Declaration of the Rights of Teenagers

When, in the course of human events, it becomes necessary for one portion of the family of man to assume a position different from that which they have hitherto occupied, but one to which the laws of nature and of God entitle them, a respect to mankind requires that they declare the causes that impel them to such a course.

We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all people are endowed with certain inalienable rights including life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Prudence will dictate that governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes, but when a long train of abuses and usurpations evinces a design to reduce them under absolute despotism, it is their duty to throw off such government. Such has been the patient sufferance of teenagers under the adults serving as government.

The history of youth is a history of repeated injuries on the part of adult toward adolescent, having in direct object the establishment of an absolute tyranny over him. To prove this, let facts be submitted to a candid world.

They have never permitted the adolescent to remain out of the home past a certain hour, even after he has proven his responsibility.

They have deemed the adolescent lazy when he tries to recuperate from a hard week involving school, extracurricular activities, and social events.

They have refused to give permission to the adolescent for certain activities which would allow for the pursuit of happiness.

They have required the adolescent to attend certain functions which have taken away time from his own needs.

They have seen the adolescent as ignorant or immature, though he understands the limitations of his youth.

They have yelled at the adolescent as they would never yell at a peer.

They have submitted the adolescent to manual labor, commonly referred to as chores, under the pretense that they are superior simply due to advanced age.

Now, in view of the unjust treatments above mentioned and because adolescents do feel themselves oppressed and fraudulently deprived of their most sacred rights, we insist that they have immediate admission to all the rights and privileges which belong to them as citizens of the United States.

Wonder Woman

Wonder Woman is a comic book superhero. She has super-speed, super-strength, and is able to fly. In the television series, Wonder Woman is portrayed by Lynda Carter. But Wonder Woman has had no real impact on my life. I don’t know which villains she fights or even what she stands for. My Wonder Woman is my aunt, Linda Carter.

These two women share more than just a name. They are both superheroes. My aunt doesn’t wear a leotard and cannot fly. She is paralyzed from the waist down because of a sledding accident and lives alone. And yet my aunt is one of the most amazing people I know. She’s always overjoyed to see my family and loves to buy us presents. Linda doesn’t allow herself to wallow in self-pity. She keeps her head up and continues to enjoy life.

The most inspiring thing about my aunt is her perseverance. Though her legs were rendered virtually useless, she has been in physical therapy ever since it occurred, meeting with her trainer at least three times a week. During the meetings, my aunt stretches and stands on crutches. She’s been doing these exercises for almost thirty years and hasn’t made much progress. If I were in her position, I probably would have given up by now. But Linda hasn’t. She’s continued to work and improve, however small the improvements seem to be. Now she is able to walk across a room with her crutches.

My aunt’s recovery has been a difficult journey, but she has still managed to maintain her positive outlook on life. Even though she’s technically “handicapped,” my aunt continues to live life to the fullest. Recently, she bought an Audi convertible. It’s a struggle to fit her wheelchair in the back, but she still loves the car even more than she expected.

My aunt has taught me that I need to accept life’s challenges and see how they can be opportunities to grow. Through all of the struggles that I will face, I need to keep living and taking full advantage of life’s opportunities. Even if they require great effort, I need to learn from all of my experiences and keep moving forward.

The Inner Ring

C.S. Lewis's "The Inner Ring" lecture was actually something that I really enjoyed reading. I didn't expect to, because (as much as I love the movie) reading The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe was not my favorite thing to do. I couldn't even get past the first chapter of some of his other books, so I was wary when I started to read the address.

However, once I got past the excerpt from War and Peace, which was confusing, I found myself really enjoying the speech. (I just completely repeated a sentence from my first paragraph. Sorry.) I can completely relate to his idea about the Inner Ring. It reminded me of "the popular people" at school and within every group that exists. It seems so glamorous and fun to be a part of, but when you reach it you realize that nothing is different from your previous "ring." And in the process of joining the Inner Ring, you most likely alienated a good friend or participated in some actions that you wish you hadn't. The Inner Ring does that to people.

What I don't understand is what makes the Inner Ring so desirable. I think that might be Lewis's point though. There is no reason for us to want to be a part of it, save for making other people jealous. But why are we jealous of the Ring in the first place? And why do we want to make others jealous at all? I'm going to use this post to try and decipher (totally unrelated side note: the CIA has a sculpture called Cryptos that is really cool... Google it) some answers to that question.

Why are we jealous of the Inner Ring? Why is it such a desirable position to hold? The exclusivity is, of course, a main reason. But why is it so great to be exclusive? Making other people jealous, maybe, is our way of making ourselves feel good. Obvioulsy if someone wants to be like we are, then we have some desirable quality about us. It could be our hair, clothes, personality, confidence, or anything else. Maybe that's why, often, the Inner Ring is corrupt in some way. In high school, the popular people usually drink or something. And in business, the "top dogs" usually engage in some scandalous practices. This could be a result of their insecurites. These insecurities can be allievated by making others jealous.

Or maybe we like making people jealous because it makes us feel superior to them. This is also a result of insecurity. People simply like to be the best, and the Inner Ring is the best social circle that exists in school, business, teams, clubs, or any other organization or group.

Anway (not anyways, which is not a word), back to Lewis. I liked the way that he tried to be funny sometimes. It was undersated humor, but that can be the best kind. I wondered, though, if maybe he had ever been excluded from some sort of Inner Ring. Or maybe it happened to him multiple times. He seemed to really hate them, as he explicitly stated. But he might just have been able to see the consequence that Inner Rings have on people. They can, as he says, make "a man who is not yet a very bad man do very bad things." That is his main purpose in this essay: to show the world that this belief in the supremacy of Inner Rings has no positive consequence. Even those who belong to them are forced to constantly struggle to remain in them. The Rings don't even have any benefit, as Lewis pointed out, but the superiority that comes from belonging is too enjoyable to let go of.

I agree completely with Lewis. Inner Rings are bad. But then again, I'm not really a member of one. Maybe I'm just bitter. Who knows? Or maybe I am part of an Inner Ring and don't even notice it. I think that's possible. Some group could appear to be an Inner Ring to outsiders but not to insiders.

Inner Rings could also relate to Social Darwinism. The "fittest" people would be the members, and the outsiders would be those who aren't evolved enough to be a part of the elite group. But that might be a stretch. And I don't really believe in Social Darwinism anyway.

Anyway, I don't want to turn this into a rant about social heirarchy and how bad it is (though I probably already have).

HAPPY ONE WEEK UNTIL CHRISTMAS EVERYONE! And Happy Hannukah to all of my Jewish friends!

Transcendentalism

TRANSCENDENTALISM. I love it. We studied it in American Lit last year and it was an extremely fun unit! Except... I don't really remember exactly what it was. So I just looked it up, and I was surprised to find that, according to the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, it was centered around Ralph Waldo Emerson! This actually made me extremely excited, because I love when obscure things from my classes connect to other parts of my life (even though looking up transcendentalism was part of AP Comp, as was reading Emerson.) It was stimulated, apparently, by the Romantic movements in England and Germany, which focused on the beauty of nature and rejected the idea of pure logic and reason that was popularized by the Enlightenment, Biblical criticism, and skepticism. All of this makes me so happy that I took AP Euro, because I actually remember learning about all of this stuff! Transcendentalists criticized the conformity of their society & urged individuals to find their own individual relationship to the world.

So, what do I think about transcendentalism? Well, besides the fact that I love studying it, I think that it's a really cool philosophy to live by. I think that it's great that they believe that everyone has their own individual relationship to the earth. It makes every individual seem very important, but also allows people to see the importance of every other individual, so that even if they do believe in their own importance, they still don't let it get to their heads. Emerson's essay seemed to reflect a lot of the ideals of transcendentalism, especially the idea of individuality, which he calls "self-reliance." In our discussion today, we were talking about the difference between the common use of the term and what Emerson meant by it. In our world today, we think of "self-reliance" as economically and physically supporting oneself. But Emerson meant it more as relying on your own ideas and beliefs, and not feeling the need to conform to what society dictates as right.

I think that idea can really apply to life today, especially as a teenager. In everything from grades to fashion, high schoolers are encouraged to be the same as everyone else. There are those who don't conform to the standards, but most do. And, Emerson would say, this is just destroying their individuality. He encourages people to embrace their own individuality, and also believes that each person has a preordained path that they're supposed to follow. By failing to embrace their own thoughts and opinions, people lose sight of what they're supposed to do (as specified by the Creator.)

Thoreau also had some great ideas that can relate to life today. The idea of simplifying life can completely apply to life today. In the age of electronics, it's easy to get caught up in the latest news, gossip, crises, or technology. But, as Thoreau says in his essay, sometimes all we need to do is focus on one or two things. Then we can really see the true meaning of life, and just live.

I don't really know if this blog post will make sense. It seems kind of disjointed. But isn't that the idea of transcendentalism? Standards don't really matter as long as you stand up for your own ideas. And I think I managed to do that in this blog.

I guess I'll end with a quote that I really like by Thoreau, though it doesn't really relate to this post.

"I would rather sit on a pumpkin and have it all to myself, than be crowded on a velvet cushion."

Open Post!

Hey everyone! Today is December 6th, which means that tonight is Jingleball! (It's KDWB's holiday concert.) This year's lineup is fantastic - Justin Bieber, Jordin Sparks, Boys Like Girls, Pitbull, 3OH!3, Colbie Caillait, Jay Sean, and Owl City - and I can't wait! I'm going with Jackie, Elana, and Tayler (from up north). Oh my gosh but we have no clue what we're going to wear so that is a HUGE problem. Anyway, that's all I have to say about that.

Right now my fingers are covered in green marker because I just got back from teaching Sunday School and we had to make ornaments. So, naturally, I had to do all of the tracing, all of the cutting, and most of the gluing for my entire class of 2nd graders. But it was fun and they were better-behaved today than they've ever been in the past.

The main topic of my blog, though, is Tara and Leah! They're two of my closest friends and I promised I'd write a blog about them. I don't really know what to say about them except for that I love them immensely! I hung out with them on Friday night, along with our friends Scott and Andrew. We played Pictionary and Extreme Spoons, plus some ping-pong. But I hate ping-pong because I'm really bad at it, so I mostly just sat there on Leah's exercise ball. Anyway, some fond memories I have of those two would include: 7th and 8th grade musicals at EMS, science class with Tara and Ms. Misuraco (and her pigtails...), health last year with Leah, American Lit with both of them, going to the State Fair, going to the Walker Art Museum (my favorite place in MN), and just hanging out. They always help me with every single problem that I ever have, even though it probably gets really boring to listen to me complain all the time. They say that I'm really negative, which is sort of true.

Anyway, yesterday I took the SAT (and I must say that APUSH vocab was actually helpful... two words were on there and it really helped a lot) which was so boring but useful. I bought my mom a birthday present, too, then went to study math at Karin's house. I didn't really do much studying because I was pretty brain-dead, but I think everyone else got a lot done! After that I went out to Kobe with my family for my mom's birthday, then went to my friend Michelle's house and we just kind of hung out with some of our other friends.

So that's pretty much it. Now I'm going to go do all of my homework for this weekend and for tomorrow, because tomorrow I'm going to bed right after I eat dinner. Happy 19 days until Christmas!

Thanksgiving!

Seeing as Thanksgiving is coming up (and also seeing as how this was assigned), I've decided to blog about all of the things I'm thankful for!

First of all, I'm thankful for all of the people in my life: my family, even though they can get pretty annoying; my friends, without whom I would be nowhere; my teachers/coaches because I actually wouldn't know what to do without them. I love being around people and so it's great that I have so many wonderful people in my life!

I'm also thankful for swimming! As anyone who's ever met me knows, swimming is basically my whole life. 99% of the time that I can't do something, it's because of swimming. I love the sport so much because it doesn't involve running (which I can't do) and because I'm not bad at it (because I pretty much stink at every other sport.) Swimming is really rewarding because it's easy to see the times improving and also because it keeps me in good shape. I can eat pretty much whatever I want to and it usually doesn't have any consequences! Plus, most of my friends are from my swim team, so that's another thing I'm grateful for.

I'm thankful for my pets, simply because they make me so happy by being so nice! I love that animals don't really get angry... they just always seem so happy about everything. My dogs are especially good for that. My fish makes me happy, too, because its fun to watch him swim around in his tank.

I'm thankful for all of the founders of our country (duh) because I live here and love it!

And that's pretty much it... I guess I'm thankful for this blog because it saves me from having to write a bunch of formal papers and I'm allowed to use first-person and write run-on sentences like this with incorrect punctuation and probably incorrect grammar. So thanks, Blogger!

Have a good Thanksgiving, everyone (if there's even anyone) who's reading!

Visual Essay

When most teenagers think of McDonald's, they think of food that is horrible for them but, regrettably, tastes good. When parents think of McDonald's, they see an easy alternative to cooking dinner and cleaning it up that takes much less time and makes the kids happy. And when kids think of McDonald's, they think of bright red and yellow, free toys, yummy food, and fun characters. The reason that kids love McDonald's so much is that McDonald's preys upon their innocence. Kids like bright colors, so McDonald's uses red and yellow as its theme. Kids are attracted to mascots, so McDonald's has Ronald the clown to interact with them and tell them all about how great McDonald's really is. Kids like playing, so there are Playplaces that they can have fun in after they enjoy their meal. And kids like burgers and fries, so McDonald's knows that it's the perfect place, selling an "all-American" meal that tastes great. The corporation knows that selling products to children is the best way to make a profit - what parent can say no when their hungry little Sally is begging for a Happy Meal? Executives attend national conferences about how best to appeal to children and tailor their advertisements and techniques to fit the desires of kids.

But kids don't realize the negative consequences that eating fast food can have for them. What I focused on in my essay was the nutritional aspect. A McDonald's Happy Meal contains anywhere from 380-700 calories and 12-27 grams of fat. Eaten rarely, foods like these are fine for kids to eat. But when they are eaten in large amounts, which happens a lot, they can lead to long-term health consequences. Plus, when children learn to associate fast food with happiness and fun, it can wreak havoc on their future nutritional decisions. Obesity is a rising epidemic in our country, and the fast food restaurants of today are doing absolutely nothing to stop it.

Anyway, now I can finally get to the actual analysis of my project. My claim is that fast food companies' advertising to children can have devastating consequences on their health. My intended audience, besides my class, is the general American public, especially parents of young children. I hope that they will see how McDonald's takes advantage of the youth and easy-to-please attitudes of their kids and maybe stop taking them to such places before it's too late.

The images I chose to use and the order I put them in reflects, I hope, the pattern that usually takes place. I started with some pictures of McDonald's restaurants in order to introduce the topic and to show how even the architecture is appealing to children by looking very simple and comfortable, almost like a home. Then I showed the various ways that McDonald's draws children in: Playplaces, Happy Meals, toys and themes from familiar movies, mascots/characters, merchandise, and attractive and tasty food. I showed kids eating with their families in order to make a point that by attracting the kids, the entire family is persuaded to attend McDonald's. Finally, I showed pictures of children who are obese, ending with a picture of two heavy boys eating McDonald's. This is to show the consequences that McDonald's can have on the health and well-being of whom they are advertising to. I closed with a picture of the McDonald's golden arches with a caption that says "i'm lovin' it." This is meant to inspire questions in the minds of viewers - should we really love something that is so bad for us?

Musically, I chose to use the Justin Timberlake version of the McDonald's theme song. It's kind of similar to the example Mrs. Cardona used because it carries the same connotation - do we really love it (McDonald's)? If I had used a different song, I think it would lose some of the irony that I tried to portray. We love McDonald's so much, yet what does it do for us? It gives us cheap, poorly processed foods that are terrible for our bodies, then keeps us coming back for more.

Something needs to change in the way that we see fast food. It's not, as is thought, an American cuisine. The companies don't care about individual customers. They're out for a profit, and the sad truth is that they will do anything to make money.

Thanks to Eric Schlosser's Fast Food Nation for inspiring this video!

On Entitlement

ENTITLEMENT (n): the right to guaranteed benefits under a government program, as Social Security or unemployment compensation

(dictionary.com)

Entitlement. It's something that we all see every day. Most people, when they think of the word, think of government programs like Social Security that citizens feel entitled to. But I think that entitlement is much more than that. People feel that they have the rights to something every day. For example, everyone feels that, as citizens of the United States, we are entitled to free speech under the Constitution. But what does that even mean? Again, we are all entitled to create our own definition of it. (Unless, of course, there's a lawsuit involved, in which case the court gets the right to decide. But that's beside the point.) Swimmers, before the biggest meet of the season, are entitled to skip gym and relax when they would otherwise be doing something active. I'm entitled to use this blog to write down my thoughts and share them with anyone who cares to read what I'm saying.

When it comes to government entitlement, I believe very much that it is the government's responsibility to make sure that their citizens are entitled to the lives that they want to have. We, as constituents of the Constitution of the United States, are guaranteed the rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. So yes, I believe that the government should protect our lives and our liberty. The pursuit of happiness is much harder to define, becuase what makes one person happoy could cause another harm. But everyone IS entitled to try and make their own lives as good as they can get.

So I don't really know if I even wrote this post on the right topic, but hopefully I did!

Spoken Argument

So, the spoken argument that I found was an actual argument between my dad and myself. He kept asking me questions about what I wanted to do with some flowers that my mom got for me, and I didn't want to deal with it so I just kept telling him that I didn't know what to do. (I actually didn't, because usually my mom just deals with everything herself, but she was gone at the time so I was in charge of the indoor gardening.) Then my dad decided to overreact a little bit, telling me that every bad thing I do is just accumulating, and when I'm in college and I need something, he's not going to give it to me. So that's the context, now for the analysis.

My dad was standing up, and I was sitting down at my computer, so that gave him a feeling of authority over me. His tone of voice was loud and penetrating, in order to get through to me and to make me feel scared about the future consequences of my actions. He kept repeating the word "accumulate" in order to draw emphasis to the fact that I'm (apparently) rude a lot of the time and that it's not just going to be forgotten each time. His argument, though, was made less effective because he sometimes didn't know what to say to back up his claims. This made me kind of laugh a little bit (but secretly, of course) because I don't get as scared of him as I did when I was a little girl. He didn't have anything specific to threaten me with, but warned me all the same about how the accumulation of my actions will return to haunt me.

Overall, it wasn't a very successful argument. I personally didn't feel too much in response. Maybe that's just because it tends to happen every day. I also just disagree with him - I don't think I was being rude at all. But that's always a matter of opinion, so neither my dad or myself would be really qualified to decide the truth.

McDonald's

So, I think that reading Fast Food Nation for BLA has really gotten into my head. Every time I pick it up, I find something either disturbingly disgusting or morally repulsive. I'm constantly tapping people around me on the shoulder and saying, "Oh my gosh did you know that at Taco Bell in 1978..." or "I'm never eating at Wendy's again because..." So I've decided to write my persuasive blog post on fast food. And I'm probably ruining the whole entire thing by having this little introduction, because it makes me sound unprofessional. So long, ethos.

The fast food industry is junk. Not just the food, either. The way that business is run, and most of all the way that employees are treated. There needs to be a way for the workers to organize unions and demand benefits that any employee of any business rightfully deserves. However, the corporations that run the restaurants will do anything in their power to prevent unions from forming, in order to save money. Because of this, there needs to be legislation enacted in the interests of employees of fast food restaurants.

Employees of fast food restaurants are discriminated against and seen as simply commodities, easily fired and replaced. The restaurants try to mechanize as much as possible, in order to be able to hire the cheapest, least-skilled workers. These workers are usually teenagers or immigrants, who are then taken advantage of. They aren't allowed to form unions, though some have tried. The corporations will do anything and everything to prevent the organization of workers in the hopes of receiving more than minimum wage or some basic benefits like healthcare or seniority privileges. But every such attempt has failed - in a San Francisco McDonald's in 1973, workers trying to create a union were subjected to lie detector tests, interrogations, and threats of dismissal if they refused to answer questions, and in Montreal in 1997, when workers tried to organize a union, the McDonald's was shut down weeks before the union's certification. To compensate for the horrendous treatment that employees receive, site managers resort to making them feel like they are a valuable part of a team through a technique called "stroking." This allows companies, like Taco Bell, to underpay their workers. For example, in 1997 a Washington Taco Bell was discovered to have coerced its workers into working off the clock in order to avoid overtime pay, forced its workers to wait until the restaurant got busy before officially starting their shifts and to work after their shifts had ended without pay, required them to clean the restaurant on their own time, and compensated its workers with food instead of solid wages. When they were convicted of these crimes, Taco Bell didn't even admit to its wrongdoings! The "fast food mentality" has swept our nation, turning even clothing stores into factories designed to generate the most possible revenue for the lowest price, with no regard to the well-being of consumers or of workers.

Those companies that claim that their actions are perfectly legal and that they wouldn't be able to afford to continue if they gave their workers more benefits are ridiculous. The McDonald's Corporation grosses over 9 trillion dollars in revenue each year (as of December 2008), so obviously allowing for healthcare for employees wouldn't cause too many problems.

Legislation needs to be put into effect that will stop these, and many more, injustices in the fast food industry. Workers deserve, as do employees in any other line of business, to have steady incomes that actually allow them to live life and to have benefits that equal those of other industries.

Wow, I could actually go on for days and days about this issue if I had the time. But I think this is enough information to make my point. I couldn't even think of any rebuttals besides the money one, so that part of my post was pretty weak, I guess. Anyway, all of the information comes from Luke Schlosser's Fast Food Nation and The Wall Street Journal's Market Watch website.

Animal Rights

Okay, so I really hated both essays on animal rights, but I think my hatred for them will make this blog post more interesting than the one I would write about student rights. I feel like all of the people who write about student rights will say the same thing, but we have to admit that we're biased (duh... we're students). So I chose animal rights.

Hearne's piece, in my opinion, was pretty bad. She couldn't objectively discuss animal rights and let her feelings about how much she loved her dog, Drummer, get in the way of her arguments. This made me less sure about her credibility as an authority on the subject. I thought, while I was doing my CRJ about this essay, that maybe she just promoted her views on animal rights so that no organization would tell her how to treat her pets. She claims that she just disagrees with the rights that organizations like the Humane Society and ASPCA try to protect, but maybe all she wants is to be able to be free from what they tell her to do. Who knows, maybe she was snubbed by one such organization in the past or something. I definitely don't know. But I do think that she could be a little bit more objective, rather than subjective, in claiming that rights should protect the pursuit of happiness, not just avoid suffering. I also disagreed with her beliefs about animals in general. I mean, nobody really thinks that animals think the way humans do. And I think that trying to prevent their suffering is a great way to ensure their rights. Pain tends to overrule other feelings - if I were in the middle of running a marathon and got a foot cramp, I would stop because of the foot cramp, even though I would know that finishing the race would feel great and give me a sense of achievement - what Hearne considers "happiness."

I think that Singer also takes his position on animal rights a little bit too far. Comparing a cow to a human infant, for example, seems ridiculous to me. Maybe it's just because of the society I've been raised in, but I still can't wrap my head around how these authors seem to think animals are the same as humans. Just because a mature dog can reason better than an infant does not make it human. And I love animals as much as anyone I've ever met, but it just makes no sense to me how Hearne and Singer can consider them so similar to humans. Treating animals differently than humans is not the same thing as racism, because animals don't see the injustice in the same way that we would. Though, of course, I agree with his indignation at the conditions in which animals on "factory farms" are kept, I still don't think that we should all become vegetarians. I will admit, though, that Singer's argument seems much more valid than Hearne's. He uses specific experimental data, laws, and hard facts to support his ideas. The language he uses manages to be cool and logical while still showing the reader how he feels, much unlike Hearne, who simply poured out her heart through her pen when writing her essay. Even the form that Singer uses - broken up into sections, setting examples apart from the other text - makes him seem like a more reliable source of information than Hearne. And I agree more with the idea that animal rights should protect the animals from suffering than I do with the idea that rights should allow animals to be happy. Because I think that animal owners everywhere know how to make their animals happy. It's the ones that are suffering that we need to fight for.

The Origin of Ideas [Open Blog Post]

One thing that I've always been confused about is where ideas come from. I understand that writers can be inspired by the world around them (events, people, images, etc.), but I don't get how they can turn that inspiration into concrete stories and plotlines. Take, for example, the Harry Potter series (I love these books - I also talk about them in my Literacy Narrative). J.K. Rowling may have been inspired by the battle between good and evil, but where did the rest of the story come from? Where did the notion of Quidditch come from?

I guess people just come up with ideas like that. I wish my brain could do that with as much ease as every published author seems to have. Whenever I try to write, I find myself struggling for ways to make my works sound original, not just repetitions of what I've read before. To help with this, maybe I could try brainstorming for at least 10 minutes before I write. (According to Everything's An Argument, brainstorming is an extremely effective way to generate concepts .) Also, maybe I can make an outline before I start writing, instead of just going like I usually do. I think that having more time to work with the material might give me more inspiration. Finally, I can keep a journal or something about little parts of life that give me ideas. That way I'll be able to look back on previous experiences and remember exactly what it was that sparked my ideas.

All in all, I still have my question: where do ideas come from? If anyone out there on the internet besides my teacher is reading this and has answers, just let me know!

Language & Identity

Does language define who we are? For some, language and identity are irrevocably intertwined. Gloria Anzaldua, for example, considers the Chicano language and culture the exact same thing. However, I think that she exaggerates the connection between the two. Anzaldua seems to think that language is required before a culture can become a true culture. But before she felt like the Chicano culture was recognized, she wrote a lot about how Chicanos were persecuted for their language. What she was really talking about, I think, was their culture in general. It's still wrong, but even if they all spoke different languages, Chicanos would still be Chicanos.

Language is a part of identity because it's a part of culture, but it does not determine who a person is. Since it goes along with culture, though, language is a part of a person's identity. People who speak the same language usually live around the same area and with the same lifestyle. Language comes before culture, not the other way around.

Nevertheless, one could say that language is a large part of one's identity. When someone is heard speaking an "inferior" language, then others view them as inferior and treat them without the usual amount of respect. Language also defines a person's level of education. For example, using larger and more complex words makes one seem much more intelligent than using simply monosyllabic speech. The more languages that a person knows, the more worldly and cultured they seem. Furthermore, people feel comforted by their own languages. If someone feels out of place in a country where they don't understand the native language, they tend to gravitate to others who speak their own dialect.

In conclusion, I guess I would say that, while language is a cardinal component of who a person is, it does not define the person. Rather, how they speak using that language is what defines them.

"Why I Write" or "Why I Write"? - The Battle of Orwell & Didion

Orwell's piece definitely resonated more with me, though I think I liked Didion's piece more. Orwell, though clever in actually demonstrating the four motives he describes, seems to be very cynical and a little bit arrogant, though that might just be the "sheer egoism" he was trying to satisfy in writing this essay. After discussing the essay and finding all of the examples he used to prove his points, I can't really decide whether I was hearing Orwell's voice or just his ideas about what other people do when writing. However, I think his piece did have solid ideas and I found it extremely interesting. It made sense to me, and I could picture him as a little boy narrating his entire existence in his head. I think the reason that his had more of an impact on me and my way of thinking was that I've often wondered about the true motives of authors when they write - whether they are truly just writing to tell their story, whether they just want to become well-known, or whether they are trying to secretly get a message across. Seeing my thoughts put into words (words that make much more sense and sound much prettier than when I attempt to say them) helped to solidify them. I also think that Orwell's essay resonated more with me because he had known that he wanted to be a writer from very early on in his life, which I respect a lot. As a child, I wanted to be a veterinarian, an actress, a singer, a model, and a lawyer, and now I have no idea what my future holds. The fact that Orwell felt that writing was his destiny makes him seem that much more credible and real.

Didion's piece, though I thoroughly enjoyed reading it, didn't make as much sense to me. I think very logically and know how to stay focused on the task at hand, so I couldn't understand why she struggled so much with "thinking" and "ideas." It seemed to me that she did very well with ideas, just the wrong ones for whatever she was doing. I also don't understand how writing can just let everything out for some people. I know it happens, but I just can't do it. I feel the same way about drawing- I've tried leaving my hand free to sketch whatever it feels like sketching, and I end up with a blank sheet of paper and extreme boredom. But I'm glad for Ms. Didion that she found a way to channel her thoughts into something that she can actually understand, even though I don't really get it.

I also think that people should just admit that they love the pictures of baby animals on my page.

First Post

Okay, here it is. The first post on my brand-new blog! I've never had a blog before, but I feel like they would go right along with Facebook and Minesweeper on the list of "Best Ways to Waste Time on a Computer (Especially when there's Homework to be Done)." I don't know how to make this extremely intellectual, but I guess I could just talk about my first week of school.

School started on Tuesday, September 8th. It was extremely overwhelming and scary, especially after 3 months of doing nothing over the summer, but it's gotten better now. Homework is, of course, still no fun, but I'm not spending as long on it as I did last year. [Random note: I don't like this blog already because, since my teacher will be reading it, I feel like I have to use correct punctuation/capitalization/grammar/spelling, and when I'm typing on the computer I don't like to have to worry about that stuff.] On Tuesday, the swim team also had our first meet. We swam against Elk River, who are pretty good, so the meet was hard. I didn't swim my favorite events, but I did well. Our team won, and then we all went home and did homework from about 8:00-11:00. Today (Thursday), we also have another meet, but it's against Hopkins, who isn't very much competition at all.

I guess that's all I have to say for now. Hopefully it was sufficiently intellectual and entertaining!