It Seems As Though The Dead Have Arisen..

Well would you look at that? I survived AP Exams! IT'S A MIRACLE! Hard to believe AP Exams are FINALLY over and done with! (Until midterms for university come around and then I'll be singing a completely different tune, but let's not dwell on my impending sleep deprivation shall we?) Yet with the deadline for Senior Projects looming and GRADUATION only a few very short weeks away, some of you (the ones who are actually interested and curious) must be wonder what I'm going to be doing for my Senior Project. Well, at first, it seemed as though I was only going to be doing a high school retrospective with my usual group that consisted of Feli, Isaih, Ashlie, Dulce, and Ming but after a long discussion filled with questions I couldn't give a meaningful answer to, I decided that I needed to rethink my course. So after hours of private deliberation, I finally found something that I felt a bit more emotionally compelled to do.

In addition to my high school retrospective, I will be giving a speech that will evaluate our time here as students, peers, and ultimately as students. This speech will in a sense be the second preview to my graduation speech which is rapidly approaching and for the select few who were able to hear me speak at the AVID Senior Celebration 2013, I think we can all agree that a speech like this will bring forth a lot of answers to some questions and will also bring up even more questions while you evaluate your own situation. As of today, I have written approximate 14 complete drafts of my speech and have an additional 6 incomplete drafts (yeah I think it is fair to say that I am on the brink of insanity because of this speech) and have yet to decide on the content of my finalized draft. The message I want to deliver isn't necessarily the question, it's just the way I deliver that has been so infuriating, but (believe it or not) I am actually thoroughly enjoying this process. In a way, writing this speech has helped me evaluate parts of my life that I had intentionally avoided and helped me find their purpose, so I hope that when I do deliver my speech you will enjoy it just as much as I enjoyed writing it!

PBC Essays

Seeing how we're supposed to be using these essays from the poetry boot camp to study for the AP Exam, I decided it would be a better use of my time if I wrote these essays in an AP test taking style. So each of my essays were hand written in the standard forty minutes, because my essays were hand written I will upload pictures of these essays with the feedback written on them at a later date. I figured they would be more helpful if I uploaded the pictures with the feedback on the paper rather than attempting to read my handwriting and then comment.

Seventh Reading

Mackenzie Greeley and I have gone over three poems in the English Augustan Movement. "Epitaph on Sir Isaac Newton" by Alexander Pope, "The Rape of the Lock" by Alexander Pope, and "Marriage A-La-Mode" by John Dryden. After reading these poems seven times the only difference I've found is that I have a better understanding of what I belief is being said and have been able to take things like the meter and rhyming scheme being used into consideration. Apart from that... I'm still lost on the subject of poetry.

Micro AP Test Feedback...

Hmm... Best way to put it. Time management needs work. I'm satisfied with what I did write in my very VERY short essay because I'd rather write three near-perfect analytical paragraphs than five barely mediocre paragraphs. So in the grand scheme of things, I could have done A LOT worse.

Response To Lit Circles...

The deed is done.

AP Overachievers UNITE!

Prompt (Revised to refer to BNW rather than The Spectator by Joseph Addison)

Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World:  Analyze how the language of the passage characterizes the Director and his society and how the characterization serves Huxley’s satiric purpose. Consider such elements as selection of detail, repetition, and tone.

“I had the same idea as you,” the Director was saying. “Wanted to have a look at the savages. Got a permit for New Mexico and went there for my summer holiday. With the girl I was having at the moment. She was a Beta- Minus, and I think” (he shut his eyes), “I think she had yellow hair. Anyhow she was pneumatic, particularly pneumatic; I remember that. Well, we went there, and we looked at the savages, and we rode about on horses and all that. And then-it was almost the last day of my leave-then. well, she got lost. We’d gone riding up one of those revolting mountains, and it was horribly hot and oppressive, and after lunch we went to sleep. Or at least I did. She must have gone for a walk, alone. At any rate, when I woke up, she wasn't there. And the most frightful thunderstorm I’ve ever seen was just bursting on us. And it poured and roared and flashed; and the horses broke loose and ran away; and I fell down, trying to catch them, and hurt my knee, so that I could hardly walk. Still, I searched and I shouted and I searched. But there was no sign of her. Then I thought she must have gone back to the rest-house by herself. So I crawled down into the valley by the way we had come. My knee was agonizingly painful, and I’d lost my soma. It took me hours. I didn’t get back to the rest-house till after midnight. And she wasn't there; she wasn't there,” the Director repeated. There was a silence. “Well,” he resumed at last, “the next day there was a search. But we couldn’t find her. She must have fallen into a gully somewhere; or been eaten by a mountain lion. Ford knows. Anyhow it was horrible. It upset me very much at the time. More than it ought to have done, I dare say. Because, after all, it’s the sort of accident that might have happened to any one; and, of course, the social body persists although the component cells may change.” But this sleep-taught consolation did not seem to be very effective. Shaking his head, “I actually dream about it sometimes,” the Director went on in a low voice. “Dream of being woken up by that peal of thunder and finding her gone; dream of searching and searching for her under the trees.” He lapsed into the silence of reminiscence. 

“You must have had a terrible shock,” said Bernard, almost enviously. 

At the sound of his voice the Director started into a guilty realization of where he was; shot a glance at Bernard, and averting his eyes, blushed darkly; looked at him again with sudden suspicion and, angrily on his dignity, “Don’t imagine,” he said, “that I’d had any indecorous relation with the girl. Nothing emotional, nothing long-drawn. It was all perfectly healthy and normal.” He handed Bernard the permit. “I really don’t know why I bored you with this trivial anecdote.” Furious with himself for having given away a discreditable secret, he vented his rage on Bernard. The look in his eyes was now frankly malignant.

Practice Test 1 MC Answers

1. E
2. A
3. E
4. C
5. A
6. A
7. D
8. B
9. D
10. B
11. A
12. E
13. E
14. D
15. C
16. C
17. A
18. E
19. D
20. C
21. B
22. B
23. B
24. B
25. C
26. D
27. A
28. C
29. E
30. C
31. D
32. A
33. B
34. D
35. C
36. D
37. E
38. C
39. D
40. C
41. B
42. C
43. A
44. C
45. C
46. D
47. B
48. D
49. A
50. D
51. B
52. A
53. C
54. E