Gen Ed Fo Lyfe

 I come from an Honors family. Taking general education was never really a thing for us; we took the "tough" classes and we let people know it. Unfortunately, every family has the outlier, and that person is me. Since the start of Sophomore year I have taken six or seven classes that are considered GenEd. And while I may sit and marvel at the things some people say, I am the girl who the kids in AP classes sit and judge. And I'm okay with that.
Let's give some examples of conversations I've had in a GenEd class:

1. Anonymous GenEder (referred to as AGE): Have we done this before?
Me: No, he just passed it out.
AGE: Oh, well, you know, sometimes I see into the future, so I was just wondering whether I had actually done this or if I'd just seen myself do it.

2. AGE: If you hit a baseball so hard it got to space and hit the moon, would it leave a crater, or bounce off?

3. AGE: What will you do if Romney gets elected?
Me: Well, there's nothing I can do, I'll just keep living I guess.
AGE: Oh...there's always something you can do (knowing glance).
Me: (Does not return the knowing glance)

I don't like the idea of going through high school and not taking a gen. ed. class. There is an entire subpopulation at Homestead High School that the top 10% of our class will never meet. And while not everyone in general education is fun, the stories you hear are amazing. And the one liners are hilarious.

Ex) Today, with two weeks left in the semester, someone in my econ class asked what the teacher's name was. Priceless.

On the Shelf

Epiphany of today:
As I sat in my first period, my friends and I were discussing what we're good at. Caroline is good at swimming, Kate is a math geek, Claire can play the flute really well (my first period is Orchestra), and I realized: I peaked in eighth grade. I was the "valedictorian" of middle school, starting point guard on our basketball team, and first chair in concert band. After that everything just kind of went downhill. Not that I'm stupid, nonathletic, and unable to play the flute now, I'm just mediocre. I found new things to excel at. I can quote The Office like it's my profession, I can write fairly well, I'm "head host" at 800 Degrees (which virtually means nothing). But I'm still happy.

Watching:
Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. When you think of Jim Carrey you think of Dumb and Dumber, Yes Man, or Bruce Almighty. I think of Eternal Sunshine and the immense emotional baggage that comes with the movie. The first time I watched it, I sat in the living room, and laughed along with the characters, but became somber as Carrey began losing his memory (it's a confusing movie to explain). That was sophomore year. Last week, my boss and I were discussing it and so I decided to rewatch it. I knew what was coming, so I sat in my room with all the lights off and just bawled my eyes out for the last hour. It is genuinely the saddest movie I have ever seen. But it's so good I still watch it.

Reading:
I wrote earlier about a John Steinbeck short piece we read in one of my classes and we're reading more. East of Eden is Honors American's latest choice. I like Steinbeck's style almost as much as I like Salinger's. I'm only one chapter into the novel that is supposed to be a "modern" (1950s) retelling of Genesis. Being raised in a Christian household, I know the book of Genesis pretty well and I can find many correlations. The first chapter is basically just the speaker (who is unknown at the time) going through how his home became his home. The valley he lives in went through stages and he starts from when the Native American's lived there. It's so detailed and articulate. I just enjoy reading it. Although it is 600 pages long, so this enjoyment may end quickly. We'll see.

What I'm Loving

One of my goals is to attend a Ted Talk...I really mean it. They have collections of the funniest talks (Ted Laughs) on Netflix and I watch them constantly. This week I watched one in particular I found very funny. It was about the trends manager of Youtube, who "professionally watch youtube videos."

He says there are three steps for a video to become viral:

1. Tastemakers

2. Communities of participators 

3. Unexpectedness

A tastemaker would be a person people look up to, the example he gives is when Jimmy Kimmel tweeted about the video Double Rainbow. A community of participators is the people who join together to love a video, or make fun of it (like Friday, by Rebecca Black).  

All the spikes on the graph are Fridays, he points out. The reason it began picking up was Tosh.0 talked about it and formed community participation; a society dedicated to making fun of Rebecca Black. With other forms of entertainment, there is only one party benefiting--the viewers. But with the internet now people can participate, make response videos, or even parodies.Unexpectedness is that moment where a not-so-funny video becomes hilarious because of one quick occurrence that was completely unexpected. 

This was interesting because I've never really thought about what makes something famous, or how the viewers are the ones who decide whether or not the videos are good. It's personal and it's completely dependent on us.

Off the Shelf

I hate being sick. Feeling sick I deal with, but coughing my lungs up, fever running, and aching body sick is something that I can't handle. Last week I was subject to such sickness and it was disgusting. On a more positive note, it allowed for plenty of reading, watching, and listening.

Reading
I've been reading Franny and Zooey by Salinger. I'm about fifty pages in and I absolutely love it. I'm not sure why. I mean, nothing is really happening. Maybe it's just his style. It just seems so hopeless. I've posted about Catcher in the Rye before and this novel has the same feel. I mean, they're totally different, but at the same time completely the same. They're just so truthful. Painfully so.
Besides Salinger, I've also been reading Slaughterhouse Five. I read it last year for an English project in Jankowski's AP Lit and I loved it. So I've been skimming and remembering. It's heartbreaking; there are so many statements that are so completely accurate, but no one has ever said them before.

Watching
My sister and I have this agreement regarding TV. She has Hulu Plus and I have Netflix, so we exchanged passwords and I love this system. While I was sick and lying on the couch, disgusting, I watched episode after episode of Community. Staring the flawless Donald Glover (the man I dedicated a post to), the handsome Joel McHale, the talented feminist Gilliam Jacobs, and the HILARIOUS Danny Pudi, it's one of my favorite shows. The Abed/Troy (Pudi/Glover) relationship is probably one of the funniest on TV; the witty bromance thoroughly enjoyable to audiences (especially me). They rival the Jim/Dwight relationship...and that is saying something.

Listening 
While rearranging our living room last week, I discovered a CD I haven't listened to since fourth or fifth grade. The type of CD that no matter when you hear it, you can't help but love it. Well, if you're a bluegrass fan. I'm usually into more of the rock and roll underground music, but underground bluegrass can be just as enjoyable. Nickel Creek. They became famous at a very young age, and wrote all their own music. On my favorite album "Nickel Creek" (they were very original--but seriously, they were) for every two or three songs with lyrics, they have one of just music, featuring Chris Thile on mandolin.

 I grew up on The Fox, my dad would play the guitar and I would dance and sing, to the best of my six year old ability. I also loved The Lighthouse's Tale, even though I didn't really understand it at the time. Chris Thile was only 19 at the time the album was released; just this past year he won the MacArthur "genius" Grant for 500,000 dollars to do nothing but study music.

Who knew he'd end up looking so adorable?

Off the Shelf

Every summer I travel down south to Austin, Texas to visit with my extended family. My cousin Katy is 14 and reads more than I ever have. Two years ago she suggested the book Will Grayson, Will Grayson. So, naturally, I checked it out from the library and never read it. And now, two years later, I remembered the name and picked it up. And it's so good! Two different kids with the same name. And how they meet and interact. I'm pretty excited, to say the least.

I talked about my cynical nature in my last post and I'd like to add a book that contrasts Pride and Prejudice by encouraging my pessimism. Catcher in the Rye is one of my favorite novels of all time. Part of that is due to the unbelievable truthfulness Salinger incorporates through Holden Caufield. Whom I love. Seriously, I had this ongoing debate with someone last year about whether Caufield was a "good guy" or a "bad guy". Which, when you think about it, is ridiculous. Because in real life (and in this novel) good and bad guys don't exist. There are just people who make decisions...some good, some bad. Anyway, we argued his credentials for the entire year. And the thing about debates is that people just get entrenched in their own view...so I believed Holden to be perfect, due to his imperfections, and the opposing viewpoint just kept trying to point out how delusional that is. But I wouldn't change my mind...I was a woman in love with a fictional character.

Off the Shelf

Listening

I’m back to listening to quality music, after my half a week of binging on Britney. Death Cab is mostly the playlist for this week. I hate when people are like “Oh, I love Death Cab for Cutie!” when they’ve only heard like one song. I own every single track that Ben Gibbard has anything to do with, including his personal band the Postal Service. Here’s a foolproof way to weed out posers and the fake-fans:

1.      Have you heard of I Will Follow you Into the Dark? Yes? Good. How about Bixby Canyon Bridge? No Sunlight? Marching Bands of Manhattan? Pity and Fear? No? That’s a shame.

2.      Who is Ben Gibbard? WRONG. Sorry, he’s the lead singer and writer of all Death Cab songs.

3.      Who’s Death Cab? Seriously? Oh…you got confused because I didn’t have the words “for Cutie” after it.

After administering all of these tests and realizing that most likely Death Cab’s “biggest fan” isn’t a fan at all, sigh and shake your head a bunch so they know you’re disappointed.

Reading

I’m honestly the least romantic person I know, I’d rather hang out with friends than go on a date, I don’t ever want to get married, and I don’t really believe true love is a thing. Of course, I have almost no experience and can (and probably will) accept that I’m wrong at some point in my life. But when I read Pride and Prejudice I forget all my cynical thoughts and fall in love with Mr. Darcy. In “You’ve got Mail” Meg Ryan’s character talks about Pride and prejudice and how she gets caught up in the language (“with words like thither”) and how she’s “always in agony about whether Elizabeth and Mr. Darcy will get together” no matter how many times she reads it. I’m that way. Every time I start it I think they’re too different! There’s no way! She might as well of married Mr. Collins! Why won’t she just kiss him already! But then I get goose bumps when they finally end up together (I’ve read this a few times and don’t get tired of it).I get furious when Mr. Wickham is revealed for what he truly is. I get so excited for Jane when Mr. Bingley returns to ask her to marry him. I don’t think I’ll ever get tired of Pride and Prejudice; it let’s me take a break from my pessimistic attitude and enjoy a good love story. 

Donald McKinely Glover

Donald Glover is the perfect example of the whole package in a man (singer, actor, writer, cutie). So I've decided to devote an entire post just for him.
If you've ever seen Community, you'll recognize Glover immediately. He wrote for 30 Rock, one of the funniest, edgiest prime-time TV show, for three years. Besides Community, most of the roles he's played are small, obscure roles in shorts no one has ever heard of. My personal favorite, Black Peter Pan, tells the story of Wendy, John, and Michael, when Peter comes back with a few changes. It's not cry-from-laughing funny, but it's still clever and witty, like everything Glover has written.
Three people tried to tell me about Childish Gambino in the past week. I hate rap, but I've basically fallen in love. I highly recommend Bonfire and Heartbeat, if you're not offended by cursing. Or anything. His raps really cover a lot of non-school appropriate subjects. The first time I listened to his raps, I just thought he was vulgar. And he is extremely vulgar. But when the third person who told me about him showed me his photo, I freaked out. I squeal an awful lot on a regular basis, but this was an all time high note. I didn't realize the man writing the witty, inappropriate raps was none other than Donald Glover:

 That fact literally makes me love his raps. So for at least this week, he is my favorite human being.