A Family 10,000 Strong

Just to dash everyone's hopes right away, I won't be writing about anything grandiose or majestic about the end of high school and our futures.  Not because I'm not feeling those things, but because if you want to read that stuff you can look at almost any one of the other forty-odd blogs.  Instead, I'd like to talk about why I like high school, specifically our high school.  Today was really a microcosm of why I love Chagrin.  Take my interaction with Ms. Serensky (can I call her Bobi Jo now, or does that have to wait until after graduation?) at lunch today.  First of all, she sat down at our table.  There was a long silence as we waited for some update on our blogging assignment, but she ACTUALLY JUST TALKED TO US!!!! Teachers really seem to care about the students, even outside of school.  She asked about getting a copy of our Springfest video just to use to annoy Mr. Maas.  This is what really makes Chagrin high school feel like a community - the teachers and students all interact with each other, they intermingle like one big family.  That's something that will be hard to find at college, that sort of intimate atmosphere, so I'm glad I enjoyed it while I could.

DJ Osama Spin Laden (feat. DJ Quiet)

I thought the idea of writing a rap for my farewell post was going to be original and creative, but clearly Chris stole my idea.  Darn you High Stile.  Well I have my own name: it's DJ Osama Spin Laden (well, I'm between that, DJ Scratch 'n Sniff, and DJ Scratchatory Rape to be honest), and my rap will obviously be featuring a beat made by our very own DJ Quiet (Mr. Maas).  So when you imagine this being rapped, try not to imagine it being played too loud:

Started off with a blog and a dream,
Made it the greatest and the latest
Now I'll step off the scene.
I was typin' all day til my hands would hurt,
Professor always appreciate it, lovin' my work.
Forgot to blog, tough prompt, strenuous, grinding,
Better late than never I'm calling it perfect timing.
But we all had a little bit of fun,
cause when it's all done,
you throw your shoes down and call it a good run.
I admit that I had feared that all these blogs would just burn me,
I don't know where I'm headed but I know it's a journey,
And my bags are packed, so can you hand me my itinerary,
I'm off to Duke, where the basketball's just ancillary.
This is what we gotta notice today,
We all blogged to make sure they never throw us away.

Top Ten Reasons to Take AP English

10.  If you want homework, this is the class for you.  You'll get plenty of it.

9.   One time a kid asked me for my autograph.  He heard about my 9-.  That could be you.

8.  Multiple choice games.  I wait nine weeks for these bad boys, and it's usually worth the wait.

7.  Trying to live up to the legacy of the Dream Team.

6.  Annotating books - realizing that you basically rewrote the book in the margins is a real self-confidence booster.

5.  That Harry Potter poster in Ms. Serensky's room that reminds me what a true Gryffindor is.

4.  Those few days of discussion that get really intense and people start yelling.

3.  Moushumi's mustache.

2.  I guess you kind of learn how to write.

1.  You'll learn new spellings of the traditional names Bobby and Joe.  Bobbie and Jo.  Separate, they may be boys's names, but apparently when you combine them it's a girl's name.

The Exam

(Algernon, McMurphy, and Clive crowd around me to watch me take my A.P. test and want to talk to me, but clearly I am busy)
Clive: "'Look, can [we] come back in half an hour?'" (McEwan 156)
McMurphy: "'do I look like a sane man?'" (Kesey 47)
Clive: "'is [he] hanging together well? Structurally, I mean'" (McEwan 175)
Algernon: "[he is] the visible personification of absolute perfection" (Wilde 31)
Clive: "'I recently saw [his] name on a list of some very distinguished people'" (McEwan 179)
McMurphy: "'is that real serious?'" (Kesey 47)
Algernon: "I think [he] has been a great success" (Wilde 30)
McMurphy: "'is this the way these leetle meetings usually go?'" (Kesey 57)
Algernon: "there is no use speculating on that subject... [[Clive] puts out his hand to take a sandwich, Algernon at once interferes] Please don't touch the cucumber sandwiches.  They are ordered specially for [Alex]" (Wilde 3)
Clive: "'I'm terribly sorry'" (McEwan 180)
Algernon: "My dear fellow, it isn't easy to [do] anything now-a-days.  There's such a lot of beastly competition about" (Wilde 7)
McMurphy: "'let's get out of here... I ain't scared of their little [test]'" (Kesey 290)

Green Light to the Red Light District

Amsterdam.  A city of vibrant people, of unique culture, of drugs and prostitutes.  Amsterdam the novel is no different.  Ian McEwan's masterpiece has an elaborate plot, full of suspenseful twists and turns worthy of Inception.  While this tale was no less dark and depressing than most of the other books we have read this year, McEwan presents this mood in a way that is kind of funny in a sick, British way.  Take, for example, Vernon's incredibly awkward encounter with Frank Dibben in the restroom: as Vernon contemplates firing Dibben, he observes that "Dibben was in fact relieving himself quite copiously, thunderously even" (42).  Firing someone is by no means funny, but one cannot help but laugh at the ridiculousness of the situation.  And there is a twisted sort of humor in the fact that both men develop "a taste for revenge" and kill each other in the exact same manner (162).  It is this type of subtle humor that prevents the reader from utterly despising the otherwise despicable characters.  And despite the overriding humor of the novel, McEwan beautifully crafts a nightmarish plot and such petty characters that it soon becomes clear that both Vernon and Clive had "lost [their] reason and something had to be done" (161). And the novel not only generates an enormous amount of suspense, but also calls to attention several troubling moral quandaries - the question of whether or not to publish the photos of Garmony, Clive's Lakeland Rapist fiasco, assisted suicide, etc.  Reading a book that dissects conventional morality in such a way and then discussing it in depth seems to finally confirm Ms. Serensky's assertion: "You are all smart" (Ms. Serensky). 

Top 10 Most Thrilling Academic Moments of My High School Career

 Just as a precursor to my list, I would like everyone to know that I am fully aware that no matter how objectively I phrase this, it will have the capacity to sound pretentious.  That is merely a product of my achievements (see, I told you).  So I'm just going to go for it.

10) Economics Stocks Game: I won the stock market game in Econ. last year.  No one would admit it now, but that game was filled with "dedication and clarity,... like lighting a fire by rubbing two sticks" (McEwan 109).  To be entirely honest, I only won because one of my stocks, initially valued at about $20 per share, had its company bought out by an enormous corporation.  So for a short while the stock jumped from the original $20 to around $1000 per share (the price of the larger corporation) due to computer error.  Naturally, I sold my hundreds of shares quickly.

9) Becoming best friends with Mr. Maas: Don't listen to what anyone else says - I am Mr. Maas's best friend that is a student.  Just the other day, as we did integrals together, he asked to borrow my pencil, and the "nature of the request, its intimacy and self-conscious reflection on [our] friendship... created... an uncomfortable emotional proximity" (McEwan 54).

8) Spanish Four Video Projects: If you were to ask any of our school's Spanish teachers about either the movie Zapatalones III (ZIII) or Obi Wan Quijote, the teacher would inevitably know of our legendary movies.  Whereas other groups used the limitations of the project (it had to be in Spanish after all) as "a mask for mediocrity" (McEwan 66), my group (Chris Lange, Brian Binder, Austin Sauey, and myself) crafted epic 25-minute films.

7) Winning the Springfest Dodgeball Tournament last year as a member of East Washington Mafia: Although this moment is not technically academic in nature, it occurred during a school day.  We staunchly refused "to be a martyr to them" (Kesey 157).

6) 199/200.  On the Amsterdam Essay.  An 8+/9- speaks for itself.  However, I'm legally obligated to include a quote, so I'll continue - my classmates clearly wondered "how it was possible that anyone could manage such an enormous thing [I] was" (Kesey 161).

5) National Merit Finalist: It was truly an honor to be selected as a National Merit Finalist.  It allowed me to represent our school on a national level, and it's an opportunity that a very select few received in our school.  It was then that I realized that "everything [I've]  done was with reason" (Kesey 266).

4) Voted most intelligent (and funniest) by the senior class: Yes, it's true.  Essentially, I now have an established comeback for anything Donley says.  He knows that "there are principles at stake that one cannot surrender," so he is forced to answer to me (Wilde 44).

3) The formation of the Dream Team and our two victories: Perhaps the four most decorated males at our school joined forces one day to form what is clearly the most vaunted team in A.P. English.  Our opponents, of course, wish that we were not so intelligent and "not quite so very alluring in appearances," but such is the burden of success (Wilde 35).


2) Taking the SAT at 23:80 (military time, with a few extra minutes) at 2380 Enlightenment Boulevard, in room 2380 as the 2nd of 3 boys in my family (and 8th of my extended family, 0 of whom are girls) to take test.  I am now quite relieved to be done, as "even these metallic problems have their melodramatic side" (Wilde 23.80)

1) My acceptance letter from Duke: This day validated all the others in my academic career.  Please don't speak badly of Duke - "only people who can't get into it do that" (Wilde 47).  With the additions of the esteemed John Shoemaker and Thomas Donley to our freshman class at Duke, the future seems bright.

Plum Into Poetry

"Plums.  We're reading a poem about plums.  How riveting."  These, of course, were my initial thoughts as we began our unit on poetry in A.P. English by reading William Carlos Williams' "This Is Just To Say."  I found it inane and trivial, to say the least - it "bore the exculpatory ticket of high intent" (McEwan 66).  I could probably write a comparable poem right now:

This Is Just To Say
I have used
the toilet paper
that was in
the bathroom

and which
you were
going to use
after a large meal

Forgive me
it was four ply
double quilted
so soft

These, though, were just my first thoughts - I soon saw a new side of this small, simple poem.  It transformed in front of my eyes from a bland string of words to a painting of "enticing sweetness and melancholy" (82).  The depth of our analysis impressed me.  We had uncovered in a shallow-seeming poem "rich orchestral textures of sinuous harmony" (145).  Perhaps there was something to these poems.  "This Is Just To Say" helped me realize that poems can require a great deal of thought and insight to fully understand.  Then again, it doesn't rhyme, so there was clearly room for improvement.