Thankful

THANKSGIVING BREAK IS IN TWO DAYS!!!!!!!! SAY WHAT?! But then the break will go so fast and Sunday hits and you will be crying yourself to sleep because the next day is school and is a full week of school. What is even worse is having to see the people that you hate at school, but the good part about it would only be the seeing your friends after not seeing them for maybe five days and could catch up on some fun "stuff" you did and also see your crush again in the school. Speaking of friends, there is one man in 6th period Mr. McCarthy English II class that I am thankful for, technically speaking I really am not, but I promised him I would write about being thankful for him. So Se-bas-tian A-dam-Ski this one's for you. I am thankful for you giving me critical feedback on my narrative writing last Friday. I am also thankful for you sometimes reminding me what we had for homework for McCarthy, and at rare times helping me understand a text or a question that is being asked. I also won't forget about how you would tell me the summary of chapters that I didn't have time to read in the novels we read. Also thanks for making my first period fun instead of boring. You the man! (grammar error intended) I also love you in a none sexual way.  

I Celebrate Myself

I really don't understand as to how the title "I celebrate myself" is related to transcendentalist or transcendentalism. But I guess writing this blog post can help me and maybe you, the reader, as to understand how the title "I celebrate myself" relate to the Transcendentalist or Transcendentalism.

In order to understand about Transcendentalist, it is best to talk about how they were formed since their formation was the basis for their beliefs. Couple of their beliefs was how you shouldn't be following the fad that everyone is going by, but follow your own fad that you want to go by. Another one would be that Society has corrupted the individuality of individuals.

Transcendentalism first emerged among the New England congregationalism, but were different in two ways with Calvinism, whom were a major branch of Protestantism who follow the theological tradition and forms of Christian practices of John Calvin.  The two differences that Transcendentalism and Calvinism had was that Transcendentalism rejected predestination, a doctrine that stated that all events were willed by God and the founder of Calvinism, John Calvin interpreted the biblical predestination to mean that God willed eternal damnation for some people and salvation for the others, and emphasized on the unity, but not the Trinity of God, unlike Calvinism.

 Transcendentalism wasn't considered to be formed as transcendentalism until the 18th century during rationalism, developed as a reaction  for rationalism. On September 8, 1836 in Cambridge, Massachusetts, Ripley and Emerson finds the Transcendental Club which is what allow people to call the artists, writers, and composers that create pieces that expresses the feelings of the American thoughts or the existential issues that were at hand during the American Renaissance or before the American Renaissance, or even the social changes that were going on and the lifestyle that  people had before as to the lifestyle that people were living in during the American Renaissance or when the change of lifestyle started to happen, transcendentalist.      

The writing on the history of transcendentalist or transcendentalism doesn't seem to help me or maybe also you, the reader, to understand the title of the blog post "I Celebrate Myself". Guess I will take another path to help us both understand. But first, the phrase "I celebrate myself" comes from one of Walt Whitman's poems called "Song of Myself", that focuses on three themes, the idea of yourself, the idea of yourself from other people, and the idea of yourself from nature and the universe. So basically the poem focuses on the individuality of a person from three different point of view- the view on yourself from the perspective of yourself, the view of yourself from the perspective of others around you, and the view of yourself from the perspective of the universe, the way how the world views you. Two of these types of point of views on self corrupts individuality according to the transcendentalism ideology and my opinion on individuality. Take a guess on which ones..... If you guessed that it was the point of view from others and the world, then you're correct. These two types of point of views on self corrupts individuality because the view from others is what influences you, yourself to copy what others do, imitation my friend, is what we call it. This doesn't allow you to show you true colors but allows you to show pretty colors that your peers or the people around only like. You have no sense of style, personality, and BASICALLY NO LIFE!! The view from the world is basically the view from society itself. Society in my opinion is what influences your peers to go away from their individuality and influence you like the way society influence them to remove their individuality. Society has its own norms that is what allows people to consider whether it is to be consider to be acceptable or plain weird, and everyone knows that it is best to fit in then to not and so everyone will throw away their own tastes for a taste that society believes is the best for everyone. Like for teens, you can only be consider accepted if you're wearing some famous brand name attire or having the latest phone or technological device or even having accounts for the latest social media websites.            

Poe

When I look at the pictures of Edgar Allan Poe, he has the same mustache, never smiles, but I can see pain, tiredness, and sadness in his eyes. But it is reasonable for it to be so since he has, from the time of his childhood to his death he barely experienced happiness, but most of the time he felt sadness. It can be said that Edgar Allan Poe lived in an underworld of darkness, but in rare chances, he could escape the dark world temporary and live upon in the world of happiness, but would soon fall back into the underworld of darkness.

Edgar Allan Poe was born in Boston, Massachusetts, on January 19, 1809. His parents were both actors and in the year that he was born in, his parents were actors for a play called, "King Lear" by William Shakespeare, and the name of Edgar Allan Poe came from one of the name of the characters in the play. Interesting right? Edgar Allan Poe was the second child of his parents, Elizabeth Arnold Hopkins Poe and David Poe, Jr., his elder brother's was named, William Henry Leonard Poe. But wait, he had a little sister named, Rosalie Poe. At the age of one, Edgar Allan Poe's father left his mother, elder brother and younger sister. At the age of two, Poe's mother died from tuberculosis, from here, he was put into the orphanage with his siblings, but they all separated later on. Poe was taken in by a successful Scottish merchant in Richmond, Virginia in the name of John Allan. Poe's middle name, "Allan" came from the Allan family. The Allan family didn't technically adopt Poe but was only fostering him and giving him an education. In 1815, Poe was sent to Irvine, Scotland  to attend grammar school, then in 1816, he met up with his family in London and attended boarding school in Chelsea; he stayed until the summer of 1817, which after, he attended Reverend John Bransby's Manor House School at Stoke Newington. In 1820, Poe returned back to Richmond, Virginia with his family, the Allan's Family.On February 1826, before registering for University of Virginia, Poe was engaged with a woman named, Sarah Elmira Royster. This relationship faded as the time passed when Poe was attending the university of Virginia and his relationship with his foster father John Allan became estranged. His relationship with his foster father, John Allan was estranged because during his time at the University of Virginia, Poe gambled a lot and ended up in debt and used the money from his foster father, John Allan to pay for his debts. Ask yourself, would you really want to see the person that you just borrowed a large sum of money from and you know that you can't return it? This was the feeling that Poe had when he was to meet with his foster father. In a year, Poe dropped out of the university and felt not welcomed in Richmond. To worsen his pain, Sarah had married with a man named Alexander Shelton and he knows about it. In April 1827, Poe travels to Boston and accepts random jobs like newspaper writer, clerk. On May 27, 1827, Poe joins the military to support himself. During his time in the military, he released his first book that was a 40 page collection of poems called, "Tamerlane and other Poems" which didn't receive any attention from the public. One thing that Poe did accomplish during his time in the military or in his life so far was obtaining the highest rank a non-commissioned officer can achieve, Sergeant Major of Artillery. Poe wanted to discharge early but couldn't, until he reconciled with John Allan. Poe sent numerous letter to John, but he dismissed them. On February 28, 1829, Poe's foster mother dies, and the day after, Poe visited her burial. John decides to help Poe discharges and on April 15, 1829 Poe was discharged. In October 1830, John Allan married Lousia Patterson. Poe quarreled with John Allan on the marriage on that the children born to John were from affairs. These types of quarrels lead to the disowning of Poe. After a couple of years traveling around trying to sell his third volume of poem, Poe returns to Baltimore to his aunt, cousin, and elder brother who died on August 1, 1831 because of tuberculosis. Before marrying Virginia, his cousin, Poe was gaining fame from his works. After his marriage with Virginia, he gained more fame from working with magazine company's. Virginia was suffering through tuberculosis and died on January 30, 1847.
Never really did expect the biography on Poe to be this long, but to quicken this up, in summary, the biography on Poe written up above had the major points of the times he suffered through stress, sadness, and pain. The only ways that he knew how to cope through the pain he endured was either by drinking or gambling. Since even now gambling and drinking are one way to cope with pain, but it is temporary. Soon Poe learned how express his pain through the use of words and it was one way to cope with his pain. Like the Raven, it has a theme of dark, anger, and sadness. These themes expressed in the poem were the pain he felt when writing or stored within him. Or maybe like the Cask of Amontillado, the book revolved around anger and revenge. The anger can come from any major points in his life where someone died and he could be blaming it on God, (since he was baptized, so therefore he was forced or voluntarily chose to become Christian) and to release his anger and the feelings for revenge on the God for taking a loved one away could have stirred him to write the Cask of Amontillado. Most of the time when Poe was feeling emotional he would drink and in the Cask of Amontillado, the main character Montresor drunks Fortunato and makes him suffer by getting chained against a wall die slowly. I guess that Poe felt like he was Fortunato, he didn't die yet, but was going through a slow painful death series like Fortunato and Montresor was God, he was putting Poe to death but having Poe unknown on it.        

What is an American?

First of all, I'm pretty confused on what I have to write for this blog post, but I'm guessing that I will soon understand when I start typing out whatever appears in mind when I think of the question, "What is an American?". So let's begin on a journey of confusion. To start off, the dictation of "American" is actually not what people think it is. Most people think that the dictation of "American" is people that inhabits the United States, but not to say that they're wrong, the technical definition of "American" is a native or inhabitant of the Western Hemisphere. So therefore, anyone that inhabits North America and South America is to be considered Americans, since the technical definition does say that an American is anyone that lives on the Western Hemisphere. But people don't consider inhabitants of South America to be Americans or Canada in North America to be Americans, but people only consider anyone that inhabits within the United States to be an American. Which I think can be explained as to why people think that people that inhabit United States are only to be considered Americans and not any other other country's inhabitants in the Western Hemisphere to be considered Americans.
     From what I've been taught in school and learned personally, people that immigrated to the United States during 20th century and after, and people that sailed to the Americas during the 1600s, had a common purpose, and that purpose was what defined every other human being inhabiting the Western Hemisphere to not be considered Americans except for the inhabitants of the United States. That purpose was the pursuing of the dream life that everyone wishes for. The immigrants from the 20th century and the 21st century came to America because they wanted to have a better life, a life of better opportunities, the life of living rich, providing their children or future generation a better education, immigrants wanted to start back at square one of their life, making sure that they will not commit the same mistake that they did when they were back at their homeland. This wasn't as similar as the 1600s people, but they did purse their dream life like the 20th and 21st century immigrants did. The 1600s people wanted to escape their homeland because of many different reasons like maybe the government banishing the practice of all other religions, but only allowing one type of religion to be able to be practiced in the country, or the escape of warfare in the country, maybe even to escape the country's economic downfall. There are so many reasons as to why people migrate over to the United States, but they all came over because they wanted to pursue their dream life and believed that the Americas or the United States is the only place that can make their dream life come true. Even if that dream life that never came true, the people that migrated over to the United States or the Americas at least tried to make it happen, and really, all that matters is trying and taking risks. This is want makes an American an American, taking risks to make a dream come true, even when the odds are against you.  

Modern Puritans

The number one most popular religion that resonates on planet Earth today would be Christianity. With a believed population of 2,116,909,552, this includes the population of Roman Catholics, Protestants, Orthodox, and Anglicans. With this being said, United States is the number one area that houses about 11.3% of the Christian population and 79.5% of the United States are made up of Christians, which can be estimated to about 246,780,000 people in America are Christians. This wouldn’t be a big surprise really, but if it is, hope you learned something from reading this. I wouldn’t be surprised that the Christian population in America to be this big, but yet, I expected it to be even bigger. Since I do know that from the time that America was founded, the first thirteen colonies were dominated by Puritans, and from generation to generation to generations, the beliefs in God hasn’t changed and so hasn’t the constant reading of the Bible, and the worshipping of God, but what has changed was the interpretations of short stories in the Bible.    

The Christian population is just a more “updated” modern version of Puritans, but possibly less judgmental on others beliefs and more respected on others views on things and sense of actions. The Puritans were a group of believers that believed in God, but had a harsh view on others that believed in different deities, and would usually take action to stop their beliefs because they believe that their God was the right God and all other deities were the Devil, and the worship of other deities were like strengthening the power of the Devil, since other deities were consider to be the Devil, and in order to weaken the Devil, the Puritans believe that they must take down his/her follower. The take down can either be death, like hanging or burning, or the confession of believing in the Devil and say that you want to be with God. There is a group that is similar in ways of the Puritans, but they don’t exactly consider themselves as Puritans and neither does society consider them as one. This group would be the Westboro Baptist Church.

The Westboro Baptist Church is known in society a hate group towards nonbelievers of God, nonbelievers of “their” God, and gays. The Westboro Baptist Church members live amongst each other and is hated by nearly everyone in society for their extreme ideology. Some of their young members have been disowned by their families because they dear to either to question the ideology of their ways or because they disliked being hated by others and having no friends. The Westboro Baptist Church isn’t as violent as the Puritans were in trying to stop the support of different deities that were consider to be different from “their” God and also wasn’t as violent as the Puritans were in the stopping of support of subjects that they believe that God doesn’t like because the way of interpretation on the subject from the Bible is negative on the subject. The Westboro Baptist Church believes that God hates gays because the way they interpreted the subject on gays from the Bible were negative upon them and so they, the Westboro Baptist Church would go to events for gays or events that were to support gays and picket, yelling, “God hates Fags!” One example of picketing on gays would be a picketing on a funeral of a man named Matthew Shepard from Laramie, Wyoming whom was beaten to death by two men for being homosexual. The Westboro Baptist Church went to that funeral and picketed say that he deserved it and God accepts the event.       

John Proctor: Hero or Stooge

There are a multiple of different definitions for the words “Hero” and “Stooge”, so it makes it pretty frustrating on what the two words really mean. In the dictionary, the word “Hero” means a person that is admired for his courage or ability and his noble qualities. In a personal preference, hero would mean a person that has made a positive impact on society or in the lives of others. For the word stooge, the dictionary meaning would be a person who serves only as an assist or support for others in wrong doings. In a personal preference, stooge would mean a fool or an idiot from the context that it is used in. From the definitions of these two words, John Proctor is closer to the hero’s definition compared to the stooge definition.

I’m sorry make this blog post really boring, even if it isn’t still, the tone of the whole blog right now is just gloomy and sounds like I don’t like to be doing this, but I mean this is homework so it isn’t that really fun. In order to raise the tone of this blog, I need to have you; the reader read this in a really funny manner or in an upbeat manner, you can use accents or use hand motions when reading to make it interesting. This is a blog! A place where reading becomes fun and interesting and you learn…stuff.

Back to the topic now, John Proctor in my opinion isn’t either a hero or a stooge. In The Crucible, John Proctor didn’t stop the witch trials and didn’t save anyone from dying from the witch trials, but one thing that he did do was that he put the most effort into not only saving his wife Elizabeth Proctor from the witch trials, but also all the other wives and towns people that were accused of witchery. Most of the other men that had their wives accused of witchery by the girls- Abigail Williams, Betty Parris, Susanna Walcott, Mercy Lewis, Mary Warren, and the others, only tried to save their wives from getting hanged and not the others wives that were accused of witchery. Bit selfish don’t you think? The only way to avoid death of hanging for the accused victims was to confess and say that you saw the devil, you signed the devil’s book, you sent your spirits on innocent victims, now you want to be with God and want to walk with Jesus, and you say that you saw so and so with the devil. This was really the only evidence that you can use to save from death, since Salem, Massachusetts during the times of the late 1600s is a theocracy (a system of government in which the government is ruled in the name of God). A confessed person in Salem, Massachusetts has more trust over someone that says that they have never sent spirits on people in the town or either that they never worshipped the devil. Why? Because now that you have confessed your sins and God has forgiven you, it means that you will not lie anymore since now that you’re by the side of God and you will help God fight off the devil that lurks within the townspeople. It also means that you will not break the Ten Commandments since a true Christian doesn’t do that. All the girls confessed that they have seen the devil, danced with him and signed his book with their blood. They have also randomly accused another person. Which I believe that the girls accused whoever they didn't like, or either in some way stirred up hate for them and wanted to see them dead since there is over 100 people in the town of Salem and they only chose that certain person. Doing the confession to the high authorities of seeing the devil and all, gave the accused victims of witchery or being with the devil a get out of death card, which makes you a stooge to the girls because you are assisting them in getting tension off of them for dancing in the woods by including more people into the situation, and soon people will forget what the girls did in the woods, which it was true. When death is involved, mostly every human being will at some point lie or go against their religions laws to avoid  death or pain. Would you want to die or suffer pain for no apparent reason just because someone used you as a scapegoat? Many people will say no and do whatever it takes to avoid it like the townspeople and the girls, while some people will say yes because they either don’t want to break their religions laws or believes that what they are doing is the best option to stop the drama that is happening. For example, Rebecca Nurse didn't confess and decided to die as being honest and a true Christian than to live as a liar, she wasn't a stooge. Same thing for John Proctor, John Proctor did say that he will confess, which he did, but then he didn't want to live as being an even not a good man, Since he already couldn't forgive himself for the committing of adultery with Abigail Williams, and believed that his wife Elizabeth was judging him for doing that, but really his heart was just thinking that his wife Elizabeth was judging him. John Proctor doesn't consider himself to be a good man, but his wife Elizabeth Proctor, well early on in the play, she didn't really consider him to be a really good man, but had a small shred of goodness, but now she believes more that he has more than just a shred of goodness, but he has a lot since he stood his ground and became honest and didn't become a stooge for the girls like mostly everyone else that was blamed for witchery. The standing of his ground and dying as a man that still has a shred of goodness, was really all that John wanted, and he got that at the end of the play. John Proctor wasn't a stooge or a hero but was closer as being considered as a hero than a stooge. Since his wife Elizabeth and Rebecca Nurse did admire his will to not lie to save his life. 

Arrivals...There goes the neighborhood

To dilly dally, I will not be going straight on to the purpose of this blog post, and I’m sorry to put this sentence into this blog post Mr. McCarthy, but it’s the only way that I can think of to make this blog post seem long, boring, and make me seem like I’m an overachiever. I wanted to dilly-dally some more, but I just got scared think of you Mr. McCarthy lowering my grade for dilly-dallying and not getting straight onto the discussion of this blog, “Arrivals… There Goes The Neighborhood”.

The short stories- “A Journey Through Texas” by Alvar Nunez Cabeza de Vaca, “The General History of Virginia” by John Smith, and “Of Plymouth Plantation” by William Bradford in the Prentice Hall Literature: The American Experience book all had a common theme, and that theme was the explorers from Afro-Eurasia coming over to the Americas in the hopes of conquering land for themselves or for their kings and queens. The feelings that the Indians had of the “invasion” really depended on how much experience each Indian tribe had with explorers. The more understanding you had about the purpose of the explorers’ comings would make you more hostile towards them. Why? Well first imagine that you owned a piece of land in a really peaceful and exotic environment. On that piece of land, you have about 13-15 triangular prism that has a hole on the top of the prism and about six thin but sturdy oak wood sticks sticking out of that hole and small plots of land that has vegetation. In those 13-15 teepees lived around 30 people that you have gotten really close too and has formed many great memories with each other. Now on a peaceful day, the sun is bright and shinning and next thing that happens is that a group of 7 males walk onto your land and are being extremely nice, greeting everyone and giving away free bead necklaces. Soon you form a friendly bond between the newcomers, and they have built houses and have begun civilization right next to your land. That seems fine right? Of course it is, you have found a new trading partner and have found new allies that can help you during territorial battles. Now you’re thinking that life is all great from what seems to be happening, but your new neighbors have been snatching your women and children from their tepees and putting them on their ship at night without you knowing. Then one day they decide to do assault your men on your own land. Then the explorers decide to leave the land and sail back to their origin land with your women children as their slaves. Doesn’t this enrage you about explorers, the people that you had so much trust on have backstabbed you. This is a reason to why the Indians in, “The General History of Virginia” kill a couple of John Smith’s men and took John Smith as a prisoner and decided on a death of crushing his head. The chief of the tribe believed that John Smith and his subordinates were a threat to them, scared that they would try and conquer their land and enslave them, so the chief decided to make the first move and kill off some of the explorers or else the situation of getting conquered or close to getting conquered over will happen again. For the other stories, like, “A Journey through Texas”, and “Of Plymouth Plantation” The Indian tribes never really did encounter explorers until in these stories they did. In these short stories, the Indians were scared of them because of how they looked, but were also amazed at them because the Indians believed that they were like “aliens”. In the “Journey through Texas” the Indians thought that Alvar and his men were like demi-gods because Alvar performed the first surgery in Texas, but the surgery to the Indians was like a healing ceremony going on. The Indians were scared of them a little bit because it seemed like Alvar and his men had powers. In the “Of Plymouth Plantation” the Indians later on in the story approaches them, but I’m pretty sure that the Indians have already known their arrival earlier, but were just sacred to approach them. When William Bradford and his subordinates were struggling, the Indians saw their troubles, but ignored until they saw that they were in desperate need, that was when the Indians came to help them out, teaching them the agriculture of the Americas and how to protect themselves from the harsh weather of the Americas.  From all three of these short stories, the Indians and the explorers later on did get to forma better bond, but as time passes and more explorers come over to the Americas to start a new life or to get away from their countries harsh judgment on their beliefs, they dominate more land, and soon backstabbing the Indians and pushing them further away. From this most of the Indian tribes that used to dominate the Americas have been backstabbed a few times, but can’t fight back because their technology wasn’t as high tech as the Explorers were. The explorers’ native lands created a snowballing effect, one country would create a new type of musket and another country would get a spark of a new idea for a better and more efficient musket. While in the Americas, there was no snowballing effect since most tribes didn’t really know each other that well, and didn’t like each that well also. As time flies, there are no more Indian reservations, but cities and suburbs.                                 

Me

The person writing this blog is the first Asian boy in Mr. McCarthy’s period 6 English 2 class. Well to be more specific, the first Asian boy as being the first Asian boy on the attendance sheet before the other Asian boy named Benjamin Liu. Anyways, this is a blog supposedly to be about me so Mr. McCarthy can know more about who I am and is probably reading this blog right now and also other students, so hi. Too start off; I barely know anything about myself so writing this blog will be extremely difficult.  Since I don’t really know anything about myself, I guess I should start the introduction of myself with a story of my life because that is the only idea I have currently to describe myself. On February 12, 1998, it was a sunny bitter cold day in Chicago, Illinois, and on that day, many babies were born and I was one of the babies who were born on that day. I was the heaviest and the tallest baby in my extended family. So growing up in a two story house, with the front of the house looking like it has been hit by several motored-vehicles and the back of the house looking like the front house of a crack house, was sad and overcrowding.  Every time I walked back home from my neighborhood school with my cousins, who was also sheltered in the same house as me, there would be students following us back to the house and would throw tiny pebbles at us when we reached the doors of the house, the words that would come out from their mouth would be, “Haha, haha, you live in a haunted house, you’re going to get eaten by a wicked mouse!” What was sad was that we always would start crying when they were teasing and throwing pebbles at us, we did nothing to stop them until my grandmother came out, then they ran. Thinking back, I really did not know they meant, the house never had man-eating mouse before, but what it did have was rats and cockroaches. By the age of 6, I moved out of that house and lived in a town house, it was more spacious, the floor didn’t look like I wasn’t cleaned for 30 years, and was brighter. For the time being, I didn’t do anything awesome, lived a normal life, and never got teased by those kids again. I graduated from my neighborhood elementary school and spent my summer break dreaming about flying on pink unicorns, and trying to catch the Nyan Cat and having it for a main course. I had a nice freshmen year in Whitney Young, and for the summer I spent my time in a University of Chicago science laboratory. This is the story of my life.