A Poem About How I Stalk Your Blogs and How You're All Incredible and A Shout Out to Eddie Mullins and if you still don't want to read it, I attached a picture of Obama riding a rainbow unicorn as an extra incentive. K Bye!

A Poem About How Much I'm Gonna Miss You Guys

By Becky Smiley

Everyone is all like,

"Omg it's my very last blog and I'm 

never going to write a blog

ever again".

It's sad. Because here's a secret:

I'm that creepy kid who ends up reading everyone else's blogs

allllll the time, just for fun. 

All year

I've been getting sidetracked and reading these things.

Mostly because on Thursday nights

at 11:15, I want to do everything EXCEPT for write

a stupid blog. So ya know what?

I just read yours. Why?

Because you guys are really interesting.

And like, I always want to comment

and just be like, "hey dude that was 

the funniest, most hilarious, most epic

open letter

that I have ever read",

or "wow. I like your opinions on stuff.

You've got yourself some great opinions".

Because you do. 

And you should all keep having

your interesting opinions

and complex thoughts 

and funny jokes

just like I keep having crappy poems that are

distinguished only as poetry

because of my indenting skills.

You know, half the time, 

I only indent because I think the poem will have 

a weird shape

if I don't. And sometimes even if I do.

The other half of the time, I think I'm going

for some kind of BS sound device or something.

Anyways, like I was saying earlier,

keep doing what you're doing

Because you're freaking awesome.

Even though it's Wednesday or Thursday and you have

seven thousand infinity other homework assignments

and you're not trying anymore

and you just want to get the fricken' blog post over with,

I'm still light-weight mind blown sometimes

at the stuff that you kiddos come up with.

Even the really boring ones of you who only blog

about literature and stuff,

I admire that. 

It takes a really good brain

and lots of self discipline

and maybe even an adequate love for learning

to sit there, on a Thursday night,

when you could be doing anything else in the world

to tell us your intricate thoughts

about literature. 

Like that's just freaking awesome,

 I bet you're going to succeed in life.

So keep on doing what you're doing, guys.

And we're all going to graduate pretty soon.

There's a good chance that

you wont even remember the creepy kid

that you just found out stalks your blogs

five, maybe ten years from now.

But you should remember this terrible poem

about how incredibly awesome I think you are.

And about how incredibly stupid

I think the art of poetry is these days.

And you can just sit there 

whenever you feel sad

and just be like

"One time, this kid in my English class

thought that the stuff that comes out of my brain

is really, really cool

or smart, or funny".

I can't quite generalize a characteristic

because you guys are all different...

you've done got your own styles.

So that's why I had to put all of the "or's"

in the above few lines.

I know it makes the poem sound less personal

but it's not. 

This is very personal. 

It's as personal as if I was sitting across from you

staring into your soul

right now.

You know what? Just picture that.

Or don't. Idk I was just

trying to make this feel 

as genuine as possible.

You don't have to picture that 

if you don't want to.

But yeah,

that's why I'm gonna miss all of you kiddos

and your really cool thoughts.

And mostly

Good luck at college. 

You're all gonna knock it right out of the ball park!

I think that's an actual saying

but I'm not sure.

But either way, you know it was meant to be encouraging.

Eddie Mullins, I know you're not going to college

So I can't really commence the poem

with a "Good luck at college" for you.

But hey, this poem is just as much for you too,

because I'm pretty sure you have to read these sometimes,

and I think your thoughts are cool and awesome as well.

They might even be better than Nicholas Spark's thoughts.

Idk what goes on inside of his head though,

so I can't quite say for sure. 

And in case you actually are reading this, 

and just got all salty because I used your first name,

Just know that I basically call all of my teachers

by their first name

behind their backs.

 It makes me only half as intimidated as I would be

if I had to address them by a last name

like I do to their face.

So that's a little bit of what goes on inside of my head

in case you were wondering, ever.

Which you might have been.

I don't think it will be a jeopardy question, though.

But yeah, thanks for resisting the urge

to rip my terrible essays to shreds all year.

Also, thanks for accepting my horrible poetry

as an art form.

Because I really feel like I'm getting some pretty sweet

self-expression done right here.

It's like I'm the Picasso of indenting lines.

So yeah, thanks for helping me find myself.

Also, thank you in advance for giving me

a solid 9 on that poetry essay that we wrote today.

(Look, I gave you this huge, entire

infinity line stanza of this poem and 

everybody else has stopped reading by now, probably

but I'm still going strong with this puppy

so I can just imagine how guilty you would feel

if you didn't give me a 9. 

The shame).

But really, you've been freaking awesome

and I sure hope I succeed on the AP Exam 

so that everybody can know 

how much of an awesome teacher you are

and how much homework you gave us

and graded and how hard you worked all year

so that we had a good chance at success. 

So yeah

Peace Out everybody.

And enjoy the picture of the unicorn.

See how beautiful and majestic it is?

It reminds me of you.

Make Up Blog #15: A Poem About Things I Am Good At

Things I Am Good At

By Becky Smiley

I'm bad at writing poetry.

I'm really bad at writing poetry.

But that hasn't stopped me from writing 

like, seven thousand infinity poems 

and putting them on the internet. 

This means that I am good at trying.

Or we could go even deeper

and say that I'm good at 

overcoming adversity.

I'm good at shapes.

If you notice above, I pretty much

made that stanza

look like a stop sign.

Almost.

Just picture it if the third line was shorter

and the fifth line was longer.

I always forget the name of the actual shape

that stop signs are.

In geometry, I used to LITERALLY

just call them "stop signs"

in my proofs.

"All angles are equal and add up to 360.

This means that Figure A

is a stop sign".

The teacher questioned me sometimes

but that's okay because

she liked how quiet I was and how

I didn't try to spell dirty words on my calculator

and how my handwriting was nice.

I can also draw a great free hand circle.

Everyone was always like "I hate geometry"

but you know,

I never really minded stop signs.

I minded triangles.

I minded the crap out of triangles.

But stop signs?

Nahhh.

I wanted to end my poem

with that last line.

But here's another thing:

I'm really REALLY good at having OCD.

I could never end something with an even amount.

Endings are for odd amounts.

I only named two things I'm good at.

But two is an even number.

I have to name three.

You know, sonnets bug the CRAP out of me

Because there's an even amount of lines.

Especially the Italian ones. It's really noticeable

Because there's only two stanzas.

And what more?

couplets.

Heroic couplets end a poem and they're only

two

lines.

I can't deal with that.

I sit there in AP Lit, and

I want to rip these poems to shreds.

Why? OCD.

You probably think that I'm overreacting.

But I'm not.

I'm just as salty about even numbers ending poems

as I am about the intercom lady when

she reads us The Grapes of Wrath and

sometimes even the Odyssey

at 3:10. 

Not 3:15, 3:10.

Well, that's all I have to say about that.

Have a nice day, don't do drugs, and mostly

don't drop out of school and become a hippie

even if you really want to.

Because I want to, but my parents just 

gave me a very stern talking to

about how being a hippie

is probably a bad decision in the long run.

Peace Out.

Make Up Blog #14: A Poem About Things I Am Bad At

Things That I Am Bad At

By Becky Smiley

Firstly I'm bad at rhyming.

I don't even know why I'm writing a poem

because I can't fricken rhyme.

Like honestly I try to rhyme but it just doesn't happen.

It's probably going to ruin my dreams of being a rap star.

Justin Bieber is all like,

"Never say never".

But too bad because I just said never

about my rap career.

Oops.

Secondly, I'm bad at writing poetry.

The thing about poetry

is that you don't even have to do anything except for

randomly

indent your lines.

See what I'm writing here? You probably don't

because nobody reads these blogs.

Except for you, Mr. Mullins! 

(Thanks, Eddie)

Anyways, it's just normal crappy speech

but somehow it's meaningful

and artistic

because I'm

indenting my lines randomly.

How do you like that? 

Are you catching the symbolism? There's lots of it.

Not really. But I'm sure you could find some

if you wanted to.

Or not.

Idk what you do in your spare time.

Once, I won a poetry contest

In 8th grade.

Basically, it was this stupid poem

about me breaking up with a cookie

and somehow the teachers thought it was comedy

so I was all like...

okay. 

And so they put it in a contest and 

BAM!

I won. 

But it was the biggest load of crap in the world

because basically i was just doing this.

Nothing rhymed, there was no symbolism or sound devices 

or anything redeeming at all.

In fact, I wrote it as a joke.

But then I won.

I won a freaking poetry contest.

So I guess you could call me a prodigy,

idk.

More likely,

you could just call people who fall for this kind of art

hipppies.

Peace Out.

A Poem About When I Was Once Bit By A Chicken

Once, when I was like...7, I was bitten by a chicken whilst feeding it alfalfa. Basically it changed my life and I'm kind of freaked out by chickens right now. Like, if you put me in a confined space with a bunch of chickens running around, I'd probably cry. Anyways, I wrote a poem about it and attached a picture of a chicken to add to the theme.

I Done Got Myself Bit By A Chicken

By Becky Smiley

I used to live in a world,

where kindness was treated with kindness;

Not a deed unnoticed

or debt unpaid.

But..in the blink of an eye,

You changed that

You nasty chicken, you

In the strike of a moment,

A waterfall...a waterfall rushing down

to destroy the flame of innocence within me

to destroy a perfect world

to destroy the flesh of my fore finger

to destroy love. trust. hope.

I hate you,

You nasty chicken, you

Confused, hurt, alone.

There I was,

A Band-Aid blanketing the whole of my forefinger.

But there was no Band-Aid

to blanket my soul. 

There was no Band-Aid

to cover the wounds of hate

to cover the slashes of intolerance

to erase away the rips and stabs and tears

to fade forever

the battle scars left upon my heart.

Trust, my friends, is a dirty word.

One that must never be spoken.

It's Technically Not Called Reusing Since I Wrote This To Be A Blog Before I Decided That I Could Submit It To LitMag For Extra Credit

An Insider’s View on the Common Misperceptions of High Schoolers

An Editorial by Becky Smiley

            As a senior in high school, I have often taken a considerable amount of time to reflect on my experiences over the past 4 years – the good, the bad, the exciting, and even the not so exciting. Most importantly, I have taken note of many misconceptions that we, as students, have been given as we enter the terrifying realms of that which is called high school. The following is a list of what I believe are the top ten most common, and most impactful misconceptions that high school student have made. To all my underclassmen out there, this one’s for you.

1.       It’s not okay to wear fanny packs to school:

       Oh yeah? Three words, my friends: Convenient. Central. Storage. Where are you going to put your all your chapsticks? Where are you going to put your band aids? Where are you going to put your tots so people who can’t just get their own tots during lunch won’t steal them? Your fanny pack. Look, kids. I know you think that pockets can solve this problem. They can’t. Take it from me - I’m a lifeguard, and I wear fanny packs EVERY DAY. Why? To save lives. Fanny packs save lives.

2.       You’re cool if you try to show off by doing a burn out in your Camry in the high school parking lot.

       You’re not cool if you do this. Yes, boys, I realize that there’s tons of hot babes all around. I mean, school parking lots these days, am I right? However, what girls really like is a nice, mellow, safe driver. What girls especially don’t like is when you drive 25 mph in the school parking lot whilst blasting your crappy music. Actions like, to the driver, may seem to say “I’m big and bad and watch out ladies ;)”, but to normal people witnessing such events, these actions actually say “I don’t know the difference between NASCAR and a high school parking lot, and I’m probably about to wreck this nice shiny black car that mommy and daddy bought me”. The latter statement is particularly unattractive.

3.       It’s okay to be that guy who taps on the table during a test.

       Wrong. If you’re that guy, chances are, most kids in the class want to tie you to a rocket headed straight for the sun and you’re more annoying than the lady that comes on the intercom every day at 3:10 to tell us the weather and maybe even read us the entire Grapes of Wrath while we’re trying desperately to finish up our timed test.

4.       In English class, When Given A List of Books To Read, Always Choose the Shortest One.

      False. The shortest books are always the toughest books. You’ll have to get all analytic and there’s going to be all this symbolism and literary devices and you won’t like that. Pick a long book. Sometimes – as in the case of The Lord of the Rings – long books are long because they have stories worth telling. Don’t sit there and tell me that The Lord of the Rings wasn’t worth telling.

5.       Drugs Are Good.

       Drugs are bad. Definitely not something you should be storing in your fanny packs.

6.       You have to bring tons of pencils to the ACT:

        Bring your calculator the ACT, bring your ticket to the ACT, bring your glasses to the ACT, even bring your thinking cap to the ACT. But don’t worry about pencils. The teachers are going to hate me for this one, but I’m just going to say it anyways: Every ACT that you take is an opportunity to score yourself some free pencils. Look, you guys, they have buckets of them. Buckets and buckets full of sharpened, bite mark-free pencils in mint condition. Just put on your sweet and innocent face, explain to them that you forgot #2 pencils, and then help yourself to pencils galore.

7.       Eyebrows aren’t  important:

         I think we all go through times in our lives where we are displeased with the particular placement of our eyebrows on our faces and are tempted to shave them off. But fear not, young padawans, because that's just what makes us human. Look, teachers will tell you all the time that we’re “human” because of our DNA or our complex brains or our opposable thumbs. Don’t worry, they’re all wrong. We’re human because sometimes we doubt our eyebrows, and that is okay. Take good care of them.

8.       Erasable Pens Aren’t Real:

         Erasable pens are real.  You can use them on math tests, essays, speeches, love letters, whatever. I don’t care. Find them at a Walgreens near you.

9.       Expect the Unexpected

   I’m talking about snow days here, you guys. Definitely expect the expected which is most always “We still have school”. It gets your homework done and makes that moment when they call a snow day at 5am all the more glorious.

10.   High School Is A Bad Place.

       I put this one last because it’s the most important. Look, I know you hate homework and you hate tests and you hate scantrons and you hate when those dang Canadians club baby seals. This doesn’t make high school a bad place, I promise. Look around you. There’s tons of weirdos just like you. The problem is that you haven’t realized it. I know you think a bunch of really interesting things in your head like “What is déjà vu for?”, and “Why instagram your PB&J” and “Do dinosaurs go to heaven” and “Do polar bears even appreciate that we’re trying to save them?” and “Why pay three dollars for designer chapstick that comes from the secretions of bees like…ewww” or maybe even “How did humans think up unicorns if they never even existed? Have dogs also thought up the idea of unicorns?”This is high school! Look! There’s a gigantor pool of people around you who are probably wondering the exact same things. If you try talking to them and making friends, you’ll find those weirdos out there who are just like you. And if you ask me, that’s what high school is all about. So next time you’re fixing your hair in the bathroom, go ahead and ask the girl next to you that you see in the hallway every day her thoughts on unicorns because I promise you that finding good friends is always worth the risk. High school is only boring if you make it boring.

         

Awko Taco Movie Moments

      I can't blog about outside reading without it being boring and I especially can't blog about Beloved without it being boring. So...I know this isn't relevant to English class, but I would like to talk about movie soundtracks. As a musician/composer, music in movies especially stands out to me. In exactly the same way memorable movie quotes and film characters find their places in popular culture, film themes and scores have dug their way into our collective subconscious, but in a much more subtle and less obvious way. I think that too many times we see a film score as simply a 'tool' in movie making. I cannot even stress how wrong that notion is. Soundtracks enhance movies to the point of salvation. For example, have any of you ever seen All The Kings Men? If you have, you know what the "Nail Em' Up" speech that I'm about to reference is. If you haven't ever seen the movie, scroll down to the bottom and please enjoy a quick tangent by Sean "Please Give Me An Oscar For This One" Penn. 
    Okay...so now that you've watched that, I want you to imagine this guy doing his speech without the background music. HE WOULD LOOK LIKE A FLAMING PSYCHO. Nobody would vote for that, and we wouldn't be on the edge of our seats all like "Woooo! Nail em' up!! That's right Willie Stark, you done tell the government who's boss!". Instead we'd be all like "Go home, Willie. You're drunk." But we didn't tell Willie Stark to go home because James Horner created a magnificent theme with an upbeat that pushed Penn through to the end of that speech. There's so many scenarios when these types of things happen. I'm sure most of you have seen the Lord of the Rings, yes? And if you haven't...sorry but we can't be friends anymore. Anyways, what if King Theoden didn't have background music while he was giving his big battle speech before the Rohirrim charged at the massive orc army on the Pelennor Fields? The scene would be 12 times less powerful and we'd just be all like "Crap, I hope they don't die or anything" but instead we're all like "WOOOO! 'MERICA!!" so THANK YOU HOWARD SHORE. Anyways, I leave you now with a list of some of my favorite soundtrack composers that made would-have-been awkward moments into the most powerful scenes in movies.

1. Thomas Newman (The Shawshank Redemption, Skyfall, Finding Nemo, Road to Perdition, The Road, The Green Mile, etc etc).

2. Hans Zimmer (Inception, Pirates of the Caribbean, Gladiator, The Dark Knight, Sherlock Holmes, Transformers)

3. Howard Shore (The Lord of the Rings, Twilight...not that I even like that movie, but we'd all be laughing at Bella instead of feeling sad for her if his music wasn't playing in the background)

4. And there's like infinity others, but I don't have time to list them all and it's not like anybody is going to read this anyways.

Link: Sean Penn as Willie Stark in All the King's Men, "Nail 'Em Up" speech.

An Open Letter to The Intercom Lady Who Makes Announcements Every Day At 3:10

   
Initially, I was going to write an open letter to the intercom lady who talks every day at the end of 4th block. But then I realized that there are a lot more people I would like to write open letters to. So here's a few open letters dealing with some big issues that have been on my mind of late:

1. The Intercom Lady
Dear Intercom Lady,
          It's like every day at the end of 4th block you have to read the entire Grapes of Wrath to us. Stop talking. The teachers are trying to wrap up their lessons, I'm trying to finish my test, and you are NOT trying to be concise. See this? This is what concise looks like.
                                                                                     Love,
                                                                                         Becky.

2. The State Legislators That Enforced End of Course Exams:
Dear State Legislators,
          You haven't been in a classroom in 40 years. But who cares...I bet you must have soooo much knowledge about how modern day classrooms and classes work, you clever legislator, you! I mean, why listen to the opinions of the teachers that work in classrooms every single freaking day? They're clearly not as special as you because they don't run around in pant suits and make crappy stickers of themselves to get elected. It's really cute that you think you can sit up there on your high horse and enforce mandatory exams that make up a huge portion of students' grades. It's even cuter that  rather than easing us into exams, you decided that it would be cool to not let the teachers know what content is going to be on the exam and then make it a huge portion of our grades anyways. Cutest of them all is probably that you placed the exams in April because that definitely won't cause cramming, will it? I'm kidding. You're not cute and I think your ideas are a complete joke.
                                                                                     I don't love you,
                                                                                                      Becky.

3. Annoying Kids In the Dunbar School Parking Lot:
Dear Annoying Kids In the Dunbar School Parking Lot,
         If you blast your crappy music with the windows down and drive 25 mph in the parking lot in the expensive car that mommy and daddy bought you whilst refusing to yield to other pedestrians and cars that may be in your trajectory, I'M TALKING TO YOU. Nobody wants you here. Nobody even thinks you're cool. It's just annoying and you're gonna hit something or someone. Nobody is impressed by 25 mph so I don't even know why you think speeding through like a total d-bag is worth it. It's not getting you anywhere. You're stupid. You're really, really, really stupid. So stop acting like the school parking lot is a NASCAR race and go home.
                                                     Sincerely,
                                                            Everybody. Because everybody is annoyed with you.