#43. Standardized Mentality

I think it would be wrong to have standardized tests to test for mental stability. It would be too easy to cheat. Pretty much everyone knows how to behave whether they choose to act in that manner or not.  The answers could be easily fabricated too. Also, answers could be passed down from those who passed. To avoid this, society would have to be segregated to a point of impossibility. In "SQ" by Le Guin, this turns out to be the case as everyone is eventually in an asylum except for a secretary and a janitor. the thought of living in an asylum like that would be weird when everyone in the world is is the asylum too. Eventually people would start to just leave the unguarded facilities, but society would devolve to an extreme.Towns would have to look something like an Orwellian nightmare, where each class is put into its own separate part of town. With the threat of living an a bad segment of town people would be compelled to cheat on the test too. If I had to take a test like this I would probably try and cheat. I would not want to be considered lower class and would try as hard as possible to be in a higher caste.  I don't know why a mentality test would even be needed to implemented. I don't think mentality would have an effect on the ability of a person to perform a job. Many of the math geniuses in history have gone insane toward the end of their lives.  A mathematician could perform pretty much any job that anyone else could do, so I believe sanity should not effect what job you get. In conclusion, I think that a standardized mentality test would be ridiculous.

#41. Hero

A hero is generally the protagonist of the story.  However, sometimes the protagonist is the anti-hero, so the protagonist is also the antagonist.  An example of that is in A Clockwork Orange.  The protagonist of that is obsessed with ultra-violence. Usually heroes are outstanding symbols of morals. The stereotypical hero is like a paladin. They represent good morals, courtesy, chivalry, and fighting evil. They wear huge armor and have buff spells and get sweet battle cries.  The motivation for a paladin-like character is simply to fight evil. However, sometimes these paladin characters are stereotypical enough that sometimes story lines will make the paladin turn evil in a role reversal. This can be seen in Blizzard's Warcraft 3: Reign of Chaos, when Arthas becomes the Lich King. Another example of a paladin like character is Aragorn from Tolkein's Lord of the Rings. The stereotypical example of heroes comes from classic and folk tales taken from Anglo-Paganist stories and Arabian lore. These stories were passed down, elaborated, and exaggerated. That is actually how we got most archetypes in literature. Outside of the paladin there heroes who are morally grey at some points. An example of a sometimes morally grey hero would be Anakin Skywalker from Lucas's Star Wars Episode II: Attack of the Clones.  I mention specifically Episode 2 because in it, Anakin begins to see the power of the dark side of the Force and conducts morally grey actions as he descends toward becoming Darth Vader. I did not use Episode 3 because in it, Anakin, while actually becoming Darth Vader is more like the antihero mentioned before.  An example of a very morally grey hero can be seen in John Travolta's character in Pulp Fiction.  Travolta is drug using man for hire, and during the movie he does his share of drugs and killing to get his pay.

#42. False Hero

Today's journal is about a hero who does something for the wrong reason. Today, as it would happen, is a Friday  and I am just about mentally dead. I apologize for the awfulness of the blog that is about to ensue...

Katie Hayes was a pretty normal person. Except that she was a devil-woman. It was her job to torture people, and she was good at it.  She would swoop in, gliding on her devil-wings that had a seven foot width. Her talons would tear at her victims face. She would stare with delight in her blood red eyes as the mutilated corpses would drop to their knees, screaming their last words.  When the mutilation was done, she would sink her fangs into the unfortunate soul and suck the remaining life force from its body.  Katie was very good at being a devil-woman; she once ate the crusader of the month from August 1272. The crusader was named Conner. Katie was sent to eat him by Lucifer himself, but she ate him for the wrong reason. She really did not like Conner; he was really annoying. Instead of just eating Conner, she kidnapped him and took him to a cave.  In the cave she tied him up and threw him in a corner while she prepared a fire in the main chamber. This fire was for cooking the crusader, naturally. Katie the devil-woman was not about to catch a disease from an uncooked crusader. Every demon knew crusaders were riddled with plague, so they had to be cooked instead of eaten raw.  In all irony to the crusaders, it was most common for them to be cooked at the steak. Once the fire was prepared, Conner was tied to the steak and set ablaze. The only sound in the that could be heard for a mile were the final shrieks of Conner's life.  When Katie deemed the charred corpse to be done cooking, she began to play with his corpse as an insult to Conner's life. Lucifer hated when the demons lollygagged, so Katie had only a short while to throw the burnt corpse around the cave before she had to eat him and go on to other people who needed killing.

Spring Break

This spring break I did a lot of homework.  I wrote a five page essay about Upton Sinclair's The Jungle after having read it, I did three twenty page packets of AP chemistry, and I have had to work on an English project. However, I did do a few other things over break.  On the first Sunday, I went to my grandma's house for Easter. We had a big roast ham for dinner, and the kids hunted Easter eggs and then went to the park.  On Thursday, I went to a friend's house and we had a LAN party with several other friends. LAN stands for Local Access Network, so basically we all hooked up our own computers to my friend's Wi-Fi and played video games on closed local servers. Much fun was had. Unfortunately I spent most of the party typing my essay. It was awful. A few times I met people for coffee during the week, and over the second weekend, I took care of another friend's dogs.  Most of my days were spent doing homework from about 1 pm, when I woke up, to about 7 pm.  Most evenings, I could slip away to hang out with friends and watch a movie or go get fast food. Overall, it was a pretty good week, but I may as well have just stayed in school and had class. At least then I would have had motivation to do my work.

Job Shadowing

Job Shadowing was awful. Absolutely awful.  I sat at school and did nothing all day. Absolutely nothing.  I should have just stayed home, or rolled over and died.  That would have been just as productive.  While at school I only worked on some of my AP chemistry homework.  It should have taken me about two hours to do the work I did, but I was just so unmotivated, it took me five hours.  Really I should have just died. Then I wouldn't have had to sit the the most boring and disappointing day of my life so far.  I also wouldn't have to be remembering the awful experience for this crummy blog.  Any thought of this event just makes me mad. I've also had an extremely frustrating day. I go on my spring break tomorrow, and I was totally expecting to do whatever I wanted and to not have to worry about school for a week. But no. Instead I am finding out that I have two full AP chem tests to take plus an AP chem lecture, a chapter to read for AP US with a twenty page packet plus an eighty question multiple choice packet, a five page paper to write over a book I haven't read, and now I learn I'm going to be assigned a group project in honors English.  In total that's probably 10+ hours AP chem, 5 hours AP US, 25+ hours reading and writing that paper, and at least 5 hours of English project. That's 45+ hours. Two full days with no sleep. My break is 9 days long. Assuming I only sleep for 8 hours every day, that is 3 days with no breaks for distractions or even eating. If I work as hard as possible with a realistic pace, that is 5 days of work. This spring "break" is broken. its not a break, its self driven labor.  The time required to do this work would fill the time of a regular school week. I hate everything. I would not be surprised if I wind up dead with a rope around my neck before the end of break.

Listenting to Blue Monk

Today we are listening to Blue Monk by Theloneous Monk and Miles Davis.  This song sounds care free, but something about it is restricted and holding back. I suppose it feels like walking down Beale St, Memphis, TN, but it doesn't exactly feel like Beale St. It has more of a New York blues feel than a Chicago or Memphis blues feel. So I guess we are in New York.  We are happy about something, probably just happy in general, but the bass line is blue. If I were to describe the solos, I would say they are a bright grass green and sunny yellow.  We are in a park. Central Park? We are enjoying life in Central Park. A bass solo is starting.  It returns to a more mellow tone, but still up beat. It has changed and felt like walking through a mechanized part of town.  A factory district perhaps.  The rest of the band joins back in and with the identification of the bass tone, I now get the feeling that this is taking a breaking during or getting off work after a long day at the factory. It is a blues because the protagonist has a hard job at a factory, but the happy-upbeat feel comes from the relaxation at the end of the day.

Comparison

I will be comparing my literary analysis of the Declaration of Independence to my literary analysis of Whitman's Self.  In comparison between these two, in both of my writings I provide reasonable analysis and support for my theses.  I do have applicable quotes in each work, and the quotes are from reliable sources.  Other than that, most of my writing has change. In my analysis of the Declaration of Independence, I am much less formal than I am in my analysis of Whitman's Self. I think this is mainly attributed to the fact that the Declaration of Independence analysis is written in a blog, and is therefore in a more blog- formal prose, whereas my Whitman analysis is actually written as an essay and is in essay- formal prose.  In my blog formal prose, I use the first person pronouns I and me to refer to what I found and how I feel.  A reaction was intended to be part of my analysis, so I forgive myself for those as they were only appropriate. However, I should not have said, "The only fault I find..." in the introduction.  Another difference is that I have learned to use more sources in my analyses than I used had previously. My Declaration of Independence analysis only sites the document, but my Whitman analysis uses three, and my comments site a criticism from another scholar.  Overall, I think my works have improved.

Relieving Stress

Today's journal is about what I do to relieve stress. To relieve stress, I like to listen to music. Along with this, I like to be alone when I listen to music.  The loneliness allows me to better focus on the music which I use to relax and escape reality.  Music has the ability that nothing else has, the ability to portray pure emotion.  This is a complex topic which takes appreciation to realize.  Music can portray colors and color is emotion.  This beauty is the soul purpose of art. In the one act play, "Red", the main character is an abstract artist from the early 1930s. He is an artist in the last leg of his era.  Throughout the play we learn what emotion the color red portrays in the characters.  Each has his own deep meaning associated with the color.  Color can provoke emotion and memory, and the chords and chord progressions can portray pure colors through sound. The sounds create chords and chord progressions.  Chord progressions make up music and music is what I use to relax.  This is why it is necessary for me to be alone when I am relaxing and listening to music.

When Nature was in Control

Today's journal prompt is to write about a time when nature was in control.  The time that comes to mind is from when I was at summer camp.  I was taking the annual summer camp trip with the local Boy Scout Troop, which I was a part of at the time, and on this particular year we went to Camp Bunn in southern Illinois.  The year was the summer of my seventh grade, 2009, I believe.  It was mid July in southern Illinois.  This time of year, the heat is always about ninety degrees Fahrenheit, but worse yet is the humidity.  In Illinois it is never just hot. It is always hot and humid.  Regardless, I was having a fun time at summer camp getting the weather merit badge. With our constant attention to air pressure and temperature, we knew a storm was coming, but we were not prepared for what happened.  The clouds rolled in over camp. It was time to head back to base to batten down the tents and dining fly.  We got to camp and secured the tents for the rain.  After about fifteen minutes we could see rain by the climbing tower, about 200 yards away.  The rain was upon us and we were ready. No problems yet.  Then the sky turned green, a common sign that a tornado is coming.  We were not expecting this.  Winds picked up the tents were blowing in the wind and we had to open vents to allow for circulation so they wouldn't blow over.  The rain was pouring down, the alarm sounded, and we were not ready.  Some how, our safe spot was at the bottom of a gulch, not a great place to be. Anyway, I think reached my word limit, so were were at the bottom of this gulch with rain and trees falling on us. It was not fun.

Revolutionizing the Way People Think

Today's journal assignment is to discuss what it is like to revolutionize the way people think or do things. I have no clue as to what this feels like.  I am a student in high school, and I am not really an authority on authority.  I am not a revolutionary. I have ideas that could revolutionize the way people do things, but I have no authority to implement my ideas, and no means of gaining authority. Currently it is my job to listen to others, and to keep to myself as long as I can get good grades.  Also, I don't know why, at this point in my life, I would want to be a revolutionary.  Doing things to attempt to influence the ideas of people I do not care about, would simply be a waste of my time. They're alignment with my ideas is of no consequence to me, my ideas, or how well I am able to function.  It would be nice if people would agree with me. Life would be a lot less frustrating because then I would not have to be angry at those who disagree with me.  It sounds vain, but the things I want people to agree on with me are matters of times when I have difficulty explaining myself.  If I did not have to trace my thought processes to people who cannot follow them, I would be much happier.

Gossip

In class, we are reading Edgar Lee Masters's "Spoon River Anthology".  This book deals with the goings-ons in the small town of Spoon River.  Masters discusses the goings-ons with epitaphs written on peoples graves.  These poems discuss the major life events of people and the gossip that they knew or heard.  The people of Spoon River tell all in their epitaphs because they have nothing to lose.  In these epitaphs we see chains of events and stories that follow through many different people's epitaphs.  This gossip chain is very much like real life gossip.  We see that everyone seems to know parts of stories, and only through connecting all of the parts can we get the full story of the event.  Gossip in real life is similar to this.  You almost never hear the full story when you receive gossip.  Because of this, gossip cannot be trusted.  An example of this in Spoon river is when Mr. Purkapile attempts to keep his affair secret, but when we read the story of his wife, Mrs. Purkapile, we find that she knew all along.  We can also follow this gossip chain to the woman Mr Purkapile had an affair with.  In her epitaph, she admits to being in the affair, and she further accuses Mrs Purkapile of being a bad wife who couldn't satisfy her husband.  Whether this is true or not, one would have to dig deeper to find, so even in this instance of controlled gossip, we do not learn the full story.  It is infinitely more difficult in real life where the system of gossip is open and infinite. To conclude,  gossip is impossible to control in real life, so just don't do it.

Civil Rights

I believe in civil rights.  I see no reason why any group should be discriminated purely for their skin color or for their customs.  I fully believe that people are the same by nature. Whether someone is black, white, red, yellow, or brown, I see no difference in the available characteristics of a person.  Just because a person is from a different part of the world does not make them any more or less human.  We have all evolved from monkeys. The only reason we have different skin colors is because we adapted to our surroundings after Homo Erectus left south Africa.  In something of a contradictory fashion, I am all for putting people down who are ignorant or lack common sense.  If someone has been told many times how to do a simple task, and they choose not to do it, then I believe that they deserve to be at the back of the bus, not the person who simply has a different skin color.  Don't get me wrong. I only hold this standard for those that chose to ignore.  If someone has a mental or physical handicap which prevents them from performing a task of any sort, then they can not be held accountable for their inability to perform.  Race and color should not play into the determination of someones character, but someone who actually has poor character should be ostracized.  This is the stance I hold on civil rights. One should be judged on one's character and ethics, not their skin color or culture.

Giving

Giving the topic of today's journal. I am going to assume this is because we have just come back from winter break, and the question is mildly inspired by Christmas.  Christmas is supposed to be about giving.  This is most likely because the wise men gave Jesus gifts.  Similarly, Easter could be about giving, as Jesus gave his life for our sins.  Giving is usually considered a good thing by society.  We see people as being nice when they give objects and services to others.  This is an interesting idea that society holds.  I wonder how society may be different if we held neutrality and possession above "friendliness" and giving; or yet still if we held aggression and conquer in high regard.  Societies have held the former in high regard before.  The Assyrians and Kush cultures were like this.  General ability to conquer was good. Then all of history, even today is viewed like this.  We call the ability to attack and conquer is usually know as power.  Power is a function of respect. This is because, without acknowledgement, authority does not exist.  In turn we can logically deduce that we do, and always have, appreciated and desired the ability to not give, but instead to take, from others and keep for ourselves.  Yes, this is selfish, but under no circumstance do I believe that is bad.  General thought of the masses is a social construction, and mass opinion is something that simply only ever contradicts itself.  Giving is certainly an action which does and doesn't happen, but the opinion with which it is held is a confusing subject which is probably determined by motive.  It also depends on moral outlook.  Are you a Gandhi/ Mother Teresa/ caring individual? If so, you probably like the idea of giving anything and everything.  Are you more like a Spartan/Hun/ or any ruler before 1950? If so, you probably thing taking is not so bad.

Different ending.

Sometimes, things do not end in the way that I expect they will. I am occasionally surprised by how my blogs go.  In one of my recent blogs, I found myself explaining why giving to others was looked down upon.  I don't disbelieve that, but I was surprised to find myself writing about that. Sometimes I just start rambling in my blogs, and this results in my blogs not fully pertaining to the original subject.  I truly have nothing else to write about this. I am absolutely stumped.  Its been a while since this has been assigned, so I'm just here finishing it up.  I don't believe I have any regular readers, but if I do, I apologize for this blog.  This is just being pieced together to reach my word limit of 325 for class.  On an interesting note, this is doing a wonderful job of demonstrating what I am trying to discuss at the same time that I am not discussing it.  I had no intention of having typed all of this, it was just kind of me trying to get a good grade.  Is it paradoxical that this is happening to my blog? Is it ironic?  This is a difficult question which I don't know the answer to and probably never will because I am choosing to address it.  Me knowing about it makes it not ironic, at least not most forms of irony.  This isn't sarcasm because I really had no intent of doing it to make a point, I am typing this as it comes to my head.  Gosh this is turning out to be just an awful blog. I honestly hope no one reads this.  This is the worst of the worst.  If I were to find and read this blog, I would probably just get really mad at whatever sleaze wrote it. I'm kind of getting mad at myself for writing this too. There are some really good and insightful things in some of my literary blogs, but this is just an in class blog which I am only doing because I have to.  For good bloggage please read some of my stuff from mid and late 2012.  And that is how things sometimes go in a way that I don't plan them to.

Defending the Homeland

I think it would be terrifying to be hundreds of miles from defending my country.  The isolation would probably be the worst part.  More likely than not, you would have to leave behind everyone you knew and cared for.  All of your friends and family are hundreds of miles away unaware as to your condition and you to theirs.  Serving in the forces would sever the umbilical cord of the familiar.  On a similar note, you would have no clue as to where you were.  Many people know the land near their home quite well, but almost no one knows the lay of the land hundreds of miles away.  Soldiers in the American Army know the land around their house, whether it be Cleveland, Ohio or Lincoln, Nebraska, but they are usually unfamiliar with the Arabian deserts. I can not imagine how it must feel to be left so alone.  Truthfully, I have no clue what it would be like to be that isolated or that far from home.  The farthest I have ever been was New York with the Boy Scouts, or last year when I went to engineering camp with the Army Corps of Engineers.  I, personally, had fun at both.  Maybe it isn't too bad for some people who join the services and go over seas.  I think I may like the spirit of adventure, the idea of experiencing new things to me.  I love playing Dungeons and Dragons, and these feelings are probably why.  I can encounter new things through the avatar of Isaac Metalmeld, the dwarfish  fighter.  The major difference between this and fighting in the army is how real it is.  There are really no real repercussions if my dwarf dies, but you can actually be killed in the military.  However, I also have no clue how bad that is.  I don't know what it is like to die, and it is you own call if there is any form of afterlife.  In all, there are goods and bad from joining the services, but you have to decide which side is heavier.

Out of the Element

Being out in society is out of my element. My "element", my habitat, is alone.  I like to be by myself, or with close friends.  I enjoy myself under these conditions.  When I am alone I am able to enjoy my imagination.  I use my imagination quite heavily when I am by myself.  I run circumstantial scenarios through my head for the next time I am forced out of my element.  I plan what I will say to things other people might say to me.  However, this never seems to work.  Whenever I talk to people, I never know what to say. I stumble over my own tongue and can't form coherent sentences, let alone paragraphs.  Part of my inability to form paragraphs comes from my imagination and thought process.  My mind runs quickly; it can seldom be followed.  I may be talking to someone about my thoughts on a physics lecture, and then, while I am speaking my sentence about physics, my imagination comes with an implementation of the science.  I am suddenly talking about something crazy like bumble bees.  But then again, what are the chances of me listening to one of the physics lectures.  I learned it all two years ago and now I just sleep through class.  I go back to my own element in this time.  I just pretend interesting things are happening and dream of things I enjoy.  This is how most of my time is spent, either being engaged and uncomfortable or dreaming in my head.  This is how I like to be; alone with my thoughts.  I know some might ask if this means I am reclusive. Well, no, not really.  I enjoy spending time with people who aren't myself.  I have friends, and I do spend time with them.  Its just that I tend to say unintelligent things sometimes, and I'm apt to be clumsy.  Not stupid or uncoordinated, just, not exactly all together. Anyhow, to recap, my element is where I am alone.  I can handle myself just fine most of the time, but I like to be alone.