A Message About Shame

     This is not a work of fiction.

     This is not simply a book about shame.

     This is a book about us.

     About us and our ability to ruin lives as easily a few keystrokes and a click.

     So You've Been Publicly Shamed by Jon Ronson is a non-fictional book beginning with Ronson discovering how influential online shaming via a incident with a Twitter spambot. As a result of this incident, Ronson goes on to investigate notable incidents where public shaming played a huge role, interviewing people involved in various shame fests such as a writer caught fabricating a quote, a normal person who made one bad tweet, a 4Chan user.

     So You've Been Publicly Shamed is a dialogue on how we use social media today and how we use shame to tear others down and how we're influenced by others and how we use shame to make ourselves feel better.

     And though Ronson's book is dark, there are messages that needed to be said within the book. Shame can be a powerful tool against oppressors. Yet, oppressors have an equally powerful tool, it is Shame.

The video that started it all

3rd Quarter Independent Reading Reflection: The Boring Part (Sorry Mrs. Leitsch)

Books I've read this quarter from most difficult to least difficult is as follows:

So You've Been Publicly Shamed by Jon Ronson
the curious incident of the dog in the night-time by mark haddon (No literally, everything was in lowercase)
Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury
The Art of Racing in the Rain By Garth Stein
The Strange and Beautiful Sorrows of Ava Lavender by Leslye Walton
The Martian by Andy Weir
The Rosie Project by Graeme Simsion
The Limit by Kristen Landon

So my goals were to

1: Read at least 7 books

2: Read a book from the fantasy genre and a book from the mystery genre.

     I'd say I completed both of those goals. I read 8 books this quarter and Walton's The Strange and Beautiful Sorrows of Ava Lavender is fantasy while the curious incident of the dog in the night-time by Mark Haddon is mystery/realistic fiction.

     As for goals for this final quarter, well, we have 2 months left, 2 months = 8 weeks. So let's try to read 1 book a week totaling up for 8 books this month. Additionally, I want to read at least 1 book from 4 different genres this quarter: Romance, Horror, Thriller (Horror and Thriller are different, right?) and Historical fiction.

Point of View - Sheila Moss

Hyperlinks Fun Stuff 

I'm sorry that this is gonna be a boring post

Tax Forms, Tax Forms, Tax Forms

Are You Smarter Than Your Smartphone?

Sheila Moss’s point of view is “Humor”. Some aspects of her column that had let me know was the informal diction that Moss uses and the silly ideas she uses throughout her columns such as the idea that she is “not smart enough to have a smart phone” (Smarter than Smart Phone). Additionally her use of first person allows readers to connect with her every day life experiences.

One technique that Sheila Moss uses that adds to the humor point of view in her column is the use of self depreciation. Sheila Moss uses self depreciation to mock herself to generate light hearted humor. One time she uses this is when she comments how she isn’t “smart enough to have a smart phone” (Smart Phone). Additionally, another time she uses self depreciation to mock herself is when she freely admits that she “had enough trouble trying to figure out Medicare” (Tax Forms). The end result of this use of self depreciation is that the readers learn not to take any of her comments too seriously, allowing for light hearted humor.

Things I Learned Last Year: A Poem in Cheesy Rhetoric

Things I Learned Last Year 

(With extra commentary in parenthesis to alleviate cheesiness)

Music is as much a part

of me as is my brain

Marching Band is not

as bad as one thinks

(No matter how much I make it seem so)

Even when trying

to imitate a poem

I completely utterly

fail at poetry

Emotions cannot be

restrained forever

One cannot avoid their fear forever

One must eventually face them

(Counterexample: My arachnophobia)

Sometime, Somewhere

When I die, I want to die

With a smile, content

With my life

Happy

(... Why does my poem look like a down arrow? Or maybe a radish. Or a someone wearing a Top Hat with a chin beard.)

Every time I stare into this poem, a little part of my soul dies on the inside. It's just so... cheesy. I mean, all it really is a bunch of empty optimistic rhetoric that makes only a slightest bit of sense to me and (probably) no sense at all to anyone else. Really, I just added the commentary thing just so I can dilute the cheesiness with humor. Everything's better with humor, except for when it's not, then its just stupid. (It's or its?)

In a more serious sense though, I feel like last year was actually an year where I felt like for the first time since never where I felt like I actually had a vision of where I would be in the next 10 years. (Now then, I always knew where I would be in a 100 years but let's not go there, shall we?)

I modeled my poem in the same way I-forgot-his-name-and-I'm-too-tired-too-look-it-up's poem where the first 2 stanzas share some theme (For me, music) the 3rd stanza is completely different in style, shape, and tone (For my 3rd stanza, it takes a more casual, self-aware, self-depreciating tone) while the next 2 stanzas share a theme as well (Emotions) though in the case of those stanzas, I purposefully made them vague because, I don't know, reasons that I'll keep vague because vagueness.

Then the final stanza is similar to I'm-still-drawing-a-blank-on-his-name's final stanza where both stanzas are about what the author would want when they die. Finally, I decided to add a bit of my own little style in the form of the totally not obtrusive commentary, simply because I like to keep things light-hearted.

For those who were like "tl;dr" (Too long, didn't read) (I'm sorry, this could've been more useful before the reflection paragraph)

Too much cheese. I add humor. Streotypical "I have a purpose in life" speech. Poem modeled after I'm-probably-the-reason-the-reflection-was-too-long-because-Tom-just-wants-to-get-this-over-with-so-he-could-sleep's poem by stanza and stuff. 

2nd Quarter Poetry Journal Reflection

2nd Quarter Poetry Journal Reflection

Freedom is a mocking thing

As I sit in this class room and gaze

out the window

So close, so near

But invisible walls and invisible chains

And invisible locks and invisible forces

Lock me in until it is time to leave

What if I tried leaving?

When I can't leave?

Well, that's probably a stupid idea

My parents would kill me and kill me again

And I value my life very, VERY much

So instead I sit

I sit and wait for these 5 minutes to pass

Because let's be honest me

I suck at writing poetry

        The good (somewhat) ol' memories of this poem. I remember (not) like it was yesterday... long story short, I was having a somewhat bad day (I think) so I decided to write this poem about wishing that school was over while also exploring the idea of having to do things not because you physically have to, but because society tells you... then I got bored with the serious direction of the poem (aka I had no idea how to proceed from "invisible locks") So instead you get this poem that suddenly goes through Mood Whiplash (NOTE: If you value your free time, do not click on the link)

        As for actual, you know, reasons for choosing this poem, I feel like in certain ways this poem describes me in a nutshell, as my Honors World History teacher once said that I was like a rabbit and a turtle in one, sometimes I would be slow and methodical, then other times I would rush like a... rabbit? Something like that. But at the same time, it was just a poem I liked because it toys with the audience expectations about what would be a serious poem, which then turns humorous, and ultimately cynical and self depreciating, yet still humorous. (Don't judge my humor, kay?)

2nd Quarter Reading Reflection

Warning: This Blog Writer would like to apologize in advance for any and all cringe-like reactions from cringe worthy puns due to the author's current state of mind, if you do not like puns then run. Or you could just skip the 1st paragraph, whatever floats your (non-existent) boat.

        Disclaimer aside, in terms of books finished, I have finished 4 books this quarter, these books are The Color of Water by James McBride, which (hopefully) you've all read, The Wild Truth by Carine McCandless as my choice memoir (Which truth to be told, I'm too tired to post a picture, so have a hyperlink instead) Additionally I read Of Mice and Men By John Steinbeck (Which I thought would be a comedy... it's not. Farm from it) Oh, and there's also A Seperate Peace by John Knowles (No puns this time, but for some reason I got, yet again, a tragedy) While Wild Truth was somewhat low leveled, the other 3 books were (in my opinion, your opinions may vary) relatively higher class. Though to be honest I can't say why I selected those books because I just let Mrs Leitsch select all of those books to read. As for my favorite book, I have to say Of Mice and Men. While it's certainly not for everyone, Of Mice and Men just was one of the books that just resonated me beyond just "Hey, that was a fun read!" Through my reading this semester, I'd say my reading style is leaning towards the stereotypical "Classics" and towards my realistic stuff.

        And now I have to go back and check out my goals last quarter so I can make a glorified reflection about them. So my goals last quarter were to 1. Read more fictional genre books, and 2. Do more "spiritual" reading. In regards to goal #1, I've now read books of the realistic genre (Shocking, right?) But that's practically the only new genre I read. Probably the main reason why its the only new genre I read was because I, after writing my 1st Quarter Reading Reflection Post, promptly forgot about my goals, not only that, but I didn't try as hard as I could've to find new genres, but whatever the case, I somewhat accomplish my goal. On the subject of goal #2, I would say I did more spiritual reading in the 4 books I read, going over them much more slowly than I did with my books 1st Quarter. As for goals next quarter, I guess I should read more books than I did this quarter, and since Marching Band is not yet over because Pasadena and Rose Bowl Parade wants my soul over by the time 3rd Quarter begins, I'll have the free time to read more, so let's try and read 7 books next quarter. In fact, since I only kinda accomplished goal #1 from last quarter, let's try to read a book from a Mystery Genre and a Fantasy Genre, for the variety.

(UNNECESSARY PUBLIC NOTE: I'll make picture dumps of my books down here when I do not have 20 minutes before I go and check out some Band stuff)

The Elizabethan Fashion... Something...

Elizabeth Restricts Fashion

     Our majesty, the Queen, has decreed that effective this 15 June 1574- I give up, nope, I suck at writing in Elizabethan style, I'll just write in present everyday speak so you guys can actually understand me. Ok? Ok. So back in the times of you-know-who as of recent years, Queen Elizabeth passed a few laws called the "Statues of Apparel" which limited what you can wear because apparently people think that wearing cool looking stuff would elevate you to a higher class. (Well, it's actually a bit more complicated than that, but its one of the few reasons.) So she decided to impose restrictions on what the heck you can wear. 

     So one of the major things that the Statues of Apparel limited in terms of what you can wear is anything the color of purple. Because, according to TvTropes, Purple is Powerful purple was the color that was to distinguish the royal family. Only the royal family could wear purple to allow people to distinguish them from other lower forms of nobility.

     Quite interesting to note about the style of the upper class is the quite frankly odd fashion style of men, I mean just look at this dude:

     At the time, the popular fashion for Elizabethan Era Men were "puffy pants or breeches that ended at the knee." I mean, seriously, puffy pants. (Keep in mind also that the dude in that upper picture is wearing a skirt. Just saying)

     Thankfully, the lower class are far more sensibly dressed, being generally poor and not having money to afford for more important things, the lower class tend to avoid extravagant outfits.

See? Much less extravagant... I think

     Anyways, I've ran out of stuff to say about Elizabethan current fashion so I'm just gonna wrap it up here.