mid-year jack john

I would like to take some time to reflect on the 11AP year as a whole.  It has been better than expected.  Not only have my essay scores been higher, but I have begun to feel a lot more confident analyzing literature in front of others.  In fact, just talking and participating in class has become much more stress-free since we started having class discussions and seminars. People always talk about how difficult 11AP is-- they aren't wrong-- but the work is rewarding and the progress in seen.  Scores and confidence have been rising while sleep has been falling.  Although I know I am far from achieving my full potential, it feels great to finally be on the way with advancement being noticed. But I am still looking for that 9, like the person on the back of the handout had.  I need to slowly start to thread my evidence better and notice the smaller things -- the smaller things that will bump up my scores into the upper level.  For example, Student A took notice of Soto's description of God who "howled in the plumbing" and threaded it throughout their essay.   I guess I just want to document my progress and still show some of my goals.

And because someone told me you could add .gif files now, and I feel momentarily happy.

me

I listen to a lot of music.  My friends and I are all in band and have strong opinions pertaining to music choice.  Normally I enjoy more complex selections.  But my favorite song isn't.  A song that was probably on a most Top 40 radio stations four years ago, a song that was really a one-hit-wonder for a pretty average band, a song with a unique melody, but lyrics that make no sense, stuck to me.  Initially, I don't quite know why I loved it so much.  It just made me feel that thing that happens when you are so utterly happy and everything is perfect and full. Full of love and life and every positive emotion and that feeling of being alive.  It's youth and freedom and love and stupidity and memories.  Oh the memories.  Those snippets of time that leave you unsure whether to cry because you can never relive it or smile because it happened in the first place.  I listened to the song so much this last summer that if I close my eyes I can feel the wind soaring into the open window of a car, I can hear the sail of a boat rustling in the wind, I can taste the Arizona Ice tea and dumb decisions, I can smell that weird scent the earth makes after it rains and worms crawl onto the sidewalk, I can see the open road and headlights and unfamiliar street signs of God-knows-where.  And even though I can appreciate my youth now, I won't fully be able to "until many years [from now]".  Like Amy Tan looking upon her "fourteen" year old self,  I know I will see the ignorance and stupidity and all the things old people tell you to that one day will become apparent.  But that's alright.  Tan knows the boy she "fell in love with" wasn't real love, and that there was nothing to be ashamed about, but the emotions she felt will stay with her forever.  Maybe when she sees "a slimy rock cod" it's her song. Maybe the fish will make her remember all the little things that become so easy to forget.

The song that I didn't name earlier but have been listening to on repeat for 45 minutes.  I wanted you to see it from my view before your own listening experience-- or lack of-- changed the way you saw it.  And yes, the name of the song is very relevant.

Kids

The Relevancy of Racial Hate

The events of the chapter "The Champion of the World" from the novel I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings seem so foreign to modern society. It seems easy to forget and leave in the past, the ugly history of America.  Joe Louis's career spanned from the mid 1930s to the early 1950s, a time not too long ago.  Maybe some of the "babies [that] slid to the floor" are now grandparents, still alive 70 years later (Angelou 21).  These same children that grew up in a time period where "it wouldn't do for a Black man and his family to be caught on a lonely country road" lived through the civil rights movement and eventually into 21st century (28).  Only one human life separates oppression from freedom.  But even this freedom isn't true freedom.  Because of the inequality that plagued-- and continues to-- blacks, there has not been enough time to truly achieve equality although law has said there is.  Blacks with the financial resources to live and better themselves were faced with inequality of housing, much like the Younger family in A Raisin in the Sun. This play, with a setting closer to modern day, further demonstrates the opposition Blacks faced.  Societies sorting of races only perpetuated inequal opportunity and left Blacks where they started many years ago.  True racial equality cannot be achieved when much of the population could not vote 70 years ago.