Post #9: Capstones

Capstones. What does that word even mean?  A stone that is shaped like a cap? A captain named Stone? Why is it required to graduate? Isn't an honors diploma enough to appease the education Gods?
I guess not. But, here we are, almost nine weeks into school, and thankfully, everything is starting to fall into place. I have some hours for S.C.O.P.E. (it's like S.H.I.E.L.D., but for CTE education.) and I've made contact with my community member liaison at  the Sparks Police Department. But there is still this hanging, nagging sense that it's not going to be good enough, and I won't be able to catch up and school is starting to feel a little overwhelming.
And I'm only taking one AP class. I have friends that are taking more than three, and I am forever in awe of them. How do they function? If I didn't have TV and knitting time everyday, I would probably go crazy. I specifically chose my classes this year because of that. I get off at 12:30 everyday, and I go home and do homework, and then I have the evenings to do what I want. But this capstone thing just feels like Mjollnir is weighing on my chest.
On the bright side, Hamlet is awesome. Next to Macbeth, Hamlet is my favorite Shakespearean play. Ghosts, madness, Uncle-Dads, and murder most foul. What more could you want in a tragedy? And, it's October! Halloween is coming! It's my favorite holiday. I think this year I am either going to dress up as Wolverine or Captain Kirk. I'm not sure yet. Probably Kirk.

See you on the flip side.

-D

Post #8: Thith ith How I am Currently Thpeaking

I got my braces off this morning! On the one hand, I am super excited! Popcorn! Apples! Caramel! Other banned foods! 

But on the other hand, a giant retainer. 

I'm missing a tooth. It's genetic (thanks, mom). So, in addition to the regular clear plastic retainers, I have a separate one with a fake tooth attached. It's awful. The taste alone is enough to make me ill. I have to wear it, or else I look like a gap toothed pirate. 

So, I have a beautiful smile, but I have lisp about fifty times worse than Cindy Brady's. It ith driving me abtholutely crathy. 

Onth again though,  it ith all about perthpective. 

I am very blessed to have a mom who wants me to have nice teeth and I am very lucky to have gotten braces. I have all of my teeth except one, and none of them are misshapen. 

Maybe I can ask the All-Powerful Limbo Stick to use it's great and terrible powers to give me a tooth. There's always Saint Nicholas too, I suppose. 

On different note-

Nathanael over at What A Wonderful Journey (if you're not reading his blog, you should be. He's hilarious) and I read Act One, Scene Three of Hamlet on Wednesday in English. Out loud. To the class. If you're not familiar with the play, this is the scene where Laertes tells his younger sister, Ophelia to "then weigh what loss your honor may sustain,  if with too credent ear you list his songs,  or lose your heart, or your chaste treasure open to his unmaster'd importunity". Translation: Don't have sex with Hamlet. People will think you are a shameless hussy. It's a great scene, and Ophelia tells Laertes to keep it in his own pants and I honestly think that they have a really great sibling relationship. 

I don't know about Nathanael, but reading that scene was definitely a highlight of my week. 

Thigning Off

D

Post #7: The Whole Fam-damn-ily

A big dynamic in Hamlet is the family relations throughout the play. Hamlet and his dead father, Hamlet and his Mother-Aunt, Hamlet and his Uncle-Dad, Laertes and his sister Ophelia, and Polonius and his kids Laertes and Ophelia, to name a few.
I have had all five of my Great Uncles and one Great Aunt, along with their respective spouses in town this weekend for my Grandpa's memorial. Plus two Cousins, my Great Grandma, Aunt and Uncle, all on my Grandma's side, and on Grandpa's side, Great Uncle Buck, and some more Cousins.
It's been crazy. But it's also been really nice. I haven't seen most of these people in years, and I love a loud household. Granted, I don't really want seven kids like Great Grandma, but it definitely is a blast.
As we start Hamlet, I am reminded how blessed I am where family is concerned. We will all be the first to admit we are completely dysfunctional. One my Great Uncles this weekend said "that Duck family ain't got nothing on us!" I think he was referencing that reality TV family, but I don't have cable, so I'm not sure.
And he's right. But on the bright side, there are no Sister-Wives or Uncle-Dads in our family, as far as I'm aware. On my Grandma's side, there are over 70 cousins (seven kids will do that). We don't always agree, but we are always there for each other. I can't tell you with much accuracy which kid belongs to which parent or who just had a baby, but I can tell you that everyone in this family is loved.

Also- Fam-damn-ily comes from my Grandpa Jim. I give credit where credit is due.

Well, that's the news from Lake Woebegone, where all the women are strong, all the men are good looking, and all the children are above average.

D

Post #6: The Secret Lives of Teachers - A Short Story

The last bus has left, and everyone in detention has been sent home. The janitorial staff has disappeared back into the supply closets, mops and buckets in hand. The teachers gather in the lunchroom, wearing pink velvet robes and bunny slippers. They place the All-Powerful Limbo Stick on the best table in the lunchroom and bow down to it. The All-Powerful Limbo Stick is a myriad of colors, and makes the students uncomfortable when they look at it, as though it is mocking them.
The English Teachers bring a stack of failed tests and papers up to the table and one by one begin sacrificing the pieces of poor writing and miscalculated numbers to the All-Powerful Limbo Stick. They set each sheet of paper on fire and chant "Jack be limbo, jack be quick, jack go under limbo stick. All around the limbo clock, hey let's do the limbo rock".
The Science Teachers do the "Elaine" around the pyre of failure while they throw boric acid onto the flames.
The Math Teachers sacrifice Casio fx-9750GII calculators to the ever-growing flames.
The History Teachers throw ipods and phones that were taken away onto the flames, and the batteries explode and the lunchroom is filled with an acrid smell of burnt pizza and dead dreams.
 The Teachers chant louder and faster and then the All-Powerful Limbo Stick rises up on a column of green flames. The teachers stop dancing and sacrificing, but continue to chant. A bell rings, signaling the end of the chanting period. The All-Powerful Limbo Stick speaks.
"I command you to bring me more failing papers! Sacrifice the failings of students to me! I am the All-Powerful Limbo Stick!"
The teachers bow once more, promising to bring more failed papers. An English Teacher steps forward.
"O' All-Powerful Limbo Stick! I shall not only bring you the sad excuses my students consider essays, but also green sheets of shame, signifying their failure to complete their assignments!" He says.
"Yes. This pleases me greatly." The All-Powerful Limbo Stick thunders. The All-Powerful Limbo Stick then disappears in puff of yellow smoke and reappears in the upstairs math classroom, near the calculator table, to be found the following morning by the first period Statistics Teacher.

Post #5: Easy Assignment?

Your homework this weekend is easy. Find a song that you want to analyze. Easy as pie, right? 
WRONG. 
I stared at my collection of CDs, and they stared back. Were The Smiths too pretentious? Was Led Zeppelin a cliché? Flogging Molly might be too... Loud. 
Why is this project so hard? It's one song, that's all. I spent at least an hour looking up and comparing lyrics. I finally narrowed it down to two. Neither of them are Led Zeppelin songs. 
One of them is a Fleet Foxes cover/edit. The song is "False Knight On the Road", which is an old folk song that they re-wrote and recorded for a b-side to their single Mykonos. It's about the Devil, I think. Or at the very least it is about temptation.
The other is a Josh Ritter song off Hello Starling. "Wings" is about change and angels and trains. It would be cool to poetically analyze all of Josh Ritter's songs. I still have all of the work I did freshman year on his other song "Thin Blue Flame". It's about Heaven and angels. 
I think that I had so much trouble with this assignment because it made me reflect on what I listen to. We were supposed to find a song with a meaning we were unsure of. I honestly have too many of those. The Smiths raise questions about the point of our existence, Led Zeppelin underscores the importance of fantasy novels, and Flogging Molly likes to yell about men on ships. 
With what is currently going on in my life, I realize even more the importance of music in our lives. Whether I am singing the 'Beer-Run' song with my little sister in the car or listening to Luka Bloom tell me I couldn'ta come at a better time while I write, music is important to me and my mom and my little sister. Even though she likes some boy bands that make me want to barf. But then again, I still listen to the Spice Girls, so I guess we're even. 

Live Long And Prosper

D

Post #4: MIIIIILLLLOOOOOOOO!!!

I had not pictured Nately as a singing moose. Don't get me wrong, I like Art Garfunkel. But he's not how I pictured Nately. 

I just finished the 1970 movie version of Catch-22. I really enjoyed it. But, like all movies based on books, Catch-22 the novel was much better. The movie followed the book in some areas, but not in others. 

DISCLAIMER: IF YOU WANT TO WATCH THE MOVIE WITH NO SPOILERS, GO READ ANOTHER BLOG

Okay. 

Hungry Joe gets cut in half by McWatt, not Kid Sampson. McWatt still crashes into the mountain. That was a little annoying. Nately dies during Milo's raid on the base. That was very annoying.  My favorite scene was completely left out. There were no naked officers holding Nately's Whore hostage. 

SCHIESSKOPF WASN'T EVEN IN THE MOVIE! 

That made me mad. I yelled at my screen and my mom had to come check on me. 

"Are you okay?" she asked. 

"NO! They left Shithead out of the movie! I wanted to watch him do parades!" I said.

She 'hmmm'-ed at me and went back to whatever she was doing. 

The Snowden flashbacks were really well done. Guts and all. Jon Voight was awesome as Milo Minderbinder. Billy Crystal makes an appearance as Mjr. Major Major. Norman Bates plays Chaplain Tappman. 

I think in terms of WWII movies, my favorite is still Memphis Belle. Harry Connick Jr. sings, Samwise shoots at Nazis, and Reverend Shaw does not dance on screen, but does have lots of pictures taken of the Memphis Bell crew for Life magazine. No one dies, but it still leaves me in a mess of ugly crying every time I watch it. 

10-24

D

 

Post #3: Death in the Opposite House

Last week we read "There's been a Death, in the Opposite House" by Emily Dickinson. It talked about how people find out that someone has died in a "Country Town". The neighbors "intuitively" know someone has died across the street.
That's not how it works anymore. Believe me, I know. I am spending my birthday dealing with it. Now, you can't just throw a mattress out onto the street. People don't really "intuitively" know anymore. Now we read the obituaries in the paper or online. Now you have to make phone call after phone call and repeat the news. People call you. Telephones are constantly in use. My Mom and Grandma have probably spent more time dialing phone numbers this weekend than they have in the past month.
 My Grandpa had a stroke Saturday morning. I am not writing this as an 'O Woe is me' post or to illicit an empathy grade. I'm writing this because I am not sure what else to write about. I had never been in an ICU before yesterday, and let me tell you, they are depressing places. The curtains are hideous. It is not like what I see on TV. Two of the nurses had full sleeves of tattoos.
I was not planning on spending my sweet sixteen this way, but one thing's for sure, it's been a hell of a weekend, and it sure won't be a birthday I'll forget.
Hug those you love, tell people you appreciate them and love them.
D

Post #2: Fire, Justification, and Televsion

     I'm not going to lie. I love watching TV. I don't have cable, which is a good thing.  I watch cultural shows that enrich my life on PBS, like Masterpiece Theater and NOVA and Ken Burns documentaries.
     I also watch shows that do nothing for me besides entertain me. This fall TV season, I am really looking forward to the return of Chicago Fire on NBC.
     I love Chicago Fire. It is not nearly as cheesy as it looks in the previews, and there were a couple of really powerful episodes last season. Yes, the two male leads are highly attractive, and the other fire fighters get up to kooky antics throughout the season, but it is well written and has a cohesive plot line. And hey, attractive guys are always a plus. The situations never seem too far-fetched, and the emotional reactions of the characters always seem realistic.
      I say these things to justify "good" and "intelligent"  reasons for watching, and they are reasons I watch the show, but I watch Chicago Fire mostly because it is entertaining. I watch because of the male leads and because things catch fire and everyone has to figure out how to work together and the relationships on this show are a little silly and it is a reprieve from my own world and from hard thinking about real problems. It is an hour of wondering if they had to take lessons to drive the fire trucks and how heavy are the costumes and will Dawson and Casey ever get together and how socially acceptable would it be to pet Severide's nice abs if I ever met him in real life. These are the reasons I watch every week. I'm invested in the characters and the drama every week.
     Could I be doing something more productive, like sleeping, or reading a book? Yes, most definitely. But I also could be doing drugs or setting things on fire, so it's really all about perspective. And my perspective is that if you enjoy something, that's cool. I like watching firefighters yell at each other and occasionally take their shirts off on my little analog TV with the broken rabbit ears. Maybe you like crazy moms dressing their kids up in dresses that probably cost more than my entire wardrobe combined. It's all good.

Don't drive like my brother.

D

Post #1: There's Only One Catch, and it's a Catch-22!

This past week in English, we finished up our summer project, Catch-22, by Joseph Heller. We read and annotated over the summer and then when we got back to school, we discussed and wrote essays about the book. As a class, we discussed the many instances of irony, symbolism, and Snowden's death, but something we didn't really touch on how funny this book is. Most of the humor came from complete absurdity, but I digress. There were some points where I had to put the book down because my giggling was distracting me from the novel (and disrupting the whoever I happened to be sitting next to as well). So here, in no particular order, ten of the funniest bits of Catch-22, according to me:

Note- I own the Dell 1980s-ish edition. All page numbers correspond with my copy.

1. Chapter 33, where the officer's keeping Nately's Whore are harassed by Nately, Yossarian and a couple others. The officers all walk around naked, because Dunbar throws the officer's clothes into the courtyard.   

"General, we're in a very bad strategic position. We haven't got a stitch of clothing, and it's going to be very degrading and embarrassing for the person who has to go downstairs through the lobby to get some"

"Yes, Filpo, you're quite right," said the general. "And that's exactly why you're the one to do it. Get going." 

"Naked, sir?"

"Take your pillow with you if you want to. And get some cigarettes, too, while you're downstairs picking up my underwear and pants, will you?"

"I'll send everything up for you," Yossarian offered. 

"There, General," said Filpo with relief. "Now I won't have to go."

"Filpo, you nitwit. Can't you see he's lying?"

"Are you lying?"

Yossarian nodded, and Filpo's faith was shattered. 

2. T.S. Elliott. Or almost any other time Ex-P.F.C. Wintergreen opens his mouth. (Chapter 4)

3. Anytime Milo tries to explain investing and/or the syndicate to other characters. (Especially Chapter 7)

4. The fact that one of the characters is named Shithead. Schiesskopf roughly translates to Shithead in German. (Chapter 8)

5. Shithead's Parades and his extreme obsession with said parades. (Also Chapter 8)

6. Hungry Joe vs. Huple's cat. (Chapter 12)

7. Anytime anyone called someone else crazy or a "crazy sonofabitchinbastard" (page 156) or pazzo. Because all of the terms applied to all of the characters at some point.  (Chapter 5. The word crazy is used over 20 times.)

8. Thanksgiving. Or anytime anyone got even a little drunk. (Chapter 34)

9. The Anabaptist Chaplain continually being called 'Father'. (Chapter 36)

10. Anytime the higher-ups try to out-do and out-smart and out-perform each other. (Entire

Novel)

So there you have it. The whole book is pretty funny, but these were the parts that got me to at least chuckle quietly.

Goodnight, and have a pleasant tomorrow.

D