Lethal Masculinity?

    At some point during this past week I read a particularly engaging artical called "Men - It's In There Nature" written by a philosopher named Christina Hoff Sommers. In this artical Chistina talks about an incident involving her son and several other boys during a "sensitivity exercise." For those who have not read it I'll just give a breif summery. The story goes something like this; Chistina's son and his class mates went for a camping trip in Israel, while there they where asked to participate in a sort of personal refection activity. The students where tolled to venture out into the desert until they where certain that they were in seclusion from each other. Once alone, the students were to write down what ever feelings that occured to them in the issolation of the desert. Christina tells us that this exercise yelled one of two responces depending on the student's gender. In the case of the girl students everyone returned with nice essays on the "Haunting loneliness" of the desert. In the case of the male students, well.. maybe I should just quote the passage, "The boys scattered into the desert, Quickly became bored, and sought out each other's company. Then they threw the pencils and paper into a pile, and used the candles and matches to start a little bonfire. The boys loved it; the sensitivity trainers were horrified. They viewed the boy's behavior as an expression of primitive violence and lethal masculinity straight from The Lord Of The Flies."
   I know that was a mouth full of a quote, but I wanted the readers of this blog to actually see it so that comment on it directly with having to explain my context each time. That being said, I have a lot to say about this, for one thing I'm a little more than bothered by the choice of words here. I mean look at this, "primative violence", maybe i just have'nt read this carfully enough but I did not read about any acts of violence being commited on anyone. I'm sure the sensitivity trainers would counter this by saying that setting fire to the paper was a symbol of violence that must be expunged, but how does grouping together and setting up a fire represent violence? Think about it, this guys were lonely; so they went to talk to there freinds, they probibly got cold waiting out in the desert night; so they built a fire to keep warm. Is that violent or destructive? I look at this and see constructive co-operation, everyone pooling in their resorces to help each other out. Before anyone points it out to me, I realize the boys were supposed to be alone to reflect on there feelings and I'll admite it's a little sad that they seem to all have the emotional depth of a milk carton, but the said fact is that some guys are much more restrictive when it comes to emotional expression, that's not to say that the emotions aren't there, but they probably didn't like the idea of opening up in some group circle. I know that I am never the first to volunteer for these things because, most of the time self reflection ends up being a stroll down negative nostalgia lane and some image of my blood mother throwing a plate on my head will revisit me. However even if no one in that crowd had anything that extreme haunting them it doesn't mean that they have no right find a better use of their time then trying to milk-out fake feelings for the sensitivity trainers that simply aren't occuring on the spot, and It certainly does not warrant them labeling the boys behavior as "Lethal Masculinity"      

Hectic doesn't even cover it

     What a week I've had, I don't think that school has ever given me so much trouble as this. I really wish i could tell you about it the traditional way, in cronological format but to be honest I simply can't remember everthing clear enough to give it to you strait. Instead I think I'll make use of all that alternate story structer I've been taught and start at the most hectic point. It was Tusday, or maybe Wensday, I can't remember, but i was walking from Consumer Ed. to Algebra 3 grinding my teeth and trying to look at anything that wasn't math related. I could scarcely believe my luck and at the same time was dreading every second, In just a few moments I would be explaining to Mr. Chonard that i was dropping his class, that was the part i was dreading. Of course the part i was extatic about was the not having to take Algebra any more, but we'll get to that later so anyway, I was just heading tword the door and there he was standing and greeting his students. As soon as his head turned tword me my head droped, it wasn't that I was afraid of him or anything I was afraid of his subject, infact i was all ways a nervous wreck in his classes because i couldn't and still can't understand most of what he's teaching without going over each and every problem, but I never had any reason to fear the man himself. I just could'nt stand the thought of dropping out after all the work he had done to help me stay afloat in his subject. He had oftain put his time aside to stay after school with me and bring me up to speed and after all his effort here I was giving up on him. My guilt was made worse by the fact that despite myself could not shut out the little voice in my head shouting for joy that I would never have to see a stupid "f of g over x squared times z" equation for the rest of the year. I tried my best to sound genuinely sorry for dropping his class and I think he didn't hold it against me, but I still ran from the door as soon as our talk was over as if he'd been shouting it me. For the rest of the day my sense of relief at no more math took over and i was happy, but then i went to the bath room during my lunch hour to call my dad. After explaining to him how every thing went. he told me how his talk with the principal went and he said that according to Mr. Austen I would need to take that fourth year of math in collage In order to get even an associate's degree. I should have know, I thought, me being freed of math it was to good to be true. Suddenly I was angry and i thought about how stupid it was the one could graduate high school and get into collage without a fourth year of math but in order to get out of collage they made you take it anyway and there you have to pay for the class. I was sure it was a scam the collages came up with to make money, if you needed that class for the career that you where going into then i could understand that but I sure as heck wasn't going into any math related fields so why was this necessarily. Well.. at least I was made aware of this before before I made a really expensive mistake and I doubt some how that the collage professor would offer nearly as much personal assistance as Mr. Choinard does, so there are some things to be grateful for, still way to get my hopes up huh.

Arithma-Ticked

I've always been lacking in the math department, actually that doesn't do it justice the truth is I've been dreadful at anything math related as far back as i can remember. Occasionally there has been spots that I have grasped better then others, geometry was on of them, but over all its been getting worse with each passing year. Part of this is due to the math advancing and I'm simply not but where the core of it is the fact that, despite my best efforts, I have been unable to retain most of the information that I've been taught and while in previous math classes I could just focus on the formula and plug each equation in, now In Algebra 3 you need to fully understand each type of formula because the equasions don't always match up to the formulas. If by this point you are thinking that I'm just not trying hard enough, please don't. My current teacher often talks to the whole class about coming to him after school and going over areas that we have trouble in and I have been for a few weeks now. In fact what scares me the most is that when i go to look at the grade sheet I'm doing worse then those who aren't seeking any help and are content with the losiy grades they have. I don't uderstand how someone who isn't really trying can have a passing grade and someone who is fighting wiht everything he's got is still failling. It really bothers me to see that even more then it bothers the teachers, infact it bothers me so much that I end up baering grudes agaist those who are getting by without trying and thats the last thing I want to do because those people are often there to help me whenever the can and I owe it to them to show them more respect than this.

P.S I'm sorry about the strang highlight I'm unable to get rid of it for some reason. 

mind candy

I dont remember exactaly who first inroduced the concept of mind candy, probibly my mom but it might have been someone else, but the basic idea is that while its great to read the most modern and criticaly aprovde books on the market, such as "Harry Potter" for example it is still nessesary to read the classics of litterature in order to keep a healthy, well educated mind  . The reasoning behind this is some what similar to the reasoning behind a balanced diet. Even thought they're really sweet, you can't eat donuts all day you have to eat some veggies as well. in the same respect one also needs to balance out there reading material to include both the wholesome and nutrious classics as well as the more sweet and savory new stuff. When I first heard this I thought it was kinda week argument designed to get me to read more boring stories, infact I'd still prefer Harry Potter to Charles Dickens any day but the problem is that reading the simple stuff doesn't expand your mind any. If you don't think that expanding your mind is really all that important then consider the following. J.K Rolling would never have thought of Harry Potter if she hadn't read King Author or lord of the rings. So you see the reason behind reading the classics is so you can come up with better stuff, I guess a better way to look at this is the classic are the ingredients to creating your own magnum opus.

cut short

 This pask week I,ve been writing a story that I think is probibly one of the best works I,ve come up with so far, only problem is that the assainment that I was writing it for demands that it be fifteen sentences, no more, no less. This wouldn't be a problem but the assainment also calls for a lot of deatial, in particular deatail that illistrats this as a conflict between goon and evil. All of these things I have done before, but unlike most writers, whom are either quality or quantity writers; I am both. I can't acheive one without the other or at least I can't create a master peice without this freedom. I pride my self on the amout of detail in my work, esspesaly the detial given to the plot and what is goning on in the character's heads. The way I like to do that is to create a situation in which the reader will feel the same way as the characters. I find that this is much better that just saying it.

raised expectations

over the past week i have been pretty surprised at how every member of English 101 has preformed. I knew that since this was a collage level course the students who would be there would be the kind that had worked for there good status in the subject, what i wasn't expecting was how even the students who really didn't give an impression of English appreciation ended up being just as involved in the class as anyone else. Heck, just the notion of an involved class is being redefined here,where as in my old classes only had half the kids paying attention and only one four is actually contributing anything to it in this class its like you have to do a silly song  and dance routine in order to get anyone's attention because everyone has some incredibly sophisticated point they want to bring up, even the jocks are arm wrestling each other in order to get a word in. I know this sounds like it could get really annoying but for me it's been really nice to let someone else carry on the conversation for once. A good example of all this would be when we were given our first group project and i was stuck with what i was sure was going to be a group that shoved all their writing work on me because none of them had read the book, but low and behold not only had everyone there read the book but each person had notes on things that even i had failed to pick up. So there you are, everyone's been a real asset in a great working environment, who'd have thought.

raised expectations

over the past week i have been pretty surprised at how every member of English 101 has preformed. I knew that since this was a collage level course the students who would be there would be the kind that had worked for there good status in the subject, what i wasn't expecting was how even the students who really didn't give an impression of English appreciation ended up being just as involved in the class as anyone else. Heck, just the notion of an involved class is being redefined here,where as in my old classes only had half the kids paying attention and only one four is actually contributing anything to it in this class its like you have to do a silly song  and dance routine in order to get anyone's attention because everyone has some incredibly sophisticated point they want to bring up, even the jocks are arm wrestling each other in order to get a word in. I know this sounds like it could get really annoying but for me it's been really nice to let someone else carry on the conversation for once. A good example of all this would be when we were given our first group project and i was stuck with what i was sure was going to be a group that shoved all their writing work on me because none of them had read the book, but low and behold not only had everyone there read the book but each person had notes on things that even i had failed to pick up. So there you are, everyone's been a real asset in a great working environment, who'd have thought.

raised expectations

over the past week i have been pretty surprised at how every member of English 101 has preformed. I knew that since this was a collage level course the students who would be there would be the kind that had worked for there good status in the subject, what i wasn't expecting was how even the students who really didn't give an impression of English appreciation ended up being just as involved in the class as anyone else. Heck, just the notion of an involved class is being redefined here, unlike