FBLA - Gold Coast Sectionals (oops)

Future Business Leaders of America (FBLA) Gold Coast Sectional was held at Westlake High School. Hundreds of students showed up to participate in the section competition in the hope of advancing to state competition.  

The first day was spent at the Los Angeles zoo where a wild Michael Hall appeared looking at the camera (with a nice smile) every time I clicked the camera.   

Oh, look. A wild Michael Hall has suddenly appeared. Kudos to you Michael! We were waiting in line for Ephraim to get his slush-y. If you look close enough you'll notice Danielle and Hikaru!

The gang waits for the line for the cotton candy to thin out. 

We also spent a good amount of our time touring CSU Channel Islands. The modern, steel and glass, structure of  their library provides a huge contrast from the Spanish influenced buildings located on campus. 

"Don't take it personal, it's just business."

The schedule was made with major holes. Many members were left confused with the scheduling mishap. Those with two clashing events had to be guided throughout the whole day. 

Students, Michael Hall and Ephraim Rodriguez, were waiting intensely for their events to be called. The tension is evidently seen by Ephraim's body message. 

Creative Writing #1 (Rain) - incomplete

prompt: In a world where water is used as a global currency it rains again for the first time in thousands of years.

the woman felt it first, a foreign drop of water on her cheek, then another, and another, until the droplets dropped faster and faster still. the feeling of cool water upon her skin made her gasp. tears threatened to fall, and her lips, oh, how they quivered. she looked up, saw the beauty of rain for the very first time. she was drenched now, from head to toe, her clothes clung to her, but she had no care. this was it, it was unheard of, to actually see it, feel it, experience rain for the very first time. she crumpled to the ground and looked up at the sky, laid on the mud with her eyes wide open, staring, just staring. she was a dreamer, but this, this was something even she didn’t think, dream, would ever occur. she first heard about “rain” when she was in her history class. she had been doodling on her notebook instead of taking notes, eyes glazed over, figure slumped against her chair. she had only been half listening until her teacher, an old grouch, started talking about rain, actual water falling from the sky. her interest had peaked when she heard the words “water” and “falling” and “sky” in the same sentence. money falling from the sky? that’s even more crazy than money growing on trees! arms raised all over the classroom, she remembers it like it was yesterday, how everyones minds had been sparked by the topic of rain and how her own had been buzzing in wonderment. a flurry of questions were asked.

“so what happened? why did it suddenly stop raining?”

“was it global warming? i heard from my parents that thousands of years ago people didn’t have to wear masks, or not all of them anyways, to breathe”

“was it some crazy scientist? government plan gone wrong?”

the teacher had been stunned by the sudden interest. who knew the topic of rain, out of all things, would be the one to bring his students out of their stupor? encouraged by their fascination with the subject, the teacher had gone on a long winded tangent about the history and the biology of rain. the way he talked about it seemed like a fluke at the time. the woman had her mind made up; believe when proof is given, but until then, it will only be make belief.

now, as the woman lay still, the feeling of rain on her skin, she laughed.

she laughed out of disbelief; eyes clenched tight, body shivering from a combination of cold and awe, she laughed until her voice turned raw.

if a passerby saw her then and there, drenched with water and mud, they would have probably stopped, marveling at the sight. there was just something so beautiful about the sight. woman and nature at one with one another.

maybe it was the fact that her mouth was quirked up a sliver.

how her body was slack against the muddied ground.

or maybe it was her eyes, squeezed so tightly that years worth of smiles, frowns, and anger showed.

how her eyes and her nose crinkled with delight.

if a passerby saw her on the ground, he would have stared. marveled at her beauty, but even the passerby wouldn’t have seen the tears running down her face. the tears streamed down her cheeks like a waterfall, rushing down as fast as a current. one won’t be able to tell the tears from the rain.

however, she was not crying out of despair, no. far from it. she was crying out of awe, wonderstruck from the imagery she was experiencing. there was just something so majestic and eerily beautiful about the pounding of the rain, the mud and the water and the cold.

a shiver that ran through the woman’s core reminded her of the time. to her, it had felt eternity. just basking in the feeling of rain, momentarily forgetting her current predicament. it had felt good, too good. she had to face reality now, stop day dreaming away. time is precious, but also a scarcity she couldn’t waste.

the woman slowly got up, her arms dragging on the floor, body moving on autopilot. she needed to go home before it got dark or else her mother was going to skin her alive.             

         

(totally incomplete, continuing later, i’m planning for this to be at least 800-1,000 words ; yes i will edit and capitalize things later, i just got lazy)

Book Recommendations:

In AP Gov. and Politics, Mr. Nesper told us about his book club. A group of people essentially decide on a novel to read. They read in the same pace, analyze the novel, and discuss it. Nesper asked his students for a book recommendation, genre be damned! Here's mine: 

• The Color Purple - Alice Walker   

• Historical fiction? Heartbreak? This novel speaks of the struggle of human morale through the gruesome, yet realistic, life of an African-American girl. 

• Fahrenheit 451 - Ray Bradbury 

• If you enjoyed Brave New World, then you'll enjoy this as well. Guy Montag, the protagonist, inwardly and outwardly questions society. In a world where firefighters burn books, Montag (a firefighter) goes against everything he has been conditioned to do by saving books he was meant to burn.

• The Book Thief - Marcus Zusak 

• Historical Fiction? Young Adult? World War II, a girl becomes fostered by an unlikely couple living in Munich, Germany (the center of the Nazi Party). She learns to read from an unlikely teacher, a Jew they have sheltered in the basement of their home. 

• The Things They Carried - Tim O'Brien

• Stories of war. Stories of hope and fear and death. A novel that compiles stories of the reality of war (before, during, and after).

• Throne of Glass - Sarah J Maas

• Series? Young-Adult? Fantasy? Kick-ass FEMALE ASSASSIN PROTAGONIST? That is all.

Dulce Et Decorum Est (POEM #1)

1. Title: Dulce Et Decorum Est

1. Without looking up the meaning of the phrase, one can distinguish the word “dulce,” as it is common adjective when describing candy, meaning sweet. “Decorum,” also relatively easy to define due primarily to background knowledge and prior vocabulary experience, means etiquette. So, the title can be crudely translated as something sweet and etiquette. This poem values that title, as it is a poem about fighting for your country. It is sweet, to honor yourself through the courageous actions of fighting for your home, for your people, and for your country. It is otherwise your duty.

2. Paraphrase:

1. Soldiers fight in a war for the sake of their country. The fatigue etched deep within them, the horrors of bloodshed and the dwindling light of a candle. But it is sweet and satisfying to honor one’s self to death in exchange for the safety of one’s country.

3. Connotation:

1. “like old beggars under sacks” - fatigue, dwindling morale
2. “all went lame; all blind” - loss of integrity, loss of form (sunken bodies, trudging)
3. “hoots” - gunshot noises
4. “saw him drowning” - dying soldier, choking on blood

4. Attitude
1. The tone is somber, the way the poem vividly describes war speaks in that account. But there is an inquisitive attitude that underlies the somber tone. It peaks in the way the poem talks about war, the gruesome and grotesque truth about war. It belittles the way war is often time interpreted as something sort-of romantic. It’s similar to how living in a small town gets over romanticized. People don’t see that living in a small town isn’t as romantic as it seems (lack of diversity, lack of acceptance). War isn’t romantic, it’s not “sweet” and “right,” it’s blood and gore and death.

5. Shift

My friend, you would not tell with such high zest

To children ardent for some desperate glory,

The old Lie; Dulce et Decorum est

Pro patria mori

1. There is a shift the moment the poem starts talking about the foolishness of society’s romanticized views on war. The poet calls it “desperate glory,” which continuously reinforces the notion that war is neither heroic nor honorable. The saying “dulce et decorum est” is a lie told to young men.

6. Title Revisited
1. After reading (and re-reading) and analyzing the poem, it is easy to note the mistake I made. The title isn’t to encourage the romanticism of war, but contrary to that. It’s ironic. Simple as that. It pokes fun on the way war has been socially accepted as a way to glorify one’s self, has been romanticized to the point of “roses-and-hearts.”

7. Theme

1. War is full of grit; it is sunken eyes and hunched backs, dirt and blood.       

TOBERMORY EXPLAINED

There is no question to the fact that "Tobermory" was a confusing ride of "what-am-I-reading." It consistently kept me on my toes, made me knock my head against the desk, and irritated me. Even now, after reading over it (multiple times, some out-loud, with gestures and notes), it still has me confused. The story revolves around Mr. Appin, the man who has taught Tobermory (a cat) how to talk. The tone seems satirical, with an underlying tone of sarcasm brewing out. The humor is dry, diction sophisticated, making the jeers sound "back-handed."  

Brave New Essay

It is construed that human conditioning confines peoples’ thinking, leaving them unaware and lacking consciousness. Within it lies the power of the mass, the lack of humanity, and the blurring lines between a clouded vision of happiness and the awareness that lies heavy on the minds of others. Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World blurs the lines between the artificial and the natural, the same way it has blended pleasure and pain to be one of the same. But within the confusion that lies within a world that struggles to see the truth beyond their conditioning, houses the few that have inwardly questioned their sight, struggling endlessly to make sense of the truth that lies under the murky spells that have blinded society. Through characterization and dichotomy, it is clear that Bernard Marx is one that struggles with the weight of knowledge and confusion that has opened him to the skewness that society has relied upon.

Contrary to its given name, the world within the novel lacks the ideals of a brave society. The people opt instead to the clutches of artificially induced happiness, parting awareness from the body. The society, clinging on to “caution” instead of “action,” has ultimately sacrificed humanity for the “better good of the mass.” The masses snuffed out the individual and the humanity, putting in its place instead the idea of progression through chemicals. Without their humanity, society conditioned them to believe “fertility is a nuisance.” They continuously refer to the idea of a natural birthing experience as below par with the society they are living in. It is “progress” and “process” that they thrive off of. Instead, they mass produced the people through the Bokanovsky’s Process, conditioning them young and old, and supplying them with the promises of soma, a drug that numbed them of feeling. The society cultivated them to think of chemistry as an account to emotion, a cocktail with a concoction of emotion. Through the use of rhetoric, pathos to evoke certain emotions from the audience, the audience continuously sees over and over the loss of humanity.

“There was something desperate, almost insane, about the sharp spasmodic yelps to which they now gave utterance (pg 21).”

Love of Learning

School doesn’t promote the love of learning, it simply doesn’t. In actuality, school steers away from that ideology.

School is an institution that coerces students to sit in a classroom, five times a week, six hours a day. It is an institution that makes adolescent teenagers ask for permission to go to the bathroom, and then denies them the right to do so because, “come on, you have 10 minutes of passing period to do your thing.”

And above all other, it is an institution that praises GPA above a students health.

Students are treated like babies, strapped down to their seats, and force feed information. Forget creativity, you (as a student) have to be aligned within the given rubrik.

I entered high school as a naive student. I was a student that loved coming to school everyday because of the promises of knowledge, new ideas and new subjects. I thought big things, wanted great things. I was excited, for high school and for the future. But four years of AP classes and 4 AM coffee stops to my kitchen has made me lose that spark.

I actually detest going to school now. Is it worth it? No, not really. It’s pretty ironic that an institution that’s supposed to expand my curiosity, actually diminished it.      

This shouldn’t be it. We need something that praises the love of learning. There is a huge difference between loving what you’re doing as opposed to being forced to do what you’re doing. People that do what they love give a little something more than those that don’t. Passion.

Without passion, to learn or to do, there would be very little spark. No trying.   

Brave New World: Ch 4 Analysis

1. Chapter 4
1. parathyroid → chemistry accounts to emotion, a concoction of emotions
2. “Bernard’s face flushed. ‘What on earth for?’ she wondered, astonished, but at the same time touched by this strange tribute to her power (pg 58)”
1. he blushed → she doesn’t understand, emotions and facial expressions are foreign to them
2. she has no empathy, unlike Bernard (who feels like an outsider for feeling certain things)
1. “‘Isn’t it beautiful!’ His voice trembled a little.”
1. Bernard is in awe; he is captured by the sheer beauty
2. “She smiled at him with an expression of the most sympathetic understanding. ‘Simply perfect for Obstacle Golf,’ she answered rapturously (pg 59)’”
1. on the other hand, Lenina talks about the purpose of it → she doesn’t see the beauty, doesn’t feel the emotion that has struck Bernard because of her conditioning
3. continued use of animal imagery
1. “‘Roof!’ called a creaking voice.”
2. “He smiled up with a kind of doggily expectant adoration into the faces of his passengers (pg 59)”  
1. Epsilon-Minus (indirect characterization) → no more, no less than a puppy
2. continued morphing of animalistic characteristics which can be inferred as a continued loss of humanity
4. direct characterization
1. “Benito Hoover was beaming down at him--beaming with manifest cordiality. Benito was notoriously good-natured. People said of him that he could have got through life without ever touching soma. The malice and bad tempers from which other people had to take holidays never afflicted him. Reality for Benito was always sunny (pg 60)” → Benito
2. “Contact with members of the lower castes always reminded him painfully of this physical inadequacy. ‘I am I, and which I wasn’t’; his self-consciousness was acute and distressing (pg 64)” → Bernard
3. “He was a powerfully built man, deep-chested, broad-shouldered, massive, and yet quick in his movements, springly and agile (pg 66)” → Hemholtz

Hemholtz → questioning, “‘Not quite. I’m thinking of a queer feeling I sometimes get, a feeling that I’ve got something important to say and the power to say it…’ (pg 69)”