Monthly Blog AP English 8 "Unique Strangers and Judgement"

            Are we all alike? Even remotely? In a way, yes. Even though we share similar qualities and habits, we all are extremely different. Every second of every minute of every hour of every day is lived differently between us all. Every thought, sight, smell, sound, touch is differently interpreted by each one of us. So tell me, why do we judge people so often for being different? Why do we fear and attack things that we don't understand?

            People have a deep true self, and we will never understand them entirely, no matter how hard we try. We will never know anyone better than ourselves. So when someone is judged for their beliefs or activities, when they are doing nothing necessarily wrong, try to hold that judgment and prejudice back. You don't know what they have been through, the wrongs that they have faced, the way they grew up, laughed, smiled, or cried. Let people be themselves, and appreciate the fact that they take pride or at least try to with how they choose to live.

            In the book The Stranger, the main character Meursault is seen as a....well...stranger. He is viewed as a strange man, rejected by society from his thoughts and choices. He seems indifferent about everything possible, not putting much thought into anything. People around him see him as some sort of monster from knowing such details as his reaction to his mother's death and Arab's murder. Due to a past, that we have barely any information on, he thinks in a much different way than the majority of society. He is more of a realist, sort of a downer, but a realist. Society's choice to reject him is pretty harsh, due to the fact that he didn't do much of anything wrong. Sure he killed an Arab, but the Arab did cut up Raymond. It is also human nature to harm, it might be dark, but it is true. Main point is, we can't judge him if we don't know his past.

            This is a huge problem in modern society, judgment. We tend to make fun of and reject people based on first glances and rumors. We need to accept the fact that everyone has a deep personality and past, that made them who they are today. There should be no reason to treat others badly because we don't understand.

Monthly Blog AP English 7 "Good and Evil"

       Good and Evil is a battle as old as time itself. After reading "The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde" I really reflected on the division of myself, the good and the bad that "exists in me". Now, I believe in "Tabula Rasa", Latin for "A Blank Slate", meaning everyone is born neither bad nor good. However, I do believe people are born with a certain "soul" I guess you could say. For 17 years living on this planet, about 6 of them actually processing what is going on, I have noticed a certain "essence" of people. I guess what I am trying to say is that everyone has something that makes them unique or special in a way, to me at least. I guess my certain "soul" has a strong heart, being both beautiful and angry, which has its ups and downs.

      ANYWAYS back to the topic at hand, good and evil. In the story, Dr. Jekyll makes a potion that divides his "evilness" from him and he turns into Mr. Hyde. Dr. Jekyll is very kind and caring, while Mr. Hyde is destructive and sour. After embracing Mr. Hyde a little too much, Dr. Jekyll cannot control the transformations. This alludes to the hidden meaning of the story, being that embracing evil can take over your whole being, corrupting your good self.

      Personally, I battle evil and good constantly within myself. So far, good has won over evil, I am a pretty nice guy after all. Even though I'm a nice guy, doesn't mean that I don't have a mean bone in my body. I go through the same stuff that everyone goes through, things like anger, desire, and depression. I'm not sure why, but I usually block these things out as much as I can and suppress them. Sure, people can still piss me off, and I have bad thoughts from time to time, but I try my best to ignore it. Sometimes these things push me over the edge, and a "person" I'm not familiar with comes out, someone who is angry and extremely negative. The good side of me always conquers the bad side of me, and this good side is who people mainly see me for.

     The main dilemma why evil is such a problem, is that it is so inviting at times. I guess by nature we are all in some ways "evil", whether it be selfishness, desire, or intention to hurt in some way. In society, It seems like evil is the winner.....which really bothers me. Our society gives into the compelling and easy life of "evil". This mainly consists of hurting others, drinking, doing other drugs, having relationships made up of mainly sex. All these things provide short term "happiness" to people, and it's easy to get into. It's so tempting as well, mainly discriminating others and adultery.

      For myself, I choose to not do these things because it causes this horrible feeling inside of me, like my "soul" is telling me that it isn't right. So I choose to be considerate, nice, kind, whatever I can to just be good overall. I want no gain, other than respect I guess, it's just my nature to be good now. The battle will always continue in my mind, but good will always shine through. Hopefully the good will start to shine and spread in the world we live in.

Monthly Blog AP English 6 "Happiness"

            Happiness. To me, it is the most important thing in life. What is the point of living if you aren't happy? You have to smile every once in a while! You just have to be happy, but of course....you can't always be. Everyone wants to be happy, don't get me wrong, there are just certain things preventing people from being happy. Whether it be family, school, people in general, just life in general, we can't always be happy. Life has its ups, downs, twists, and turns. Everyone goes through the rollercoaster that is life.

            Let me give you a speech that generalizes my view on life and happiness, right here right now, from a classic movie. "The world ain’t all sunshine and rainbows. It’s a very mean and nasty place, and I don’t care how tough you are, it will beat you to your knees and keep you there permanently if you let it. You, me, or nobody is gonna hit as hard as life. But it ain’t about how hard you hit. It’s about how hard you can get hit and keep moving forward; how much you can take and keep moving forward. That’s how winning is done! Now, if you know what you’re worth, then go out and get what you’re worth. But you gotta be willing to take the hits, and not pointing fingers saying you ain’t where you wanna be because of him, or her, or anybody. Cowards do that and that ain’t you. You’re better than that!"

            I'm not going to lie, I might seem like a "happy go lucky" kind of guy, but my past wasn't all sunshine and rainbows. I was a nobody up until 11th grade, and even then I was still in a bad time. I've been neglected by a lot of people, besides my family, and it was pretty terrible. I was that nerdy kid who wanted to be friends with everyone and just be happy, but I guess I wasn't a likable person. I was picked on a lot, people avoided me, called me all sorts of names, strangled me, punched me, and more. This stuff ruined my life, made me cry a lot, thinking that nobody ever wanted anything to do with me. When 11th grade rolled around I joined sports and got a lot more athletic and social, without these sports I probably wouldn't be alive today. It gave me a place to be somebody....it made me happy. This happiness also came with a lot of maturity. I gained a pretty open mind from my social stand point. I wasn't the "popular guy" or "the nerd", I was just an average seeming person. This gave me such a wide view on everyone else's lives. I understood everything, how people think, why they did certain things, and I became very mature from it. I also learned not to judge just because someone is different than the average person. Society changes everyone, for better or for worse, and sometimes I can't blame them for who they become. This knowledge made me sorta special in a way. This knowledge  allowed me to make better choices, especially friends. The way I started living my life, made me truly happy, and I won't let anyone destroy what I hold dear to my heart anymore. All these past experiences, and more things that I can't really fit into this blog post, made me who I am today.

            So anyways, back on topic, happiness. An example that ties in with this control of life's happiness is in "The Yellow Wallpaper" and "The Awakening". Both of the main characters in these pieces of literature have their lives controlled by others, and it ruins their sense of happiness. They lost their independence and pride, which caused them to lose themselves. Edna and the narrator of "The Yellow Wallpaper" are both seized by society and their husbands, to the point where they can't even make decisions for themselves without permission. Both go insane. As stated before, happiness is essential to life, without it I'd go insane as well.

            So yeah...if that nonstop rant and ramble of words made sense to you, then I achieved my goal of getting my point across while also managing to do everything required for a monthly blog. Honestly I have a really amazing view on life, you probably can't tell from what I just wrote, but hey I tried. I will depart with one last saying. "Hakuna matata", it means no worries, for the rest of your days.

Monthly Blog AP English 5 "Love"

Rewriting this because Google decided that the blog I wrote didn't matter

            Love. What is love? My definition? A magical connection between two beings. Now partly what I am saying can be related to family, but this is mainly focusing on people not related to each other. In today's society, love is still a mystery. How does someone know that they are in love? Is it the rapid beating of the heart whenever the significant other is close to them? Is it that magical feeling, almost as if time is slowing down while gazing into their eyes? Is it the fact that you would give your own life for that person? Love is crazy, why does it do these things to us? Who knows, I'm only 17 years old after all.

            Everyone wants to feel loved, but sometimes "love" hurts. Some people may believe that they are in love with someone, when they really aren't. Love is a definite feeling, there is no, sort of, kind of, maybe involved in it. In the literature read over the past couple of months, it has been observed that people are together because they either have to or it seems like the best option at the time. It is very rare to see "true love", especially in this society, with all these divorces and scandals in marriage, but scandals have always existed. Why can't people just marry the person they truly love and not hurt each other? In the writings of "A Doll's House", "A Thousand Splendid Suns", and "The Awakening" this uncertainty is displayed. The marriages all these women share are abusive in different ways. They are disregarded extremely, mainly because that's how things were back then, but it is still unacceptable. Nora in "A Doll's House" is treated as a pet by her husband, Mariam in "A Thousand Splendid Suns" is abused and taken advantage of, and Edna from "The Awakening" was disregarded as if she was nothing.  Why were women treated this way? Why didn't they ever marry the men they truly loved? Society and history is a major influence, if the man was wealthy and seemed good, they got married. They got married faster than you can say "you may kiss the bride". The main question now is......Is love any better today? I'd say yes, in a way.

            Since women have more rights and freedom in today's society, things have improved a lot. Men have become more considerate too, sure there are still horrible guys out there, but I think it has improved. Maybe I'm just looking at this too positively because of my morals, but people are really starting to show their individualism and what beautiful things we can do as a human race. I could go on for days, months, even years about the topic of love, because I feel so strongly about it, but I'll wrap it up in a few of my beliefs. Love should be found and determined over time, with care and consideration. Love is a beautiful thing, so take care of it once you have it, never let it die. Everyone has someone out there for them, you just have to be yourself, it is the only way you will be truly happy and fall in "true love", which I believe actually exists.

            Anyways that is that, I tried out a new way of writing my blog, just typing the first thing that came to my mind. I love talking about love, and I hope one day I'll meet that special person, get married, have kids, and die old and happy. That is really all I want in life, to experience love and raise my own children with the love of my life, respecting her, laughing, smiling, telling her I love her every day.... it will come....in time.

Monthly Blog AP English 4 "The Challenge of Cultural Relativism"

            Moral, a person's standards of behavior or beliefs concerning what is and isn't acceptable for them to do in their society. Morals are the strangest of things, because of how different they are across the globe. James Rachels wrote a very interesting article that was both shocking and eye opening, that discussed these very differences. His main topic of this long article, Cultural Relativism. This "Cultural Relativism" is, at least to me, a huge mess of contradictions and confusion, but overall makes sense.

            James makes amazing points in his articles, using stories from travelers, philosophers, socialists, and more, to back up his statements. He uses such examples as the Callatians, Greeks, and Eskimos. Each of these "societies" have a certain moral code, a basic way of living. The Callatians shocking method was the eating of dead fathers. Greeks being the cremation of dead bodies. Lastly the Eskimo's regard for human life in general, one example being the murder of one's children. Every single one of these morals are defined to a society, to which seems normal to them. These morals make up a moral code to this certain society, which have originated from ancestors. Anything heard that goes against this code of the society, is usually appalled and rejected. James' example of the Greek versus Callatian matter of death, exploits the obvious behavior of reaction between the two.

            The topic of morals is so crazy, because morals are changing as time moves along. I loved the example, provided by James, of how women's rights have changed over recent times. It is so strange to us now that morals of mistreating women were fine with the past society. It is mind boggling the very essence of morals, because it is so complex. Even I, an open minded young adult, can't rap my head around the insanity of morals to humanity. I want to accept everyone's way of life, but once something that goes against my morals of human life gets into the mix, then I can't fathom the idea of the certain ethic.

            Sure, we have to accept what others think, but once human life is disregarded, the majority of the world thinks it as wrong. James' point of wars, slavery, and slaughter, fantastically shows the impossibility to accept everyone's morals. The slaughter of the Jews is a perfect example of just wrong moral. Human life, even though it is bias because of my own view, should always be respected. Life is the most beautiful thing ever. You cannot just take it away for ignorant reasons. The majority of the world would agree.

            Something to demonstrate the topic of morals with this crazy, jumbled, and mind blowing read, is Hamlet. In the novel of Hamlet or any book of existence really, this just being one that I have read in class and popped into my head first, there is a certain moral code that seems shocking to us now. Dueling, was extremely acceptable in the civilization of Hamlet. People killed other people by challenging them to a sword fight. This was perfectly fine. What? Could you imagine what our society would be like if we had sword duels to settle ourselves? It would be interesting definitely, quite crazy.

            My main point out of all of this insanity, that agrees absolutely with James' "Cultural Difference Argument" is that everyone is different, right and wrong is an opinion, and these opinions differ between cultures around the world, but life should be taken into positive consideration. 

            Also, even though I loved this amazing article, I'd much rather express more freely and open, not discussing an article. Happy New Years.

Monthly Blog AP English 3 "Fear and Courage"

            Fear and courage are complete opposites. They exist in all of us, creating a personality  inside us. In modern society fear is viewed as weakness and unenthusiastic, but I view it differently. With fear, comes reason, good or bad, it is still reason. With courage comes foolishness, good or bad, it is still foolishness. Even though they are in constant battle with each other, creating a balance between the two is crucial to living a good life. One cannot be too fearful or too courageous in his or her approach to life's events, they must have both, in order to move forward with utmost care and determination.

            In modern society, fear seems to control us too much. Whether it be asking someone to prom or making a choice to change our country, fear chains us, preventing progress and movement. It stops us dead cold or in a scuffle to decide not to act. Along with the negative is the positive mentioned before, reason. Reason exists because there are downfalls that can result from these decisions. Such downfalls can be measly or drastic, but always life changing. Even giving into fear can lead to worse results, but we can never know because we don't know what the future holds.

            True courage is rarely witnessed today, but we always mark these people that have this courage as "heroes".  Stories of people saving lives in burning buildings or from other dangers of sorts, display bravery of certain human beings. However courage can get people either hurt or killed, trying to save those people in danger, or other dangerous events, that fear would rather prevent us from doing. Courage is the hardest to obtain because of this fear of pain or death, but usually helps the most in our lives.

            You have to have a balance, in order to survive or live the best you can. You have to tackle certain events with bravery, but analyze the possible outcomes, positives, faults, everything you can before making a life changing decision. These decisions can take seconds to months, even years. An example of a slight imbalance between the two is in the story of Hamlet. In this story, Hamlet wants to avenge his father's murder, informed by a ghost of his father. In doing so, he is justifiably hesitant, not knowing if what he was told was true or false. It could have possibly been a trick of a demon, so Hamlet decides to test the truth. He puts on a play in front of his uncle, the murderer, and witnesses his guilt. Up to this point, there is a great balance of fear and courage, he wants to murder him, but must know if he is the real culprit. Upon witnessing the truth, Hamlet goes to murder his uncle, but stops once he sees that his uncle has repented his sins. To their belief, now his uncle can go to heaven. In personal opinion, Hamlet should have just killed his uncle then and there, before other terrible events occur, but because of fear and reason taking too much control of his decision making, every main character dies. Even though most people think Hamlet is a coward, I think he was doing the best he could. Fear only beat courage by the smallest bit in his scale, and tilted in a horrific favor.

          This perfect balance between fear and courage is almost impossible to obtain, because nobody is perfect, we all make mistakes, and we all achieve great things. What we must realize is that people have to start being more courageous, but be smart about doing so. Even I need to learn to tip the scale in the courage side, because fear has too much of a grip on me.

Monthly Blog AP English 2 "Life, Death, and Acceptance"

            Two things that nobody really knows about me is my viewpoints on life and death. Here is my philosophy, Life is a gift, and it's your decision what to do with that gift, not someone else's decision. Just because people, whether it be relatives, friends, or strangers, tell you what to do, doesn't mean you have to do it. Follow your own heart, mind, and soul. You shouldn't care what other people think, you have around 80 years on this planet, as long as you have good morals, live your life anyway that makes you happy. Everyone eventually dies on planet earth, there is no fountain of youth or immortal blessing, so make the best out of it.

             Sounds simple and heartwarming right? Wrong. Society has something else to say about what you believe in. Whether it be the corrupt individual or sad excuse of a human-being that likes to crush others, society always seems to be bringing people down. Like Frank Sinatra sang "As funny as it may seem, some people get their kicks stomping on a dream". What could be more horrible and cruel than crushing someone's passion and soul? That's the problem with our society, nobody can be their true selves, because they feel like they won't be accepted. Acceptance has always been a huge desire of people, no matter the cost at times, whether it is playing the part or losing your identity entirely. These ideas of life and death are always there, but acceptance is also found in almost every book or reading we have examined, and it's shocking when you realize it. Characters are always guilty of conforming their true ways to be accepted, because our social selves become more important than our real selves. For example in the novel The Fountainhead, Peter Keating revolved around acceptance, he even disregarded his passion for painting, just to please his mother.

             There is nothing more beautiful than an innocent child's mind, so carefree and unaware of the future that lies ahead. This somewhat magical concept dies so suddenly in our youth, because we have to grow up so fast, determine who we are so quickly, and it all flies by in a couple of years. Sure it would be easier if kids today just went to school, learned, socialized, and left, but there is more than that. There are a million ideas and concepts going on in a person's mind and life, like bullying, passion, friends, feelings, studying, exercising, social standpoints, the future, the list just goes on forever. I'm 17 years old and I still am not entirely sure of what I'm going to do with the rest of my life, but I know one thing for sure. I am going to follow my passion, marry a girl that I love with all my heart, have kids to carry on my legacy, and die with pride and happiness that I lived my life one-hundred percent the way I wanted to. I don't care if there is something waiting for me on the other side of death, just as long as I lived a good life and was the best person I could have possibly been, that is all that matters. I just wish more people would have that same viewpoint. One last comment to strengthen my entire speech here, I enjoyed writing this passage, even though its a requirement and will be eventually graded, I don't care what the grade is or what other people think about it, because all I care about what I think about my own work.