Final Blog

(I drew this)

Guys, I have really enjoyed spending the last two years with you. This won't be strictly a goodbye blog, since I know I'll see all of you again, in some way or another. Instead, I'd hope to communicate how grateful I am that I was able to be a part of this amazing high school experience with you for my junior and senior year. As you know, I moved here junior year and I have to say I wasn't happy about it at all. I missed my old school, all my old friends, and was very worried about adjusting to Chagrin. However, I realized on our last day that I've learned to truly love living in Chagrin. First off, the teachers are amazing. I'll miss them so much. All the teachers I've had this year have been incredible influences on my education, and I am so thankful. Teachers like Ms. Serensky have the ability to bring a group of seemingly unalike students together. AP English has been a great way to create friendship, ones that I sincerely hope will last through college. I'm really going to miss you guys next year, and I wish you all the best of luck at college!

Farewell Haikus

No more Data Sheets!

But will I ever miss them?

My answer: No way.

From little juniors

To superior seniors

Metamorphosis

We learned how to read

We learned how to annotate

Could we go back now?

Ah, the blogs, the blogs

They are both a joy and chore

A Work in Progress

We read six novels

Practiced countless pre-writings

For only one test.

Oh, AP English

Here today, gone tomorrow

I will miss it so.

Top 10 Reasons

10. You have the opportunity to win at the multiple choice game.

9. There's a possibility of Harry Potter stickers on A papers. But any sticker is nice.

8. You have the chance to form a lasting bond with your writing partner. Or not, if your partner is a jerk. But even if he is, you get a new one every quarter!

7. Candy prizes.

6. By the end of it, writing a full essay in 40 minutes will be no big deal.

5. It's one AP exam you're sure to pass.

4. If you're lucky Ms. Serensky will give in to her Leo obsession and you'll get to enjoy her weakness in the form of a movie!

3. Hopefully by the end, you will form a bond that resembles... kinship? Or at least, it's not complete fear, with Ms. Serensky, officially the most intimidating woman in the school.

2. That awesome feeling of camaraderie that you share with your fellow scholars as you leave the AP exam in triumph.

1. Smartness in general increases dramatically. As well as public speaking skills, writing speed, emotional toughness..

Take the class. You know you want to.

By the end of AP English, you too can be a very smart cat.

Unsettling Observations

Clown: "She is stirring, sir" (Shakespeare 3.1.28).

Miss Prism: "I have been waiting...for an hour and three-quarters" (Wilde 51).

John Sr.: "There's a lot to worry about there, and [she] doesn't seem to notice" (Currie 41).

Miss Prism: "Do not speak slightingly of [her] three-volume novel...I wrote one myself in earlier times" (Wilde 22).

John Sr.: "I think...that it comes with it's own set of problems" (Currie 155).

Miss Prism: "The good ended happily, and the bad unhappily. That is what Fiction means" (Wilde 22).

Clown: "O, thereby hangs a tale" (Shakespeare 3.1.8).

John Sr.: "Maybe [she] should talk about the other things first" (Currie 156).

Miss Prism: "That depends on the intellectual sympathies of the woman" (Wilde 26).

John Sr.: "I think we're wasting [our] time" (Currie 78).

Clown: "Go, vanish into air, away!" (Shakespeare 3.1.20).

John Sr.: "I can break your weasel neck" (Currie 79).

Miss Prism: "What a lesson for him! I trust he will profit by it" (Wilde 26).

John Sr.: "If [she] thinks this is the end of it, [she's] wrong" (Currie 45).

Miss Prism: "Especially at the moment when intellectual pleasures await" (Wilde 21).

John Sr.: "Let's not get ahead of ourselves" (Currie 77).

Ron Currie, I love you like a fat kid loves cake.

I really wanted to write about how my favorite work form this year was Othello, since I knew hardly anyone else would choose it and I wanted to feel *original* and special. But that would be such a lie, since I  didn't like Othello that much and even if I did, I would still probably like Everything Matters! way more. Yep. Everything. Matters. I could've chosen the winner of this contest based purely on book covers. Black man strangling surprisingly peaceful woman vs Oscar Wilde looking uncomfortable vs colorful comets of blue and pink converging on a title with an exclamation point! Everything Matters!, clear winner. In addition the the awesome cover, there are several other, legitimate reasons I like this book for much. I've always liked books that are on a grand scale because when you finish them, you are kinda taken aback since you managed to get through an outer space war or the Great Depression or the rise and decline of Voldemort. But I also like books that focus down on the tiny people in all those conflicts and reading the story they have in the mess of everything. Everything Matters! combines both of these things, in a beautiful and memorable way so the novel was "Beautiful and doomed and thus terrible" (Currie). But not terrible, in the sense I did not want to read it, but terrible since I knew that at the end all the characters I had come to know and relate to were going to die. Although some say, "Irony is a luxury the doomed can't afford," Currie wove irony throughout his novel, and although it was often deeply saddening (like in John Sr.'s death), it helped establish his message-- that life is precious, and unfortunately life is limited, as Ms. Serensky often informed us, "Yeah, everyone dies" (Currie). I also really liked the book since it addressed a topic I find particularly fascinating, which is the existence of a Multiverse. Although I'm certainly not sold completely on the concept, I find the notion that "an infinite number of variations of this world exist concurrently, complete with an infinite number of variations of you" at the least, an interesting perspective to consider (Currie). In short, Currie's novel was amazing, I loved it, and I will be thinking about its lessons for a long time.

Worst Moments Ever.

Just kidding! These are the best--good times from start to finish!

10) Finding out we were reading Angela's Ashes last year. It's been one of my favorite books for a while, so I was naturally very excited to get a chance to discuss it in class and learn deeper meaning and all that jazz. I was not disappointed, for "this most goodly book" entertained me for a third time (Shakespeare 4.2.70).

9) Passing the AP Comp Sci exam. I am SO BAD at Computer Science. If someone pointed a gun at my head and told me I to code I would stare at the screen and cry until my assailant killed me out of pure pity. Comp Sci, in short, was "a messy and heartbreaking and overall pointless affair," that I am more than happy to put behind me with the knowledge that in the end, I prevailed (Currie 143).

8) Having a piece of artwork win 3 awards at Scholastics. This was really, REALLY unexpected. I was honestly surprised my ostrich drawing got in the show at all, and for it to be nominated for an American Visions award was so gratifying. I would like to add my drawing was not nominated by "The Ostrich Society wackos" (Currie 238).

7) Mr. Maas learning to say my name properly. Although I will admit, there are numerous variation even within the McGuiness household, Mr. Maas's pronunciation was pretty awful.  As many people have said to me, "There is something in [my] name that inspires absolute confidence," and to have Mr. Maas say to poorly was distressing to both me and my fellow classmates (Wilde 10). He got the hang of it eventually, and the first time he said my name without sounding like it was causing him physical anguish I was very pleased.

6) Reading about arrested development in psych. This lead to an awesome conversation with Alex Kreger and Jeff Marino about the merits of the television show and our favorite moments.  So what if the entirety of my studying for the AP exam is done by watching old episodes of Arrested Development? For I believe, "it's what I know, not how I know, that matters" (Currie). Too bad I don't know anything...

5) First day of high school. I was so intimidated. So tiny. So excited. The day went by in a blur. Actually, all of high school went by in kind of a blur. I really liked high school, and "I confess it is my shame to be so fond" (Shakespeare 1.3.112-113).

4) Getting accepted into Cum Laude. Although sometimes it may seem that "I am bound for life and education" to my schoolwork, it was all worth it when I received the letter that invited em to join the Cum Laude Society (Shakespeare). I am very honored to be inducted with my fellow recipients, and proud that my handwork throughout high school has paid off.

3) Getting into Northwestern. This was my dream school, and as even though I will be going to Ohio State in the fall, I still feel great accomplishment at being admitted. Reading the acceptance email was definitely one of the most thrilling moments this year, as I could "could hardly read [the letter] without crying a little" (Wilde 33).

2) Receiving the grade on my Angela's Ashes paper. This one is double thrilling, since I did the best on this paper than I had on anything else in her class, and it is still one of the best papers I have ever written. But.....I forgot to submit it to turnitin. Minus 12 points! Such elevation! Such despair. The very thought still stings like an open wound. But as a wise voice once told me, life is "Everything, the good and the bad alike," and I have never forgotten to submit to turnitin after that incident (Currie 292).

1) Sending in my acceptance money to Ohio State. Although I was initially kind of reluctant to do this (because of Northwestern and all..), I soon found great comfort and joy in knowing for certain where I am going to college. The whole thing still seems kind of surreal. But I know for certain that "intellectual pleasures await" all of us next year (Wilde 21).

The Poem About the Cat

My favorite poem this year has been Chester by John Koethe. This poem always appealed to me, even when we first received it I was drawn to it, instead of initially feeling oppressed or stressed as many of the other poems did. The poem is not overly complex or complicated. The premise and setting of the poem is very relatable: a quiet morning at breakfast. "We live, I regret to say, in an age of surfaces," and Koethe's poem cuts through the mundane nature of existence and asks deeper questions about meaning and purpose (Wilde 47). Unfortunately, my grade on this particularly poetry paper was pretty bad. Firstly, I incorrectly identified the speaker as being second-person, and since that's what I talked about mainly, my grade consequently suffered. "O misery" (Shakespeare 3.3.171). However, bad grade aside I still greatly enjoy this poem, and have been induced to research other literature by Koethe. I enjoy his style of writing, without pretensions or overly complex metaphors. Koethe gets to the point and says what he want to in "Chester", without skipping around with a bunch of vague statements and unanswered questions. His poem deals with a prevailing question, which is whether our lives are significant, or "Does Anything I Do Matter?" (Currie 9). I also really like this poem because it features a cat, and for once in the history of my blog will a cat picture be appropriate.

Fave Dayzzz

My prom date.

This is a difficult task, choosing my favorite day from AP English. Sure, there have been some days of AP English that I have absolutely hated. For instance, pretty much every in-class writing falls under this category. Thankfully, Jillian is always there to comfort me in my times of deep despair with her soothing words: "Do not weep, do not weep" (Shakespeare 4.2.123). As for my favorite day in AP English, I cannot say. No one day stands out in my mind as being particularly mind-blowingly awesome, since the AP English experience is really the conglomerated mess of all the good and the bad, and "the difference between positive and negative sensations...become irrelevant" (Currie 222). Certain moments, more than days, have become my favorite memories of AP English. There was the moment during a poetry discussion that I realized that I had grasped the meaning of the poem after all, and was not going to bomb as I had expected; or the time we watched Shutter Island and Leo was revealed to be insane all along; when we switched up seats for fourth quarter and I ended up sitting next to the Most Popular Boy in Class (oh, and Dom, too, I guess...); winning the multiple choice game every quarter, since"I am never wrong"; having Ms. Serensky harass me for my cat pictures (although they are clearly a tribute to Mr. Maas); watching Chase destroy the baby/piñata; and of course, seeing teenage Moushumi in all her glory in The Namesake (Wilde 10). So what becomes of my favorite day in AP English? I'm going to say that it hasn't happened yet.

Emilia and Reggie's Unfortunate Encounter

A young lady is standing in line in a official-looking building. She keeps fidgeting around and drops the handkerchief she was holding. She gasps and bends down to pick it up, but before she reaches it a man in a wheelchair maneuvers right on top of it. She looks at him, about to ask him to watch were he's going, but she stops when sees that the man has no legs and only one arm. She has never seen anyone so pathetic. Strapped to his wheelchair, furthermore, is an assortment of bulky, suspicious objects. The man looked both panicky and maniacal. Nevertheless, she needs the handkerchief back--it belongs to her mistress.

Emilia: [Timidly] Excuse me, sir, I believe your chair rests upon something of mine.

Reggie: [Distractedly] ...What? Oh, um, sorry, here. I'll get it....

Emilia: [Moves to stop him, for fear of him falling out of the wheelchair] Oh, don't--

Reggie: Don't "'Tell me 'don't.''" I got this. [With great effort, he extracts the handkerchief from underneath the wheel.] (42)

Emilia: I thank you.

Reggie: [Pensively] No problem. You know, you seem like a lady who has seen her share of bad days.

Emilia: Well, yes, I suppose. My husband, Iago, has been treating me poorly lately. I believe he suspects me of being adulterous, which I am not. Besides, "'I do think it is their husbands' faults/ If wives do fall'" (4.3.89-90).

Reggie: Yeah... I have plenty of experience in that area. It was an affair with a married woman that brought me to this sorry state. If only I had know that when she said, "I'm going to get real weird with it," it would result in my contracting a flesh-eating bacteria infection. And now my whole world is ruined.

Emilia: "'The world's a huge thing; it is a great price for a small vice'" (4.3.70-71).

Reggie: I guess so... but now I'm gettin' my revenge. Can you keep a secret?

Emilia: I have kept many secrets for my mistress, I trust I can keep yours as well.

Reggie: I believe you. The Fox has a sixth sense about these kind of things. Well... "'I [have] enough C-4 on my chair to blow [this] place to bits'" (109).

Emilia: [Gasps in horror] "'Villainy, villainy, villainy!'" (5.2.188). How could you stand to kill so many innocent people?

Reggie: "'Maybe then they pay more attention to what's goin' on with cripple people'" (109).

Emilia: Please, you do not have to do this. Surely there much be a better way!

Reggie: [Gravely] I wish there was.

[The faint sound of ticking becomes more pronounced. Reggie looks at Emilia almost apologetically.]

Don't Ignore the Narrator

We narrators are so under appreciated. Some would go so far as to not even consider us a character. What fools. Clearly, my pivotal role in Wilde's play is unsurpassed by any of the "real" characters. Does anyone else appear in every single scene? No. Only me. After all, how would one possibly know that Jack was to be speaking "Gravely" and not out of sarcasm when he spoke of being found in a handbag, were it not for my objective narration (14)? Or that the scene in Jack's garden takes place in "July," instead of the dreary winter months, if not for my observation (14)? The bulk of my work goes unnoticed and ignored, but without my seemingly "frivolous" comments, so much of the context of the scene and characters would be lost. Thankfully, Ms. Serensky seems to understand the importance of my role, and selected the reader of the narrator with care. She chose Chase, whose perfect balance of monotone and detachment makes for the perfect narrator. When Chase read my line, "It is to be surmised that they are bills, as ALGERNON, after looking at the envelopes, tears them up," I very nearly passed out from joy. However, things took a turn for the worst when it came time to read Act II. Chase, assuredly confident from his performance from the other day, began taking the narration into his own hands. When my line clearly reads: "Coming over very slowly," Chase decided to mix it up with his own interpretation and read instead, "Coming over quickly" (21). However much this slip-up infuriated me, I cannot deny that other than that Chase's performance of my lines has been wonderful. I hope all hopeful narration-readers follow his example.

An Interview with Othello

Mariel: We have a very special guest here today, Otello from William Shakespeare's play Othello!

Othello: Stop saying Otello it makes you sound pretentious. 

Mariel: I apologize. Othello, I understand you to be a very busy man. Thank you for your time.

Othello: Yes, what with my duties in the Venetian army and my constant surveillance of my wife, Desdemona, "the cunning whore of Venice" (4.2.87-89).

Mariel: You seem to have a very negative opinion of your wife. What caused you to feel this way towards her?

Othello: I know her to be seeing other men... intimately. She has always thought herself to be too good for me, I just know it. She's far younger, richer, more educated... Oh woe is me!

Mariel: Speaking of education, what kind of education did you receive in your homeland? Do you ever study AP English?

Othello: Well, considering I come from North Africa, where the language is predominately Arabic, and I work for the Venetian government, who speak Italian, I have absolutely no experience in the English language. I do not even know how we are speaking to each other. 

Mariel: .... Right. Well, surely you enjoy reading, of course? We read some fascinating books in AP English 11 that I'm sure you would enjoy.

Othello: Oh really, peasant! What kind of books do you speak of?

Mariel: The first book we read was Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl by Harriet Jacobs, a black woman living in early America. I'm sure you can sympathize to her plight---

Othello: Oh, because I am dark of skin! Granted, I do know the pain "Of being taken by the insolent foe/ And sold to slavery," but that seems to be all  anyone talks about, my Moorish descent! It drives me mad. (1.3.136-137).

Mariel: Again, I apologize. I seem to be offending you quite a bit today....

Othello: "I will chop her all to messes!"(4.1.202).

Mariel: You certainly seem to have a violent side... much like Dick and Perry in Truman Capote's novel In Cold Blood.

Othello: This Dick and Perry you speak of... what crime did they commit?

Mariel: They murdered an entire family in quite a brutal fashion.

Othello: Fascinating... did the family wrong them in some way? 

Mariel: No, and I guess that is the most puzzling part of the story--they did not know the family at all, they just killed them. 

Othello: How depressing! Why would you read such a novel?

Mariel: That's a good question. Now that I think about it... ALL of the books we read in AP 11 were depressing in some way. 

Othello: Thank God I didn't take that class. My life is upsetting enough as it is. 

Mariel: True that, Othello. Well, I am very sorry to hear about your wife. I hope everything works out for you two.... But it won't.

Nostalgia, Round 2

It's pretty cool they got the cat to pose like this.
Unless he's ACTUALLY READING.

I really enjoyed writing my last post about my favorite childhood TV shows, so I decided to follow it up with the sequel: favorite childhood books! I'm excited for this one. My love of reading began at a very young age, when I used to literally eat the pages out of my books as a baby. I wanted to learn so badly I was willing to put my tender digestive system at risk to gain that knowledge. When I finally learned the goal of books to read them, not ingest them, I loved books even more! My parents tell me that they would read my books like Dr. Suess over and over again to the point I had them memorized and could recite them exactly. I tricked my parents for a while into thinking they had some kind of prodigy child who could read at age two. This is false. However, I did learn to read at a pretty early age, which led to my parents enrolling me into kindergarten when I was four. At elementary school I attended there was this program called Accelerated Reader, where I would take little book quizzes on the computer and would be awarded points based on how well I did. I have never been more competitive than in winning those Accelerated Reader points. In addition to the pride associated with being the Best Reader Ever, the points also won you cool prizes, like coffee mugs (?). Anyway, these are some of my favorite books as a kid:

1) Sideways Stories from Wayside School 
I don't even know where to being with these books. They were so wacky and unrealistic but so much fun to read. There was one story I recall, where a new kid came to the classroom and he was really smelly and rude. He was also wearing a ton of jackets, and as the teacher took more and more jackets off the kid got smaller until she took the last jacket off and he was a dead rat. What.

2) Harriet the Spy
I still think it's the coolest thing ever to hide in people's little elevator things and spy on them. Plus she got to eat chocolate cake everyday after school... I was really jealous of that.

3) A Series of Unfortunate Events
I feel like as a kid I didn't comprehend what about 60% of what was happening to those poor orphans. Because I remember I desperately wanted to be one of them. The fourth Baudelaire! MEEEE!

4) A Wrinkle in Time
This book kind of terrified me as a child. These kids' father get trapped by some powerful other-worldly entity known as the Black Thing and the kids have to travel through dimensions to rescue him. My mom originally read it to me, and I had some freaky nightmares for a while. I've read it myself lots of times after than first episode... it's still faintly disturbing, but awesome at the same time.

5) Harry Potter series
Does anything really need to be said for these books? They speak for themselves. JK Rowling, you could kill 20 people and I would still love you.

Television Nostalgia

Today when I returned home from school I was feeling pretty sickish, so instead of starting on my homework I sat down and watched TV for a couple hours. Anyone who has watched television during the 3 pm - 5 pm time slot knows that the options are rather limited. As I scrolled through the stations, failing to find anything at all appealing, I couldn't help but miss all the great shows I watched as a child. Even the children's shows today fail to meet the quality of the kid's shows of my day. Now, as a child, I was not allowed to watch any station besides PBS, until pure stubbornness won me the ability to watch Disney channel when I was nine. I still do not fully understand why my parents had this rule, since they let my sister, Liesel, watch whatever she wanted once I won television freedom. I am still bitter about this. Anyway, these are the television shows of my childhood, which I would gladly trade for anything on the air today.

1) Arthur

Upon further inspection of this show I've noticed that almost all the minor characters are rabbits. And Arthur's family owns a dog... but they are aardvarks and some of their friends are dogs. I'm not entirely sure what this means, but this show was still one of my favorites.

2) Wishbone

A little dog dresses up in costume and plays the main character in famous books. So. Awesome. One episode I distinctly remember was an adaption of Edgar Allen Poe's "The Purloined Letter" (which is actually a short story, that I just read... it was better with Wishbone).

3) Liberty's Kids

This show had it all: battle scenes, romance, investigative journalism, George Washington, French people. I probably would have failed the APUSH exam were it not for this show.

4) Cyberchase

Just like Liberty's Kids taught me about the American Revolution, Cyberchase taught me math, probably better than any teacher ever had (except for Mr. Maas, of course).

5) Zoom

 I'm not really sure what this show was about, at all. A bunch of kids did stuff on TV for half an hour, which was always entertaining. It was from Zoom that I learned how to make chin-people.

Hatin' on the Oldies

Personally I prefer more modern prose.

While looking for a poem to use for the poetry project, I realized that I greatly prefer more modern poetry to the pre-1900 selection. Almost everytime I found an appealing poem, a quick glace at the publication date only brought me sadness and disappointment: published after 1900. There's a reason almost all the poems we have had to analyze for poetry papers are published in the modern era... they're better. Let's face it, it can be a real challenge finding deeper meaning in a poem that uses words like "loth" and "forsooth" every couple lines. Modern poetry is much easier to relate to, understand, and appreciate. I know why Ms. Serensky mandated the poems had to be pre-1900. It's because she knows we need to have experience analyzing and reading poems from this time period for the AP exam, but she does not want to be the one to root through musty old poetry books to find appropriate poems. On one hand I feel a bit validated that Ms. Serensky is willing to risk her perfect passing record on us choosing appropriate poems, but I'm also annoyed--limiting us to pre-1900 poetry took a lot of the enjoyment out of the assignment. If there was no time-period limit on the poetry project, here are some poems I would have rather chose:

1. "splash" by Charles Bukowski

2. "(love song, with two goldfish)" by Grace Chua

3. "Myself" by Edgar Albert Guest

4. "The Guitar" by Federico Garcia Lorca

Interesting Title

Brain dead six words too hard.

Simultaneous Disappointment

Do you ever find yourself at a party that has gone on for far too long? Do your friends sometimes refer to you as a "wet blanket?"Are you a sociopath who wants to spread your pain and misery and ruin the happiness of others? If you answered yes to any of these questions, Simultaneous Disappointment is the perfect game for you! Disguised as a fun, enjoyable party game, Simultaneous Disappointment is a sure-fire way to kill the happy mood of any social gathering and have your fellow party-goers wishing to leave! Simultaneous Disappointment comes with 50 foolproof activity suggestions that are guaranteed to leave your guests filled with sadness. Such gems include:

Meow! We're going away soon.

- Bring in a box of kittens. Let the guests play with the kittens for 2 minutes, then take the box away.

- Invite people over under the impression of watching Harold and Kumar Go to White Castle, but put in The Namesake instead. 

- Say you're going to make some chocolate chip cookies, but use raisins instead. 

- Announce midway through the party of your home's lice infestation. 

- Turn the party into an intense poetry analysis session, including the works of WH Auden and Ted Hughes, of course.

- Pass out some Composition books -- it's Journal Time, formal paragraph style.

We believe so strongly in the depressing power of our product, we offer a 100% refund if your guests are not completely dissatisfied with Simultaneous Disappointment!

Memorable Moments in Amsterdam

Before we started reading Amsterdam, Ms. Serensky gave us a little background information on the writing style of Ian McEwan. She mentioned that in every novel of his a certain moment always sticks out in her memory as particularly poignant and memorable. I read McEwan's novel  Atonement a few years ago, and there is a moment from that novel that clearly sticks out in my memory, so vivid that I can almost recall it word for word. It still amazes me that one sentence has the ability to change the entire novel; all of my prior thoughts and assumptions had to be completely reworked after the introduction of this new information. While reading Amsterdam, I am keeping a close watch for a similar moment, since Ms. Serensky warned it could happen anywhere in the novel. There have already been several shocking moments so far, but as far as I can tell, none of the moments have stood out as particularly important. Clearly, Clive's potentially life-changing decision not the help the woman in need stands out as a very important scene. The exact moment I began to consider this part for novel-changing status was on page 95: "Clive knew exactly what he had to do. Even as he eased himself back down the slope, he understood that his hesitation ad been a sham."Initially, I thought Clive was assuredly deciding to go down a help the woman, since he seemed so confident in his decision. However, when revealed in the next sentence that  Clive had instead crept back down the slope, I only felt shock at his brash, seemingly uncaring choice. Clive's decision to sacrifice the safety of the woman for his music marked a significant shift in persona, but is this scene hallmarked as the most memorable moment in the novel? Right now, I feel like it comes close to Vernon's uncovering of Garmony's cross-dressing photos. Again, McEwan carefully depicts a moment that completely shifts the reader's entire view of not only Garmony, but Vernon as well. Although I see both of these moments as being hugely significant to the novel, I still feel like McEwan has more tricks up his sleeve to turn our views of Amsterdam upside down.

Morning

The small digital clock in the dashboard read 6:13, barely visible through the glare from the morning sun. They had pulled over late last night, right off the deserted highway into a shallow ditch, surrounded by cactus and Joshua trees. Lola had not wanted to stop; her goal had been to make it to Phoenix last night, but once the caffeine had left her system and without a rest stop for miles, there had been no other option. She rubbed her aching eyes, a quick glance in the rearview mirror revealed them to be so bloodshot it looked like she had pink-eye. If it's 6:13 in San Francisco... add an hour, subtract an hour, Lola could never remember the system. The actual time was of little importance to her anyhow. Wasn't it Einstein that proved that time was all relative? All Lola cared about was getting as far away from San Francisco as her beat-up car could take her.

She looked at the backseat. Dozing there, nestled among the jumbled pile of jackets and blankets, lay a small boy. Walter. He had fallen asleep around the Arizona-California border and had slept peacefully through the winding desert that had enveloped the tiny car, till it became nothing more than two specks of headlights swallowed up by the dark. The last thing Lola had remembered before falling asleep was looking up at the sky and wondering how so many stars could fit on the plane of the sky. But now the stars had fled from the sun, and Lola was left trying to piece together a haphazard plan for herself and the boy. As she had drove yesterday, the list of landmark cities became a mantra, stifling the fear and growing panic she felt. Los Angeles, Phoenix, Tucson, El Paso. Names both comfortingly familiar and terribly foreign. That was all she had. Those city names, that vague outline of where she was headed. She heard a slight rustle from the nylon and polyester cocoon. Walter had started to stir.

Lola beamed at the sleepy child. "Ready for another day of adventure?"

Thanks, Blogger.

When the blog project was first announced back in early November, I intially felt skepticism at the worthwhileness of the endeavor. To me it seemed like a public journal, open to the whole world for critique and ridicule. I thought the blogs would extend the classroom competition and just be another source of stress from AP English. And I was right, to a point. The blogs are stressful. Coming up with creative, banter-worthy ideas twice a week can be a major challenge. I know that I have sacrificed many Sunday nights by staring at a blank computer screen until I thought of something to write about. For almost every post I have, there is another unfinished one waiting as a draft, never to be published. 

As this three-month project comes to a close, I ask myself the question, Was it worth it? Does the payoff of the project match the time and effort I put into it? After much reflection, I have to say yes. This project has effected me in more ways than I can currently contemplate. For starters, my blog has given me more confidence as a writer. Normally, my written work is only read by a few people, tops. A majority of the writing I do for English goes straight from my computer to Ms. Serensky without anyone else's evaluation, which is fine, for poetry papers and data sheets, but realistically, nothing good was ever written without multiple inputs. The blog project has given us a chance to read our classmates writing, comment on their post, and receive comments on our own. 

Most importantly, the blogs allow our writing to be heard, and continue to be heard for years after we finish the project. Unless we delete our blogs, they will continue to reside on blogger.com for who knows now long. Although it's a long shot that someone will ever stumble upon my blog randomly and actually read deeply into my posts, the possibility of my words affecting someone else in the same way Kesey's or Lahiri's novels affected me is thrilling. 

In short, I am extremely thankful for the blogs. They have opened up a whole new media to me and my classmates and the skills we acquired in our short time on blogger.com will surely help us in our future  writing. 

Taking Control of Our Education

Normally anonymous voting in Ms. Serensky's class entails choosing a homecoming queen or something, but Friday the votes were cast for something much more important. We were voting for the fate of the blog project. I consider this a very important matter. After all, the blog project takes up a considerable chunk of time every week, and Ms. Serensky acknowledges this. Especially with the return of poetry papers, keeping up the blogs will become an even greater challenge, but I feel it will pay off in the end. Looking over my past blogs in preparation for the final gives me a sense of accomplishment. We will have these blogs to look back on for years to come, and I can definitely see some of the ideas we started here being expanded to help us in college. 

I remember feeling surprised that Ms. Serensky would bother asking our opinion about the project. In most classes, if a teacher wants us to complete an assignment, we have to do it, no matter how the students feel about it. I appreciate that Ms. Serensky cares about how her students feel; after all, it is our education, we should have a say in it. I wish more teachers would survey their students before assigning large, time-intensive assignments. I understand that some teachers feel that without their guidance, the students would not accomplish any work. Although I can see this being an issue in some classes, I do not see it being a problem in AP classes. Everyone who takes an AP class is motivated to learn the material for the AP exam, so I feel that, for the most part, the students will be willing to complete assignments if the work will genuinely help them learn. More teachers should learn from Ms. Serensky, and respect their students' opinions regarding coursework.

Theme Songs

I feel a little rejected whenever Ms. Serensky starts up the blog talk with music from her ipod. Before break, providing Bobbie's Blog Banter with catchy tunes was kind of my job, and over break I worked really hard compiling some new songs. I was getting quite good; sometimes I would trick people into thinking the nightly news was on with my fabulous news music imitation. But alas, it seems my efforts were for nothing since I have been replaced by a machine. :'(

Neil Diamond, Ms. Serensky's teenage dream

But instead of moping, I shall try to analyze Bobbie Jo's song choices. Monday her pick was "Hello Again" by Neil Diamond. This song makes a lot of sense, since we had been on a two week hiatus and not seen our dear teacher during that time. Unlike many of the love songs out today, this song celebrates the joy in seeing an old friend again. The lyrics "I couldn't sleep at all tonight" reveals Ms. Serensky's anticipation at seeing her student's faces again. Or it reveals her deep hatred for us all and her dread of coming to school in the morning. Or it could be alluding to her troublesome back pain that kept her up all night. Clearly, this song is open to multiple interpretations. On Tuesday we started the banter with Michael Jackson's "Thriller." Everyone is familiar to this classic, and this creepy song could simply be paying homage to the creepy movie that we were about to watch. But upon further inspection of the lyrics, Ms. Serensky's clever choice foreshadows the twist ending in Shutter Island. The lyrics "You close your eyes and hope this is just your imagination" is Ms. Serensky's clever way of hinting at Teddy Daniel's mental disorder and the fact his "imagination" created the characters Rachel and Andrew. Although we did not actually get to that part of the song in the short 30 seconds we listened to "Thriller," I believe Ms. Serensky used this as a test to see who her most dedicated students are who took the time to look up the song lyrics. The prize? Spoiler to Shutter Island, of course! Unfortunately I did not catch the name of the song Ms. Serensky played today... perhaps she kept it intentionally hidden because the song lyrics hold the key to a 9 on our next in-class writing. 

Can't Escape It

Over break I purchased a new book, House of Leaves by Mark Danielewski, with the notion that I would have plenty of time to read it before AP English started up again with a new book selection. Needless to say, I accomplished very little over the holiday, and unfortunately most of my book remains unread. I say unfortunately because I really would have liked to finish, but because of the book's ridiculous complexity it was hard to stay vigilant for more than half an hour.

The book was so complexing because there were roughly three plot lines going on at the same time, and they all twisted together and interrupted each other at really inopportune moments. The book begins with an introduction by an unnamed narrator, and he expresses his regret at becoming involved at all (this is kind of  a scary novel). A old man, named Zampano, had recently died, and upon investigation of his apartment the narrator finds a manuscript for an unfinished novel. The novel focuses on a documentary (which the narrator reveals to be entirely fictitious) in which a family moves into I guess what I would call a haunted house. From as far as I got in the novel (not very far) the house does not seem to be haunted by ghosts; however, there is a door in their living room that should lead outside, since there is no more to the house on the other side of the wall. But instead the door leads to an intricate labyrinth of darkened hallways and a seemingly never-ending staircase. And there seems to be some sort of sinister creature living in all this empty space. Although I normally do not enjoy scary movies or novels, this one is not written to be startling or frightening. The events are recored very matter-of-fact, yet they are quite disturbing nonetheless. Anyway, that is the main "plot" of the novel. The writer of this manuscript, Zampano, interjects with numerous allusions and opinions and even quotes from authors and experts (many of them also fictitious). On top of all that the narrator, or the person who found the manuscript, comments throughout on anecdotes from his own background and also how his life is being affected from reading the story. This is probably a really confusing summary, and I apologize, but I did the best I could.

A typical page from House of Leaves

While I was reading this book I could not help but relate things back to One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest. When the narrator finds the manuscript for House of Leaves, he seems like an ordinary enough guy, mentally stable and whatnot. Then everything starts to unravel the further he reads into the manuscript. He beings to have irrational fears, paranoia about leaving the house, even experiences hallucinations. As he begins to question his own sanity, I cannot help but parallel him to Chief Bromden, a character also crippled with paranoia and fear. Luckily, Bromden recieved help from McMurphy; I will have to continue reading to see if someone will come to the aid of the poor narrator in House of Leaves.