Another day of English goes by and a
paper-cut appears on my hand. Or maybe scissors created the blemish? Perhaps a crayon
somehow scarred my hand. “Impossible!” you say to yourself. “Only an idiot could cut himself with a
crayon.” Well I have a confession to make: I am that idiot when it comes to
art. In fact, when my English teacher informed the class last week that we
would participate in a friendly competition involving creativity and
imagination, my stomach landed on top of a freshman’s head while she sat in Mr.
Kerul’s room. I hate art for a variety of reasons. To begin with, sharp objects
and I go about as well together as Hanukah and Christmas. Let us flashback to
my sixth grade year when my entire grade took a field trip to The Pond. To this
day I do not understand how the ice became sprinkled with red while a puddle of
blood formed in my right hand, all happening while part of my right pointer
finger dangled from a thin piece of skin. I ended up losing that small portion
of my finger and have the scar in remembrance. Again, I do not do well with
sharp objects, like ice skates. Only to make matters worse, my siblings found
it amusing to call me Peter Pettigrew the following month after the incident.
Hopefully I have portrayed the fact that art utensils and I butt heads. My rock
bottom creativity also adds to my distaste for crafts, such as creating
collages. Allow me to explain. I think most teenagers enjoy decorating their
Christmas tree with their siblings. I, however, can barely tolerate the
experience. Many of my family’s ornaments come from the creations of the
Stevenson children at young ages. Unfortunately, I learned how to draw a circle
after I learned how to ride a bike. Therefore, the ornaments I created at a
young age deem indistinguishable. My siblings, always the genuine supporting
cast I need in my life, ask me if Stevie Wonder helped me meld together an
attempted image of a star and manger. My creativity and skills with a marker
depicted itself again just this past November. One of my mother’s friends
walked into our home and pointed to one of my youthful decorations hanging on
the wall: “Wow Barb! I cannot believe you’ve already started decorating for
Thanksgiving!” In actuality, my mother had yet to relieve the walls from our
Halloween decorations. Ouch. Despite these slight artistic disabilities, here I
sit today, alive and well, writing on a keyboard with ten fingers and two eyes
after cutting out magazines and gluing my hands together. I suppose miracles do
have a tendency to happen.
Phil Dunphy
"I’m the cool dad, that’s my thang. I’m hip, I surf the web, I text. LOL: laugh out loud, OMG: oh my god, WTF: why the face." - Phil Dunphy
Wednesday, December 19, 2012
Wednesday, December 12, 2012
The Power of Analyzation
People express their personalities
in hundreds of different ways nowadays. Individuals use clothing, shoes, cars,
bumper stickers, jewelry, phone cases and other possessions to tell the world
of their certain interests and pet-peeves. Posters remain one of the most
widely utilized ways to assert such personality traits. I take myself as an
example. If one has the honor to walk up the steps of my household to the
hallway connecting my family’s bedrooms, they would see a larger-than-life size
poster of the famous Sandra Bullock hanging from one of the doors. Not risqué
in the slightest bit, this poster captures the amazing beauty of the brilliant
actress in a gorgeous snow white dress, batting those mysterious luscious eyes
of overwhelming delicacy. Above the worldly goddess resides a poster containing
a cartoon replica of spider-man. To the right of this Marvel superhero sits
Kobe Bryant, staring menacingly at the stairwell. After briefly analyzing the
decoration of this door, one can imply that, most likely, two boys share this
dormitory. Through the depiction of the posters containing a basketball
superstar and an actress, one can infer that the older boy sleeping in this
room loves sports while also possessing an unbelievable taste in women. From
analyzing the Marvel poster, a bystander can come to the conclusion that the
younger boy sharing this room enjoys movies and reading. Both assumptions would
deem correct in this situation. So, if a simple poster depicts specific details
about the owner, what does the poster hanging in Ms. Serensky’s room containing
characters from the Harry Potter series portray? To begin with, I
question why the poster chosen for our teacher’s room includes an advertisement
for the fifth Harry Potter movie. The date on the bottom of the poster,
depicting the release of the “Order of the Phoenix,” portrays that the hanger
of the advertisement obtained the propaganda before the release of the last two
movies. The poster’s owner’s decision to hang this poster however, a symbolic
representation of the darkest of J.K. Rowling’s novels at the time, creates
numerous implications surrounding the owner of the ad. I can infer that the
inhabitant of the room containing the poster possesses a dark sense of humor as
well as a complex mind. Those fascinated by the magical fantasies of Harry
Potter and profound genius of Rowling’s work prove extremely intellectual.
I support this claim through personal experiences. Also, the teacher’s decision
to include a poster portraying various characters instead of a single witch or
wizard proves interesting. The numerous characters represent the
open-mindedness of the owner of the poster. Instead of analyzing things from
one perspective, the possessor depicts his/her ability to evaluate things from
numerous views. Finally, the poster’s deceptive location tells me much about
its owner. By placing the poster nonchalantly on a filing cabinet in the back
of the room, the teacher wishes to portray to others that the object proves of
little value to her. However, the ad, almost directly sitting across from the
teacher’s desk, depicts the necessity the owner feels in gazing at the
propaganda. In conclusion, despite acting as if the Harry Potter books
play a minimal role in her life, our English teacher lives day to day with the
fond memories of Hogwarts.
Wednesday, December 5, 2012
Bitter Sweet
The AP English Student of the Month
Award remains one of the most valued endowments in the school. At least I like
to think this. As the year progresses, however, such a distinction becomes
less…well distinct I suppose. The preposterous fact that no person may receive
the award more than once parallels the same philosophy to that of my
kindergarten soccer coach. Sure, many of my teammates found it entertaining to
pick daisies as the ball rolled pass their ankles. Sure, none of the kids on
the field could even spell scoreboard. Sure, most of the players on my team
showed up week after week solely for the free, grape snowcone they received
after the game. However, these actions should not diminish the fact that, when
the game ended, one team lost and one team won. Yet my coach allowed these small factors to change the rules of the
world. After the game, my coach assured us that “we were all winners,” even
after a lost. When we won, I knew the exact same scenario happened on the
opposing sideline. I figured that I, a responsible human being, would inform
the players on the other team that in actuality, they were in fact losers and
that their coach lied to them simply to make them feel better. I remember this
happening one Saturday morning, while lining up to shake hands with the other
team after the game. My coach taught us to go through the line and say “Good
game” to each of the opposing players. Even though anyone with the slightest
math background understood that my team won the game by five goals, I knew that
the opposing coach had repeated the cursed statement to his players. So, I
figured I would act as the better man and go through the line saying, “7-2.
7-2. 7-2” and so on and so forth. However, I learned to live through countless
scenarios of “spreading the wealth” (although my mother demanding that I share
my Skittles with another boy because he cried almost killed me). For this
reason, I believe that I will persevere through the rest of the school year,
with the rest of my fellow AP English Students of the Month Award winners,
despite knowing the fact that we will never again win such an award. Therefore,
I will attempt to live by the cliché, “If you can’t beat them, join them.”
Although winners of this high honor will never again feel the suspense that
comes during the drum roll before the announcement of the victor of the award,
I urge ex-winners to set aside their distaste for the rules of the world and
support their new brethren. For example, brainstorming photo ideas for the new
hero would prove exceptionally helpful. As the year continues, I expect the
photo shots of the monthly winners to become more and more creative. Despite
Osgood’s past, visionary pose, jumpstarted with Hinman’s stellar mannequin
performance, I think such a goal remains reachable.
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