Thanksgiving

(I just have to add, as a side note, that Sydney's comment about the crank to feedback ratio makes sense. I cranked out that excerpt for that last blog post, and as much as I appreciate Mia's comment, it's not enough to tell me what exactly I can improve on.)

I give thanks to...

S E R I N A : She helps me in classes and is nice to talk to. Whenever I have problems, I talk to her and she gives me advice. She explains things to me, and helps me out all the time (turning papers in for me along with hers, letting me borrow her calculator). I appreciate even the littlest things she does for me, and for her consideration of me. Just thanks in general, for being an awesome chemistry partner.

H E L E N : Helen is like my own personal Sparknotes. Whenever I have troubles understanding something in Scarlet Letter, I can ask her about them. And if neither of us understand something, we figure it out together. She's always really nice about everything, and I admire her piano-playing skillsss.

M I A & J E N N Y : They both are very cool people that I happen to sit between. They are so fun to talk to, and make me laugh. And so just for that, I am thankful for them.

I am a Plow...

I have decided not to personify myself as the plow or anything like that. Or describe the plow, for that matter. Though it may be a bit off-topic, my thought process is as goes: "I am a plow" > "what if the plow wanted to be a butterfly, or water, or wanted to be used?" > "we all want something we don't have or to be something we are not" > "sometimes, the things we want most are the things we'll never get".

(Brielle is the main character's older sister. And please do not steal, as this excerpt will go into my NaNoWriMo.)

I Need I Need - Class Needs

(The title happens to be some random song that popped into my head. I think it might be HSM2 O_O )

I like American Lit class. The atmosphere is very informal and everyone seems to respect each other. I can write whatever I want in my journals and in my blog posts. As long as I put some effort into it and write, I get a 100% (insert smiley face). We don't have a ridiculous ultimate-AP grading scale and we don't have to do ridiculous things like having to copy and define vocab words by ourselves. 

I tend to be a very introverted (shy doesn't sound quite right...) person, so even though I don't participate in class discussions, I like listening. People tend to have really good ideas, sometimes they make me feel dumb and uncreative.

But I think that what we need is to write more. Not just essays, but stories that help us wield our creative minds and develop good vocabulary (outside of the vocab book). I guess I just find it really hard to force myself to write in my free time, because I don't have free time anymore, and also because I don't really have much to write (art class is draining all my creative juices). I tend to be very self-critical, and currently I dislike my writing style because I don't like my current vocabulary, and it in general doesn't really apeal to me anymore. Journals are nice, I guess, but sometimes I don't have anything to write about, and I don't have enough time or spur-of-the-moment creativity to make my response into a story excerpt and/or beginning.

A five-page short story would be nice. Haha, as much as I dislike homework...

-JY

The Presence of Slavery

Currently, I'm taking AP Human Geography, and even though the class is hard, in these two months, I've already learned a lot. Lesson is, it's given me a better understanding of the world and its people.

As soon as I was given this topic, I immediately knew: illegal immigrants.

Employers like employing immigrants because they can take advantage of them. They can pay them low wages, not have to give them regular benefits like retirement plans, and threaten them with deportation if they are troublesome or incompetent. Unlike slavery, in this case, immigrants are benefitted too--even though they are working for what we think of as low wages; it keeps them out of poverty (the state they would've been in if not for the illegal migration).

And I find it a little weird that when people think 'racism' most people only think of black versus white. But  there are lots other combinations, and lots of other kinds of prejudices. I think that that itself resembles slavery, because there was a certain prejudice at that time, which put someone/something over somone/something else. Men versus women, Christians versus Jews...

Our world is so messed up.

-JY