Winter Poem

What's so exciting about being cold and a season where you have to wear big boots?
Do you like wearing big boots, and have 89732196 layers of clothing?
A season where everything is bright and white... ew.
Everyone loves COLORS!!!
Green, Yellow, Orange, Red I have 'em all.
You can pile all of the leaves together that has fallen and JUMP in them
But nope, Winter gets allllll the love.
Maybe I should get more love.
After all I show you all of the pretty colors!
well, I guess it's time to bundle up, put on your snow boots
Shovel some snow, and get Winter over with as SOON as POSSIBLE. :)

Where'd you goooo? (J.D Salinger)

     Jerome David Salinger (J.D for short) was born in Manhattan New York, on Janurary 1, 1919. He was an American Author who is most famous for his work The Catcher in the Rye. The main character of this book, Holden, can be directly related to J. D Salinger in some ways like: Holden was kicked out of a school for flunking, J.D was kicked out of school for flunking. Holden was the manager of a sports team, J.D was the manager of a sports team. J.D had also switched schools, or had to change schools frequently just like Holden. These small details with the book is just a limited insight on J.D Salinger's life.
     Well, learning more about J.D is fun. J.D wrote a short story right before WWII which featured a character named "Holden Caulfield" with pre-war jitters. Now this is the second time i've seen this name in a book by J.D. I'm starting to think this Holden Caulfield could either be J.D salinger or someone he once knew. J. D himself went into the war in which he was hospitalized soon after for combat stress reaction, after being among the first soldiers to enter a liberated concentration camp.
     Well to answer the question of where'd he go... J.D Salinger moved to Cornish, New Hampshire in 1953 where he socialized with the high schoolers, until one persuaded him to do an interview that actually ended up in the city's newspaper instead of the school's then he cut himself off from society, rarely to be seen or heard from again.

Direction this class needs

     hmmmm this is a pretty hard blog, because 5th period American Lit. already has SOOOO many good leaders (discussion wise) and which makes pretty good discussions. The class is just so intriguing. So many different points of views, on different topics that some people may never discuss have wandered through the ears, of these selected few. I feel like, our class is already directed by future Democrats, and Republicans, and Presidents, and Senators... what other direction could ONE class need? maybe we can spare some of the great personalities from our class, and share em with the others, but eh... the class just wouldn't be right. 

     Our class isn't perfect, but everyone plays a role in how the Class operates, whether the discussion is good, or bad, and whether the class will be interesting or not. I t depends on how much you engage yourself into the class, then you'll find yourself drifting away in the many, many different topics and ideas. 

Holden Caufield

Holden Caulfield is a junior at Pency High School. He has been flunking for some time and is finally being expelled. Holden wasn’t actually the greatest guy in the school and had a pretty lonely exit; no one will know that he’s gone until they graduate most likely. Now to, introduce you to Holden Caufield.

"I, Holden Caulfield, the realest man alive, everyone else... is just phony." Even though JD Salinger never stated this, it was assumed. Holden says he can tell whether some on is phony from the first time he sees them, and honestly, he thinks everyone is phony except 4 people: His brother Ally, his brother DB, Jane, and his sister Phoebe. Although he says everyone is phony and I’m real, and blah blah blah, in Chapter 2 he says “I’m the most terrific liar you ever saw in your life.” Now with him saying this, makes you have to question him throughout the book, maybe the things he tells the reader are lies, and he’s just lying about an important situation.

This investigating started for a fact, in Chapter 8. In Chapter 8, a parent of a boy at Pency was on the train with Holden. They get into conversation and Holden COMPLETELY lies to her. I doubt that he said ONE honest thing to this woman. They were talking about her son who Holden, in his mind says “oh, Hernest is the biggest jerk ever. blah blah blah. He goes in the locker room slapping guys with towels.” But instead, he tells her “oh, Hernest is the most humble man you can ever meet. He gave up speaking at an event because he was so humble and wanted to give someone else a turn. Blah blah Hernest is just perfect.” So is Holden’s definition of “phony” different or is he just phony?

 Some people in the class argued that he is phony. Others argued that “he’s so real, that he’s making an example out of a phony person, and how phony people will believe everything, anyone says because they’re phony.” Well both of them are actually quite accurate to me.

My Red Hunting Hat

     Well my "Red hunting hat" or one thing that sticks out about me is my height and voice. I'm a Sophmore, and a guy, but i'm only 5'5(so serious). So people i know, can spot me and know that it's me because of my height. This is how i'm spotted most of the time, either my height or my voice. My voice isn't really deep, it's pretty high actually. Someone once described it as a "cartoon voice." My height and voice together to the people i know just creates.... Me, Alex, everyone's favorite person :).

     On the other hand my height, when people that don't know me is around me, they'll sometimes miss me or don't pay attention to me, which is actually a good thing. Say a robber or Gang member was looking for a victim, they wouldn't purposely target someone who looks like a 6/7th grader, as i am described as. Once again it's bad because if a kidnapper or rapist was on the street, and saw me, they'd think of me as a weak kid, when in reality i'm a high schooler and will flex them if they even touch me. My voice just adds on to this illusion.

Thankful, for a Classmate... shoosh no!

     Gah, that awesome 5th period class period, full of outspoken, intelligent young men and women. A few people in the class always keep me amused though, so in a way i'm thankful for them. The class goes like" McCarthy: "blah blah blah *insert very thoughtful discussion question*".... Sohrob: "blah blah blah *insert snazzy comment*"... then EVERYONES FAVORITE Kirk: "blah blah blah... you know back in 500 BC the Roman catholic church blah blah blah".... then these two go back in forth on every single topic, then close to the end Kirk says a controversial religious state and then DARVISHA! comes in: "You know actually Kirk blah blah blah church blah blah *bell rings* *Kirk in Darvisha walks out of class debating*" LOL our English class is pretty interesting. Well these are the classmates that amuse me HAHAHA :). You guys make the class what it is now.

Cormac McCarthy

     One major theme in Cormac McCarthy's novel the road is the father son relationship, in which i touched upon in an earlier Blog. It's weird that "the man" and "the boy" in the novel was actually Cormac, and his son. Within the road the boy asked the man about dying and are they going to die and these conversations were actual conversations that McCarthy and his son had. When you think about the road, they were in an apocalyptic state so the boy asking about death was somewhat common or made sense, but McCarthy's son asking "Papa, what would you do if I died?" in a time like this is somewhat odd. It seems as if McCarthy is saying that the world we're in now is in a somewhat apocalyptic state also. which connects back to the poem Dinosauria, we where Charles Bukowski describes how the world would one day be in a similar condition as the world the man and boy live in, within the road. Now the questions is what could McCarthy's son have experienced to say something that a child within a destroyed world would ask to his dad, or is our world how it is now in an apocalyptic state already. Maybe our sons, and daughters and sisters, and brothers are already being brought up in a world where they find the need to ask their parents... "are we going to die?"  or "Papa, what would you do if I died?". Well, How Do YOU Like Those Apples?

A letter to Charles Bukowski

Dear Mr. Bukowski,

      There's things that you know that may help save our world in the near future, or could have prevented from even coming close to approaching. Were you there when my Uncle was stabbed in an alley behind a bar after a meaningless fist fight in 2006? Were you the doctor working on the kid who's leg had to be amputated but the family didn't have enough money to pay for the operation in 2008? Oh, so you WERE there in the trial where the 16 year old boy was falsely accused of armed robbery but had to go to jail because he couldn't afford a good lawyer in 2002. You must have been there when they denied the suspect's plead for insanity and put him in a normal jail instead of a hospital to help him in 2004. HA! I know now, how you sat and watched Paris hilton be lifted into praise because her father was a millionaire in the early 2000's. You must have seen the riot in Vancouver just a few months back? So you did get the tip on the new found "religion", the Illuminati just a few years back? I know you studied how the drug overdose rate per 100,000 in 2007 was at it's height of about 900,00! You must have heard of the overwhelming debts we still owe to countries all over the world! HA! You seen the murder of Derrion Albert in 2010, or Rodney Kyles in 2011, both "open and unpunished murders in the streets". I know you saw the Flash mobs in Downtown chicago in 2011. You MUST have, if not how could you have said all of these things relating to it? But i just want to leave you with one question: if you said all of these other things were going to happen, and they've happen, What does this last part of your poem stand for?


                                                                                              Sincerley, A concerned thinker.


Background: If you haven't read Charles Bukowski's poem "dinosauria,we" here's the link:
http://justarandomhero.blogspot.com/2009/07/dinosauria-we-by-charles-bukowski.html


By the way, this poem was written some time in the 1970s and Charles Bukowski died in 1994... How Do You Like Those Apples?     

father, son relationship

     Every one should have some type of communication with their father, especially as a son to be taught some of the core values of being a man. In the latest book we started reading "The Road" the world is in an Apocalyptic state which forces some things to be drastically changed. It's about a father and son going through the most extremest events to survive.
     Within this world people has gone so far as to turn to cannibalism to survive. The father tries his best to protect his song for if they were caught horrible things will be done to his son. The father carries around a pistol with only two bullets in it so if they are caught he can shoot his son, then shoot himself, because he doesn't want his son to go through the horrors of being caught by the cannibals.
     The father tries to stay to this principle that dying is better than his son being tortured like he would. A cannibal saw him and his son and the father had to waste one of the bullets on him instead of his first plan. Now he only has one bullet left in the gun.
     What if your little brother was the last family member you had left and you had one bullet in your gun, and you knew there were murderers in your house who would rape, torture, and eventually kill him? So in the end it was either you take your own life and he suffers or you take his life and you suffer? Would you be able to make a decision like this? Would you be able to kill your own BLOOD? Well, How Do You Like Those Apples?

Sinners in the hands of an angry god

So the other day in class we read an expert from a sermon told by Jonathon Edwards back in 1741 telling the congregation of what can happen if they ever stepped out of lines. this sermon included 10 things:

1. God may cast wicked men into hell at any given moment.
2. The Wicked deserve to be cast into hell. Divine justice does not prevent God from destroying the Wicked at any moment.
3. The Wicked, at this moment, suffer under God's condemnation to Hell.
4. The Wicked, on earth - at this very moment - suffer the torments of Hell. The Wicked must not think, simply because they are not physically in Hell, that God (in Whose hand the Wicked now reside) is not - at this very moment - as angry with them as He is with those miserable creatures He is now tormenting in hell, and who - at this very moment - do feel and bear the fierceness of His wrath.
5. At any moment God shall permit him, Satan stands ready to fall upon the Wicked and seize them as his own.
6. If it were not for God's restraints, there are, in the souls of wicked men, hellish principles reigning which, presently, would kindle and flame out into hellfire.
7. Simply because there are not visible means of death before them, at any given moment, the Wicked should not, therefore, feel secure.
8. Simply because it is natural to care for oneself or to think that others may care for them, men should not think themselves safe from God's wrath.
9. All that wicked men may do to save themselves from Hell's pains shall afford them nothing if they continue to reject Christ.
10. God has never promised to save us from Hell, except for those contained in Christ through the covenant of Grace.

Pretty tough huh? Well that's how it was back then in a heavily religious society. For those of you who don't know the history of the united states, those were puritans who came to the US seeking religious freedom. Would you be able to live in a society like that , what if you were told that if you step out of line ONCE you'll end up in hell like it doesn't even have to be a big step huh? How Do YOU Like Those Apples?

We're different... So what.

Things have changed since Martin Luther King's "I have a dream" speech. Most places are becoming more diverse with religion, races, ethnicity, etc. Although there still is a fear of change or something  different that some people may still have, we are all still EQUAL. Woah big word huh? we started reading about a former enslaved poet taught to read and write by her master, and she wrote "for in every human breast God has implanted a principle, which we call ~ it is impatient of oppression, and pants for deliverance; and by the leave of our modern Egyptians I will assert, that the same principle lives in us." Even though it barely applies to us now, the poem was still a strong message saying blacks were EQUAL, to whites.
     Whitney Young (the school i attend) is one of the most diverse schools in Chicago, but i still feel like there's literally ZERO racial tensions within it. Some of the guys i hang out with, are Hispanic. Do i care that i'm black and they're Hispanic, no not at all, they're some of the funniest coolest people i know. We do come from different cultures and backgrounds, but we don't diss them, we ACCEPT them. 
     Wanna hear something funny? From the time i was born until 6th grade, i never saw the color black nor white, nor tan figuratively speaking. It just did not matter to me because if they were nice to me, and funny why not get to know them better. I still say i'm not prejudice to anyone, there's no reason to be, can you say the same? what if someone judged you by your race when you walked into a court room huh? how do YOU like those apples?

Introduction

         Okay so i am one cool person to be around, or hang around and I'm very easy to talk to. I'm a very handsome, sharp dressed, smart young intellectual and I am just drop dead gorgeous, oh wait.... we were supposed to describe the reader in first point of view right? ;)
         So Hi guys I'm Alex, i could go on a rant about boring, useless facts about my life, so i will. I'm African American but i was born in thailand, just kidding i wasn't. Yes, I live in a bad neighborhood but I some how avoided gang violence and peer pressure around my house, maybe it was because school, or maybe it was because i had and still have DREAMS. big word huh? I actually WANT to live to see 18, even though in chicago, there's risk even if you aren't in a gang. I WANT to see my Mom smile, as I proudly strut across stage at graduation. I WANT to see scholarships offers on a table in front of me therefore giving me a choice as to which college i want to attend. I WANT to see a fellow college scholar so drunk that he passes out on his face and lose most of his front teeth to the pavement, that IS apart of college life right?
          I'll stop with the 'I have a dream' speech because I'm no Dr. Martin Luthor King who wrote by far one of the most influential speeches of all time, and with my speech, I'll just be influencing high schoolers to go see a drunk college guy hurt himself really really bad which is, horrible, still go to college though, it's good for your health. I think this is too long so i guess i'll stop. I hope you guys learned a lot about me from reading this :).

P.S my signature name "HowDoYOULikeThoseApples" is because I'll be blogging about different things i read and see what'd you guys think about it :).