Have No Fear, Satire Is Here.

Since Mr. Mullins didn't give out any suggestions for a blog post this week, I decided to start this post off with a celebratory "Yay!" because my fellow peers, we are done with drama! Or Hamlet at least.  Although I have to admit once I understood what it was about I actually did rather enjoy the play.  I liked the craziness of Hamlet himself and since he was basically Bi-polar, which was exactly how I felt today, I can relate.  Now that Hamlet is out of the way, we will begin Satire.  I am so excited for this unit, section, whatever you want to call it.

It might be that I got to write a satirical paper last year on Wall-E, which ultimately let me watch the adorable Pixar movie about 1500 times.  But I really like satire because you can find it in everything we read, hear, and see.  It's all around us especially in this generation of sarcastic blockheads.  However, it was really interesting to know that even back in the 1800s authors used satire to spice up their books and speeches.

Mark Twain, my new life coach, wrote this awesome "Advice to Youth" speech and I just fell in love with the satire in it.  I thought it enhanced the message of the entire speech which was pretty much telling the younger generations to not do what their elders say.  I loved how it also made fun of their time period and traditions that were expected of the younger generation to carry out.  I just love satire but I'm hoping that this satire unit won't ruin it for me.  Fingers crossed that it will make my love grow even more.

My word of the year for 2012.. I don't think you'll like it.

PAIN. That is the word of the year for me.  While pop culture deemed GIF as their word, I saw it fitting to let my word be pain.  This year has been very hard for me.  It seems like every two years there is something that just makes them not pleasant.  This past year, I experienced a lot of pain.  My dog, who I grew up with, just recently passed away.  I was not accepted in softball-the one place I felt safe at.  Everything just seem wrong with this year but then again everything else was right.  It's very hard to explain but I think with pain comes change, whether it be good or bad change.

I definitely don't think GIF deserves word of the year especially when it has been around since its been around for more than two years.  Correct me if I'm wrong, but should an important word like "word of the year" be something more meaningful and complex?  YOLO or GIF are not word that describe what our world has been through in the last year.  It describes what teenagers and young adults do on their smart phone.  Or it gave them excuses to do something really stupid.

Maybe it's just me and my cold exterior, but I don't agree with these word that were chose for "word of the year."  Pain, growth, and change are word that I chose for me.  But maybe people don't grow from their pain , or change from their growth.  Maybe I'm the odd one out.  Fact is I just don't know anymore.

Drama Drama Drama!

So as we all know this past Tuesday was election day and for the first time, I got to vote.  It was very exciting because I really felt like an adult.  I actually cared this time because I was apart of it.  But leading up to all of this proud voting nonsense was DRAMA.  All the horrible commercials and the endless "He said this ... blah, blah, blah."  It just was full of drama and honestly, I didn't care for any of it which makes me nervous to start this new unit of DRAMA.

Oedipus Rex wasn't a bad read.  I honestly enjoyed the story but now we move into Shakespeare.  Like Mr. Mullins said in class, Shakespeare is definitely an acquired likeness. I really enjoyed Romeo and Juliet in Freshman English but I think that has to do with the fact the Leonardo DiCaprio was playing Romeo.  Othello was a different story.  I could not get into Othello at all.  I remember only the basic plot and I honestly did not care what happened in the play.  Obviously I've heard of Hamlet but I don't know anything about it. It's like a whole different country that I've only heard about but never touched.

I'm pretty much worried about the drama unit because I know I'm not good with drama.  It will definitely take a lot of focus for me to get into Hamlet but hopefully I can.

Fate or Free Will? Whatever Shall I Choose?

Two days ago, I posted on my Facebook about how I wish I could control fate.  I had just auditioned for all-state so it's understandable why I posted this considering my chances of getting in were slim.  My best friend grandmother commented on it and told me "there is no such thing as fate."  I was actually take aback at what she said because I had always believed in fate.  I also believe in free will too but what I didn't understand is why would someone say that fate doesn't exist?  It's a very foreign concept for me and it got me thinking about Oedipus Rex.

Sophocles made sure to make fate play a big role in Oedipus's life.  He used Gods like Apollo who is the God of prophecies in the play to make fate more apparent.  What I wonder was if Oedipus chose to go the other way at the cross road would free will triumph over fate or would fate still find a way to sneak in and ruin the lives of many people.  I think if Oedipus chose the other way at the crossroad then all would be okay and his mother and father did not have to die.  Does that concept apply to people in today's world?

I think it does.  Sometimes I find myself put in situations that I know I was meant to be in to help those around me.  Other situations, I choose to be in because I have the free will to break away from the path that fate has chosen for me.  I like to think that I do have a say in my future but when it comes down to it, does fate influence our free will/choices or do our choices influence our fate?