Everybody Loves Snail Mail

      I never read the link attached to the prompt, but as soon as I saw the question "When is the last time you received a hand written letter?" on Mr. Mullins's blog suggestions, I knew that it was mine to answer. I, Rebecca Anne Smiley, am probably the world's biggest advocate of hand written letters. To answer the question at hand, the last time I received a letter was a little less than two days ago. So why do I love letters so much? The list could go on for days, but my top reason is that they mean so much more than a text or an email or any other electronic form of communication that has replaced the snail mail belonging to years far before our generation. Here is why: Any one of us could just turn on our computer and begin typing and simply press "send" when we wish to contact someone. A letter, however, takes so much more effort than this. When someone writes a letter, rather than just sending a message like "hey watsup man?", they're sending a page full of their own thoughts that don't need to be immediately replied to. These thoughts are complex and they're thought out, and rather than just having a fragment of what your counterpart wants to communicate to you, you have an entire document in which they express themselves. As well, in writing letters, the writers are encouraged to communicate ideas in an eloquent manner that we have become quite accustomed to abandoning completely whilst conversing through the screen of a phone or a computer. Further, because there is no quick reply option, the writers of letters are forced to complete entire thoughts. Letters encourage thought complexity and have genuine meaning, whereas electronic mail encourages the utmost simplicity in communication. My favorite things about letters, despite all of this, is that you can keep them forever. An email can be printed, but that wastes ink and the originality of that person's handwriting and spelling skills are lost. A text can be saved, but we all know that phones don't last forever. So yeah, let's keep the snail mail going.

The Things They Carried

     Normally when I blog, I don't take things too seriously because I am aware of the fact that nobody ever reads these things. However, this one is going to be good because Tim O'Brien's The Things They Carried was unlike any other novel that I have ever read before. As a reader, I was completely sucked into this narrative from the first few pages when O'Brien skipped straight to the point and started naming off  all of the things that the soldiers in his Alpha company carried. The way he did it, though...it was beautiful. I want to use the word poetic, but I know that it could never really do justice to the way that O'Brien characterized the young soldiers in a way that I never even thought a wartime author would. Each soldier was given a set of items: weapons, survival essentials, food, etc. Exactly what you would expect from an American soldier deployed in Vietnam. More than that though, they were each intimately characterized by the things that they carried which they held so dear to them. Kiowa carried his grandfather's hatchet and moccasins, Cross carried letters from the girl he loved, Tim Lavendar carried dope and tranquilizers because he was terrified of dying. It was these little things that reminded the reader that these were normal guys, barely even adults, just like the rest of us who were forced to go overseas and kill so that they would not be killed. The line that struck me the most, though, was after O'Brien listed off all the weapons that the Alpha Company carried, putting the burdens only in terms of weight: AK-47s, M-60s, smoke grenades, killer grenades, chains of ammo, and a lot more things that I can't really remember. But after listing off all of this, O'Brien writes "But most of all, they were all in a silent awe of the things they carried". These young men have been given tools that could destroy massive amounts of human life, as well as maybe save their own, and their "silent awe" just goes to show their shock  in actually having to accept that their job - the reason why they were sent to war - was to kill. Especially because this narrative is told by a Vietnam veteran drafted against his will, it really opens up a whole new perspective. It also makes the source reliable because we, the readers, can know for a fact that O'Brien isn't trying to dramatize something that he's only seen in the movies. He tells it like it was so that he can keep the memories of the men in his company alive.

     The book is also filled with numerous other narratives following The Things They Carried. Each one drew new insight into O'Brien's past in Vietnam and how it has shaped his present day life as he attempts to find closure for all of the events that happened. My only regret is that I only had an hour in class to write about this book because it honestly deserves a lot more explaining than just one hour will allow. So yeah...for those of you who like to read for fun, check this book out. There's like 12,000 copies of it in the library.

I Used A Vocab List 8 Word In My Blog Today

Today I would like to blog about how stupid it is that the Fayette County Public Schools administration won't call obvious snow days until 5:30 in the morning. I believe that this topic is relevant enough to school to blog about.

    Firstly, let's look at some facts. Fayette county ices their roads primarily with a Sodium Chloride compound salt. What rock salts like NaCl do is create a freezing point depression. This means that they simply lower the freezing point of water by disturbing chemical equilibrium. Sodium Chloride is capable of ionizing and doing this until temperatures drop below 20 degrees F, in which case the salt simply forms a layer of salt over the ice and no ionization occurs. Currently, the temperature outside is far below that, especially considering wind chill. I am aware that they also store in their reserves salt brine and liquid calcium chloride, which are effective until temperature drops well below 0 degrees. However, these are stored and used in much less quantity because they are more expensive. As well, they are generally applied before anticipated conditions, and we saw little of this happening during the day today before the onset of the storm. For the board to sit there and say that conditions have a good enough chance of being sufficiently better on the roads by tomorrow morning , it seems that they are not taking anything into consideration except for their own rudimentary insight which seems to simply include the effect of "time" and "is it still snowing or not?". The de-icing procedures that have been implemented today seem to simply have been "not enough" to have prevented such horrible driving conditions as the ones that Fayette county citizens have experienced well on into the night.

My point is that by waiting until 5:30 in the morning to call off school, the FCPS administration is wasting working parent's time who need to hire babysitters, employed students who could have scheduled to work extra shifts if we had known school was cancelled much earlier than 5:30 am, and the time of dedicated students who could be sleeping rather than staying up till 3 am just to do their homework. This is preposterous (note the use of a vocab list 8 word used. Go AP lit!).

Cavemen Who Obviously Made Bad Life Choices.

      Too many people are saying that they hated the ending of The Road. Well, for me at least, hating the ending isn't enough. I hate the entire book. Something about the constant bleakness and lack of light in both a metaphorical and literal sense reminded me too much of winter, which is also bleak and lacking in light. During this process of pondering, I am always reminded that "oh yeah, it's winter outside right now!", and then I am lost in a pool of depression. You know, there is this theory that humans almost always become more depressed in the winter because - naturally - our ancestors spent the entire season hibernating. This means that it is in our DNA to hibernate just like all other sensible mammals who know how to make good life choices.We are all sad because we should be hibernating, too. But we aren't. Instead we're blogging at 11:40 pm and eating cheerios because we have to. So, to whatever caveman thousands of years ago who said to himself "LOL hey we should try to stay awake all winter #YOLO"...I have three words for you: bad life choice. It is only now, in 2013, that we have finally realized that any idea preceding the phrase "YOLO" is usually a bad life choice. Our entire species has made a bad life choice.

    There is, however, one aspect of The Road that I really did like: the ending. Sure the dad dies. But hey, the dad wanted to die. The only thing that kept him from doing so was the need to protect his son. The way that I see it, the son's presence on earth didn't make the father's wish to live any bigger than it already was. Rather, it gave him a sense of duty and obligation; because he loved his son he had to look out for him. When the father dies, he is torn from his misery and hopefully gets to be reunited with everybody that he has lost. The father has also accomplished his goal. For the entire novel, the father had one thing in mind: his son's safety. Some may argue that reaching the coast was his main goal. I think that he knew within at least 50 miles of the coast that nothing in the atmosphere would be any different - the sky would not be lighter, the ash would not disappear, and civilization would still be wrecked. When the father dies, his son is taken into safe and loving hands with a family that looks after him and has faith. Henceforth, the goal of the entire novel has been accomplished. High five on that one, Cormac McCarthy!

College Essays and How I am Not Inspired

       Right now I am convinced that I am the only person in the world who has procrastinated their college admission's essays. The past few months I have justified my procrastination as acceptable for several reasons: Firstly, I am only applying to one college. Secondly, I don't even want to go to college. Thirdly, I've already written enough scholarship essays and I don't see how I could possibly take any more essay-writing torture. Fourthly (if 'fourthly' is in fact a word), I can't imagine how my writing, especially with those terrible essay prompts, would especially charm any admissions officer over any other essay that has been written thus far by students who are far more eloquent writers than myself. But before you start judging me too harshly, just know that my situation isn't completely terrible - I've already finished 2 of the 3 admissions essays. What makes that third essay so hard to write is the fact that nothing I have learned in school has ever really inspired me, and so now I have absolutely no truthful way to address the prompt. In fact, I don't think that school has ever inspired me at all. I am hardly ever interested in the facts and concepts that we are forced to sit in a classroom and learn every day...in fact, I have a hard time even being interested at all. What really inspires me are people and what I see them do in the every day world; they overcome struggles, invent things, help others...just all of this stuff. I even think that my teachers are inspiring because how on earth does somebody stand in a class room and handle a bunch of teenagers who would very obviously rather be doing something else? And how does somebody read through 60 different essays on the exact same topic when the handwriting is barely even legible? I don't even know but it blows my mind. Another thing that inspires me is technology like computers and cell phones because how does somebody even come up with that stuff? It's just crazy. But see, I never actually learned about these things in school. So yeah, I'm still in an essay writing rut.

My Deepest and Most Revealing Feelings About First Semester in AP English Literature

      I'm going to start out on a positive note by sharing all of the things that I have especially liked about AP English Literature this year. Firstly, I enjoy blogging. In the rare occasion that I actually have something that I feel is worth writing, I think that it is really nice being able to write and share it. Blogs are also a really easy 30/30 in the grade book, so I think that it's all just a win-win situation. It's fun to do some no-pressure writing every once in a while! I also really like being able to listen to the class discussions every time we read a book. It kind of fascinates me how complex everybody's thought trains are when it comes to interpreting those stories, especially since I tend to only see the most rudimentary details. Thirdly, I absolutely positively love the fact that our final is based solely off of a presentation dealing with a topic that we are actually interested in. Not only is this stress free, it is also really fascinating and I really like having the option to choose which books I want to read.
      And now for my hate paragraph. I hate essays. I hate sitting in front of a computer for twelve years fumbling over which adjective to use and how to not sound redundant, because quite frankly, sometimes I have a lot of trouble writing multiple pages about a book that I didn't even enjoy. I also hate turnitin.com. Here is why: access to the internet is a huge variability among students. I, for one, only have one computer in my household. It is shared with four other busy family members. In many instances, getting myself a turn on  the computer is both inconvenient and frustrating. Furthermore, what if your internet crashes? It isn't a dependable source for a lot of people, including myself, and I think that the extra struggle is extremely unfair. For example, tonight I am writing my blog at 11:44 pm because that is when my sister happened to finish doing her research project. I would much rather be sleeping. But besides excessive internet requirements and difficult essays, there really isn't that much that I dislike about AP English at the moment.
    Ending on a positive note, I think that this has been a really productive semester. I felt challenged every day in class and things never really got boring. I especially enjoyed the drama unit, which was discussed in my last blog. I am really looking forwards to next semester (with exception to the AP test).

A Reflection On the Drama Unit

      The drama unit has been by far my favorite yet. I'm not going to lie, a good half of the reason is because we got to spend time doing a lot of watching rather than a lot of reading. However, this isn't to say that I didn't enjoy reading Hamlet or Oedipus. I think that Hamlet would have actually been a really fun read, had it not been for the middle English and me struggling to understand half of the words. But hey, what's AP English without a challenge? I also think that the whole discussion items thing was a really nice way for me to be able to take some time to understand what was going on in the book a little bit better. Rather than having to sit there with a translator next to me all night while I was reading, and then proceeding to freak out because I knew we had a quiz coming, I could just clarify my misunderstandings and interpretations in class with my fellow students. It's also a much easier way to be able to involve yourself in discussion without having to not be shy or scared of saying something stupid in front of the entire class.
     Secondly, I thought that The Importance of Being Earnest was absolutely marvelous! Particularly the part where we got to actually watch the video. It was a fun way for me to be able to see all of the elements of satire in action without actually having to read. Especially for this play, reading would not have been able to have the same effect as seeing the actors actually performing the script on stage. I say this especially because the funniest part of play - by far - was Cecily's crazy fantasies of ponies and people dressed in flowered garments playing pan flutes and minstrel music. That level of cheesiness is definitely my type of humor.