I'll Get Around to My Zombie Later

There are many "zombies" in my life, to put it that way. I stay up super late watching YouTube videos of Good Mythical Morning and Markiplier. I go on Tumblr and just scroll through for hours on end, even if I know I don't want to waste my time doing something mindless. I go on Buzzfeed and take brain numbing quizzes, such as "This scribble will tell you how tired you are" and "which animal are you based on your zodiac sign?" . Recently, I've gotten obesessed with a game on my phone called Neko Atsume, which is basically this generation's version of Tamagotchi (I have a cat named Joe DiMeowgio and I am in love). These multiple vices have been keeping me up late at night and distracting me for hours on end. But the worst vice I have isn't electronic; though my constant connection with online media certainly does not help. The biggest zombie that I've never been able to kill is procrastination.

I have tried to win against procrastination ever since my days in middle school. There will be times where a sudden burst of motivation consumes me, and I rush to do as many assignments as I can before my usual lethargy takes over and I'm back on my phone. It's just a constant battle that I cannot seem to win. It's like this zombie can regenerate over and over again. I can take it down for a measly hour or two and then it's back again, ready and raring to take me down. My parents have attempted numerous times to help me kill this zombie. They have gotten me procrastination help books, day planners, and calendars to schedule out assignments and projects that aren't due the next day. I have heard the foreboding warnings of teachers going "You shouldn't wait until the last minute!" and "You'll regret it when you're staying up all night finishing the paper/project!". And yet it is impossible for me to heed these warnings and actually do something about it.

Now, do not get me wrong. It is not like this zombie is completely in control all the time. I'm not in honors classes for nothing. When I know that I have work to do, I will not rest until all of that homework is completed. I literally cannot fall asleep unless I know that every piece of homework is complete and I have at least glimpsed at any material for a test or quiz the next day. It just takes me forever to do it. I distinctly remember one instance of procrastination that still haunts me to this day. It was freshman year (and that year was difficult, getting used to the curriculum and the fast pacing of my classes and such) and I had a choice board project for the Odyssey and a history paper due for Kenny K. Now, I thought that I would be able to handle a couple of small projects from the choice board and writing a three page paper comparing Christianity and Islam. I was wrong. So, so wrong. I had my parents helping me until 1 AM with the choice board project, and I stayed up until 6AM doing the paper. I got about a good half hour of sleep, but I had done it. I finished the projects and slept soundly for that half hour. The next day I felt like the walking dead, so I knew in my heart of hearts that I am not cut out for all nighters.

It feels like I will have the words "time management!!!" ringing in my ears for the rest of my life. But, like the article pointed out, we just need to beat back our bad behavior until we eventually seize the day. I just beat my zombie right now, just by writing this blog. So I'll keep up the good fight and pray I don't have any all nighters planned in the fates for me. This zombie may regenerate, but I have a ton of ammo and I'm not afraid to use it.

Hip Hop and Youth

In his concluding paragraph on "Hip Hop World", McBride describes hip hop as being a warning. Hip hop, as we know it, has evolved heavily from the era that McBride was recalling. However, the message of hip hop being a warning towards the older generations is still crystal clear. 

There was one specific line in that concluding paragraph that caught my eye and lends a solid foundations towards McBride's arguement. "At its best, hip hop lays bare the empty moral cupboard that is our generation's legacy". Hip hop was a way for African Americans to voice the discrimination and injustices against them. They used their music as a revolutionary movement, giving voice to their struggles and finding another home within their community. By laying bare all that had happened from the beginning of hip hop in the seventies up until 2007, McBride illustrated just how important it was that African Americans were given this gift to cry out and say "We are here". 

Hip hop was also a warning in the way that it connected with so many people. It became a worldwide hit among the youth. Even white American teens struggling with poor families were able to relate to African Americans within their verses. This could be seen as a warning to the older generations that our generation will not tolerate the injustices thrust upon us. The youth has always been looked down upon and hated for being different. Since hip hop gave such a powerful voice to the youth, that is why it was so hard for McBride and others of his generation to accept that hip hop would be a cultural phenomenon. I think it is easy for older generations to underestimate and mistreat those of younger generations. They believe that we are not capable of maintaining whatever system that the old generations developed. Different influences from different time periods further separate the young from the old. But with hip hop, it gives the youth a chance to stand their ground and fight for what they believe is right. 

Politics

Politics; the thing that runs our good country of the United States of America and also makes for uncomfortable arguements at Thanksgiving. We were given two presidential candidates to analyze and to see if their words really added up to their message. We also threw in the great John Oliver for good measure, who added some great points about how some political candidates never really have a concise message. 

Donald Trump is the leading candidate for the Republican Party in the elections right now. This soggy cheeto is very hard to take seriously, in my opinion. He believes that Americans (and by Americans, he means white straight men) have been cheated out of their precious money becuase it has been taken by undocumented workers coming in from Mexico. In his speech, he gets the crowd all riled up about his master scheme: building a wall between the border of the U.S. and making Mexico pay every penny for its construction. Trump loves to make these outlandishly ridiculous statements, only because he knows that it will get a rise out of his audience and those watching at home. But the problem with this tactic is that no one seems to think of how he's actually going to get Mexico to pay for a wall with their own money without it backfiring on the American people. He also tends to get pretty hypocritical at times. While he claims that he will 'Make America Great Again' by getting more jobs for documented citizens only, his past reveals that he has not always followed this straight and narrow path. In the Oliver video, it is pointed out that one of the Trump towers (which only uses his name; it's not his actual building) was being built by illegal workers who were given inadequate supplies and not allowed the proper protection for their work. Trump, of course, denied it to save his own orange skin. The thing about Trump is that he will spout out whatever he wants to say with no form of game plan on how he's going to make it happen (this can be said for all politics, but Trump somehow manages to insult every living being on the planet along the way).

Bernie Sanders is falling behind Hillary at the moment, but is still the favorite Democratic Party choice among children my age and college students. Sanders is taking on many controversial issues within his campaign, which is why young people love him so much. He talks about Wall Street and colleges all have the big bucks and how colleges are sentencing students to decades of debt to pay for an education. He tells the struggles of African Americans and the discrimination against them, the students in debt, the mistreatment of women, etc. Comparing this message of equality to the total white and corporate supremacy of Trump, one would think that everyone would be lining up to vote for Sanders. But one of the problems is his choice of People to represent and fight for. I would like him to be President as much as the next Millennial. But by focusing on the young, he is taking away his chances at getting to the people who really vote: the elderly. Young people just don't get the chance to vote nowadays. So while Trump is making the old cronies sing his praises, Sanders is stuck with people who have to commitment to the idea of voting.

Woolf for Women

Today in class we read Professions for Women by Virginia Woolf. In this essay, Woolf used her own personal hardships she faced being a female writer to illustrate the challenges of being a working woman in a time when women were expected to be docile objects in their homes. I have a great admiration for Woolf because she expressed a serious problem that was happening during her time and she did it in such a way that showed that she was resolute and eloquent in her stance.

One of Woolf's beautiful examples of oppression was the Angel character that she used. This Angel was described as being the ideal woman of her time. She described her as

"...in short. She was so constituted that she never had a mind or a wish of her own, but preferred to sympathize always with the minds and wishes of others...her purity was supposed to be her chief beauty...".

The descriptive language paints a perfect picture of what this imaginary Angel would look like to Woolf. This image of the Angel can be tied to societal standards today. Women are always expected to be docile and be walked over by men. They are constantly interrupted without apology, are punished for being modest but then berated if they are dressed provocatively and have to go through life with unfortunate instances of sexism and fear at the hands of a man. Woolf was showing that this oppressive figure in her life was keeping her from being true to her writing. This was an injustice to both Woolf and her audience, so she got rid of the Angel. I also love the way that she described getting rid of it.

"She died hard...it is far harder to kill a phantom than a reality. She was always creeping back when I thought I had despatched of her. Though I flatter myself that I killed her in the end, the struggle was severe;...Killing the Angel in the House was part of the occupation of a woman writer".

Woolf used the Angel as a figure to describe the oppression and pressure she felt as a writer to conform to society. This battle that she had with the Angel was set in her bedroom. It makes the battle seem more courageous when the reader realizes that these pressures of conforming can creep into an intimate space such as a bedroom. I am glad that she included that part because it shows that even though Woolf was a successful writer, she could never escape how society wanted her to be. Many women have to face that kind of daunting challenge every day, so it was like Woolf was writing a letter to women past and present that gives them the recognition and appretiaiton they deserve for persevering in their craft in the face of adversity.

Ah, Yes. Cannibalism.

This was, by far, the weirdest thing that we have ever read in class. The article in question is A Modest Proposal, written by Jonathan Swift. While the title makes it seem like this will be a polite article about taxes or ways to save money, it was actually about cannibalism. Child cannibalism, to make matters worse. However, this article is a prime example of satire. Satire, by definition, is "the use of irony or sarcasm to critique society or an individual". By using these tools in his article, Swift was able to put new spins on his satirical writing that added a humorous shock value to it.

Swift was able to establish his ethos by using outside sources that vouched for his credibility. "I have been assured by a very knowing American of my acquaintance in London, that a young healthy child well nursed is at a year old a most delicious, nourishing, and wholesome food..." By mentioning his American friend (whom I later found out was the Donner group) approving of his plan, it establishes his credibility to speak on the topic at hand. He also establishes ethos by creating multiple points towards an arguement supporting his idea. He mentions many factors that go into taking care of a child, the costs, the economical standpoints and the way that he used research to come to these conclusions. While his preposition is gruesome, one cannot argue that he did not fully stand up for his ideals and that his research bore some good explanations and solutions to the problems in Ireland.

Swift uses many examples of logos throughout his satire. "I have reckoned upon a medium that. A child just born will weigh 12 pounds, and in a solar year, if tolerably nursed, will increase to 28 pounds" and "The number of souls in this kingdom being usually reckoned one million and a half, of these I calculate there may be about 200,000 couple whose wives are breeders...there will remain 1700,000 breeders..." Are two examples of the numerous amounts of logos used in this article. This helps his pretend arguement for cannibalism because by showing the actual statistics of the population and what his plan would affect, it shows the reader that Swift has put some serious thought into making this as believable as humanly possible.

Pathos was a big one in this article. The beginning paragraph is all about the female beggars and their starving children. As the essay builds from this point, the reader is always stuck with the image of these poor people and are more than willing to listen to what Swift has to say in order to help. By drawing the reader in by using imagery and sympathy, Swift causes the reveal of his real plan to be shocking and morbidly humorous. He also makes a very bold statement, saying that "...let no man talk to me of these and teh like expedients, till he has at least som eglimipse of hope that there will be ever some hearty and sincere attempt to put them into practice". Swift is practically daring his readers to practice what they preach and only judge his actions if they can find some plausible reason for it.

Eloquence is Problematic

"We love eloquence for its own sake, and not for any truth which it may utter, or any heroism it may inspire". - Thoreau

I absolutely agree with this quote. I do find it a little ironic coming from Thoreau, seeing as his writing is very pretentious and he sure does practice what he preaches with his essay On the Duty of Civil Disobedience. This essay was tough to get through in class, I'm not going to lie. I found myself drifting off and completely indifferent to what Thoreau was trying to say. Because while I appreciate and love eloquence with all my soul, I tune out as soon as I hear it in an arrogant way. And that is all I heard coming from this essay.

I think that eloquence is something important towards our diction and can affect how we carry ourselves. I have found in my own experience that when I speak more eloquently, I find that I am more grounded in my stance on different topics and that I am more in control of a conversation or debate. When I am more casual with my language, it is easier for my words to be overlooked and for my points to not be taken seriously, hence why I reserve my eloquence for adults that disregard my opinion right off the bat. So when Thoreau wrote that we enjoy eloquence for its own sake, I can agree because using eloquence myself causes me to feel more confident in myself and my opinions.

I want to use an example of eloquence gone wrong. I find the writings of John Green to be...problematic in some ways, and I think that it stems from his form of eloquence. Now, do not get me wrong, I find him to be a very successful writer and I cried along with everyone else when I went to go see The Fault in Our Stars at the movies. Twice. (Anthony and Other will remember Dave and the Sour Patch Kids from one of these movies). Anyway, I find his eloquence to be the only reason why people really read his books. He is a man of pretty words and profound statements that apparently shake the core of every reader out there with its deepness. Or something to that extent. I will take Paper Towns as an example. In this book, the main character Quentin builds up a false image of popular Margo Roth Spiegleman. She leaves, he chases after her with his band of misfits, and at the end he realized that he never needed her at all and that she was something broken instead of beautiful. One way that he emphasized this point was with the line:

"What a treacherous thing to believe that a person is more than a person".

Now, that's a beautiful quote and is basically the whole plot of the book. But if one looks at this quote, it is just a glaring truth in everyday life that was twisted around to look profound and lovely. All this did was romanticize distorting another person and their flaws into a perfect being when that isn't possible.

Declaring Equality for Women

I honestly thought that today's lesson would be a tad bit boring because we were reading over the Declaration of Independence (something I had not been forced to read even in history class with Kenny K) and The Declaration of Sentiments, written by a woman named Elizabeth Cady Stanton. We got through the Declaration of Independence with a few bumps along the way, considering the formal word choices and difficulty with translating old language into something we could understand.  Then we reached The Declaration of Sentiments and I fell in love with Elizabeth Cady Stanton for being an amazing woman and an immediate role model for feminism. 

These two essays began with the same beginning lines: "We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men and women are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty  and the pursuit of happiness; that to secure these rights governments are instituted, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed". This is pretty straightforward in the way it was written. Jefferson, who originally wrote this tidbit, was describing how the Americans came to see themselves as a separate body from England's rule and wanted to have their own independence and standards of equality to be recognized and respected. I personally think that the Declaration of Independence dragged on because they wanted it to sound so formal that they overdid it. It seemed like when one needs to write a 1,000 word essay and then you pull out random things to drag out your point as long as possible, like so:

But anyway, I digress. Cady's essay, The Declaration of Sentiments, used these beginning lines as well. But she focuses specifically on how the Declaration states how an abusive and wrongdoing government can be abolished by those governed and be rewritten in fairness for all, and how women have had to suffer under an abusive government since America gained its independence. She goes on to describe how women cannot be involved in government and political affairs without it being seen as improper. She even calls them out on giving the rights of elective and political freedoms to "the most ignorant and degraded men--both natives and foreigners". Cady bashes the "common man" and how he has systematically restrained the rights of women under the pretenses of women being an object to own instead of a free-thinking human being with the inalienable rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. She promises that there will be women reinforcing and pushing for this movement of equality to spread throughout the nation. Thus: feminism was born in America.

What I loved most about this essay was that there are (unfortunately) clear parallels between the sufferings of women in 1848 and 2016. Once a woman has married her ideal husband, she is expected to settle down with her white-picket-fence-dream-house and however many children her and said husband decide to have. I am not bashing this certain lifestyle; I respect women that are able to take care of children and raise them in a way that makes them feel loved. However, I hate that it seems to be the only option a woman has. Cady points out that "In the covenant of marriage, she is compelled to promise obedience to her husband, he becoming, to all intents and purpose, her master--". Just looking at the word "master" gives me the creeps. It just keeps pushing this idea that women are the servants to men, that we must offer our ambitions and dreams up for the wants and needs of a husband. If one is a single woman, whether she be a business owner or not, she is only valuable if she is contributing back to society. There is this constant pressure to adhere to a social mold of obedience and toxic double standards at every turn. Cady was, as Ms. Amodie said, "ballsy" to point out these glaring inequalities in 1848 America. What sucks the most is that a 2016 feminist can say the exact same things she did.