Tuesday, November 07, 2006

I don't know, a million?

A million things to say.

I was going to go to bed early.

But writing brings me way too much joy, I gotta jump in.

One day soon I'm going to roll my blog over to the beta. Currently I'm not allowed to, but that should change soon. It's going to be a momentous occasion. I think you're going to like the stuff that'll come along when it happens. I know I will.

Let's just hop right into this madness shall we? First order of business, Ultimate.

You all know that all of my ultimate dreams and aspirations were heavily influenced not only by the scottish rock band LifeGym, but the generation of frisbee players that came before me. They were my heroes, I wanted to be just like them. I'm not sure how we'd stack up against them right now if we played them in their prime versus us in our prime, it'd be close.

I remember that they didn't play as often as us during the school year. Chances to get together with everyone's hectic schedule were few and far between. In order to preserve some level of Ultimate, they made a deal. They decided that they would have an Ultimate game every night directly preceding a school dance. So, night before homecoming, they're up super late playing Ultimate. Night before sweethearts? Oh yeah, Ultimate at Bennion El.

Now, keeping with my theme of world domination, I'd like to one-up them. With us playing as often as we are it'd be stupid to claim that we're going to play every night directly preceding a school dance. That's like saying I'm going to eat lunch tomorrow, it's nothing special and we know that it's going to happen.

So, how do we one-up the sages? We have inter-scholastic competition every night directly preceding a school dance.

Yup, we want to play Cottonwood on November 17th. They don't exactly know this yet. But we're working on it, I promise.

7 on 7, our turf.

More details to come later, don't get too excited about this.

I mean sure, get excited. Just don't pee.

Topic two: Democrats now control the house.

Whoop-de-friggin-do. Really now, I don't care who controls the house. I don't. Really. You know what I've got to say to the democrats that just got elected?

"Congratulations on your election. I hope you're proud to represent the American people. Now go make the country better."

It's the exact same message I've got for the republicans. Great job guys, go keep the country working. This whole party system is bogus. I know that it'll take ages to get rid of it, but I'm starting now. I feel that the only way to get rid of the system is to get the common man against it. I will not be a hippy, I will not be a weirdo that preaches against the party system every day of my life, yelling my brains out. No, because those folks don't have any credibility with me. I see weirdos, and I say "look honey, weirdos" to my imaginary girlfriend.

I'm one guy that doesn't like the party system. Let's get rid of it and make the country work better. That's all.

So, congratulations. I hope that this new alignment of representatives is a more accurate and up-to-date portrayal of what the American public wants. Do good stuff.

Take luck too.

Topic the third, my issues with English.

Where to start? I haven't had this much trouble with a class since seventh grade. I oppose everything that I am being taught, the class constantly angers me, and I'm pretty confident that Harward is taking advantage of a loop hole in the oil-for-food program.

I'll come out and say it.

The last assignment we had taught us how to write really attractive sentences. They are intended to sound mature and and sophisticated. They employ big words and make ample use of the required terms.

Great huh?

It's a valuable skill that we're supposed to bust out on the AP test when we're writing essays.

Great. I know how to write a great paragraph about syntax.

Too bad I never learned anything about syntax. Too bad I have no clue how to establish an author's purpose from a piece.

We're over here learning how to write a sentence that makes us look smart. We were assigned to write seven or so of these things. I don't believe a word that I wrote, and I don't believe a word that anyone else wrote. I am effectively being educated in the art of deception.

"This will make you look good."

"But what if I'm not good?"

"
This will make you look good anyways."

"But I'm not good, that's lying."

"
But you'll look great."

"This is a load of bull crap and everyone can see it. I just wrote a sentence with 5 words in it worth millions of points in scrabble and not one syllable of it has any truth to it."

"
But you sound so mature."

"I pose the question- Are the AP readers looking for mature writing or clear and intelligent thinking? Is the course designed to teach us how to lie about rhetorical strategies, or is it designed to teach us to recognize and understand their value? If I have no idea what effect the author's tone had on the piece why should I write a paragraph about it?"

"
Don't make me call you sophomoric."

Yeah, that's about how it goes in my brain. I'm sparring the imaginary Mr. Jarwood. His tag team partner happens to be a giant alligator wielding a machine gun.

But it's ok, my partner is Glen.

We can't lose.

But yeah, that's the question that's been on my mind for a really long time. Is it better to learn how to be stupid and look smart, or is our time better spent making us smart so we can, ya know, look smart naturally? Why don't we spend some more quality time talking about this stuff instead of faking this stuff?

Right now English is combining three things I can't stand. Needlessly flowery language, lies, and templates.

Example:

"Write 3 different sentences using:
  • the author's name
  • plus one of these terms (sophisticated, varied, inventive, sparkling, effective, carefully crafted, flashy) use a different term for each sentence.
  • plus the word diction
  • plus a valuable verb combined with the function of the word (what the word does for the piece)
  • plus examples"
Really, it's just hard for me to throw a bunch of lies through a template and call it beneficial to my chances of passing the AP test. I think he's trying to make us better writers.

You can teach a man to write. You cannot, however, teach a man what to write.

"This is how you'll start all your paragraphs" -the imaginary mr. Jarwood.

It's just not something I like to do. Being forced to lie about something with fluffy language is one of my least favorite things in the world to do.

The stuff I wrote:

Coffer's simple tone transcends the problems of complex texts by burrowing a subteranean tunnel underneath complexity to allow the least intelligent readers an opportunity to feel the importance of her message about racism by setting the stage in common every day locations such as the coffee shop or hotel.

Coffer's light tone creates an atmosphere where readers can appreciate her message without becoming overly emotional in order to add more importance to her main points instead of invoking pity by establishing her attitude towards her offenders as sorrow for their ignorance instead of anger early on.

Miller's humorous tone liberates his audience from the pain and emotional damage of the witch trials in order to allow them to lead guilt free and happy lives by creating comical situations such as proctor's hanging or Cheever's obvious man crush on danforth.

Miller's impartial tone betrays his characters by allowing the injustices of Salem's court to find the innocent guilty in order to create a sense of helplessness and frustration in his readers by forging the court to be a bunch of retarded old men asking questions like "if you don't know what a witch is, how do you know you are not one?"

Miller's short and repetitive syntax in Act III during which Abigail and her chorus repeat everything Mary says multiplies the terror and frantic tension in the courtroom. His fast-paced and simple back-and-forth dialogue creates text that can be read or spoken very quickly, thereby opening a channel for the reader to have their emotions influenced. The screaming of Abigail and Mary, with Proctor and the judges bickering in the background contribute to the quick and short syntax that leads to a chaotic feeling in the hearts of the audience.

Coffer's balanced and varied syntax strikes the reader as logical and aesthetic, allowing one to absorb the underlying message without overburdening themselves with the difficulties of decoding vieled motives hidden behind fragmented sentences and an abundance of commas. Throughout the piece Coffer writes as one who is speaking to a group, giving the essay a natural and familiar feel. By shaking things up she keeps the audience interested and content. She varies between short and quick to long and beautiful in an attempt to educated me about the misconceptions about latino women.

No really. It's not even true.

Do you remember that post I wrote ages ago about words? About the relationship between the number of words and the value of words? Language follows the same rules that govern any basic economy - it's all supply and demand.

When there are four bananas and 300 people all want a banana, each banana is therefore worth a fortune. When there are 3 billion grapes and 4 people want one grape a piece, grapes are worthless.

As the supply of the product goes up, the worth of that product goes down. Supply and demand, scarcity brings profits.

Same deal with words. The more words there are, the less each word is truly worth.

For example, if I were to suddenly die in a baking accident I'd like to have my coolest posts printed off and given to friends and whatnot. As of several posts ago I had pages upon pages of writings in this blog. 250 or something. No one wants to read that. If I handed Kyle 250 pages of crap I had written before I died I doubt he'd read it. However, if I handed him my one best post about life, the one that made me want to be the very best person I could be, then he'd read it, and then it'd mean something.

The more words I write, the less each word is worth. It really balances itself out, because if every word is worth two and I write one hundred of them I've got a value of 200 on my hands. If I write double the words each one is worth half as much, but I still end up with 200.

The point is, I hate flowery words that don't mean anything. I hate making things longer than they need to be. I hate expending valuable resources on something that I don't believe in. I hate to betray the eloquent words that I collect for use in papers on describing someone's tone that honestly just didn't do it for me.

Know what I mean?

I ran in to the same problem with my history DBQ today. Way too much worried about the format of that thesis sentence. I was running around with Rockwell's format, doing things his way.

But that didn't work out for me. It took way too much time and it didn't end up right in the end.

And then I remembered- you already know how to do thesis statements, and you can do them well. Thank you Ms. Ward.

Her version is simple and authoritative. You say what you think as if it were fact and call it good. "The issues that led to the creation of political parties in the united states were the creation of a national bank, assumption of domestic debt by the federal government, growing regional differences and a constant fear of a return to oppression by a strong central government."

None of this "While America was taking its first steps as a nation, blah blah blah"

Keep it simple, stupid.

Say it and shut up, stupid.

Thank you Mr. Morris.

I totally played the stupid role today. I said it, but wouldn't shut up. It's all about shutting up once you're done saying it.

Whoosh.

Speaking of AP, I really really love the AP test prep book Rockwell made us get. The people that write those are brilliant. I've only read the tips for the multiple choice portion, but wow, it's good gravy. The stuff they tell you is genuinely going to help you on the test.

Which brings up my next point. I want to be a model for the AP prep books. I want to be the guy in the green sweater on the cover of the 2008 edition. I can even put my head down to look like I'm studying. It'll be great.

Hydroxide snap, I really need a job this summer. A well paying one. I'm looking for something intense, something to make me earn my money.

See, life is expensive. The first summer I worked carpets I spent the majority of it on Stallion. The next summer I made about 1,200 dollars, and saved pretty much all of it. I've been living off of the past two years, and it's sitting at about 400 dollars left right now.

Considering I've got four 82 dollar AP tests to take later this year, it's going to be a very tight squeeze to make this last till summer.

Either way, I can get by being cheap. I've just got to get a ton of money this next summer. I would love to work carpets again, but I doubt that that'll be a possibility. Right now I'm really looking at manual labor as the preferred choice. I can't stand retail, and it's a great feeling to know that you're actually accomplishing something. With carpet you could look and see "Hey, the work I did yesterday DID make a difference, the room STILL has new carpet!" This is opposed to retail, where your mindset is something like "Ok..... if a costumer comes in I'm gonna help them. Otherwise I'm gonna keep on vegitating. Ok go."

See, if you exist simply to respond to stimuli you're nothing but 4 other requirements away from being classified as alive. You've got to be the stimulus, you've got to make things happen.

Plus, I can definitely see myself making alot of money in manual labor, as opposed to not a lot working at say, Jamba Juice.

I'm starting another blogaday. For the next week, at least. It's going to be on the lowdown. I'm just going to post every day. It's the plan.

I really do think that it's time to go. So, have a nice night friends. Thanks for listening. I've got a cool competition idea for you all to come later. Have a good one, toodles~

7 comments:

Karlito said...

Thatcher,
May i say WOW!?! That was a fantastic post and i agree about the AP Tests. I took 4 AP tests in my High School career and i never got less than a 4 but i definitely felt that the course wanted you to learn how to appear smart without actually being so. As for the political parties; i was just telling my sister how i felt politics were going crazy because politicians were doing things to make there voters and inter-party supports happy, rather than that which is right. They dont do it for the good of the Union or to uphold and preserve the Constitution and they certainly arent working to make the world a better place. I mean hey why should they? Their voters keep them in positions of power, they make money because their voters say they can. More on this in a future post.
I just want to say overall as well as specifically BROVO!! I am clapping in my heart.

Anonymous said...

Ditto on everything.

The party system is bringing our country down. Our founding fathers did not want this, and neither should we.

I had Harward for two years AND was his TA, and I still don't know what syntax is. It seemed like he always changed the definition to fit the assignment. :-P

Retail sucks. I don't do it 'cause I hate working with customers; I'm more of a back room kind of guy.

Words rock.

Anonymous said...

I love words.

More on that later.(cough post cough)

In Parrish's class, she's trying to make sure we understand everything. She wants us to be smart. And I like this.

None of this crap about syntax, or diction.

Just English, pure and simple.

Well, sometimes it gets a little dirty and complicated, but...

Still...

Anonymous said...

Aah! I already ranted once tonight and now I want to rant again! You've inspired me, and I agree with absolutely everything!

Anonymous said...

first i think teachers, like your english teacher apparently, just want to teach you to look smart so that they can show how good they are as a teacher because they have "smart kids" who know how to use flowery language and all that.

second, you are not the only person who wants to get rid of the parties and all that but the politicians are all just looking for ways to line their pockets and get pork projects for their districts. no one in washington or any other political meeting place cares what is acutally going on. so i could go on and on about this but i will stop now before i offend anyone or anything. . .my new favorite bumper sticker: No one died when Clinton lied! have fun with that one, and keep up the good blogging

Anonymous said...

Oh wow, I really need to start reading your posts again! They make me so happy!

Anonymous said...

All I can say is I agree. In all my AP classes they are just teaching me how to impress the AP readers, but they aren't teaching me the stuff that really counts. I want to learn to understand, not learn to seem smart. I really do want to understand and it makes it a whole lot harder when they don't give me a base to stand on. "Say this and you'll do good." Uh....no I have no idea what that means. TEACH ME! It is frustrating...