Memes and Whatnot

I think it is astounding at how desperate some people can get in their search for riches. Milkman traveled so far away from home in search of something that he wasn't even sure was there. I think it was quite ironic that Milkman was wealthy enough to afford the trip all the way down to Philadelphia, and he was able to simply carry $500 worth of cash in his pocket, but yet he still craved for more money. What stood out to me was that Milkman was so ignorant during his search for the gold. He simply gets out a lighter and takes about 30 seconds looking for the gold. What I think he should've done is went back to town, rested up for a bit and collected the tools that he needed to succeed in his search for the gold. If he had just went out and bought a shovel as well as a proper flashlight, there seems to have been a good chance that he would've found the gold. I thought it was also incredibly dumb of him to just tuck his tail between his legs and run off to Virginia in hopes o...

I understand that this book has so much hidden meaning, and the amount of detail that you can get from reading between the lines is astounding. But regardless of that, this is such. a. weird. book. like what even. A mother who breast feeds her four year old son? A daughter who sucked on her dead father's fingers? First cousins who are kids who sleep together for 14 years? That's just messed up. The concept of first cousins being together isn't so far out of the realm of possibility - Einstein married his first cousin. But I find it out that they were kids when they were sleeping together. The first time they sleep together, Milkman is a minor, while Hagar is an adult, that's very messed up. What I found extremely interesting however, is that Milkman gives Hagar money when he breaks up with her. Their relationship was focused a lot on the physical aspect of love - sex. This made it almost seem like Milkman was paying Hagar for sex, which reminded me of prostitution. ...

I was struck by how relatable the last source was in our packet of sources (the one where the news reporters minimize something that is much more important than something else). Many of us, including me, get the majority of our information about the daily goings of the world from the news, and usually, the first thing we see about something shapes our opinion about that something. There have been countless cases of bias in mass media; one of the biggest perpetrators,  Fox News. Fox News has become something of a State TV for the president. Fox News' reporting has become so skewed in favor of the republican party, their reporting is not to be trusted. This is due to a variety of reasons: the president is an avid viewer of the channel, he regularly quotes them, Sean Hannity, a political host on Fox, has close ties with the president, the president's previous DoC and DCoS was the copresident of Fox. What this has led to is the continual defense of the President's actions, ...

We've been reading Maus and in this graphic novel, page 95 in volume II spoke to me. The bottom panel depicts lots of dead bodies. Above the pile of bodies, you can see another person walking over these bodies. In this panel, Spiegelman include a wide variety of races in the bodies: Jews, Poles, and Germans. I believe the purpose of including this is that these concentration camps were living hell for everyone in them, not just the Jews. Typhus didn't discriminate whether you were a Jew or not; it affected everyone. The juxtaposition of the bodies and the bathroom show how many people were affected by this, and couldn't do the simple task of going to the bathroom. Also, the person walking over the bodies shows that in times like these, the dead didn't get much respect. It was everyone for themselves, and if it meant disgracing the dead, so be it. This also creates a foreboding sense that dropping dead on the spot can happen to anyone. All these people survived for s...

We as children grew up reading colorful children's books, with vivid images that truly spurred the imagination of a young one. But society has told us that these images are strictly for children, and we need to break out of the childish shell. I say, to hell with that! My favorite book series, if you will, is Calvin and Hobbes. The adventures of these little boy and his stuffed tiger illustrate all the good parts about being a little child; it highlights the inconsequential-ness of the problems of a child. These comics contain such powerful messages, to the extent that they make me wish I never had to grow up. Society doesn't get to choose what is acceptable to read (lookin at u mom), and what isn't; if society tells me that I can't be reading those comics, I disregard it. These comics are an escape from the monotonous life that we lead and they provide a place for the nostalgic mind to reconcile what was once had. After reading the piece Show and Tell, I decided to...

This week in 11 AP, we read an excerpt of the essay Civil Disobedience   by Thoreau, which was Thoreau-ly boring. In all honesty, a part of the essay stuck out to me, Thoreau says "Let your life be a counter-friction to stop the machine." What Thoreau is saying is that each individual has to be the thing that goes against the government; each individual has to be what forces the government to change its ways; each individual has to not be submissive, but fight for change. There are so many examples of people who fought against the government and common stereotypes. A common example is racial prejudice; MLK fought against racism; Douglass fought against slavery. You might be wondering what do I mean by a stripped gear, a stripped gear is simply a gear whose teeth are misshapen due to excess wear and tear. How does this stripped gear play into the metaphorical machine? Well its quite simple, this gear will turn and turn, unknowing that it has absolutely no effect to its sur...

After reading Wallace's This is Water , I was inspired to follow what he said in his speech. I took it upon myself to shift my perspective so that I thought about others first, before I immediately jumped to conclusions about something. These are some events that happened this Friday. 1:14 pm: We were supposed to be dismissed down to the gym for the pep rally, but for some reason my 6th hour teacher kept rambling on even after the bell rang. After a minute, I piped up and asked "Madame, le cloche a sonné, est-ce que nous pouvons partir maintenant?" This translates to, "Miss, the bell has rung, can we leave now?" And to that she told us no, you need to wait for the announcements to dismiss us. Five minutes go by and we had still not heard an announcement, so she checked the hallways and saw that all the classrooms were empty. Since I chose to not immediately judge for her not letting us leave when the bell rang, I realized that for most of the assemblies prior,...