Reflection on AP English First Semester

1) What I've Liked:
- I feel like this is my first real English class. This is the only English that I have taken that has been a challenge to me. In the past, I've been able to just sit around and read a passage every now and then and answer some questions, and every once in a while I would have to write a paper. I never felt like my writing improved during my past English classes. But, with all of the reading and writing we are required to do, I can see that my English skills are improving.
- I have actually enjoyed reading the required stories. When I think of school required reading, I think of some story that will not offend anyone, or make parents upset and are very boring. Most of the readings we've done have been the complete opposite.
- I have enjoyed doing more discussion than lectures in class.
2) What I've Disliked:
- I've never been a fan of making things up to write about. So, I don't really like writing the blogs. I will sometimes stare at my screen trying to think of something related to English that I can write about.
- The amount of work. I feel like I can say this about any of my other classes, but I've realized that for the first time ever, I have had more English homework than math homework.
3) Next Semester:
- I hope we have more in class discussion instead of lectures next semester. I have really enjoyed the discussions that we have had so far.

The Rover

The Rover was the first play that I have seen by the PLD drama department that I didn't like. I didn't understand what was going on during half of the play, and I couldn't understand most of what the actors were saying. I know they were supposed to be using accents, but it doesn't work when it sounds like a whole bunch of sounds being jumbled together. I don't know if the plot of the play was just too complex for me, or if it was just not presented very well. I thought the play was about girls falling in love with a group of guys, but I felt I was missing out on something. There were parts when I thought the girls were trying to trick the guys they met into doing something, but that turned out to be wrong. The moment where I started to get into the play, someone would say something that I couldn't understand, or an actor would mess up a line or the mike would mess up. Though there were a lot of aspects of the play that I didn't like, it had some positives. The jokes would sometimes be funny, and some of the characters in general were pretty funny. The sword fighting was really cool, since they used actual swords instead of fake prop swords. The part where the actor got hit in the face was pretty intense. It looked like it hurt him pretty badly, since he was bleeding all over his costume, but he stuck it out and played his role like it never happened.
Those were my thoughts on the play. I thought the cast did a great job with how hard the script was, even though there were some minor issues. But, I have never been in a play, and I have no room to criticize them.

Make Up Blog: Hamlet?

Hamlet is straight up crazy. As if Hamlets life wasn't bad enough in the beginning of the story with his father dying, he sees a ghost, which make me think I'm crazy, he starts talking to the ghost and finds out that it is his father and that he was murdered. I think those two events could make even the most stable minded person go crazy. Then, he goes and makes it worse by acting crazy. You just can't do that. I think the acting crazy part is what made him go fully crazy. What's even worse is that the people around him know he is going crazy, but they don't try to help him at all.
The fact that Hamlet won't do anything to the king is making me lose even more faith in him. He's going around making a fool of himself in front of all of his friends to try to kill the king for murdering his father, but when he has a chance to he doesn't, and when he tries to, he kills the wrong person. If I was Hamlet after those two incidents, I would start to believe that fate doesn't want the king to die and would stop right there and confess that I was only acting crazy.
What's Hamlets deal with Ophelia? In act one, he grabs her and confesses his love for her, but a couple acts later, when she is all over him, he doesn't want anything to do with her. Instead of taking the oppurtinity to get the girl that he loves, he pushes her away, and it really confuses me. I don't know if he is doing it to protect her for when he kills the king, or actually doesn't love her anymore.

Make Up Blog: College

Well, the stressful time of applying for all of my colleges is almost over with only one more school to go. So far, I have applied for Centre, Transy, Mercer, and Butler, and I've already gotten a reply from Mercer. On my way home from school on Friday, I got a call from Mercer saying that I have been accepted! I wasn't really expecting to get a reply so soon, since I just submitted my application a week ago. The lady I talked to might think that I'm a akward depressed person because when she told me, I didn't sound excited, I probably sounded sad because my brain was dead from a calculus test and all I could think of saying was an akward "thank you", which an akward moment of silence. Plus, I was talking to her while I was driving, so half the information she was telling me about deadlines and scholarships went in one ear and out the other.The only college that I have visited has been Centre, and I loved it. Right now that is where I want to go, if I get accepted. I plan on visiting Mercer sometime soon, but I don't think I will be visiting Butler, even though it has a wonderful pharmacy program. The only college I haven't applied to yet is UK, which I am using as a backdrop school. My plan for college so far is to go to Centre and major in pre-pharmacy there, then apply for UK's pharmacy program and hopefully make it in, and then transfer there my junior year. Although Mercer and Butler have great Pharmacy programs, I would prefer a school that is close to home, such as UK and Centre.

A Clockwork Orange: The Good and the Bad

This story was really... strange. I don't know if I even liked it or didn't like it overall, but there were a couple of qualities of A Clockwork Orange that I really disliked and a couple that I did like. I'll start off with what I didn't like about it. First off, I didn't even know what I was reading about for the first couple of pages thanks to the weird dialect it was written in.Thankfully, sparknotes had some pretty good chapter summaries available so I could actually understand some of what I read. I don't know if Burgess wrote it that way just to confuse his readers, if they actually talk like that in some country I've never heard of, or if he took a hint from Shakespeare and realized that good literature needs to hard to read. Second, every other scene made me feel extremely uncomfortable. Rape and violence seemed to be the only thing going on in this story. It was rare when a chapter went without a gang beating up an old person, or raping a very, very young girl. But it was even worse that I would read some of these scenes and not even realize what is going on until I read about it on sparknotes.
Now for some things I actually liked about A Clockwork Orange. First, it was a very unique read. I have certainly never read anything with a story like it or a style of writing like it. It's style of writing was also fascinating because it was almost like trying to read a bunch of mixed up words. Second, it was a very nice length given how hard it was to read. If it were any longer I probably would have given up on it and selected a different book. But, considering it was kind of short, it was very descriptive during the parts that I could understand.

Beautiful Words

Never before have I ever though of a word being beautiful, except for its pronunciation maybe. I didn't expect normal words such as coffee or smirk to be one of the nine Cousineau would be talking about. I thought he use words have a lot of silent letters, or maybe an accent or two, or really really long word. I don't even understand how he came up with these words. He talks about how the words "celebrate the choices that await us when we dip our brush onto our brilliant palette of language", but wouldn't that be any word in the dictionary. It may just be me, but I don't think coffee or ramble are very brilliant words. For a word to classify as beautiful to me, it would have to be unique. It could have some letters that I like, such as k, m, z and q thrown in it, have a unique pronunciation with some silent letters, and have a somewhat cool meaning. Now, I don't really know many words that qualify with all three of those restrictions, so I will have to resort to a dictionary.
1)Giraffe- a tall, long-necked, spotted ruminant.
2)Quartz- one of the most common minerals.
3)Ice- solid form of water.
4)Avocado- pear shaped fruit.
5)Soliloquy- a person talking to his/her self without awareness of anyone else.
6)Eloquent- having or exercising the power of fluent, forceful, and appropriate speech.
7)Xenolith- a rock fragment from igneous rock.
8)Maple- a type of tree
9)Qualm- a sudden feeling of apprehensive uneasiness

Make Up Blog: E-Books

On my 13th or 14th birthday, my parents bought me a nook. At first, I hardly ever used it for anything except school required books because I hated reading. But as I started discovering new books that I liked and realized I actually liked to read, it started to get a lot more use. The only time I have ever had to get a real book was because a teacher of mine wouldn't let me use my nook in class because he though I was playing games on it. Now that our school has it's new technology rule, I have seen some kids taking notes on Ipads, and have seen many kids reading on readers. The idea of using readers or other electronic devices as textbooks sounds like a good idea. Every year, I have almost broken my back carrying what felt like 100 lbs. in my backpack from textbooks. But if we used readers and downloaded textbooks, kids wouldn't be walking around leaning forward because there backpack is too heavy. Even though it could solve plenty of problems, there are still some issues that I could imagine causing some trouble. First, the problem of getting to a page quicky and going back to other pages. On my nook, it is a pain to get to a certain page, because I have to drag a little dial until it is close to the page I want, and then have to go through the pages until I reach it. I don't know if that is a problem that only I have, but I could see that causing problems for classes that might have notes in the textbook, such as math. Second, money is always a problem. While some readers are cheap now a days, there are still families who struggle with money, and may not be able to afford a reader. I don't know how the fees for books currently work, but I could not imagine a public school being able to buy every student a tablet to use as a textbook. So, with that being said, I do believe that readers are the futures of textbooks, but maybe in private schools sooner that public schools.

Make Up Blog: Drawing the Line on Books

As a high school student, I have never had a problem with any books that I have been required to read. Even when the book has had very explicit scenes, like American Gods, I have never found any of it offensive. As "young adults", kids going through middle and high school are supposed to be familiar with violence and sex, and be able to know the difference between fantasy and real life. But, I do believe there is a line we need to draw for what is appropriate for a literature class. I don't believe there is anything wrong with violence in a book, especially since most classic literature we have read in class is heavy in death and violence. But, I think books with heavy amounts of sexual content can make any student feel uncomfortable. I'm not talking about a story having one or two sex scenes every so often, but when a book is based around sex, I believe that it is innapropriate for a classroom. Thankfully, I have never seen or been required a book like that, because I could imagine how awkward that class discussion would be. As for younger kids, I believe there is a time when they need to step up from fairy tale violence and experience violence that would be in a more realistic in literature. Like with movies, you can't expect a kid to grow up and keep watching g or pg movies. When I was 10 or 11, I watched my first rated r movie, even though I wasn't suppossed to. My friends and I watched, what you mentioned in class today, 300, which might not have been appropriate now that I think about it. But, as I watched it, I remember thinking how much different it was from anything I have watched, and how it actually showed blood. After that, I was never satisfied with pg or pg-13 movies. Books can be like that. Someone may think some books are innapropriate for a certain age, but reading a book that is innapropriate could reveal a whole new world of books for that kid. Sorry I got kinda off topic....

Thesis Statements

The hardest part of writing any kind of essay, for me, is the thesis statement. I do not plan on going to college and becoming an english major, so with that in mind, I try to use most of my focus on math and science. Doing this might have hurt my ability to be creative and come up with something in my mind without a set formula. All throughout my life in school, from elementary school up to now, I have relied on formulas or a template that I can just plug in words or numbers. Even the most simple math problems have equations, such as a line (y=mx+b). When I write a thesis statement, I can't get the format of stating my three ideas that was preached to me during AP world and AP US. I feel like I am overcomplicating things alot, but I can't stop myself from it. I start to think about the length of the thesis, the amount of information I use, the overuse of specific details, the simplicity of it, ect. I even get to the point where I confuse myself so much, I forget or don’t know what I am writing about. Once I figure out what I want to write, I then go through the painful process of transfering it from my mind to paper, which I have never been good at. I never have a problem writing a research paper, or any kind of writing in which I have specific information that I can refer. I even wrote a great research paper last year about health care, which I know nothing about, all because I was able to use sources that gace me an idea of what to write about. But having to use my imagination, even to create one simple thesis statement, has the ability to freak me out.

White Elephants

Reading "Hills Like White Elephants" was a very interesting experience for me. This was the kind of story that made you think, "What did I just read?" While I like to think that I am a decent reader, and that I can understand everything I read, this story made me think the complete opposite. A friend of mine who looked up the story online told me that it was supposed to be about abortion, but even with that knowledge in my head, I had a hard time understanding anything I was reading. There were some parts in the story where they would talk about the "operation" and I would actually know what they were talking about, but then get completely lost. I get a feeling that Hemingway added white elephants into the story only to confuse the reader even more, because without background knowledge of what a white elephant is, and how it is used in other cultures, the reader would think that the hills Jig was describing were just big like elephants. The way the events of the story were written out were just confusing as well. I had a hard time of realizing what was going on because of the way the subject of their conversation would jump around. And, I cannot stand when stories don't have a clear message. I understand that if he would have used the word "abortion" the story might have been sensored, but we could at least use a some clues about the topic he is trying to convey. Overall, this was the worst story we have read so far in class.

Bloody Literature

The books that we have read so far in English have really surprised me. I have always thought that classic short stories were supposed really boring and not fun to read. But so far, the books we have read have been able to keep my attention, and were surprisingly based on death, or destruction. Starting off with the Most Dangerous Game, I really liked this story when I read it as a freshman. The idea of somebody being hunted down on an island reminded me of The Hunger Games series, which is one of my favorite. The next story we read was The Child by Tiger. I found this story very interesting. It was interesting in how the character of Dick Prosser went from being the nicest character in the story to going insane and killing a bunch of people. And, the fact that Thomas Wolfe made him an African American really showed the racial views that people had in the 1930's. The last book we've read was The Destructors. I found this story to be really messed up. For some kids who are in a "gang" to want to destroy an old mans house just because he offered them some candy was very strange. I don't even know how someone can come up with that idea. I don't remember ever thinking about destroying houses when I was as young as some of the characters in this story.

College...

Starting this week, I will begin my college essay. Even though I have no idea what I am going to write about, I am looking forward to getting it over with. My parents hired a college planner, that will help me with applying to different colleges, will take me on visits to colleges, and, most importantly, will make sure that my essay is as strong as possible. I am not very good at putting my own thoughts on paper, especially thoughts that have to reflect myself. As for what I want to go to college for, I am trying to decide between pharmacy school, or medical school. Both are very good fields to go in, or so I have heard, but both are very competitive to get in. UK has a very good pharmacy school, but only a hundred get in out of a thousand applicants. As for out of state schools, I am very conflicted. I don't know if I want to go 5-6 hours away from home during first couple years of college, even though uuniversities like Butler and Mercer have great pharmacy schools. But, the benefits of going to Butler and Mercer are almost too good to pass up. At both of those universities, I would automatically get into there pharmacy programs and not have to worry about not getting in. But, I am still not certain where or why I want to go.

Blog #1

A couple of years ago, a new TV show came on HBO called A Game of Thrones. I had seen a couple of commercials for it, but wasn't too interested in it. But, a night that I was scrolling through the channels, nothing good seemed to be on, but I saw on HBO that the pilot episode of A Game of Thrones was on. I watched the first episode, which actually caught my attention really well. After that first episode, I set my dvr to record all the remaining episodes of the season. After I watched a few episodes, I got very invested into the story and all of the characters, and looked it up online to see who a couple of the actors were. Since I like to read, I was ecstatic to find out that A Game of Thrones was actually the first book in a book series named A Song of Ice and Fire. I immediately went and picked up the first couple of books, and dug in. These books were probably the longest books I had ever read, and all of my friends thought I was  crazy for actually wanting to read that much without it being required by school. I read the first book in about 2 weeks and the second in about the same amount of time. The series quickly became my favorite, and I actually got to meet the author, George R.R. Martin, when he came to Lexington for a book signing on the day the 5th and latest of the series was released.