Drawing the line on jokes

Earlier this week, we learned briefly about the use of humor in writing, particularly satire. I tend to enjoy using humor in my writing. Usually, I don't use it in the papers that I am really involved in already. Instead, I tend to use it as a relief while writing something I really don't want to be writing. If I have the energy for it (which I often lack, as I do now), these works can become massive satires while just barely serving their actual purpose.

Humor and satire can be used to distract a reader from an otherwise lacking paper. I find myself searching for jokes to tell when I run out of things to say. This goes for conversation as well as writing. Luckily, I have some time to think about what I'm going to say while writing so I don't make a fool of myself by telling a terrible joke. By making a reader laugh, you can make it seem like you're saying a lot more than you actually are.

On the other side of this, I sometimes find it difficult to incorporate humor into papers about topics on which I feel strongly. If I intend to poke sarcastic fun at something I use humor, but unfortunately I'm losing this wit as I try to make my arguments stronger and attempt to use rhetorical strategies beyond my humor that had been signature throughout middle school and early in high school.

Note must be taken, however, that humor is not always appropriate. The line has to be drawn somewhere. Serious topics can have jokes. Those jokes have to be in the right tone to work otherwise they can be construed as disrespectful attempts at making-fun.

It is important to word your passion carefully. A single joke might make an argument collapse on itself if it is not told tactfully.

I had always considered humor to be important in writing. It helps keep the reader awake and interested. Recently, I've felt like I'm failing to do this. Am I getting too mature? Am I losing my touch for humor in writing? From here on out, I am going to try to make my writing a little lighter when I can and use my wit to help my arguments rather than disregarding it.

On "Times have changed for student protestors"

This article was really intriguing to think about after watching "Two Days in October" and learning about the UW-Madison protests during the Vietnam War.

I have to say, I'm not at all surprised that things have changed and become this way today. I'm not one to protest wars, but I'm not usually in fervent support of violence either. However, I think that people who feel that they are truly against the war should be stepping up to make their point known. They aren't apathetic; we know that because they do voice an interest in the topic. Yet they aren't empathetic on the topic either.

Recently, it seems that I've come across a lot of reading about the apathy of today's young people and they ways our generation likes to take the easy way out. I agree that we often do this. In the case presented by this article, though, it is not a case of apathy, but rather a lack of action. People have opinions and are apparently willing to voice them. That's much better than apathy. But there is a problem because we now need people not just to be willing to voice their opinions, but to actually take action to do so.

The social effects of the Vietnam War were certainly greater than that of those of the Wars on Terror. We aren't affected daily and at home by these conflicts by drafts, protests, enormous death tolls, and living-room footage as much as the Americans of the 1960s and 1970s.

Still, it is sad that something like "Grey's Anatomy" would infringe on the ability of students and citizens to exercise free speech and the right to assembly. Certainly media networks are not actively trying to take these rights away (with the exception of FOX), but they are passively breeding latent civic emotion.

We cannot continue to allow the things in our life that really don't matter all that much to take over the things that do matter. It's not too much trouble right now in the situation of war, but what about other things that might escalate to be massive social problems. If people shut off their televisions, looked up from their text messages, and removed their ear buds to take in the world around them and do something about it, we might see some amazing social movements. I can guarantee that there are millions of Americans out there who have ideas to help mend our economy or the environment (they don't have to be big ideas either), but citizens have a loss of efficacy that makes them feel like their opinion won't do anything. As a result, rather than taking action, we open a bag of Doritos and look for the latest developments in the relationships of our favorite celebrities.

What are you going to do about it?

The Civil Rights Movement briefly touched upon

Since we've been talking in class about the civil rights movements and African-American culture so much, it's been on my mind. The Letter from Birmingham Jail certainly expanded these thoughts.



This summer I had the opportunity to take a class in Washington D.C. on American history and politics that focused largely on civil rights. As expected, the texts for the class included essays and speeches like The Ballot or the Bullet by Malcom X, the famed I have a Dream by Dr. King, and many others. The final exam for this test involved an essay section. One of the possible essays was "According to Martin Luther King, what are the goals of the civil rights movement and why do they justify non-violent civil disobedience? What is Malcolm X's criticism of King's goal and his approach?" This was an excellent essay question, but I don't recall if I actually answered this one. In any case, I think it is important to understand the relationship between Malcolm X and MLK.

The two men disagreed over the idea of integration. In King's mind it was important to integrate the negro race into society and not just desegregate. King claimed that civil institutions and legislation could only break down racial barriers so far. Cities and states could choose to desegrate and therefore whites and blacks would be using many of the same facilities and such, but this did not mean the races would get along or love each other. The white American was apathetic to the civil rights cause. Most didn't care whether things were desegrated or segregated. King made the call to sensitize the white man to understand that de jure desegregation wouldn't be enough. It needed to be de facto, or through natural means--"color blindness." Integration would mean that blacks and whites weren't just putting up with each other, but actually interacting socially with each other for personal enjoyment rather than state order. King hoped to achieve this by positive action and encouraging whites and blacks alike to welcome each other through community involvement and good character.

Malcolm X on the other hand was not so happy a singer of Kum-bay-ah. He said that civil rights and the argument over integration came down to two things: the ballot, or the bullet. As it sounds, this was the idea that blacks would gain rights either through civil action or they would eventually take them by force. Black Nationalism was Malcolm X's argument against integration. He felt that black and white could never live together in true harmony and therefore they shouldn't try to do so. X didn't even consider himself American, he considered himself a Negro. In this idea, the government was nothing more than a conspiracy to retard the Negro. X doesn't condemn non-violence either, but instead says that "I'm non-violent with those who are non-violent with me." Black Nationalism required the creation of black communities that did not deal with white society. For some time, these communities thrived culturally. However, their economies were lacking and underground activity, particularly drugs, began to ruin them. While Malcolm X wasn't intending to be violent, he was certainly radical and willing to attain rights through any means in a Machiavellian manner.

History tells us that MLK won this argument, but perhaps we can learn from the seperatism of Malcolm X. Also, reading essays and speeches of both these men give us examples of some of the best rhetoric on the most fiery topic of the 20th century. If you don't know much about the civil rights movement I pity you. If you think you do, look deeper because there is SO much to learn from it.

Definition

I'm sitting in my dining room right now getting ready to write my definition essay. I was sidetracked by the realization that I hadn't done a blog post yet this week so I hopped on to write this.

The essays we read in class for examples were all very interesting. The two poverty ones and the music one were my favorites.

As I sit here trying to figure out what I should write about, I come across a few topics. One that seems to come to mind immediately is virtue and value. I'm sick of writing about that though. In the past three weeks, I've written three college essays on that topic and used a definition argument on virtue in my DBQ for AP Euro this Friday.

Another possibility is music. I thought about this topic a little bit last night at the Homecoming dance but decided I didn't have a good argument for it. Perhaps this was just the result of too many distractions and too little sleep impairing my critical thinking ability.

Last night brought up some more issues for definition as well. The lines between acquaintances, friendships, and relationships for some seemed to be so prevalent and bolded at the dance while for others these lines became so blurred that they are probably in need of redrawing today or over the next week. I have so many thoughts on these definitions flying through my head I can't seem to form an articulate point about any of them yet. Hopefully I will overcome the throbbing bass-induced headache, and 1.5 hours of sleep I've had in the past 54 hours to be able to write a coherent paper on this subject.

So here goes...

Not five minutes after initially posting this, I have already come back and decided that this topic is going to be difficult to write about. Any anecdotes I have to share are ones that I don't know if I'd be comfortable sharing. Maybe I'll overcome this and go for it anyway, but this brings up a new thought:

If the essay is just for an English class, and only a few others in your class and your teacher will be the ones reading it, does it matter what you are divulging?
Or is it easier to divluge personal information to a wide audience of people who don't know you on a personal level and don't really care about you?

Pencil, Pixels and all that stuff

As I was reading Pencils to Pixels, I was somewhat intrigued by the idea of rejecting a pencil as too technological. It was also interesting to learn about the ways some people prefer type, some pencil, some pen. I began to think about what I prefer.

There's no doubt that when I'm writing something of considerable length, I prefer to use a computer. I can type much, much faster than I can write, and it's also easier to go back and edit my type. I prefer to type almost anything that anyone else is going to see, as well. My horrid handwriting prevents others from reading what I've written or scribbled as notes. This is sometimes good because then people are deterred from reading things I don't want them to see. However, it sometimes is bad because occasionally I can't even read my own writing. I used to hate writing when I was younger because my teachers always assumed I was no good at it because of my poor handwriting. Now that I can use a machine as media for my ideas, I can convey them neatly and in an easily readable fashion.

There are sometimes that I would prefer to use pen or pencil. When doing math or science homework and having limited space to show my work, I prefer a pencil to go back and erase and correct mistakes. However, over this past summer, I've discovered that whenever I write something, I prefer to do it in pen. I used to be the type to write with heavy pencil in a spiral notebook. Now my preferred media is a legal pad with a ball point pen. The ball point pen flows easier than graphite and doesn't blot like plain ink does. The other reason I prefer pens to write with is so that I can write faster. Often, if I go back and try to erase something, I forget what I wanted to say next. With pen, I just but a strike through unwanted text and continue writing. The resolve and permanency of pen means that even if I change what I've written, it's still on the paper. My more personal writing is done in pen rather than in type. Poems and short pieces or letters to people are often first drafted with pen on a legal pad and later typed. The pen is so much more personal.

It's strange that I've gone from hardcore pencil enthusiast to a pen lover. I never even used to carry pens at school. Now I only use pencil for tests. This summer I got a free Ripon College pen at Badger Boys State and when it ran out of ink early this schoolyear, I felt sad inside. It was my favorite pen and I had written some fun stuff with it. Although it was just a plain ballpoint, I had a difficult time adjusting to a new pen. Habits in writing form quickly, apparently.

College Thoughts

I'm glad that we did the college essays in class last week because it got me rolling on my applications. I had just started to do my Personal Statement the weekend prior and I probably wouldn't have touched it until now had we not done it in class.

Now that I'm off and running with essays and applications, the weight of what needs to be done is really starting to become obvious. It seems like the application process is only going to be half the battle. By the time my whole process is over, I will have written something like four different types of personal statements because of the different requirements for each application on top of any other essays.

The Common App pretty much is saving my life right now. That someone finally thought to provide one application for some 300 schools is a relief to high school seniors nationwide. Of course, it doesn't make it easier that many of these schools still require a supplement for admission. For some of these schools, the supplement is no more than an additional sheet for scholarship and financial aid application. For others, such as the University of Chicago, there are two or three additional essays to be written.

There is even great difference in those schools that require supplements. Some are the generic:
"Why do you want to attend X University?" While others, again using UChicago as an example, are insightful and require a great deal of creativity. One of the possible prompt choices for Chicago this year is "How did you get caught? (Or not caught, as the case may be)."

It's amazing how many different essays one might write to get into college. From a student's perspective, this is both reassuring and daunting. I don't want to write a ton of different essays to apply to a few colleges, but on the other hand I also don't want to have my admission dictated by only one essay like the Common Application Personal Statement.

Some colleges, such as Marquette University (Advantage application) and Loyola University-Chicago, require only that a student submits a writing sample. This can be almost anything a student has previously written. Creighton University also accepts a previously graded essay from a class for their Quick Application, but this must be under 400 words. Getting under 400 words for a graded assignment is awfully difficult. Creighton also accepts a personal statement on their Quick Application, but this too has to be under 400 words. I don't know that I can express myself properly in 400 words! Marquette and Creighton both also take the common application, but they offer free application if you use the Advantage or Quick Applications that they offer to some students.

Some schools, including most public universities do not accept the Common App and require their own essays that can be some difficult topics. The University of Wisconsin-Madison requires two essays. The first asks the applicant how he or she will "enrich" the campus, and the second asks about the applicants goals and plans for the future.

At face value these seem, to me at least, to be fairly daunting. For one thing my goals are all over the place and I feel like writing about them would be difficult. In regards to the first essay, I really wonder how I would provide diversity and enrichment on a campus of tens of thousands of students as a white, middle-class, Christian male. After putting some thought into it though, I did find that these essays are not as difficult as I thought at first.

So now you've read me venting about my college applications process. I want to hear some other opinions-comment about your experiences or provide a link to a post about it below.

My Biggest Fear

Everyday, I have to face my fear at 8:00 AM. I gather up the courage to pull myself away from a table with all my friends in the cafeteria and walk up the stairs with a trembling in my chest that makes it difficult for me to talk in a level voice to anyone. After reaching the second floor, my anticipation of the fear is overcome by such a rush of adrenaline that my body functions at a higher level than any other time. My heart races at just over 80 beats per minute; my veins stick out of my arms like small pieces of hosing popping from a wall; my pupils dialate to take in enough light to fight whatever foe I might encounter; my muscles swell with blood and water; my ears close out all the white noise and hear only the unusual sounds.

This ecstatic, intense feeling continues as I enter room 213 and see that evil instructor of the English language dwelling in his studious lair and listening to the twangs of bluegrass music to pull in the unsuspecting music enthusiast. This man is the Kunkle. He trains to terrorize high school students day and night all year round. His foul methods of instruction slowly inject one with knowledge that is unwanted.

My fear of this monster began in my freshman year. Every morning I would make the same journey to the Kunkave that I do now as a senior. I have grown no less fearful. Some say that facing a fear is the best way to overcome it. I disagree. Daily, I continue to make myself trek to that lowly room where he waits in inglorious sea of poetry and rhetoric. Waiting to teach, but I resist the knowledge. Wanting to inspire, but I remain complacent.

The fear I have was created during the Mythology unit in English 9. Learning of gods and titans, muses and fates, I realized that there was something horrid about this man. He continued to attempt to poison my fellow freshman and me with a daily poem that was the appetizer for his gruessome feast of language and composition. A banquet filled with the sour taste of grammar. The horrors continued daily as we moved into Shakespeare's Romeo & Juliet. One would have expected such a classic novel to be palable. However, the story of love offered no love of any kind under the harsh regime of the Kunkle. I am lucky to have survived to take the class in which I am currently enrolled.

It is my hope that by conditioning myself gradually to this man's mad approach to instruction I may overcome my fear. By exposing myself to his methods for an hour and a half each day, I hope to either reverse his terribly tyrannical type of teaching or to become so atuned to it that I no longer am fearful.