Review for Friday, April 27

Class on this C-day:

my blog from Impulse.

Torii's review of the previous class.

Silent reading and lots of eating until the end of class.

The End.

And now, for "Yay, You!"

Impulse by Ellen Hopkins

"Do I need a label? I
told you once I've
never had the chance
to be with a girl, so
how will I know for sure
until I get the chance?"

I don't know what I am

But suddenly, certainly,
I want the chance to find
out. And suddenly, certainly,
I need to know, "Do I
need a label, Vanessa?
Is it important to you?"

She moves even closer,
so close, we're attached.
If it were, would I be
here, next to you? I love
you for the person I've
discovered under your skin.

I don't feel cold anymore.
Not outside, not
inside. That space,
frozen and dead for as
long as I can remember,
has thawed, come alive.

Another part of me comes
alive, and it strikes me
that I might not know
what to do with it, if
Vanessa--or any girl--
offers me the chance.

Review for Wednesday April 25th

The day was April 25th, it was a Wednesday. And on this fateful day there were only seven students, incluing myself, in class. I read my peice of quaility writing, which is from the classic, Peter Pan. As usual the review came next and Cheri got up in front of our huge group of 6 + Ms. Hillestad and reminded us of Josh's ranting from Monday about Oberlin and New College.
Ms. Hillstead then walked aroud the room and collected the Walkabout 4th Quarter Progress Reports and discovered that a couple of the students had failed in aquiring the extremly life changing signatures of their mentor's.
We then recieved an all powerfull list of important literary terms, this list would be wise to study and review before the terrible day when we have to take the AP exam! We then proceded to create our circle of discussion, which Aline said was now a dot becuase there was so few of us. Essay questions from last years AP lit exam were past around our dot and we went through each question and disscussed a little about what to write.
We then pulled out 1984. We talked about how it is the most bleak and hopeless Dystopia. We disscussed how in many totalitarian governments the posters of the leaders are just like the posters in the book with the eyes that follow you everywhere.
Ms. Hillestad talked about when she was growing up in Spain and how her parents always let her go places all by herself, and also how the media was all about Franco for 3 days after he died.
We all agreed that the rewritting of history, being watched, and children turning in their parents were all creeping things that we don't want to experience.
We then jumped to the Iraq war and we talked about that for the rest of the class. Why are we there? How, will the war be told in history books 40 years from now? were 2 of the many questions asked. We came to the conclusion that people are very impressionable and in some cases "controlled" by the media and sometimes can be really stupid.
WATCH WHAT YOU SAY AND DO. BIG BROTHER IS WATCHING!!!!!

Peter Pan by J. M. Barrie

Mrs. Darling first heard of Peter when she was tidying up her children's minds. It is the nightly custom of every good mother after her children are asleep to rummage in their minds and put things straight for the next morining, repacking into their proper places the many articles that have wandered during the day. If you could keep awake (but of course you can't) you would see your own mother doing this, and you would find it very interesting to watch her. It is quite like tidying up drawers. You would see her on her knees, I expect, lingering humorously over some of you contesnts, wondering where on earth you had picked this thing up, making discoveries sweet and not so sweet, pressing this to her cheek as if it were as nice as a kitten, and hurriedly stowing that out of sight. When you wake in the moring, the naughtinesses and evil passions with which you went to bed have been folded up small and placed at the botton of you mind, and on the top, beautifully aired, are spread out your prettier thoughts, ready for you to put on.
I don't know whether you have ever seen a map of a person's mind. Doctors sometimes draw maps of other parts of you, and your own map can become intensely intersenting, but catch them trying to draw a map of a child's mind, which is not only confused, but keeps going round all the time. There are zigzag lines on it, just like you temperature on a card, and these are propabably roads in the island, for the Neverland is aways more of less and island, with astonishing splashes of colour here and there, and coral reefs and rakish-looking craft in the offing, and savages and lonely lairs, and gnomes who are mostly tailors, and caves through which a river runs, and princes with six elder brothers, and a hut fast going to decay, and one very small old lady with a hooked nose. It would be an easy map if that were all, but there is also first day at school, religion, fathers, the round pond, needle-work, murders, hangings, verbs that take the dative, chocolate pudding day, getting into braces, say ninety-nine, three pence for pulling out your tooth yourself, and so on, and either these are part of the island or they are another map showing though, and it is all rather confusing, especially as nothing will stand still.

the day was april 17th...

... and the ap lit class, once again, ajoined in conversation about life... college, specifically... we went down the rows announcing our future... everyone is going to college except cheri... and i forgot who else.. maybe, josh. just kidding.. hopefully, college is not the answer to life all the time. remember that, class.. the answer to life is what you want it to be. so, get married, or advocate against government-control.. whatever it is, hopefully you'll be happy doing it. because you chose to do it. you choose your own happiness.

we talked about financial problems.. brittany can't pay off her car, apartment and college all in the same time.. i can't even get qualified for "work-study" at my school.. so, it's a pity that education is slowly being grasped out of our hands because of money.. actually, maybe that's what they want us to think.. those profit-making businesses.. college is a business, you know... we have the ability to learn whether we have money or not. we don't have to go to school to learn.. it's the degree that we have to buy. but, we can still learn.

so, what if we don't have the equipment to learn surgery or repair an airplane if we don't go to school.. we can still learn. we learn through books. ms. hillestead shared a very interesting scope on reading-- from when we were babies to adults of her age.. the process of it all... or.. was this last class? i don't remember.. anyway, it stuck to me. the thought of it all; how we learn to read until we read to learn... it's amazing, you know...

we ranted for along time, kind of like this, as dr johnson sat in the background witnessing the process of the way we learn.. or was that last class? dang, i can't remember. my days are all meshed into one.

we talked about the walkabout, and we were encouraged to have fun doing the last quarter goals.. like really push for it, you know.. it's our last quarter. have fun with it. About the walkabout, we should contact our mentors, and go over the five parts. We should have our chart sheet signed... soon, maybe. maybe, not by today. soon.

For homework, the quarter 4 goals are due, and we should have finished reading "a handmaid's tale"... Others may want to continue reading on to 1984... and we should be refreshed for another week of school, since we have a 3day weekend.

the confessions of st augustine

To Carthage I came. There I put my ear to the cauldron and heard from within and all around a song of unholy loves.
I did not love, but I loved the thought of love.
And in the depths of my desires, I detested the fact that I could not love more.
I looked for something to love in my love of loving.
I hated safety and wanted no path that did not have its snares.
The reason was that inside me there was a famine of inward food. I was starving for You, my God. This was not the sort of famine in which I realized my hunger. Indeed I lacked any longing for incorruptible sustenance, not because I had been filled with it, but because I was empty and loathed it. As a result, my soul became feeble and full of sores.
In misery my soul cast about, seeking sensual objects that could scratch where the pox itched. Yet there was no love to be found. None of these things had a soul, so they could not be objects of love.
To love then, and to be loved, was sweet to me. But when I found someone I love, I wanted only to possess and enjoy the body of the person I loved. I found a spring of friendship and polluted it with lascivious filth. I veiled the brightness of real love with a hell of foul, unseemly lust.
Outwardly my great vanity appeared refined and sophisticated. So I fell head first into the love that I had so wanted to be captured by.
My God, my Mercy, how much bitter root did You sprinkle on that sweetness? You were gracious to do it. I was loved and found a bond of joy; yet with that bond came chains of sorrow. I was beaten with red-hot irons of jealousy, suspicion, fear, anger, and quarreling.
The theater enchanted me with its images of my own miseries. Its plays added fuel to my fire. What makes someone want to be sad? Why behold doleful tragedies, vicariously experiencing what does not have to be suffered? Yet the spectator wants to feel sorrow at the stories, and this very anguish is pleasure. This seems to be wretched insanity. As more false emotion is elicited by what happens on stage, there is less freedom for one's own true feelings.
How odd that when one suffers personally, it is called "misery." When it is vicarious, it is styles as a sort of mercy. How is it compassion to feel made-up emotions about imaginary acts? The one who watches it is not called on to help relieve pain, but only to grieve. More applause is given to the actor who can elicit more grief. If the calamities depicted (whether historical or just made up) do not move the spectator to tears, he goes away disgusted and criticizing. If he is moved to passion, he watches intently and weeps for joy.
Do we really love to grieve? Certainly all want to have joy. No one wants to be miserable. So perhaps it is that we are pleased if we can act with merciful affection. Since mercy cannot exist without passion, we stir our passions for this reason alone. This desire for affection is the channel for friendship. But where do passions take that channel? Friendship plus passion runs into a molten, bubbling river of pitch. this virtue is transformed by our willfulness into hot waves of lust. Its affection should have the clarity of heaven, but it instead is corrupt when left to follow its own way.
So shall we avoid all feeling of compassion? Certainly not, nor is it wrong to take up a grief out of affection. But be careful of that temptation to impurity. O my soul, whose guardian is the exalted God of my fathers, beware of impurity.

Review..for years ago.

Alright, so here goes.

Since senioritis has kicked my butt recently, I honestly don't remember what happened last period, which was 23445.3 years ago to be exact. I know we discussed Brave New World..but what we talked about, I couldn't be sure. OH, I just had a sudden strike of genius. We talked about the papers we are going to have to write, and we all claimed topics. Ta-daaa. Sometimes I surprise myself. My final words for the day...KEEP YOUR HEAD IN SCHOOL. We have one quarter left! Yesss!
I'm stoked.

P.S. Courtney did the review.

I Want to Sing - Nikki Giovanni

I want to sing
a piercing note
lazily throwing my legs
across the moon
my voice carrying all the way
over to your pillow
i want you
i need i swear to loll
about the sun
and have it smelt me
the ionosphere carrying
my ashes all
the way over
to your pillow
i want you