to late 1800s. then later in the day we read a satire mocking the government's choices regarding poverty in Great Britain in the mid 1700s. While I didn't know that "a Modest Proposal" was a satire was originally a satire aimed at the government when I first read it, it began to make a little bit more sense once Ms. Damlos explained it. Either way it seemed that the topic of politics kept coming up all day; with our upcoming mayoral election how could it not? Then when I got into my father's car after school he began talking about Rahm Emanuel and his chances in the election. I came home thinking about percentages and the chances of a mayoral run-off since that what my dad had been talking about when realized that politics, has been and still is a huge part of our everyday lives. I mean we do live in "the windy city" and Chicago is notorious for its political machines. However, we hardly ever see just how much the politics that go on in our city affect us as teenagers, but they really do. The mayor elected in a few weeks could completely change the way our school system works and sets the precedent for future mayors: the mayors that'll be in office when we can vote and we will vote because we're upset about our property taxes. So whether its the 18th or 19th century or even today politics is everywhere and it always will be.
Last week in class we watched a video made by a group of young adults who were born into the millennial generation. This generation is falls specifically between 1982 through 2002. These are also children of the Baby Boomers, Generation X and born post Vietnam War, but pre-9/11. In the video the people talked about how "sorry" they were for all the things our generation is accused of being (lazy, entitled, spoiled) and doing (being violent, crashing the economy, crating technology that makes us antisocial). It's obvious that everyone in the video is being sarcastic, however watching the video got me thinking about how "Millennials" are perceived to older generations. My parents fall into Generation X, but most Millenial's parents are baby boomers. Either way, the Millennial generation is thought to be the generation that ruined America. Why though? Because when I was only four years old when 9/11 happened and i was only 9 when the economy crashed. Now older Millenials, people who are in their 20s or 30s are fighting wars they didn't start. Now I'm going to have to go to college and probably end up in a ridiculous amount of student debt, only to try to find a job that there is a limited number of thanks to the recession. Millennials, not matter how lazy or tech-orientated, our parents think we are, are probably the most resilient, ambitious, and innovative generation to date. We volunteer for wars we didn't start and had no say in, we manage to stay in school and go in to college and we've somehow managed to be a a generation of entrepreneurs with a new way to approach life (just look at Mark Zuckerburg). So yes, maybe as a Millennials we spend too much time on instagram and are somewhat isolated, but we're also strong (much more than our parents probably give us credit for) and there's no telling how much more we can accomplish.
Right now i'm sitting in class trying to type this post before the bell rings on a keyboard that won't seem to cooperate with my fingers. I seem to be misspelling all the words by adding P or F at the end of words. When I first decided to type my blog post right now, I was certain I could get it done, now after switching computers and having to fix everything I type i'm kind of doubtful. That what we were just working on too, a paper on the relationship between certainty and doubt. I personally feel as if the topic was one better fit to be in our notebooks and have a class discussion about than on an argumentative essay, but that's just me. after reading my two friend's essays for the peer review I found it was really interesting how my two friends found that doubt was good while my other's friends essay was the complete opposite. After reading just two I was certain that I was the only one who thought that you needed both certainty and doubt, but then my third friend wrote about had she felt certainty was better for a way a living. And a that point I was certainly doubtful that i was the only person in the whole English class who had taken the position I had. However, my friend Natalie wrote her essay on doubt, and while I read it thinking i didn't feel the same way about it as she did, she made one point that very much stuck out to me: "Nothing will be as bland as the things that accompany the boredom of great certainty." And after reading that I was again certainly doubtful that I would look at the relationship between certainty and doubt the same way.
In his “Mayor Rahm does his best Richard Nixon” (2014), Ben Javorsky discusses Chicago’s Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s public stance on recreational marijuana usage and compares him to former President Richard Nixon. Javorsky begins his column by quoting the mayor on his then recent public comment on his feelings about encouraging recreational marijuana smoking. He then uses many examples, such as Chicago’s famous music festival Lollapoolza, and other events held in the city to contradict the Mayor’s public opinion. He also compares the mayor to Richard Nixon, infamous for lying under oath while president. Javorsky uses humor and his personal experiences living in Chicago to explain the comparison between the two politicians, in order to prove Mayor Rahm Emanuel needs to be voted out of office and show readers how bad of a politician he is. Javorsky mainly uses and discusses his personal experiences living and growing up in Chicago to connect with his intended audience, who also are affected by the reign of Mayor Emanuel, fellow Chicago citizens.
While first reading the article I was more entertained by the sarcastic tone used by Javorsky, to explain Mayor Emanuel “pulling a Nixon” then anything else. My natural interest in politics and Javorsky’s clear dislike of the Mayor allowed the column to be much more relatable, as living in Chicago, I am also affected by the decisions the mayor makes. His use of sarcasm and dislike and disapproval of Mayor Emanuel and the decisions he makes becomes a part of his style the more columns he writes. While the column most likely wasn’t received well by those Chicago citizens who do support Rahm or those who are against recreational pot smoking, Javorsky wrote with understandable diction, not political, beat around the bush jargon, and even compared the mayor to Richard Nixon of all people. The purpose of the article, Javorsky displayed to me through this column, was not to please all of Chicago, but to expose the mayor and the classic Chicago politics he’s playing. Let not light see my black and deep desires.” Ms. Damlos has emphasized how important this line was in Macbeth. A perfect example of this would be how right now I’m at Mcfetridge Skate Center, waiting for my sister to finish tennis practice, and these boys won’t stop bouncing a tennis ball back and forth that keeps hitting me. My deep and black desire right now is to tell the boys to shut up and take their stupid tennis ball and throw it out the door into the street. Coincidently, while I was typing that the tennis ball hit me in the head. While I am irritated by these kids, I hope that the other parents waiting by the concession stand don’t notice the look I probably have on my face because I don’t want to seem mean. Well now the boys have moved towards the skating rink and I can barely here the bounce of the ball so now “my black and deep desires” are gone. While that was a really simple example of that line it did apply and after thinking about the line since class I understand why it would be so predominant in the literary world. We all have “black and deep desires” that we don’t wan “the light” or people to see or find out. We all have things that we shouldn’t want or have, but do. And we all say and definitely think things that we probably shouldn’t. But this line about deep and black desires hopefully being concealed by the light applies not only to literature, but also to everyday life, even in today’s world.
This is somewhat of weird week in English for us considering we won’t even be in class tomorrow. Anyway, our assignment, for basically the whole week, is to read the first act of Macbeth. Then today we talked about the history of England behind Macbeth. Even though I dread going to A.P.U.S.H this year and literally just stare at the clock the whole time, I found today’s class really interesting. Maybe it’s because to me, it wasn’t so much history we talked about, but politics, which I find to be incredibly fascinating. If you think about it, Chicago could be a little England. Now obviously, Rahm Emanuel isn’t going around chopping people’s head off because or they’re not catholic, or I guess in our case Jewish. However, I do think the idea of Henry the VIII wanting a son so badly to be his successor that he made his own religion does very much apply today to politics. You have Lisa Madigan who the Attorney General and her father Mike Madigan in the House of Representatives. Then there is Joe Berrios and his daughter Toni. You have Richard Daley, then Richard M. Daley, our mayor before Rahm. On an even larger scale there’s George Bush and then George W. Bush as president. I guess the point would be that even though Chicago isn’t a monarchy coming from a very politically involved household, I can say it very much is made of political machines and corruption just like England was during the English Renaissance. It also, in it’s own ways, has sons and daughter as successors; and while they won’t behead you if you don’t comply with the machine, they will cut you off and turn on you and I can say that from experience too.
|