Valediction

Assignment: Write a valediction speech.

Howdy folks! My name is Alex Cantrell for those of you who were unaware, or needed reminding. I’ve been an attendee of A&M Consolidated High School for the past four years, and it has been quite a ride. I mean we’ve had TWO fires. Not many places can say that. Let’s get on however to what this speech is really about; graduation.

This is normally where I would go on into how life is like a book and how this isn’t the end, but the beginning, or how the friends you have made here will last forever, and the memories will stay with you always, but that’s all cliche hogwash which I don’t really like. I could also say I won’t go cliche with my farewell to this school, but that in itself has become cliche after being used by almost every valediction speech known to man. What I would like to say is this: this is the end, and all of the other cliches are lies.

We’ve had fun these last few years, there is no denying that, but memories fade. I can tell you I sure don’t remember when I was five. Heck, I can’t even properly remember the plot lines of books or movies i finished a few days ago. Memories go away and that’s okay since they make room for new ones. The only real purpose of memories is to shape us into who we are today and that is what is really important.

Our friends have also been the people who have shaped and molded us into (almost) fully functioning adults. However, regardless of what people say, they won’t be there, or your friends forever. They’re just memories after all, and like I said, memories fade. People stop hanging out daily, then weekly, and eventually altogether all the time. Does this mean the end is nigh? NO! We do the exact opposite as well by making new friends whom we gradually get to know better. This is all just life.

Life is constantly compared in these speeches to different things: books, sports, potatoes (not to sure on that last one though), but life is just life. Things end, and things begin. This isn’t bad, it’s just part of life, and growing. We get stuck with these cliches because high school is a cliche in itself. It teaches you the basics, the things you need to know to succeed, so you can continue in life. It’s your support. The assignments are all generic rip offs of past ones, they breed lack of originality, but serve a purpose. By being unoriginal, we learn what being original is, and are prepared to break free of this world of cliches to create and invent in the real world.

So yes, high school is at an end, but that’s not bad. It’s an end to a time where we are taught that everything is set in stone, and a time things never change. The cliche of high school is just the most accurate representation of it. So if I had to end with anything today, it’s this: go on, break free of the cliche’s and LIVE. Live an amazing and wonder filled life. Don’t care if you lose friends because you’ll make more on the way. Don’t worry about forgetting where you come from because your personality is the real book keeper, and there is always more to absorb. Don’t worry and just live.

Contide

So this week I’m supposed to come up with a new word that the English language doesn’t have yet to describe something that commonly occurs. It took me a while to think of what I want to describe, but eventually I came to an idea that needs its own word. There is a feeling that I, and, having discussed it with them, some of my fiends get all the time. It’s how you feel when you are holding a freshly printed nine page essay, or when you put the finishing touches on a big project you’ve been working on. For me it’s when I pick up a piece of tech I’ve been working on and feel how sturdy, heavy, and compact it is. It’s a feeling of pride mixed with wonder, contentedness, and a little bit of amazement at the fact that you actually completed what is in your hands. It’s a feeling of contide (content + pride). That is what I would like to contribute to the ever changing English language.

Essay Outline

Work:

 

Question: How do the poems differ in:

a. the way they say what they say

b. what they say

Mezzo Cammin: Writes about how he regrets all the things he missed in his past and the horrific inevitability of death

When I Have Fears: Writes about how he fears of death since he has not a) written all he believes he can b) will never again experience love.

Similarities: Both fear death and discuss regrets towards passions and loves.

Differences: One takes a look to the back as well and as the poem reaches its midpoint, looks to the future towards death while the other just looks at death in fear.

 

Outline:

Thesis : Although both of these plays are similar as they take a fearful look in the future towards death, through literary devices, they are made different as “Mezzo Cammin” takes a look to the past as well in a midlife crisis.

Topic Sentence: In John Keats’ “When I Have Fears”, Keats takes a look to the future in fear of death making an impactful poem through his use of literary elements.

Evidence 1: Before my pen has gleaned my teeming brain,

Analysis: This personification of Keats’ pen shows his fear that he will not complete his work before death takes him from this world.

Evidence 2: Till love and fame to nothingness do sink.

Analysis: Though love and fame and nothingness cannot actually sink, this imagery paints a horrific look towards the actuality of death.

Topic Sentence: While Longfellow’s poem “Mezzo Cammin” also takes a fearful look towards death, it also looks towards his past which have separate moods as shown by his literary devices.

Evidence 1: The years slip from me and have not fulfilled

Analysis: While years cannot slip, this personification of them allows the author to take a more yearning look towards his past creating a mood of regret towards his past.

Evidence 2: The cataract** of Death far thundering from the heights.

Analysis: This imagery, seen after the turn of the poem helps to create the tone of the second half of the work by creating a grim image of death as a thundering waterfall, developing a fearful tone towards the inevitable death.

Prompt:

In the two poems below, Keats and Longfellow reflect on similar concerns. Read the poems carefully. Then write an essay in which you compare and contrast the two poems, analyzing the poetic techniques each writer uses to explore his particular situation.

Poem 1:

“When I Have Fears”

-John Keats (1818)

When I have fears that I may cease to be

Before my pen has gleaned my teeming brain,

Before high-pilèd books, in charactery,

Hold like rich garners the full ripened grain;

When I behold, upon the night’s starred face,

Huge cloudy symbols of a high romance,

And think that I may never live to trace

Their shadows with the magic hand of chance;

And when I feel, fair creature of an hour,

That I shall never look upon thee more,

Never have relish in the faery power

Of unreflecting love—then on the shore

Of the wide world I stand alone, and think

Till love and fame to nothingness do sink.

Poem 2:

“Mezzo Cammin*”

-Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1842)

Written at Boppard on the Rhine August 25, 1842,
Just Before Leaving for Home

Half of my life is gone, and I have let

The years slip from me and have not fulfilled

The aspiration of my youth, to build

Some tower of song with lofty parapet.

Not indolence, nor pleasure, nor the fret

Of restless passions that would not be stilled,

But sorrow, and a care that almost killed,

Kept me from what I may accomplish yet;

Though, half-way up the hill, I see the Past

Lying beneath me with its sounds and sights,—

A city in the twilight dim and vast,

With smoking roofs, soft bells, and gleaming lights,—

And hear above me on the autumnal blast

The cataract** of Death far thundering from the heights.

*from the first line of Dante’s Divine Comedy: “Nel mezzo del cammin di nostra vita” (“Midway upon the journey of our life”).

**A large waterfall

To Be (Insane) Or Not To Be (Crazy)

Question:

• Hamlet tells his friends that he will pretend to be mad. His act is extremely convincing, though. Is it really an act, or does Hamlet slip into madness during the play?

Answer:

The question of whether Hamlet is pretending to be mad or slipping into madness is hard to answer. For one thing, he is apparently aware of what he is doing and of his insanity, but at the same time, he is rash and does insane things that his plot does not require of him. Take when he kills who he thinks is Claudius shouting but is actually Polonius “How now! A rat?” and stabbing through a curtain without knowing who actually is on the other side (III.iv.22). This rashness and assumption that he was being spied on by his enemy is indicative of paranoia. Then when he rushes into battle with Laertes against Horatio’s warnings about how he “will lose this wager” the point is further proven that Hamlet may well be insane (V.ii.194). He is aware that Laertes is the better swordsman but he does not want to acknowledge this. He rashly decides to go into battle without considering the consequences of doing such a thing. In this way, Hamlet’s sanity is questionable.

On the other hand, we see breaks in Hamlet’s insane actions. When Hamlet tells Horatio of his plan in order to have their “both [their] judgments join” and decide if Claudius did what the ghost said. This is a logical thing to do and is possibly the sanest thing Hamlet could have done. By getting a second witness, he has a stronger case against Claudius and has an ally who will believe in him due to the evidence Horatio witnesses. Additionally, before this event, Hamlet planned out the play itself in order to prove that Claudius killed his father even stating that “the play’s the thing” that will expose Claudius (II,ii,566). This cautionary step that Hamlet took could be summed up to a sane action as it will help either prove Hamlet sane to himself or the opposite.

Ultimately, I believe that Hamlet is neither sane nor insane which, is a weird idea. He started off acting insane, but as he kept acting that way, he started slowly becoming insane from grief as well. This is why he seems more logical at the beginning of the play but eventually starts making more rash and illogical decisions.

 

Viking Wisdom

A better burden
no man bears on the way
than much good sense;
that is thought better than riches
in a strange place;
such is the recourse of the indigent.
Basically Speaking, this quote means that there is nothing better for a person than to have common sense, and it is better to have this than to be well off.

I tend to agree with this philosophy (though I wouldn’t mind if I had a few million dollars), because of where common sense can get you. Money, good looks, and social status can only get you so far in this world. Common sense is knowing how to use what you have to make yourself and others better off in both the monetary sense and the moral sense.

I personally prefer to use common sense when disputing whether to buy something. In a recent development project for my tech class, I had the opportunity to buy an Oculus Rift, which is a virtual reality headset. Now this was a six hundred dollar device that I would have only used the base capabilities for. I could have impulse bought and dropped over half a grand (not of my own money but still…), but I wanted to make sure there wasn’t a better option. After some research, I found out that with a bit of hard work and some tech black magic, I was able to achieve the same functions using my phone and some cardboard. Now I obviously had to do the extra work, but it saved a large sum of money making it the better option. In this scenario, having common sense helped me more than having the money to be able to buy something.

Additionally, common sense could have helped literally any of the tragic hero’s in a Shakespeare play. Romeo, Juliet, and Othello (somewhat) all had status and some money, but because they lacked the common sense to just talk their issues out, they ended up all killing themselves. Romeo and Juliet could have lived long, possibly happy, and almost definitely teenage angst filled lives if they had patience or had discussed their issues with everyone more openly, and Othello could have spared not only himself, but his wife and Emilia if he had the common sense to confront Desdemona to start with, or even to not trust Iago. However, because these people didn’t have this sense, they were doomed to fail. Thus common sense trumps all else as this quote says.

 

For More Viking Wisdom: http://www.artofmanliness.com/2016/01/31/the-80-wisdom-sayings-of-the-vikings/

How To: Program in 6 Steps

Step 1: Chose a Language

This is possibly the hardest of all of the steps. You can look up the best languages to learn online but the issue with that is that there are varying opinions which make it hard to decide what to learn. Some argue that Java is the way to go, while others push towards scripting languages like Python. Some believe that C++, while an older language is the best way to begin learning as well. The varying opinions all have their supporting arguments, but it essentially boils down to how you want to use your programs. This leaves us with three really good options.

If you want to do more work online, or create basic games with already implemented graphics, go with Java. It is easy to learn and embed into websites, and widely used which makes it a great language to learn. With the addition of the easy to use graphics system, this is a fantastic language for anyone who wants to get into the basics of game design without having to get too far into the higher level aspects right off the bat.

Then comes C++. This is a great language to learn if you want to get into the nitty gritty side of programming. This is bare bones programming at its finest. If you want to do anything mathematics-wise, or you want to have to rely more on your programming then implementing already written methods then this is the language for you. This comes with the added benefit of being an older language which makes it more stable.

Finally we come to Python. Python is the language of scripting. If you want a linear language that is easily learned then this is the one for you. Writing Python scripts is extraordinarily simple and they can accomplish a wide variety of tasks. The blade that is its simplicity however, is two sided. While you can accomplish almost any simple task, higher level functions are harder to program and some even impossible.

Step 2: Hitting the Books

To begin with learning a language, you have to have a source to teach you how to use the language. I personally learned from a variety of different websites and books, but if you are looking for good places to start, look at your local retail book store in the computer section. Anything “How to ______ for Dummies” is a good starting point. Even if the books are older,  I can guarantee you that the basics are still the same, and the basics are all you need for the next step of your learning.

Step 3: Getting an IDE

After reading some of the basics, you will need an IDE or integrated development environment in order to continue. The IDE is the platform that you type all of your code into to compile and run it. There are free ones for all languages. For Java I would suggest Eclipse, Python has PyCharm, and C++ has a good program called CodeBlocks. Of course if you can find a better IDE, by all means use it. These are just my picks.

Step 4: System.out.println(“Hello World!”);

Now that you have the basics and the IDE, try some basic program out. These may seem silly compared to the long run, but even the simplest “Hello World!” programs can help you to understand more about the language and bring you well on your way to becoming a better programmer.

Step 5: Reverse Engineering

You aren’t a pro at programming. I hate admitting that I am worse at something than other people as much as the next guy, but it’s true. Right now you aren’t that great and there are a lot of other people who are better. Take that as a blessing though. You can learn from other’s mistakes and triumphs without having to experience all the hardships. Take other people’s code from online forums and tweak it to make it your own. Reverse engineer how others did things so you can discover how to do it yourself. This is how many people learn HTML. They copy the source code from one website into a notepad and edit it to change things and bit by bit they become experts.

Step 6: Practice Makes Perfect

I know it’s cliche, and it pains me to be that guy, but practice really does make perfect. Keep up your hard work and you’ll be an expert eventually. The more you write the more you learn and the more you can write meaning the more you can learn. It’s a never ending cycle as long as you continue to work. Be creative, make new things and as Winston Churchill said, “Never, never, NEVER give up”.

Comments

Comments for this week:

Tim O’Brien

Fiction with memories thrown in

Reaction to Tim

Interview with Tim O’Brien

During this seven minute interview with Tim O’Brien, one thing that struck me was his discussion of the truth of the book. He openly admits to trying to trick the reader in a way into thinking the book is nonfiction through dedicating the book to the characters and discussing a “true” war story. His reasoning for this is that he wanted to show readers what war was actually like and to bring them as far into the book and as close to the danger as possible.

I found this interesting since many of my classmates thought the book was real to begin with. Then, when they found out it was all fiction, they were angered and in awe because of how he tricked them into believing his lie so well. It was intriguing to see the authors plans come to fruition in real life and that’s why I found this so interesting.

Comments

This week I commented on the following blogs:

We’re All a Little Weird

In this post, the author talks about how love is in essence, mutual weirdness.

Writing Lyfe

In this post, the author discusses how they enjoy writing in journals more than writing to prompts.

Why We Climb Mountains

In this post, the author talks about her two experiences climbing mountains and the difference between the two times.

My Birth Started the First World War

So our assignment this week is to research our birthday and find what historically important things happened on it. After researching June 28, I found that it was a very decisive day in history as it was the day Archduke Ferdinand was assassinated setting off the first world war.

The year was 1914 and Archduke Franz Ferdinand and his wife were visiting the city of Sarajevo, the capital of Bosnia. As their motorcade was driving through the streets of this city, A teenage Serbian nationalist shot and killed the Archduke and his wife, Sophie. While he had not been well liked in many aristocratic circles, Ferdinand death led to a war between Serbia and Austria-Hungary which in turn led to the first World War.

Interestingly, this death was predicted beforehand and Ferdinand was warned not to go on the trip. However, he was insistent and continued even after a bomb blew up under a car in his motorcade during his ride through the city. Finally, he was killed due to an accident involving the first three cars in his motorcade taking a wrong turn. As they tried to reverse out of the alley, he and his wife were shot and killed by someone who was waiting in the alley unaware that they would be making this mistake.

Citations:

“Archduke Ferdinand Assassinated.” History.com. A&E Television Networks, n.d. Web. 26 Sept. 2015.

“The Assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand, 100 Years Ago.”History.com. A&E Television Networks, n.d. Web. 26 Sept. 2015.

Also our teacher wanted us to use two new sentence stuctures so here they are:

My birthday- June 28 – has always been an uneventful day for myself.

CSHS’ new tshirts implied that they were the good; Bryan high the bad, and AMCHS the ugly.