The Many Faces of Adversity

I believe that someone has already written on a topic of this nature, however with a new class I thought something of the sort might hold some entertainment.  As I glanced around the room today during discussion, I took note of many people's facial expressions as they listened to their classmates talk.  As usual, there are many different categories of expressions: indifference, confusion, annoyance, heavy judgment, interest, and of course the occasional gaze.  The indifference category might include such people as, those who only care about getting their point across, possibly in order to get some highly valued "discussion points."  Not to be offensive, but as Jillian talked today I noticed the look of anticipation on Lizzy Burl's face.  She did not like being interrupted, no, not at all.  As a matter of fact I feel as though the class had a good laugh at the immediate shift away from Jillian's name questions onto Lizzy's other topic.  The second category, the one of confusion, has a few members.  I would even count myself as a temporary member for brief periods of time.  However, more notably I often notice very confused expressions coming from Jillian.  Although, I guess her questions remain synonymous with her facial expressions.  The third category can be combined, a culmination of annoyance and judgment.  Typical are the rolling eyes of Greenlaw, the "Connolly Glare," and yes, even the "Alex Hurtuk Stare Down of Impending Doom."  The fourth category, the one of interest has few people.  However, these people are notable and often seem interested in discussions.  Such people include both Haley and Mariel.  The fifth and final category consists of those people who tend to...gaze.  People such as Chase and, I might be wrong in saying this, Dom and Chris.  I felt as though the gaze tended to be a guy thing.  I will admit, this was quite a fun game to play during the discussion and it kept me thoroughly amused.  Sorry, but I'm not sorry if you are on here and do not like the category you have been placed under, this is "The Big Hurt" after all.  (Just kidding, I meant no offense by any of this to anyone at all)

One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Blog Fish

Originally, I thought about taking the stance of disagreeing with classroom discussions, comments, and arguments as the focus of my blog, oh and completely sandbagging people for no apparent reason.  However, this blog project/assignment turned into a whole other beast, and I am not talking about Marshawn Lynch Beast mode (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rWLP2cOxXEM).  The interesting thing for me at least, dealt with the fact that one could take a creative approach to their blog posts and topics.  Similarly, I enjoyed reading others blogs and I felt a few times at least that writing helped to blow off steam of some sort.  In a way blogging served as a sort of journal that reflected the AP English 12 students' frustrations, anxieties, and joys.  Also, blogging seemed to have captivated Ms. Serensky, giving her some additional humor into her life.  Of course I often felt the same way.  I enjoyed writing stories about Long Rice and adding in occasional random titles to my blogs that do not make any sense.  I could have done without the comment section though, or at least had the option to comment on peoples blogs as many times as I wanted and to still have it count.  I think that we should continue to do blogs, even though I often have an increasingly hard time thinking of things to post about.  Also, I think that Ms. Serensky should have a blog and should have to do two entries a week.  I am curious to know what she would blog about.  All I can say is that if the blogs do not continue, I will be astronomically disappointed.

Marshawn Lynch Beast Mode

Now I have a feeling that I know what you will say here, "Oh, those guys do not even have a chance."  Well, we do.  Our team, team 2 or otherwise known as team 2 cool for school, will wreck everyone in the extra credit challenge.  Everyone, knows about the cheating that goes on and all of the "collabos" (for you novices out there that phrase really means collaboration), but we play it fair.  We are those no nonsense kind of guys.  We could do this game with both hands behind our back and our eyes closed.  Plus the "dream team" (Donley, Kreger, Schiferl, and Shoemaker) have proven last time that they are not so high and mighty.  Oh yes I am calling everyone out.  As for Greenlaw and O'Hera and those "top scoring" girls, everyone knows Ms. Serensky's slipping them answers just so they can beat the boys.  Oh yeah, we know everyone's tactics.  Well, team 2 cool for school will not take any special favors or considerations.  We have this game on lock down anyway.  We have got some special strategies to put into play as we make our way to the top.  We have our secret game plans called: "the give and go," "the lame duck," and the "Marshawn Lynch Beast Mode."  I will say no more except that our team has prepared for game day.  So when you see Hurtuk, Gilbert, Russo, and Lange walk into the room on game day, you know it's about to go down.  Get ready to lose.

Where's my Dad?

I rolled up to Lifetime fitness in my 10 year old Toyota highlander with 195,000 miles on it, I had a feeling it was going to be a good day.  I walked in the door and got pumped.  I met my boy James Victor Scolaro and we hit our daily routine on the weights.  I saw Jillian there too, she said that she was embarrassed since she only goes on the Oliptical for five minutes and never goes over by the weights since the big people there intimidate her.  Anyways, after our hour and a half session Jimmy has this crazy idea that we should do yoga.  I am of course thinking why not?  It cannot really be that bad.  Well, it was.  I should have never agreed to do it, as I was already exhausted.  More importantly, it was a special kind of yoga called Hot Yoga, where the turn the temperature in the room up to 105 degrees.  It was ridiculous.  It lasted for ninety minutes and although I hated it at first I began to like it, coming into deeper contact with my inner-self.  Towards the end of the yoga the last part deals with meditation, during this time we both fell asleep for five minutes.  I never knew yoga could be such an exhausting task.  I am glad that I did not immediately dismiss yoga.  Despite what Ms. Serensky says, or I guess apparently what she thinks that all of us do, I did not prejudge this situation or think that I was too good for it.  I would actually say that AP English helped me in this case by opening up my mind with the idea of trying something new.  Often times my mind opens up in the discussions, I am not ignorant to what my classmates say.  I like hearing their observations and points of view, and often times I relate that information to my own life and experiences to see how I would apply it.  Oh and I also recommend that everyone give yoga a try.

Gotta Catch 'em All, Pokemon

I have no idea what to blog about.  I have thought about several things I could write about, but nothing seems to really stick.  At first I thought about writing about my interesting trip to Mongolian Barbecue over break, where everything at first seemed normal, until the cooks there started belting the Pokemon theme song.  However, I had no idea how I could relate this to AP English.  I also thought about blogging about the data sheet again, or something of how all the hard work I put into it means something, but nothing came to mind.  I thought about blogging about all of the stories I heard from my family over break, like how my cousin who cheated his way through high school now wants to become a teacher, but that just seemed boring and some of the stories and events are not school appropriate in any way.  Ironically, thinking about all of this caused me to analyze myself using the invaluable skills I have learned from AP English class.  At this point I have determined that I am a bit cynical and definitely not ready to go back to school since I cannot even focus enough to think about a decent topic for a blog entry.  On top of that, my cynical attitude has caused me to determine that I will not be a happy camper come Monday morning.  I am directly characterizing myself as on edge and pissed off.  Similarly, I feel as though school on Monday will cause me to feel like Ms. Serensky does when someone forgets to bring money for a book.  Oh well, at least I have done all of my homework.