A lost friend...

At this point this post isn't going to be looked at by the littlest of souls except from the one person that monitors post from the Blogspot HQ. My summer was going great, little on my mind except videogames and friends. Then I was hit with difficult news about a close friend of mine who had died of drugs. Second person in my life to pass away this year that was at the very least a decent human being. This man was going to do awesome things. I can't help but to reflect on the morning of the reception of such news. I am devastated at how someone can essentially disappear from my life not by choice but by incident. I thought life would be a fairytale of good fortune with occasional problems. Then my senior year hit me like a train. The years of the teenager are difficult, the transition from the ugly little duckling to the eventual swan is discouraging. Nothing seems to help me move along. I thought not attending the service for Aaron would help me overcome but it didn't. My mind clouded by my stupidity and oblivious to the occurrence of such tragedy prohibited me from listening to my friends. I should have checked on my friends to see how they were especially the more affected ones. As time quickly progresses nearer to my own demise, I take note of the day I must leave the nest and hopefully become the swan I want to be but I can't help but to remember my good times with Aaron. We mourned the death of a smile and we made others smile in a class shrouded by numbers and symbols with a short monotone teacher with an odd obsession with three girls. Aaron became my nerd buddy we shared the same love for creativity and science. We shared a yearning to change the world. I know that it is no longer required for my ex classmates to glance over my blog and this is a post that will not be seen by many but I feel the necessity to release the words trapped in the folds of my brain and the passages of my neurons. Aaron you will be missed by the few who truly knew you. As I type this with a tear drop on my the LED screen of my phone I struggle to finish typing this post...

Bildungs Roman

Ephraim Rodriguez

6/8/15

           This last couple of weeks have been a tremendous experience for all of the classes partaking in AP Literature and Composition. Many of these prestigious students learned the deep thoughts rolling through the skulls of their peers. Some were frightened by the gravity of their ideas, others were in agreement. This course has been open in many ways as students from a traditional setting we were free, and in some ways a bit too free. Some students took lightly to the course and I not being exempt. One way or another everyone took a shortcut. As students we find the easy way out so we have less stress to deal with. I think this course deserves a little more consequence so students are less tempted to goof off.

            My journey through this class was awesome. In some aspects I felt like Beowulf when I conquered my essays. In other aspects I felt like Hamlet when I was able to get my own art class. In my own way I caught a glimpse into the “Brave New World” (in a promising less dark kind-of way) when looking for research pertaining to my masterpiece. I enjoyed seeing how I was able to learn so much about myself, others, and course material.

            Initially I wanted to do an experimental approach to Alzheimer’s disease but that was too difficult to arrange so I toned down my project and decided to just do research and learn about this topic. I started at Wikipedia to get my whole project going then google scholar helped me to get more detailed scientific hypotheses like the Tau and Amyloid Hypotheses. I became fascinated with this information. I called my family to see how my grandfather was doing only to see him continually get worse as his illness progressed and his Alzheimer’s degraded him further. At this point I was sure I would work on this issue for my project and the rest of my existence on this blue orb.

            As deep as I saw my involvement in this project, I also noticed how deep others’ projects were. Taylor Wall had a deep fascination with Serial Killers and their psychology which was wickedly awesome. She went to the nitty-gritty stuff like the profiles of different types of murderers. Henry Freebourn dropped 4 “f-bombs” and a handful of other expletives explaining his views on censorship and “the man.” Henry spoke in a way that was easily relatable to all the students. Eric Jackson’s presentation in some aspect was very similar to Henry but in a more professional less angry way. He went into the psychological reasons why people in this world are conforming to social pressures and showed us how to avoid these pressures. Miles Jorgensen showed us his passion in video, and made everyone evoke some emotion. His video featuring “Gumby” had words that spoke to the heart and not in tongue, it was eloquently put so that the audience gets a laugh and a tear of joy when the dog is reunited with the large, green, clay, alcoholic. The presentation that showed the most enthusiasm was of course Alec McFarland. Alec’s eyes were bright and wide when the word psychedelic came from his smiling face. The whole class could feel how attached Alec was to his project and in one way or another each of us showed some sort of adorations= for our projects.

            This was an epic experience and I am hopeful that the teens from room 608 will make a difference in the world as soon as the next second that passes.  

Peer Pressure

No not the kind we trained to avoid in 5th grade... The kind we are trained to follow since birth. What irks me is the idea that it's okay to enforce societal values into a child. My Art project that might even be a month late due to my lack of prioritization, has subconsciously taught me a lot. The whole idea of things like religion being okay to teach to children is sad. Religion has its pros and cons but many people enforce the bad. I left a seemingly good faith because of this. What I felt like was a good part of my life turned out to be the most prejudiced and hateful. Be different, challenge what comes your way, be you. Don't let the bully enforce conformity.

I swear...

My mind works better into the night
My mind works better under stress
My mind works better in fear
My mind works better with a beat to follow
My mind works better in the absence of voice
My mind works better when directed by myself
My mind works better behind the glowing pixels of this LED panel
My mind works better when stimulated by caffeine
My mind works better when my sanity is nowhere to be found
My mind works better when it is gone.
My mind doesn't work at all...

...

Sometimes you don't know the complete story. Sometimes most of the variables are missing. Sometimes a person may not really be who you think they are. Sometimes a person may have lived a life totally different than what you imagined. Sometimes you will never understand me. Sometimes nobody will. Sometimes I have felt life to be unbearably difficult. Pressure is what makes a beautiful diamond right? No pressure is what makes the cracked graphite at the bottom of the cave. My struggle is one you may never understand. My music is one you may never like. My qualities are some that may or may not enjoy. What is the point sometimes? Sometimes I may seem erroneous.

This was written because my last few weeks have felt somewhat difficult in all aspects. Physically, mentally, and  emotionally. AP tests aren't even stressing me out all that much, just a combination of a variety things.

Feeling

                I sit and wait under these fluorescent light bulbs for a verdict of my future. This trial is an unjust representation of myself. I feel as I am more human than the person conducting this cruel trial and in some aspects my faults are what make me even more human. The qualities of a robot are the qualities they are lacking. Lacking of feeling, emotion, tone, empathy, love, sadness, and countless more, are what makes a machine the cold and electric calculator it is. I on the other hand have thoughts and feelings that make me a unique individual. I can show affection for my loved ones, while the one reprimanding my character cannot feel a single ounce of empathy for a person being destroyed by a robotic system of trial. A system of trial that instead of proving guilt will throw out all evidence innocence and send me to the factory and sort out beads for the rest of my organic existence. What’s the point of fighting this then?

                I need to look out for my posterity, each and every person after me, so that they do not encounter the same issue as I do. I will fight a broken system all on my own thinking. This was not programmed into my thoughts by a computer engineer but by experience. The most human of people were fighters, genuine people like Gandhi and Martin Luther King Jr.; they fought for what they knew was right. They showed a love of enormous agape, they had never-ending empathy, and they fought for something more than themselves. Those same qualities that didn't make them a robot is what can also define others as human. I aspire to even be half as great as them but a robot doesn't even have the capability to aspire such things. They are programmed to do jobs and things in a repetitive manner as suggested by their coding.

                A simple look at medical records it is evident that that I am an organic organism born naturally from the same organic species of human. I feel betrayed by a system that throws out my rights and equivocates me to and inanimate object based off of what? Does this supposed man know of my past experiences, my interactions with others, my charitable actions of empathy, or even the emotion I feel? I must assure you that I don’t dream of “electric sheep.”

Feeling is the bold line between human and robot. A robot doesn't have an emotional feeling like humans do. The feelings of empathy, love, sadness, joy and anger make me human. I understand why a university wouldn't admit an android to their university. I don’t understand why this university won’t accept me and my fully capable sentient self.

What about in-class stuff, yo?

I get it blogs and our work at home has to mean something right?

What about the time invested inside the classroom?

 It's the same five or six people that participate the others sit around and do nothing. The same people I see who are constantly commended for their "EXCELLENT" work on their blog are the ones snapchatting, texting, talking our doing some other useless thing that doesn't pertain to the in-class agenda. A blog that isn't reviewed nor given feedback to me is useless. Whereas an argument in class where I can see the opposing side's argument is much more influential and valuable. Enough with comparing each other's blogs and focus on what really matters the actual discussion in the FUCKING classroom. Where is the bracket for in-class discussion? I feel like I might make it to the Final Four.