Not Alone

As we set back out into the blogging world, feeling excited and proud of this trendy project we work on, we must acknowledge that we are not on our own.  We are not even the first Chagrin Falls students to take on such a task.  This week I discovered that my little sister’s third grade class blogs as well.  Their blogs cover various topics including thoughts on the best Christmas present, sleepovers, pets and much more.  My sister gave me a quick tour of the different sites and I became very fascinated.  They do not receive points or a grade from blogging but they post and comment as often as possible, in vivid fonts and coloring.  One post, a short anecdote about catching a frog, received seven comments.  Another post, which discussed their views on monsters in graveyards, received nine comments.  Not only from their peers, but also from their teacher and principal.  My blog has never received more than three comments and I can guarantee that her blog receives triple the amount of page views then mine does.   Feeling a bit intimidated from her blogging status, I showed her my own blog.  Sadly, she exhibited little enthusiasm about it and overall did not appear impressed, only commenting “nice” and “I like the purple.”   I did not let myself get too discouraged noting that they cannot change the background colors, create any sort of theme or most importantly add fish and gadgets.  Yet, at the young age of eight and nine they already blog and write to one another on a daily basis.  If they already have mastered this process I am curious to see what they will do in future.   

Thoughts on the Blog

Overall I think the blogging project was a positive experience.  Today many people blog so this project allowed us to use English in real life.  I found it interesting setting up the webpage and choosing the different aspects of it. The many gadgets and backgrounds made it fun to pick a theme and color scheme.  I also liked to view other student’s pages and see their set up.  The requirement of one comment per blog made me look at basically everyone’s blog which I liked.    My favorite part of the project was Bobbie’s Blog Banter.  Many students made many funny and intelligent posts which I would have missed otherwise and I loved the theme music to the show.  Personally I had some trouble thinking of fascinating topics to discuss on my blog.  The requirement of twice a week and the restriction of it relating to class sometimes made my ideas seem a bit repetitive.  However, overall I enjoyed the project and think it held many benefits.

Disappointed by the Strangers

Spoiler Alert-If you have not seen the movie The Strangers you may not want to read this.           

This weekend I watched the movie The Strangers.  I looked forward to watching it because generally I like scary movies.  However, I was completely disappointed by it.  The movie held no deeper meaning whatsoever.  Basically the movie consisted of a couple, James and Kristen, who spent the weekend in a house in the woods.  As they spent the night there a stranger continuously knocked on the door and then seemingly left.  Only she did not leave, she and two other strangers who wore masks continued to knock on the door aggressively.  They then broke into the house and followed the couple around stealthily.  The couple became very frightened and attempted to run away and get help.  Naturally their attempts failed and the three strangers captured and stabbed them.  When Kristen asked, “Why are you doing this to us?”  One of the strangers replies “because you were home.”  The strangers then left the couple at the house and drove away, never showing their faces.  They then encountered two Christian boys on their bikes down the road giving out pamphlets for sinners.  They stopped the car, took one and drove away.  The boys then went into the couple’s house to discover their bloody bodies.  Kristen, seemingly dead, opened her eyes and grabbed one of the boy’s arms.  The end.  This movie literally did not include any meaning.    After going through a year and a half of AP English it causes me to look at things more closely.  We analyze everything and pull meanings out of every detail of the books we read.  However, after this movie I could not find anything remotely analytical or thought provoking.  Simply a random killing because the killers could, with some added situational irony at the end when the killers pick up a pamphlet for sinners.  I sometimes get frustrated in English when we look at every tiny aspect of a book and sometimes wish the books could be simpler.  But I realized it makes books and movies much more interesting when they include hidden meanings and symbols.  Just like the books we read, it feels more fulfilling to watch a movie like Shutter Island or Inception and think the entire time and put different parts of the story together, then to watch a trivial movie like The Strangers.    

Dreaming of Data Sheets and Ms. Serensky

I wake up late and rush to get to school, nothing out of the ordinary due to my love of the snooze button.  I hustle to my first period class, economics, getting to my desk just before the bell rings.  As I situate myself and look around I surprisingly do not see friendly Mr. Serluco standing in the corner asking the class to stand for the pledge, as he normally does.  So I sit and wait.  For some odd reason the class only consists of me and five other students but I think nothing of it.  We sit and continue to wait.  I conclude that Mr. Serluco must feel sick this morning and the sub must not know which classroom to go to.  However, shortly after this thought crossed my mind none other than Ms. Serensky busts the door open.  She walks into the room and informs us Mr. Serluco will not be joining us this morning or any other mornings from now on.  The students and I look at each other puzzled and perplexed.  What happened to our beloved Mr. Serluco?  Ms. Serensky never clears up the confusion for us.  She proceeds to explain mockingly that she made some changes in his lesson plans.  Grabbing the chalk she writes “data sheet” on the board.  I read the board and begin crying.  I can not believe that I need to complete data sheets in two classes now.  Ms. Serensky looks over, sees me crying and walks over to me.  My face turns red and I anticipate her to yell at me, however, she kindly pats my back and asks me to move my desk next to hers.  I do as she commands.  She makes the rest of the class do a worksheet and then approaches my desk.  She whispers that I need to complete the data sheet and places an apple on my desk.  She then sits down at her desk and grades papers like she resolved everything.  I sit in bewilderment looking at her and then the rest of the class.  As I sit next to her she informs me that she got a locker next to mine and parked her car next to mine this morning.  She even casually asked me to hang out on Friday.  It seemed as if she desperately wanted to become my friend.  The dream abruptly ended during the course of her kindness and I woke up baffled.  I felt stressed about the data sheet and pleasantly surprised about her attempts to become my friend.         

Swimming

This year I joined the swim team.  I like it a lot but for some reason the coach decided to make winter break the hardest practices of the year and even instated two-a-days.  Needless to say this made my liking of swim team go down a bit and even made me think of One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest.  Every morning I would roll out of bed, drive to Wembley and try to avoid going in the freezing pool.  Much like Bromden would hid in the closets to avoid EST, I would prolong jumping into the frigid water by taking my time in the locker room and slowly gathering my kickboard and goggles.  Once I took the plunge in I entered into a literal fog from the chlorine and begin the long two hour practice.  I simply do swim team for fun and am not a great swimmer so usually my lane and I get through practices with little notice from the coaches, like how Bromden could seem invisible.  However, over winter break the assistant coach, who reminds me greatly of the black boys, took a liking to my lane.  He would stand behind it and yell at us to swim faster and to watch the clock.  During practice I zone out and go into my own little world, such as Bromden’s fog, not thinking about anything and relaxing.  But somehow over break I became the lane leader and reluctantly needed to pull myself out of this unconscious fog and keep track of the laps we swam.  After the grueling practices we then moved onto the worst part, yoga.  Every Monday and Friday we did an hour of yoga, dripping wet from swimming, on the cold cement near the pool with a professional yoga instructor.  This woman reminds me of the Big Nurse.  She keeps a calm voice and straight face as she calls out the many poses in a soothing voice.  However, every time she breaks this calm exterior, yells at us briefly, then composes herself again.  One day my friend and I decided to not conform to doing it so we sat in the back and chatted but then got yelled at until we did the ridiculous poses.  After these practices I felt exhausted and would just go home and collapse, too tired to care about anything.  These practices made me very annoyed with swim team however I still do like it and look forward to her easing up, hopefully soon.      

English Everywhere

This winter break I devoted myself to catching up on movies and television shows which I missed.  I thought it would be a good way to relax and forget about school, however I could not escape AP English.  It seemed every movie or show I watched consisted of a lurking theme from English.  For instance, the first movie I watched, Easy A. This movie basically covers what Ms. Serensky constantly says about our books.  In it the main character, Olive, parallels her life to the book she reads in class, The Scarlet Letter.  At the beginning of the movie she states “You know how what you read always weirdly relates to your own life,” basically a direct quote from Ms. Serensky.  So I continued on my winter break to catch up on my favorite show, Criminal Minds.  This show focuses on FBI profilers who think like criminals in order to solve deadly cases. While reading One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest I attempted to analyze the characters on the ward like they do in the show.  Now catching up on some missed episodes I witnessed schizophrenia, seizures, OCD, gamblers, paranoia and much more.  Every episode made me think of a different character in the novel.  I rounded out my winter break re-watching some of the classic Harry Potter movies.  I cannot claim to be a real fan because I never read the books but I do love the movies.  Once again, I found many comparisons to One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, such as Harry’s vague memories of his past and his feeling as an outsider in the normal world with his aunt and uncle.  Basically after watching all these I came to find that I cannot escape AP English and Ms. Serensky.  No matter what I do something will remind me of this class.