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.